Among those who became members of the Russian Academy of Sciences are Arnold Tulokhonov, a member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, and Alexander Fisun, head of the main military medical department of the Russian Defense Ministry.

“There, 25 officials ran, 14 passed the elections, the rest did not pass. Tulokhonov (Arnold), a senator of the Federation Council, ran, he passed. Then, Fisun (Alexander) ran for office - he is the head of the main medical department of the Ministry of Defense. He is a colonel, a professor, a very famous military scientist. Recently he became the head of the main medical department of the army," Paltsev told TASS.

Tulokhonov received the title of academician in the department of earth sciences, in particular, geography. Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor and Head of the Department of Outpatient Care of the Institute for the Improvement of Doctors of the MUNCC named after. P. V. Mandryka Fisun became a corresponding member in the department of medical sciences, in the field of healthcare organization and medical education.

On Wednesday, at a meeting of the Council for Science and Education, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Fortov why, contrary to the presidential recommendation, several officials were elected to the ranks of academicians. He noted that he intends to give such officials "the opportunity to engage in science", since their scientific activities are clearly much more important than "the performance of some routine administrative duties in government and administration."

The head of state said that, contrary to his instructions, some representatives of the Administration of the Head of State, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the FSB and a number of other departments took part in the election to the Academy of Sciences.

Now the Russian departments are looking for the ways of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is dissatisfied with officials.

Meanwhile, the press secretary of the Russian president assessed the chances of officials elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences to retain their posts in parallel. “There is no clarity on this issue yet,” he said, answering a question from Izvestia.

President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Fortov noted that he was confident in the high level of scientific knowledge possessed by all selected members of the academy. And that each elected member of the RAS goes through a very complex and difficult procedure. His scientific merits are discussed in 11 different places, and 6 times there is a secret ballot for this person. “If these people were chosen by colleagues, then I have no reason to doubt their scientific level,” he said.

Paltsev added that the title of academician was received by Doctor of Biological Sciences, Deputy Minister of Education and Science Alexei Lopatin, who from 2006 to 2015 was Deputy Director for Research at the Paleontological Institute. A. A. Borisyak RAS.

In addition to Fisun, Corresponding Members are Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head of the Main Medical Department of the Presidential Administration Konstantin Kotenko (formerly General Director of the Federal Medical Biophysical Center named after A. I. Burnazyan), Doctor of Law, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Alexander Savenkov, Doctor of Law, Vasily Khristoforov, Head of the Department for Registration and Archival Funds of the FSB; Doctor of Medical Sciences, Director of the Department of Science, Innovative Development and Management of Medical and Biological Health Risks of the Ministry of Health, Sergey Rumyantsev.

Also, Corresponding Members were Doctor of Technical Sciences and Deputy Head of Roshydromet Alexander Makosko, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Deputy Director of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research Igor Sheremet. And Olga Kovtun, elected as a corresponding member, served as Minister of Health of the Perm Territory until August 2016.

Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences are elected by voting for four years. You can leave this title if the scientist informs about it and the majority votes for this decision during the General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Russian Academy of Sciences has replenished with 176 new academicians, 323 corresponding members and 63 foreign members. How complicated the nomination procedure is and what the status of a member of the academy gives today, Gazeta.Ru found out with the help of academicians.

As RAS President Academician Vladimir Fortov noted in his speech, the procedure for nomination and election of the RAS is complicated, he himself counted either six or five secret ballots that candidates for members of the Academy pass.

Indeed, the procedure itself began in April, when it was published distribution of vacancies by departments and sections of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Depending on the situation within the sections, the number of vacancies for the title of academicians and corresponding members of the RAS was announced.

At the same time, the rules are such that vacancies are indicated separately with and without age restrictions (up to 61 years).

Elections of members of the academy are held at least once every three years. In 2013, the beginning of the reform of the RAS forced to postpone the next elections, so the last time its composition was updated five years ago, and for natural reasons, new vacancies appeared in it over this considerable period.

“A lot of people died in our country, there were no elections for five years, during this time, unfortunately, a lot of people left us,” the first interlocutor explained to Gazeta.Ru.

For example, in the section of nuclear physics, which, together with the section of general physics and astronomy, make up the department of physical sciences, five vacancies were announced for the title of academician without age restrictions, two vacancies with age restrictions, and one for the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For the title of Corresponding Member - six vacancies without restrictions, five with restrictions and one - for the Siberian branch.

Scientific organizations, scientific councils, as well as academicians and corresponding members have the right to nominate members of the academy.

Nominations are first considered by an expert committee within each department or section, which includes all or most of its academicians. At this event, academicians consider materials submitted by departments for candidates and recommend or do not recommend individual personalities.

“Academicians sit in the section and discuss for a long time who is worthy of the title.

They usually don’t talk about who is not worthy, no one expresses negative emotions, negative emotion is silence, ”said the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a member of the expert commission.

After that, a secret ballot takes place, which is carried out by filling out ballots. Formally, the decision of the expert commission is advisory in nature, which, however, plays a role in the further voting within the section of the department - the names of those recommended will be at the top of the list of candidates.

In their decisions, expert commissions are guided by their assessments of the authority of scientists, the significance of the achievements that stand behind them. At the same time, objective scientometric indicators often play a secondary role. “What are the Hirschs (Hirsch index. - Gazeta.Ru)! Maybe someone remembers them, but in general, the people who are elected have strong works and discoveries, so the main criterion is scientific results, ”the interlocutor explained. Other circumstances are taken into account - for example, if a person leads a strong team of experimenters, is the director of an institute, he is chosen to maintain control over institutions.

“A lot, of course, happens behind closed doors, but we really don’t have nepotism in the sense of children and grandchildren. There is nepotism when a teacher can intercede for his student, ”he added about the department of physical sciences.

After the expert commission, voting for candidates takes place within the section itself and the department, where all candidates are voted, but taking into account the opinion of the expert commission. Then, the candidates approved by the department are put on the voting ballot of the general meeting of the Academy of Sciences, which takes place on a non-alternative basis, where the scientist is most likely approved.

However, in the case of a controversial figure, members of the academy more than once "filled up" the candidacies of people.

“At one time, the honorary academician and some of his protégés passed through the departments. And the general meeting overwhelmed them, ”the first interlocutor explained. The academy may refuse to give the title of academician to "controversial" figures when it believes the individual has not earned the title, or believes it will be awarded for political reasons.

In recent times, a similar story was with the director, for whom 204 members cast their votes with a minimum of 248 votes (two-thirds of all participants).

There was a case when academicians refused to accept the Minister of the Atomic Industry and scientists, who, as some believe, were not elected on a national basis, into their ranks.

Despite the over-regulation of all stages, there is one informal procedure that is not spelled out in the rules - the so-called tea party with the president of the academy, which takes place after voting in expert commissions and before voting within departments. This is a tribute to a tradition that was inherited from the USSR Academy of Sciences, it was described in detail and with humor by the famous Soviet astrophysicist Iosif Shklovsky in his collection Echelon.

“By tradition, members of the branch are invited by the president to announce the results of the work of the selection committee, after which a preliminary exchange of views on the candidates begins. In the meantime, the servants are delivering rather thin tea with lemon and vases of cookies. First, in the presence of all members of the department, candidates for correspondent members are discussed, after which the correspondent members are shamefully, like schoolchildren from the teachers' council, expelled from the hall. But these are elderly figures - many of them are directors! — wrote the scientist.

This tradition has remained to this day, during the tea party members of the departments share their opinions with the president about the candidates, listen to his considerations. For example, Vladimir Fortov expressed general wishes that the candidates be younger, so that vacancies would not disappear during the voting. Vacancies can really disappear in those cases when a strong composition of candidates is selected and one of them fails to gain two-thirds of the votes.

Any member of the department can come to the tea party, however, some do not participate in it, considering it empty.

"Rogues" and "chansanettes"

There were no special scandals during the voting at the general meeting. True, two tendencies cannot be overlooked, which, however, were visible long before the vote. The example of Ruslan, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, winner of the Blaise Pascal medal in the field of materials science for 2011, one of the most cited Russian scientists, who was nominated from the materials science section, has become quite discussed in the scientific community.

“Within this section, there are strong corporate ties between several institutes located in Moscow, which have seized all power and choose each other regardless of scientific merit,” a second interlocutor explained to Gazeta.Ru. According to Gazeta.Ru, Valiev was disliked by quite a certain academician, so this is not the first time that Valiev has been "rolled". By the way, at the aforementioned tea party, Fortov raised this issue, to which it was said that Valiev's materials were not used in industry. “Firstly, they are used, and secondly, if you think like that, then in general half the sections should be closed,” the academician believes.

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Be that as it may, the son of the chairman of the section, an academician, was elected for the vacancy of a correspondent member, which Valiev, among others, applied for.

“In terms of the number of chosen relatives, I'm afraid we have set a record. There are a lot of names of children of living academicians on the list,” the interlocutor added.

Only from the surnames that are heard are doctors and Irina Chazova, the daughter of the famous Kremlin cardiologist, who, following her father, headed the cardio center.

“We have estimated here that there are ten or twelve such cases out of five hundred, that is, at the level of 2%. We cannot prohibit this, it is illogical and wrong, because it puts the children of academicians outside the scientific field, ”the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences replied to a Gazeta.Ru correspondent when asked to comment on this trend.

The peculiar approach to elections in the department of medicine is evidenced by the fact that the number of vacancies for the title of academicians with age restrictions coincided with the number of candidates. And if in other departments the competition reached 20-30 people per place, in the department of medical sciences it was one person per place.

“In fact, 25 academicians will not be elected, but appointed, apparently, they understand the word “elections” differently than a big academy,” the interlocutor explained.

At the same time, a specialist in the field of polymer chemistry, a mega-grant Alexander, did not receive support from the Department of Medical Sciences. As the mathematician, the winner of the Fields Prize, did not receive support, with whom Kabanov convinced of the need to allocate 3.5 billion rubles. to support young scientists and other scientific projects in Russia.

The director of the State Astronomical Institute, the academician, does not hide his joy that several well-known astrophysicists have got into the academy. These are Oleg Korablev, head of the department of planetary physics at IKI RAS, under whose leadership the device was created, which was recently sent to Mars; Marat Gilfanov - Leading Researcher, IKI RAS; - Head of the scientific program of the space experiment "Radioastron"; - Scientific Director of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Undoubtedly, the well-deserved title of academician was given to a famous physicist, who was dismissed from the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics a year ago with a scandal. Danilov is a well-known scientist in Russia and in the West, a recognized specialist in the field of elementary particle physics, a laureate of the Planck and Karpinsky Prizes. He is a member of the CERN Advisory Board, scientific councils of a number of international experiments, participates in an experiment to search for dark matter, heads departments at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and.

What does the title of academician or correspondent member give today? Less than in Soviet times, but also a lot. In addition to honor and respect, this is a certain, and lifelong, monetary allowance.

In 2013, at the height of the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the stipend was raised for members of the Academy, and academicians began to receive 100 thousand rubles, corresponding members - 50 thousand.

In addition, they can, if necessary, call a car from the academic garage for one-time trips. And the members of the academy are attached to the polyclinic of the Administration of the President of Russia; they, along with their family members, were assigned there last summer. There is an opportunity to use the services of various resort establishments, one of which is the Uzkoye sanatorium in Moscow, and others.

However, there is another privilege that comes with being a member of the RAS. “I also have the right to have a civil memorial service for me at the Academy of Sciences. In the “Golden Brains” (the building of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Leninsky Prospekt. - “Gazeta.Ru”) there is a funeral hall, and when members of the academy die, a civil memorial service takes place there, ”the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences joked.

For a complete list of selected Academicians and Corresponding Members, please visit the website

Vladimir, thank you for your opinions on the financing of science. Perhaps in your field this may work, but in experimental biology and bimedicine it does not. We do not have many academicians in these areas, while the areas of research are very different, and one needs to be a well-versed specialist in each. And in these areas, different hypotheses are also being worked out, and if everything is “one size fits all”, nothing good will come of it (if anything will come of it at all). Usually at the institute, yes, the director is an academician (it was customary), but he can be co-o-everything from another field (for example, to deal with plants), and at the institute there are many different areas, work on animal models (and different ones), etc. .

I have academicians in several articles as co-authors. In one case, as far as I know, the strategy, topics and design of experiments were decided not by one academic director, but by the Academic Council, which included all the heads of the laboratories (a small institute), and invited experts from other institutes. For me, it was a collaboration.

In the second case, the idea and the groundwork were mine, the discussion and writing of the application jointly with a colleague, the academic director was invited as the official leader of the application (he supported the main idea of ​​the grant, which is also important). They invited me to the leadership because my colleague already had a current grant with his leadership, and they told me that, like, if I was appointed as a leader, it might not work, because I didn’t have enough published articles. Well, there was no other chance: either this way or nothing at all.

I wrote a grant almost immediately after defending my PhD (where I am the leader), a grant between the Institute of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (where I worked), the Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Novosibirsk State University, where a friend worked and we prepared an application together with her. The director of the institute (where I worked and from which it was supposed to submit an application) did not allow it to be submitted, for what reason it is not very clear, it looked like he did not approve of our main idea for a grant. Those. in this case, the idea was killed by the director-academician, and not by the fund's experts. The funny thing is that it was in line with this idea that a few years later our application was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (with the head represented by another academic director, as discussed above).

"Probably in Russia it is necessary to come up with a mechanism for transferring good ideas (invented by unworthy scientists) to worthy people.", Nothing good will come of this, since only the author of the idea knows how to develop it. If you "transfer" the idea (and even together with unpublished backlogs), then then they can kick you, say that you have nothing to do with it. At the same time, such an "action" will be one-time - everyone took it, the author was kicked out, and they could not advance anything further (not the authors, after all). Well, that's all. Everything bent down.

As for the physicists who came and the leadership singled out "more worthy". This type is considered "highlighted the best". That's just how "better" is defined, with the criteria of the problem. It often happens that the one you like is "singled out" (and why you like it is a separate question). It's like appointing "make a discovery" and at the same time know exactly who can do it :)

As for the radiation exposure of sawdust, you don’t need to be the best for this, where are the ideas, especially new ones? Back in 1990, we sterilized plastic test tubes for culture work by radiation exposure, when I was doing my diploma at ICG. Then the Americans came to NSU to study Russian (such training was just beginning there) and presented us with plastic bags on skids that were hermetically sealed, we sterilized the test tubes in them, and signed the bags with glass and plastic markers donated by the Americans. It was very convenient :)

Vladimir, if "In mathematics, science is really driven by a very small number of people," then why are there so many academicians and corresponding members of the Ph.D. n. - more than all others: 181 (ak) and 248 (corresponding member)?

At the Presidential Council on Science and Education, Vladimir Putin reprimanded the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the fact that this year 14 officials were elected academicians, including employees of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The election came against his recommendation for civil servants not to become professional scientists. Why are Putin more concerned about the elections to the Russian Academy of Sciences than the strategy of the country's scientific and technological development?

power over officials

The vertical of power, carefully built by Vladimir Putin, failed in an unexpected place. In October 2015, he wrote a letter to Russian officials containing an urgent recommendation (according to another version, a request) to refuse to participate in the elections of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2016, the RAS was supposed to replenish its staff with academicians and corresponding members for the first time since the reform three years ago, when scientists were removed from economic activity and control over their resources was tightened.

Therefore, it would not be a big exaggeration to say that the head of state closely followed not only the presidential elections in the United States - he was no less worried about who would be elected to the members of the "big academy", as he calls the Russian Academy of Sciences. Moreover, for domestic politics, the elections in the scientific community turned out to be more significant in a certain sense.

Questions arose on October 28, when the RAS announced the results of a "new call" to its ranks: 176 scientists were added to the number of academicians, 323 people became corresponding members. Despite the presidential letter, 25 officials put forward their candidacies for voting, including Minister of Health Veronika Skvortsova, and 14 eventually achieved the high status of academicians.

And although there were fewer officials in science than in previous calls, the very fact of disobedience and disobedience to the first person became more important than the "Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development", which since July 2015 was written by 200 experts, and another 3 thousand provided advice. At the Council under the President of Russia on Science and Education on November 23, it turned out that the document for which everyone had gathered, many would like to finalize and make their own changes to it. Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich even asked scientists to write in an understandable language, since he did not see the point in a good part of the text. However, the document seemed to the President "detailed and balanced", he clearly wanted to discuss another topic.

The event in the Kremlin's Catherine's Hall also spoke of the need to increase investment in science to 2% of GDP, and by 2035 to ensure that public and private investment are equal in volume. Since today 80% of funding is provided by the state and this is not in line with international practice, noted the head of the Council for Science, Andrey Fursenko.

Quite unexpectedly, Putin equated science and technology with national security - if we do not invest today, tomorrow the country will lose in global competition. The president probably had in mind, first of all, advanced weapons: reports of the deployment of the latest missile launchers have been coming in all week. So, for example, he responded with a smile to the attempt to "trade in threats" by scientists, refusing to consider civil projects as "disruptive innovations": the Alibaba online store with a turnover of $ 1 billion per day and the Uber taxi service, whose capitalization on the exchange is equal to the cost of Rosneft.

Much more, according to the president, Russia's national security is threatened by the outflow of "talented youth." "How to keep her in the country?" he asked the age nomenclature. After all, “those who want to take them away, especially away from their native borders,” have jobs where young scientists from Russia are invited to build a scientific career. However, the bureaucratic response to the country's loss of scientific potential was known - to develop a multi-page document with the title "Strategy" and approve it at a purely formal meeting. Meanwhile, the average age of academicians in Russia is 73.67 years.

Power over academics

Reflections aloud by the President of Russia preceded the main episode of the meeting - the public scolding of the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Fortov. Fourteen officials who became academicians demonstrated collective disobedience and direct disobedience to the president. Among them are security officials: Vasily Khristoforov, head of the registration and archival funds department of the FSB, known as a major researcher and historian of the special services, as well as Alexander Savenkov, deputy minister of internal affairs and head of the investigative department, who wrote more than 50 scientific papers, three monographs and 15 textbooks. In addition, the presidential request was ignored by Senator Arnold Tulokhonov, a scientist and explorer of Lake Baikal; Deputy Head of the Hydrometeorological Center Alexander Makosko; Gazprom board member Oleg Aksyutin and others.

Most of the high-ranking officials elected as academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences are really engaged in scientific activities and have distinguished themselves by their work. But Putin was of little interest. "Why did you do it?" - he asked the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences in front of everyone. “They are such great scientists that the Academy of Sciences cannot do without them?” the president blurted out. Fortov had to shrug his shoulders and clarify: if they were chosen, then they are worthy scientists. However, Putin did not listen to him: it is impossible to combine scientific work with management, let alone politics, and promised to dismiss the newly-minted academicians from government positions.

On the one hand, the president's indignation seemed justified and correct: it is known why officials in Russia go into science - according to the old Soviet tradition, which is reproduced to this day, behind a privileged status. Various public initiatives, such as Dissernet, are precisely aimed at identifying officials who have appropriated degrees and titles that are not deserved by scientific and research work. Due to public pressure “for prestige”, it has become more difficult to be a scientist, and even an academician.

Dissertations bought in a subway passage with plagiarism, a pseudoscientific basis and outright nonsense can cost an official dearly and undermine his authority, as happened with the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. Nevertheless, the young head of his Administration, Anton Vaino, sat on the right hand of the president on the Council for Science, who on paper invented the "nooscope" - a kind of non-existent device for viewing Vernadsky's noosphere, that is, the "sphere of reason". So the fight against the erudition of the Russian bureaucracy really resembles the cleaning of the Augean stables.

However, according to the president's logic, it's one thing to be a "cat-scientist" and hold a government post, and another thing to become an academician. Although the relatives of academicians, who also aspire to the coveted title, seem to be worse than bureaucrats in science. But, as with officials, there are dozens of such cases for more than 500 new academicians and corresponding members. In general, the picture does not look critical and does not require the intervention of the president.

There is no need for it for another reason: doing science is not prohibited by the law "On the State Civil Service", and the charter of the Russian Academy of Sciences allows the election of civil servants as academicians, since the main criterion for evaluating a candidate is scientific merit. According to the established procedure, the profile sections of the Academy make a choice, then it is approved at the general meeting. Both procedures are secret ballot. The head of the Russian Academy of Sciences Fortov cannot influence the elections in the professional community.

Officials of the Presidential Administration, who are convinced that the president of the Academy had to "express his opinion" when high-ranking civil servants put forward their candidacies, cannot believe in the latter. If they consider themselves entitled to interfere in elections at any level, then what is the problem with the RAS? Democracy and the degree of independence of the scientific community from the state must stung the representatives of the Kremlin, who are used to controlling the political sphere. For Putin himself, who supported the division of the Russian Academy of Sciences a few years ago, during which it was completely subordinate to his vertical, it is completely incomprehensible why Fortov did not follow the implementation of his “recommendation”. The President of the Academy, in turn, is not clear why Putin's officials did not do this if he turned to them.

From Putin's point of view, everyone has lost fear and fundamentally disobeys, breaking the harmony of the ranks. How, relatively speaking, to scare the USA and Europe, when his power is not absolute inside the country? Insignificant for the country as a whole, the elections for academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences cast doubt on the effectiveness of the power vertical. They are another excuse to clean up the ranks. The instrumental meaning of the presidential anger was to mobilize the bureaucracy, which now must keep an eye on it: if a year ago the head of state recommended something to you, and you listened and disobeyed, then hand over your party card and get out into the street.

Once, Stalin similarly besieged Foreign Minister Molotov, who was delighted with being elected an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Then the leader called membership in a scientific organization "a secondary matter" for a statesman. Molotov immediately admitted the mistake and repented. Thus, the vertical of power and the indisputability of the authority of the first person have been preserved. Will officials listen to Putin?

"Tell me, why did you do it?"

A number of high-ranking Russian officials are at risk of being fired from civil service due to ambitions to have their say in science. Vladimir Putin was outraged that, contrary to his written recommendations, employees of the Presidential Administration, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Education, the Federal Security Service and other departments were recently elected academicians and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“If they are such great scientists, I will be forced to give them the opportunity to engage in science, since this activity is more important for them than administrative,” the president said.

An unexpected message was heard at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Science and Education, which met in the Kremlin to discuss the final version of the strategy for scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation.

Previously, it seemed to be considered prestigious for civil servants to have a degree in the relevant field. And the title of academician was supposed to guarantee the sacred awe of his subordinates and the respect of his superiors: "He's such a smart man! You can't do without him!"

However, numerous scandals with fake scientific titles and dubious dissertations (the last vivid example -) seem to have pissed off the president. Realizing that the fight against candidates and doctors of science could completely decapitate ministries and departments, Putin launched a preemptive strike against civil servants who claim to be called the scientific elite.

After waiting for the discussion on the strategy to end, the president recalled that last year he turned to his colleagues and the president of the Academy of Sciences with one simple, as it seemed to him, request - to stop the vicious practice of electing officials to the elective bodies of the RAS (that is, not to give them the title of academician and corresponding member)

The GDP argued its recommendation with priorities. If a person is in the civil service, especially at the top levels, he must "carry out his administrative duties in the most serious way," and engage in scientific activities exclusively in his free time. "But conscientious people actually don't have it," the president believes. Therefore, either the civil service goes down the drain, or scientific activity is a sham.

However, some colleagues - and here Putin listed several departments, in particular, the Presidential Administration, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Education, the FSB - turned a deaf ear to his recommendations. They took part in the elections held at the end of October 2016 and were elected.

Tell me why did you do it? - Putin turned to the discouraged President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Fortov, - Are they such great scientists that the academy cannot do without them? This is the first question. And the second - what should I do with it now?

In the memory of journalists, Vladimir Putin for the first time publicly asked such a truly Hamlet question. Moreover, he offered someone to solve it for him.

There was no face on Fortov. "They all said they got permission..." he muttered in confusion.

This is not the question, - VVP interrupted, - Are they really such great scientists that they should be correspondent members and academicians?

They passed the entire competition without exemptions and exceptions ...

You do not answer my question, - the President interrupted again and continued his Jesuit interrogation: - So, then they are great scientists?

The position of Vladimir Fortov looked absolutely hopeless. He seemed to get checkmate and checkmate at the same time. His conscience did not allow him to recognize officials as major scientists of the level of Kapitsa or Zhores Alferov. To say that they are not is an honor. Indeed, in this case, it turns out that the Academy of Sciences distributes high scientific titles to just anyone.

They deserve to be elected, - finally, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences whispered in a barely audible voice.

Putin smiled bloodthirstyly.

So they are great scientists? he asked again.

It turns out that this is so - Fortov could no longer resist.

Okay, I won't torment you any more, - the president finally relented. However, for the academic officials themselves, the recognition knocked out of Fortov did not bode well.

I will be forced to give them the opportunity to engage in science, - summed up the GDP, - Apparently, their scientific activity is more important than the performance of some routine administrative duties in government and administration.

After this discussion, none of the meeting participants remembered why the presidential council actually met in the Kremlin. The officials sitting at the table convulsively went over their scientific titles and degrees in their heads and wondered who exactly would be affected by the president's decision - only recently elected academicians and correspondent members, or everyone in a row? And does it apply, for example, to the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, whose members are, in particular, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and assistant to the GDP, Andrey Belousov?

Vladimir Putin, coming out to the journalists at the end of the council meeting, clarified his position on this matter: the order applies only to those civil servants (including governors) who were elected to the RAS after recommendations were issued not to do so. "These recommendations were given in October 2015," the head of state specified. According to him, in this case we are talking about discipline, which should remain at the proper level in public authorities. "I want to wish success to those who have chosen creative research work for themselves," VVP said.

Vladimir Fortov, in turn, explained that the Academy of Sciences cannot revoke its decision and deprive high ranks of those officials who want to sacrifice science in order to remain in the civil service. "The law has no retroactive effect," he shrugged.

From the dossier "MK": This year, for example, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Alexander Savenkov, Head of the Registration and Archival Funds Department of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation Vasily Khristoforov, and Deputy Minister of Education Alexei Lopatin became an academician.