9 ms·

Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

178 points by pkrein 14y ago

gnosis 14y ago
A similar story: http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446 http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--... which was previously discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047
mvolo 14y ago
Racism and racially-motivated policies (mostly affirmative action) definitely exist in the US ... Particularly for older, and less educated populations. But the bottom line is, even if not everyone likes you in the US, you can still live a fully actualized life even if it takes a bit of hard work. In Russia, institutional racism created a hard ceiling that most of the time could not be broken, even with hard work. If you tried to hard, you would go to jail or worse.
coolsunglasses 14y ago
Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those among people I encounter often is that the Soviet Union was so great compared to the US then or now. Another is things like, say, the excessive praise of Japanese longevity/health. This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was. Another recent link for this bucket was the (recent, but it's been ongoing) outrage among Chinese farmers not getting recompense for their land from the gov't confiscations. Stories like this are starting to be shared more. Here's hoping it keeps coming.
- jedmeyers 14y ago
  Entering the university was not the biggest problem for Jews in USSR. And what scares me is that people, like the director of admissions, who actually discriminated the Jews usually did not hate them. They discriminated because they were told to do so.
  - cema 14y ago
    Some did hate. Reportedly, the current rector of Moscow State University was quite happy to participate, among many others whose career, as you can imagine, did not suffer.
- s_baby 14y ago
  >This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was. We have a similar quota system in America that limits asian admissions and with talks of extending quotas to limit male admissions in STEM degrees. What's not clear is if these Jewish quotas were proportional to population or not.
  - coolsunglasses 14y ago
    Jewish quotas were a governmental system. There are no asian quotas at the governmental level in the US. You're referring to an unfortunate side effect of diversity policies and affirmative action at the university level. The US gov't going to silence or jail you for speaking up about university policies you believe are racist. Don't compare the incomparable, it's an injustice to those that suffered under oppressive governments. Edit: You've exemplified the sort of notions that caused me to make a 'Mythbusting' bucket.
  - chokolad 14y ago
    It the quotas were proportional there would have been way smaller number of Soviet Jews with university diplomas. Jews were disproportionally represented in universities in USSR even with all the quotas. Similar quotas also existed for Russians and other non-locals in national republics - e.g. it was much harder for a Russian to be admitted to the university in Uzbek SSR compared to an Uzbek. This was a bit more nuanced than just Anti-Semitism.
    - PeterisP 14y ago
      It depends on the location - there are also documented instances where locals weren't admitted to universities/jobs, since they were assigned preferentially to Russian imigrants. Soviets had a quite complex migration policy, including moving people around "by order" (both forced mass movements of nationalities and also job location assignments that could move you 2000km away), and also 'carrot/stick' with having opposite policies in various parts of USSR to achieve whatever people/nationality migrations and grand social engineering plans they had.
  - ivolo 14y ago
- dmishe 14y ago
  wait, racism, in what part of the post?
  - joshAg 14y ago
    discriminating against ethnic groups is usually also grouped into 'racism', and judaism is both a religion and an ethnic group. "It is important to note that my family was not religious at all. My father was not brought up in a religious tradition, and neither was I. Religion in the Soviet Union was in fact all but non-existent in those days. Most Christian Orthodox churches were destroyed or closed. In the few existing churches one could typically only find a few old babushkas, like my maternal grandmother. She occasionally attended service at the only active church in my hometown, Kolomna. There were even fewer synagogues. There were none in my home town; in Moscow, whose population was close to ten million, there was only one. Going to a service in a church or a synagogue was dangerous: one could be spotted by special plain-clothed agents and get in a lot of trouble. So when someone was referred to as being Jewish, it was meant not in the sense of religion, but in the sense of ethnicity, “blood.”" --http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446 http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--...
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  - dmishe 14y ago
    Oh I see now, there's huge gap between two walls of text, I never scrolled down.
- sakopov 14y ago
  I don't know if anyone from the Soviet era would tell you that antisemitism did not exist. I don't know why any Russian would tell you otherwise. It always did and it does now. Russians are incredibly discriminatory, especially in bigger cities. When i was around 7 i had adults come up to me and tell me that i am worthless shit because i am half Armenian and half Russian.
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  - vadman 14y ago
    Same thing happened to me, only it was in Armenia and grown-up Armenians were talking sh*t to me for being a half-Russian kid (think 1st-grade age). I wouldn't say "Russians are discriminatory", just "people from the former USSR are usually discriminatory". From my experience, in both countries, Armenia was a lot worse.
    - 10098 14y ago
      The same thing happened to me, except I'm 100% Armenian, but my native language happens to be Russian, because it was the primarily spoken language in our family. It's just xenophobia.
      - phishphood 14y ago
        its more than that. I remember being bullied and called little jew by kids, by teachers, by school principal, by janitors, by strangers on the subway when I was 7 or 8 because I have soft Rs and curly hair, and I am not Jewish.
    - sakopov 14y ago
      I have a lot of family living in Armenia and i never caught any discrimination when i was out and about in Yerevan. Not towards me or my mother who is Russian. And I'm more Russian-looking than Armenian, with light skin and brown hair. Just my observation. Of course a few visits don't measure up to years living there. So, i can totally see what you described happen there. I wonder if this was always a problem in USSR. Every time i hear my parents talk about the good old days, they seem to describe pretty amazing, peaceful time. Especially the 70s. And now...
- dsrguru 14y ago
  You might want to add Shin Dong-hyuk's first-hand account of life in a North Korean prison camp. Slavery, starvation, torture, rape, and murder are the norm, and given that it's illegal to be related to someone in prison, a ridiculous percentage of the country's population is enslaved in these prisons. The DPRK's human rights violations go well beyond the oft-cited starvation of the populace. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57556662/north-korean-prisoner-escaped-after-23-brutal-years/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57556662/north-korean-... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216332 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216332 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091962 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091962
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patrickgzill 14y ago
"It was understood that since Jews represented a minority percentage of the overall population, the university would only accept that percentage into the student body. This was in line with the Soviet Union’s unofficial policy of anti-semitism in the post-Stalin era." So, quotas... are there quotas, official or unofficial, in the USA university system?
- benesch 14y ago
  US laws essentially encourage unwritten quotas. While actual numbers are prohibited [0], race is explicitly listed as a legal factor to consider in admission. (Supreme court decision; can't remember the citation.) So you can't say "we're letting in 300 of RACE this year." But, when you have 301 of RACE, you can say, "I feel like the number of RACE we've admitted this year negatively impacts the diversity of our student body." [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action#cite_ref-6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action#cite_ref-6
  - redwood 14y ago
    It is different, however, to say "we want more of minority X at the expense of the majoity" than to say 'the maximum number of minority X is Y"
- whafro 14y ago
  At public schools in the US, quota systems are officially illegal (UC Regents v. Bakke), but they are allowed to use admissions to encourage diversity (Grutter v. Bollinger). In general, both public and private schools tend to over-admit minorities (in proportion to their presence in the population), so from the other perspective, are discriminating against majorities.
PRJIUS2 14y ago
Posted last time[1] one of these stories came around, comment applicable here: As a preamble there most definitely existed anti-semitism in Soviet Union. I am a Russian living in the US with Jewish family in Russia. This is a throw away account. With that said, stories of anti-semitism told by Russian Jews in US should not be taken at face value. These folks are subject to a very strong selection bias. Most of them came to the US as refugees who were recognized by the US State Department as being discriminated against for being Jewish in USSR/Russia. Secondly they have interest in maintaining the story anti-seminitism because it validates their narrative and could potentially help their relatives immigrate to the US. Additionally many stories of anti-semitism that I heard were something a non-jew would experience as well but attributed to anti-semitism. As a personal example, I was at first denied admission to a specialized school in very late Soviet period. They eventually let me in because my mother found out that I had the highest score on the entrance exam of any one. Their excuse was that they had to let the kids who were in the paid summer program at the school first and now the class was full. A Jewish kid's parents would have been told they already have too many Jews in the advanced program. Both cases are just the admissions persons asking for a bribe. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  So, how big a problem is antisemitism in Russia, in your opinion?
  - PRJIUS2 14y ago
    I don't know. My well-off Jewish relatives in Russia don't report discrimination, but that I believe is a factor of their position or demeanor and not absence of antisemitism. Since you asked "how big", I would say greater than zero but less than discrimination against certain other groups. These other groups include Chechens, other people from the Caucuses, people from the *stans, and gays. People in these groups are both more numerous and face worse discrimination. Non-Moscow residents are of course officially discriminated against in Moscow (Moscow residency is essentially a second internal citizenship that has been struck down by the courts but still exists in practice). Additionally 50% of the population are subjected to sexism to a significant degree.
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davidroberts 14y ago
I think the US unofficial quotas against Asians are somewhat similar to the Soviet ones against Jews, though not so spitefully motivated. Essentially, it boils down to "We don't want our own kids to have to compete on even terms with these hard-working, incredibly studious outsiders."
- EliAndrewC 14y ago
  I went to a a magnet school (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology) which does NOT discriminate against Asians in the way that so many colleges do. Last year more than 50% of students were Asian-American. This is what these colleges are trying to prevent, rather than simply wanting to benefit their own children. I'm not sure that I approve of ANY targeted racial goals for schools, though I'm generally in favor of class-based advantages for lower-income applicants.
  - praxulus 14y ago
    >I'm generally in favor of class-based advantages for lower-income applicants. I find it hard not to favor this. What's the point of encouraging diversity of skin color if you're not getting much actual cultural diversity? Students at top universities have much more to learn from the experiences of poorer students than they do from other upper middle class students who happen to have darker skin.
- milesskorpen 14y ago
  I think this issue is a bit overstated — though certainly true to some extent. The most prominent case I've seen made here focuses on PSAT scores and a few other categories which (a) aren't necessarily indicative of success and (b) are biased towards some ethnic groups which prioritize standardized tests. The PSAT in particular is an odd one, since it is mostly irrelevant for any applications -- most Asian-American groups wildly outperform everyone else on the PSAT, but the gap is much narrower on the SAT, which has greater relevance for college admissions, and thus sees more preparation from across ethnic groups.
- liber8 14y ago
  Can you explain about these "unofficial quotas against Asians"? I'm genuinely curious if this actually exists. Note that less than 5% of Americans are Asian, but: 40% of UC students are asian (and it's higher at Cal, UCLA and UCSD (i.e. the better schools)).[1] 23% of Stanford students are asian (probably higher since that excludes "international" and "decline to state").[2] 26% of MIT students are.[3] In other words, at (a small sampling of) the top schools, Asians are over-represented by anywhere from 400% to 1000%. It just doesn't seem like any sort of quota system exists, looking at the data. [1]http://diversity.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/diversity-accountability-report-and-appendix-0910.pdf http://diversity.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/divers... [2]http://www.stanford.edu/dept/humsci/external/under/demographics.html http://www.stanford.edu/dept/humsci/external/under/demograph... [3]http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N31/admissions.html http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N31/admissions.html
vj44 14y ago
Great post, and a very sad story (with a happy ending). Unfortunately, US (and others) universities applied similar policies (probably, more subtly though) up to 1970: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus...
- lesterbuck 14y ago
  Harvard and Columbia, among elite US universities, had quotas for Jewish admissions. The entire idea of saving spaces for legacy admissions is apparently one of the tactics used to block ethnic groups from admission. Even Richard Feynman was subject to these quotas, and when he was rejected from Colombia as over quota, he went to MIT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota
dangoldin 14y ago
Thanks for posting. I just sent this to my parents who were also in the Soviet Union until we all emigrated to the US. Here's the response from my mom: Yes, it's typical. The only thing which surprises me that the dad's dad insisted on military in 1970 - there was an antisemitic campaign in military in 1961 and grandfather could not miss it. Usually families knew which colleges accept Jewish kids, which did not and usually there was a "plan B". There was a category of "top" colleges which ran exams in July, while all others ran exams in August, like this guy who failed in top choice in July still had option to take exams in August (like my mom who failed with Institute of mechanics and Optics in July applied for Pedagogical Institute in August, or Alik [her uncle] who was not admitted in Moscow university applied in Kharkov in August etc.) And some people who were fighting actually succeeded (like Alena [her aunt] whom they gave either 4 or 3 in math said she knows well enough to get 5, so the examiner said, "I will have to call a head of the commission", Alena said, "So call him." And started all over again. Vitya, my cousin, had the same experience: they told him his solution is wrong, he gave them another one, and one more, and they also called for the head of admissions, and she showed him the right solution - then he showed her his first solution, etc. So it's a little weird that for this family this all sounded as a surprise. It was every family experience ;-( and one of the reasons of emigration (same situation with jobs.)
- cema 14y ago
  I mostly concur, except that I am not surprised it could be a surprise for many whose minds were filled with an ideological view of the society they lived in. I remember how difficult it was for me to get used to the idea that I do not live in the best country, the beacon of hope for the world. And I was far from alone. My close friend's mother could not believe it until her son, a straight-A student from K to 12, was given a failing grade at an entrance exam in physics which he knew and understood very well. Oh, it's funny to remember now, by the way. They would give him a problem, then come back before he would finish the solution, say "you did not solve it" and mark it with a minus. Several times he was faster than them. Still, after a while they got a sufficient number of minuses and said good-bye to him. He expected it would be a losing battle, but still was a little shocked at their arrogance.
  - 14y ago
dragos2 14y ago
This is a great story. Being from an ex-communist country, I've heard numerous stories like this from my parents and their friends. In my country the mandatory army service law was active until 2007. If you didn't get admitted to a college, after finishing the high-school you would've had to serve 1 year in the Army. You would also have to serve even if you got into college, but only for about 6 months after graduating.
sixofhearts 14y ago
Kudos to your father, Ilya. This is a wonderful, timeless story of perseverance and human desire. The characteristics and settings change, but the spirit is always the same.
gambiting 14y ago
I come from a former Soviet Republic and from everything my dad tells me an image emerges - an image of a land where you could do everything,but you always had to bribe the right people, otherwise they wouldn't do anything. Or they would,but it would take them half a year to process the application. My uncle actually studied at the University of Warsaw and was the best student in his year, while doing engineering. He wanted to go on a foreign placement in the UK, which was a very rare opportunity to see some world. So he applied,studied hard, and fulfilled all the requirements. Only to be told a week before going that sorry but he can't go, because the son of the State Secretary is going instead. He had to complain to some very high-positioned officials to be allowed to go next year, but not without being threatened to be kicked out of academia for life first. Funny thing is, that I am currently studying at the same university in the UK my uncle did his placement 40 years ago. Feeling quite proud of that.
moxie 14y ago
What's interesting is that according to several narratives from those close to the central committee under Stalin, anti-semitic policies in the Soviet Union started from geo-political maneuvering rather than any inherent personal sense of racism. Sudoplatov, an NKVD agent who worked for Beria, wrote in his memoirs that the original Soviet post-war plans were actually to establish a Jewish republic in the Crimea, with the hope that they would be able to use it in order to get money for Soviet post-war reconstruction from Jewish organizations around the world. When they failed to gain world traction with the idea, and were cut off from British/American planning of the alternative (Palestine), Stalin moved to a policy of anti-Semitism (the "Doctor's Plot" and a campaign against "Rootless Cosmopolitanism") so that the Arab world would turn to him instead (in their dissatisfaction with the plans for Israel). One passage from Sudoplatov's memoirs: "Stalin and his close aides were interested in the Jewish issue mainly to exploit it politically, either for use in a power struggle or for consolidating their power. That's how the flirtation with anti-Semitism started in high party echelons...Stalin's efforts after the war were focused on extending Soviet hegemony, first over the countries of Eastern Europe bordering the Soviet Union and then everywhere he was in competition with British interests. He foresaw that the Arab states would turn to the Soviet Union when they were frustrated by British and American support for Israel. The Arabs would appreciate the anti-Zionist trends in Soviet foreign policy...I was told by Vetrov, Molotov's Assistant, what Stalin said: 'Let's agree to the establishment of Israel. This will be a pain in the ass for the Arab states and will make them turn their backs on the British. In the long run it will totally undermine British influence in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq.'"
- ims 14y ago
  On that note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
  - moxie 14y ago
    I was surprised to read about that too. The same guy, Sudoplatov, was involved in that, though, and writes: "The establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Birobidzhan in 1928 was ordered by Stalin only as an effort to strengthen the Far Eastern border region with an outpost, not as a favor to the Jews. The area was constantly penetrated by Chinese and White Russian terrorist groups, and the idea was to shield the territory by establishing a settlement whose inhabitants would be hostile to White Russian emigres, especially the Cossacks. The status of the region was defined shrewdly as an autonomous district, not as an autonomous republic, which meant that no local legislature, high court, or government post of ministerial rank was permitted. It was an autonomous area, but a bare frontier, not a political center."
tebuevd 14y ago
Discrimination was not limited to Jews. Ethnic Russians were the only ones not targeted by the State.
tokenadult 14y ago
Some basic facts about college admission in the United States: 1) Most colleges admit large numbers of students who are officially reported as "race/ethnicity unknown." 2) The definition of "race" categories in current United States regulations is arbitrary, acknowledged by the Census Bureau to be unscientific, does not match categories used in any other country, and has changed several times in my lifetime. 3) "Jewish" has never been an officially regarded category in the United States for tracking data on the issue of college admission, but Jews once faced considerable barriers getting into many colleges. 4) The subset of United States high school students who are college-ready by what courses they have completed during high school has a much different "race" composition from the general United States population. Several of the replies in this interesting thread ask questions about the system in the United States, so I will refer here to the definitive FAQ about "race" in United States college admission, http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/13664... so that those of you who like to look up reliable sources and check facts are able to do that about this contentious issue. The FAQ will have to be revised, of course, after the Supreme Court issues its opinion in a pending case (cited in the FAQ). Full references to the facts listed above can be found in the FAQ. The collection of "Jewish Problems" (very tough mathematics problems reputedly given to Jewish applicants to Soviet universities) by Tanya Khovanova and Alexey Radul on arXiv http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 is directly on-topic for the main submission here. How many of those problems could you solve to get into university?
- pm90 14y ago
  Ah, Russian problem sets! Brings back fond memories of high school spent desperately trying to crack these tough problems. Although surely not as challenging as the ones listed in the link, these were some of the toughest, yet the shortest problems, and solving every one of them was a challenge which, when completed, let to an inner sense of satisfaction so great, it was intoxicating...and addictive. In India, Russian authors (e.g Irodov, Kratov, Invanov) have a reputation of being incredibly difficult, yet having very elegant problems; while American authors had the reputation of writing long winded 'real-world' problems that took effort to first understand the context of, were illustrated by colorful figures etc (of course there are exceptions).
kungfooguru 14y ago
Not to say that the USSR was not anti-semitic in the 1970s, and after Stalin. But I think a great example to show that the revolution was not about any of that is that Ayn Rand Petrograd State University. A Jewish woman, thanks to the revolution.
qwerta 14y ago
Such quotas were also in USA. Isaac Asimov originally applied to medical university, but was not accepted for being jew. Hi started writing sci-fi instead.
- eurleif 14y ago
  >Such quotas were also in USA. Are you sure about that past tense? http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-asian-quota-in-the-ivy-league/statistics-indicate-an-ivy-league-asian-quota http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-...
  - qwerta 14y ago
    US system is broken anyway. Even asking for racial origin on application form should be illegal. Here in Europe it is banned since Hitler.
CleanedStar 14y ago
I read down to the first picture then got a TLDR sense. I did a find for "Jew" and lo and behold, this was the "surprise" climax of this melodrama. For one thing, before World War II, there was a Jewish quota in US Ivy League schools. Why focus close to home in 1940 USA though when you can hear a yarn from 1970 Uzbekistan, about as physically far from the majority of HN readers as possible? Secondly, before World War II, the center-right, even moderate trope in Europe (and the US) was that the USSR was run by Jews. The typical picture ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterOfTrotsky.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterO... ) of the Red Army, run by Trotsky, and a politburo with Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, as well as others who probably were Jews with converted familiies (Krestinsky). So the right got to bash the USSR with being run by Jews when it was convenient, now they get to bash it for being anti-semitic when that is convenient. They get to have it both ways, shifting from one to the exact opposite depending on the times. Third, after the establishment of Israel, Israel and the USSR came more into conflict as Israel allied itself with the US. Things were not that solid in that regard in 1948, but it became clearer over time, and was certainly clear after the 1967 war. This incident happened after 1967. Jews in the USSR would go to a top flight school in the USSR, get their diploma, then immediately go to Israel or the West and get paid a high salary. In fact, certain parts of the Jewish community in the USSR encouraged this behavior. The USSR had limited resources, why should it spend enormous funds with its top scholastic positions educating Jews who were just going to leave? The reality is this is what the other side demands. That the USSR give free Bachelors and Masters and Doctorates at its best schools, blocking those positions for Russians, and then the Jews who would get those degress would skip town with their free doctorates as soon as they get their diplomas, so as to make big money and build up the West. Where could Jews get free education in the US? I'd like to get a free education at a top school in the US. That doens't have to be paid back, and the recipient would immediately move to China and build up their country. We don't have that now, yet people like to pontificate that the 1970 USSR should have offered that. Also, most right wing Jews seem torn over their discussion of the USSR in two poles. On one pole they'll openly discuss (in English! Not even Hebrew) on Youtube videos and elsewhere how they used the Jewish community in the USSR to subvert and undermine the government. On the other hand, they talk about how crazy these governments were to think that Jews were trying to undermine their governments. They say they were trying to subvert the Russian government, but they can't help to boast in pride, in English even, how they did undermine the government and were successful in doing so. The US interned all Japanese people in the 1940s for much less. Yet the USSR didn't hand a free education to every Jew who wanted a free doctorate from a top university before skipping town, so let's bemoan how bad they had it in a country which no longer exists, in something that happened over 40 years ago...
gopi 14y ago
How is this different from the secret Asian admission quota Harvard and the other elite US universities have?
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vlokshin 14y ago
Wow. Hits very close to home. I was born in St. Petersburg, and my family immigrated to the US when I was 6 years old. My parents are kind, quiet people who weren't risk takers -- the idea that they left everything behind was always bizarre to me. My dad graduated #2 in St. Petersburg for Math/Science (he still has the silver medal for this) but did not get in to the top engineering school. They never gave him a real reason, but he had a Jewish last name. He doesn't seem angry about it, nor does he really bring it up much -- but I can't help but to imagine the risk taker / creator that could've been if he wasn't stomped all over in the soviet days for being Jewish. It's disgusting what decision makers during the soviet regime were able to get away with.
throwmeaway33 14y ago
I'm always suspicious about these second hand stories; especially when they're dramatized like this. For instance he says: "You could apply to one and only one university. If you didn’t get in, you’d be conscripted into the army the following Fall." And then explains how he applied to a second university and then how he was offered to apply to a local university in Tashkent. Just to be clear, I don't disagree with his premise, it's just the whole thing is overly dramatized. My uncle also almost didn't get into MSU because they decided he was Jewish, and my dad was rejected and had to go to a different school. The whole thing was really weird because they decide your jewishness solely based on your last name. (which is sorta black magic) Also, from everything I heard, antisemetism wasn't institutional - ie. directed from top down. I've never heard of the quota thing (if it existed, it was done on a school by school basis). For instance MSU was known for being very antisemitic, while other branches of government were not. You've got to remember that a lot of the revolutionaries were jewish, even Lenin was a jew (sorta).
rewt 14y ago
Story of your father could not describe the whole system. Anyone could dig the NET and find a lot of jewish names in top places of soviet society. Not only jewish but also many many other man who are not ethnic russians.
shn 14y ago
I wonder what is the root cause of anti-semitism? I always thought that anti-semitism is an illness that belonged exclusively to Europe, and they exported this "problem" to Middle East. Now I read that Soviet era, in multiple regions similar problem existed. But why? Do all other ethnics had their own fair share? If not why Jews? Or Jewish people are just more outspoken?
- bluekeybox 14y ago
  Something I've been wondering about myself... Can't answer your question, but can only point out that you are a bit mistaken to treat Europe and ex-Soviet territories (especially their European part) as two completely separate worlds, since before the Iron Curtain came to exist, they shared quite a bit of common history. More reading about anti-Semitism in that territory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising#Jews http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising#Jews
  - shn 14y ago
    I know that answer is not in this forum. However I expect someone may be heard of a good book to explain this. A book based on research an anthropological study but not on sentimental history of the problem. (By the way somebody down voted my question. Isn't this a legitimate question?)
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      I almost downvoted you because you said "Or Jewish people are just more outspoken?" which sounds a bit like "Or are they asking for it?" but I decided it was probably just a communication problem. There are lots of books on this topic. "Why the Jews" is supposed to be good. There's also "Antisemitism Explained" by Dr. Steven Baum, my former psychiatrist, which I would expect to take a deep psychological analysis (but I haven't read it).
      - shn 14y ago
        The book "Why the Jew" seems to address the issue more universal than the other. I'll read the this one. No, I did not intended to say "Or are they asking for it?". However I do not care if people down vote my comments. Thanks.
yurylifshits 14y ago
In US, at the beginning of XXth century Stanley Kaplan had the similar admission problems. This experience motivated him to start Kaplan SAT preparation business. Few decades later it evolved into Kaplan Inc. (includes Kaplan University). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kaplan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kaplan
- asveikau 14y ago
  > evolved into Kaplan Inc. (includes Kaplan University). And now it's a scam so that the Washington Post Company can receive money from federal student loans.
- hncommenter13 14y ago
  Article by Malcolm Gladwell on this very topic: http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_12_17_a_kaplan.htm http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_12_17_a_kaplan.htm
hakaaaaak 14y ago
Thanks to the OP for posting this. I want to read it to my kids, so they understand how lucky and spoiled we are. I think the persecution of the Jews in any culture is wrong. And so is the persecution of any religion. I think the freedom of religion, including the right to pray in schools, on T.V. and radio, in government, etc. is a freedom that the U.S. was not only founded on, but what people have died for, and I am grateful for that. I'm glad that things have changed in the former Soviet countries. I wish that things weren't changing for the worse here. I have to put up with people telling me about "separation of church and state", which was never meant to be interpreted as it is today. If you can have atheism practiced in schools and taught by teachers, I should be able to have prayer in schools and religion taught by teachers. That is separation of church and state. No one should tell me what I can or cannot do as long as I'm not impeding others' freedoms and pursuit of happiness. And I put up with my government that: * attempts to restrict our freedoms in the name of protection * tries to act in our best interest, but never actively asks what our best interests are But, we are spoiled. I'll take my every phone call and Google search being scanned by the U.S. over the crap people had to put up with in the Soviet Union before.
- mcantelon 14y ago
  >If you can have atheism practiced in schools and taught by teachers, I should be able to have prayer in schools and religion taught by teachers. Religion isn't taught in schools because people have different religions (and, within religions, different interpretation of religion). Religion is taught at institutions focused on particular religions (i.e. churches).
- goldmab 14y ago
  Anti-semitism isn't always about religion. Sometimes it's just racism.
  - hakaaaaak 14y ago
    While some genetic characteristics can be considered Jewish, not all Jews have those characteristics, so it could also be considered "anticulturalism". As a Christian and gentile, I don't understand what it is like to be discriminated against on so many levels. Christians have only been persecuted for < 2000 years, and we span the globe in radically different races and cultures. Only certain faiths have as strong tendency to intermarry as Jews (almost always marry another person of faith X)- Mormons and Scientologists come to mind (note: that is the truth, not meant to be a slight against Mormonism).
scrrr 14y ago
Thank you for posting this. I like such stories, even though I have never been to the former USSR. I once was working with an (incredibly skilled) C++ guy who was a former officer/engineer in the Soviet army. He told me similar stories. Apparently one day he had to take an examination. What they did was an army radio transmitter, an AK47 machine gun, and they shoot some holes in it. Then they handed it to him and said: Fix it. Another story he told me was about a friend who was in the submarine navy. Days before his university courses would start they got an order to go on patrol. And then he was underwater for a year instead. Also the stories how new soldiers were assigned to bases thousands of miles away from home, apparently so they don't desert and go home etc. I find all that very interesting. It's so different from my experience in (West-) Germany. Everything was easy in comparison here.
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
The next day, the director of admissions met my dad. My dad told him his score, and asked if there had been some sort of mistake. The director simply replied, “There’s been no mistake, but you should understand. We’ve already exceeded our percentage for the upcoming semester.” My dad did understand. He was Jewish. Oh God damn it, not again!
pm90 14y ago
The book "Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century[0]" which details the life of Giorgi Perelman (who solved the famous Poincare Conjecture) gives a detailed account of antisemitic policies extant in the USSR at the time. [0]:http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Rigor-Mathematical-Breakthrough-Century/dp/015101406X http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Rigor-Mathematical-Breakthroug...
Smirnoff 14y ago
As a person born in USSR Russia and currently living in Uzbekistan, I can confirm that college entrance system didn't change much in Uzbekistan: 1. You are allowed to apply to 1 state-sponsored university only. If you don't get in, you're SOL. 2. You need to pass medical examination before you submit your documents. This "Medical Form-86" can be bought for $10. 3. You can buy your way into a university, just like rich kids do for Ivy Leagues in USA. The best change since then is the fact that the practice of administering oral and written exams by each university is GONE :) IMHO this was THE MAIN way to deny admission during USSR times. This happened to both of my parents: a. My mom scored perfect on first 2 exams and scored 1 on the final essay. The university in Russia rejected her appeal. Oh, and did I say she was writing for her high school bulletin and won several state essay competitions? b. Same story with my Uzbek dad. Scored well on Math and Physics just to fail the final oral exam. Ended up serving in Army in Saint Petersburg for a few years. Now concerning discrimination in USSR colleges: I have relatives who are Tatars and Uzbeks and I know plenty of Jewish Russians who had no problem getting into universities during USSR times. I also know a few Russians who thought they got perfect scores but ended up getting a ding. Based on my experience, I'd day everyone was against odds due to corruption and lack of connections.
bahman2000 14y ago
My dad had pretty much the same experience. He was not Jewish. He was not Russian (slavic/blond/blue-eyed) either. Russophilia, xenophobia, cronyism and nepotism were rampant in the former USSR. A "prominent" Muscovite Jew (but otherwise a lousy student) would have been treated better than the most talented Uzbek/Kazakh/Tajik.
petethepig 14y ago
Great story. I live in St-Petersburg and I have to correct you. The third picture is not St. Petersburg University of Telecommunications, it is Grand Hotel Europe — the fanciest hotel you can find here, basically you can tell that by looking at the cars parked in front of it. And this is the building of St. Petersburg University of Telecommunications — http://goo.gl/maps/YRw4Q http://goo.gl/maps/YRw4Q
mk3 14y ago
Good universities meant, the kids of ruling party must be admitted to have good/better careers in apparatus than their parents. This is the main card drawn against people. Some universities had big problem with that like the one who prepared surveillance and contra-surveillance officers, so they switched to admitting only people with no high ranking parents ties back in 80's. As the kids from high ranking officer families were really well known. I also believe there was a lot of ethnicity, and living place (soviet republic you are coming from may shut down the doors into university) discrimination in admission process.
babesh 14y ago
My high school limited any one ethnic group to 45%. This was San Francisco, CA and went on till at least the 90s. Different ethnic groups had different scores to get in. The school district later was sued and the rule is no longer in place.
chimpoutt 14y ago
funny, jews are now very over represented in elite US universities (adjusting for academic achievement). there was a fairly recent ron unz article on this subject and of course azns are strongly discriminated against in a way that is entirely analogous to the historic jewish quotas, but people can only respond by lamely bleating about "diversity"

178 points by pkrein 14y ago

A similar story: http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446 http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--... which was previously discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047

mvolo 14y ago

Racism and racially-motivated policies (mostly affirmative action) definitely exist in the US ... Particularly for older, and less educated populations. But the bottom line is, even if not everyone likes you in the US, you can still live a fully actualized life even if it takes a bit of hard work. In Russia, institutional racism created a hard ceiling that most of the time could not be broken, even with hard work. If you tried to hard, you would go to jail or worse.

coolsunglasses 14y ago

Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those among people I encounter often is that the Soviet Union was so great compared to the US then or now. Another is things like, say, the excessive praise of Japanese longevity/health. This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was. Another recent link for this bucket was the (recent, but it's been ongoing) outrage among Chinese farmers not getting recompense for their land from the gov't confiscations. Stories like this are starting to be shared more. Here's hoping it keeps coming.

jedmeyers 14y ago
Entering the university was not the biggest problem for Jews in USSR. And what scares me is that people, like the director of admissions, who actually discriminated the Jews usually did not hate them. They discriminated because they were told to do so.
- cema 14y ago
  Some did hate. Reportedly, the current rector of Moscow State University was quite happy to participate, among many others whose career, as you can imagine, did not suffer.
s_baby 14y ago
>This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was. We have a similar quota system in America that limits asian admissions and with talks of extending quotas to limit male admissions in STEM degrees. What's not clear is if these Jewish quotas were proportional to population or not.
- coolsunglasses 14y ago
  Jewish quotas were a governmental system. There are no asian quotas at the governmental level in the US. You're referring to an unfortunate side effect of diversity policies and affirmative action at the university level. The US gov't going to silence or jail you for speaking up about university policies you believe are racist. Don't compare the incomparable, it's an injustice to those that suffered under oppressive governments. Edit: You've exemplified the sort of notions that caused me to make a 'Mythbusting' bucket.
- chokolad 14y ago
  It the quotas were proportional there would have been way smaller number of Soviet Jews with university diplomas. Jews were disproportionally represented in universities in USSR even with all the quotas. Similar quotas also existed for Russians and other non-locals in national republics - e.g. it was much harder for a Russian to be admitted to the university in Uzbek SSR compared to an Uzbek. This was a bit more nuanced than just Anti-Semitism.
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    It depends on the location - there are also documented instances where locals weren't admitted to universities/jobs, since they were assigned preferentially to Russian imigrants. Soviets had a quite complex migration policy, including moving people around "by order" (both forced mass movements of nationalities and also job location assignments that could move you 2000km away), and also 'carrot/stick' with having opposite policies in various parts of USSR to achieve whatever people/nationality migrations and grand social engineering plans they had.
- ivolo 14y ago
dmishe 14y ago
wait, racism, in what part of the post?
- joshAg 14y ago
  discriminating against ethnic groups is usually also grouped into 'racism', and judaism is both a religion and an ethnic group. "It is important to note that my family was not religious at all. My father was not brought up in a religious tradition, and neither was I. Religion in the Soviet Union was in fact all but non-existent in those days. Most Christian Orthodox churches were destroyed or closed. In the few existing churches one could typically only find a few old babushkas, like my maternal grandmother. She occasionally attended service at the only active church in my hometown, Kolomna. There were even fewer synagogues. There were none in my home town; in Moscow, whose population was close to ten million, there was only one. Going to a service in a church or a synagogue was dangerous: one could be spotted by special plain-clothed agents and get in a lot of trouble. So when someone was referred to as being Jewish, it was meant not in the sense of religion, but in the sense of ethnicity, “blood.”" --http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446 http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--...
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- dmishe 14y ago
  Oh I see now, there's huge gap between two walls of text, I never scrolled down.
sakopov 14y ago
I don't know if anyone from the Soviet era would tell you that antisemitism did not exist. I don't know why any Russian would tell you otherwise. It always did and it does now. Russians are incredibly discriminatory, especially in bigger cities. When i was around 7 i had adults come up to me and tell me that i am worthless shit because i am half Armenian and half Russian.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- vadman 14y ago
  Same thing happened to me, only it was in Armenia and grown-up Armenians were talking sh*t to me for being a half-Russian kid (think 1st-grade age). I wouldn't say "Russians are discriminatory", just "people from the former USSR are usually discriminatory". From my experience, in both countries, Armenia was a lot worse.
  - 10098 14y ago
    The same thing happened to me, except I'm 100% Armenian, but my native language happens to be Russian, because it was the primarily spoken language in our family. It's just xenophobia.
    - phishphood 14y ago
      its more than that. I remember being bullied and called little jew by kids, by teachers, by school principal, by janitors, by strangers on the subway when I was 7 or 8 because I have soft Rs and curly hair, and I am not Jewish.
  - sakopov 14y ago
    I have a lot of family living in Armenia and i never caught any discrimination when i was out and about in Yerevan. Not towards me or my mother who is Russian. And I'm more Russian-looking than Armenian, with light skin and brown hair. Just my observation. Of course a few visits don't measure up to years living there. So, i can totally see what you described happen there. I wonder if this was always a problem in USSR. Every time i hear my parents talk about the good old days, they seem to describe pretty amazing, peaceful time. Especially the 70s. And now...
dsrguru 14y ago
You might want to add Shin Dong-hyuk's first-hand account of life in a North Korean prison camp. Slavery, starvation, torture, rape, and murder are the norm, and given that it's illegal to be related to someone in prison, a ridiculous percentage of the country's population is enslaved in these prisons. The DPRK's human rights violations go well beyond the oft-cited starvation of the populace. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57556662/north-korean-prisoner-escaped-after-23-brutal-years/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57556662/north-korean-... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216332 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216332 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091962 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091962
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

patrickgzill 14y ago

"It was understood that since Jews represented a minority percentage of the overall population, the university would only accept that percentage into the student body. This was in line with the Soviet Union’s unofficial policy of anti-semitism in the post-Stalin era." So, quotas... are there quotas, official or unofficial, in the USA university system?

benesch 14y ago
US laws essentially encourage unwritten quotas. While actual numbers are prohibited [0], race is explicitly listed as a legal factor to consider in admission. (Supreme court decision; can't remember the citation.) So you can't say "we're letting in 300 of RACE this year." But, when you have 301 of RACE, you can say, "I feel like the number of RACE we've admitted this year negatively impacts the diversity of our student body." [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action#cite_ref-6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action#cite_ref-6
- redwood 14y ago
  It is different, however, to say "we want more of minority X at the expense of the majoity" than to say 'the maximum number of minority X is Y"
whafro 14y ago
At public schools in the US, quota systems are officially illegal (UC Regents v. Bakke), but they are allowed to use admissions to encourage diversity (Grutter v. Bollinger). In general, both public and private schools tend to over-admit minorities (in proportion to their presence in the population), so from the other perspective, are discriminating against majorities.

PRJIUS2 14y ago

Posted last time[1] one of these stories came around, comment applicable here: As a preamble there most definitely existed anti-semitism in Soviet Union. I am a Russian living in the US with Jewish family in Russia. This is a throw away account. With that said, stories of anti-semitism told by Russian Jews in US should not be taken at face value. These folks are subject to a very strong selection bias. Most of them came to the US as refugees who were recognized by the US State Department as being discriminated against for being Jewish in USSR/Russia. Secondly they have interest in maintaining the story anti-seminitism because it validates their narrative and could potentially help their relatives immigrate to the US. Additionally many stories of anti-semitism that I heard were something a non-jew would experience as well but attributed to anti-semitism. As a personal example, I was at first denied admission to a specialized school in very late Soviet period. They eventually let me in because my mother found out that I had the highest score on the entrance exam of any one. Their excuse was that they had to let the kids who were in the paid summer program at the school first and now the class was full. A Jewish kid's parents would have been told they already have too many Jews in the advanced program. Both cases are just the admissions persons asking for a bribe. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047

fusiongyro 14y ago
So, how big a problem is antisemitism in Russia, in your opinion?
- PRJIUS2 14y ago
  I don't know. My well-off Jewish relatives in Russia don't report discrimination, but that I believe is a factor of their position or demeanor and not absence of antisemitism. Since you asked "how big", I would say greater than zero but less than discrimination against certain other groups. These other groups include Chechens, other people from the Caucuses, people from the *stans, and gays. People in these groups are both more numerous and face worse discrimination. Non-Moscow residents are of course officially discriminated against in Moscow (Moscow residency is essentially a second internal citizenship that has been struck down by the courts but still exists in practice). Additionally 50% of the population are subjected to sexism to a significant degree.

deleted 14y ago

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davidroberts 14y ago

I think the US unofficial quotas against Asians are somewhat similar to the Soviet ones against Jews, though not so spitefully motivated. Essentially, it boils down to "We don't want our own kids to have to compete on even terms with these hard-working, incredibly studious outsiders."

EliAndrewC 14y ago
I went to a a magnet school (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology) which does NOT discriminate against Asians in the way that so many colleges do. Last year more than 50% of students were Asian-American. This is what these colleges are trying to prevent, rather than simply wanting to benefit their own children. I'm not sure that I approve of ANY targeted racial goals for schools, though I'm generally in favor of class-based advantages for lower-income applicants.
- praxulus 14y ago
  >I'm generally in favor of class-based advantages for lower-income applicants. I find it hard not to favor this. What's the point of encouraging diversity of skin color if you're not getting much actual cultural diversity? Students at top universities have much more to learn from the experiences of poorer students than they do from other upper middle class students who happen to have darker skin.
milesskorpen 14y ago
I think this issue is a bit overstated — though certainly true to some extent. The most prominent case I've seen made here focuses on PSAT scores and a few other categories which (a) aren't necessarily indicative of success and (b) are biased towards some ethnic groups which prioritize standardized tests. The PSAT in particular is an odd one, since it is mostly irrelevant for any applications -- most Asian-American groups wildly outperform everyone else on the PSAT, but the gap is much narrower on the SAT, which has greater relevance for college admissions, and thus sees more preparation from across ethnic groups.
liber8 14y ago
Can you explain about these "unofficial quotas against Asians"? I'm genuinely curious if this actually exists. Note that less than 5% of Americans are Asian, but: 40% of UC students are asian (and it's higher at Cal, UCLA and UCSD (i.e. the better schools)).[1] 23% of Stanford students are asian (probably higher since that excludes "international" and "decline to state").[2] 26% of MIT students are.[3] In other words, at (a small sampling of) the top schools, Asians are over-represented by anywhere from 400% to 1000%. It just doesn't seem like any sort of quota system exists, looking at the data. [1]http://diversity.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/diversity-accountability-report-and-appendix-0910.pdf http://diversity.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/divers... [2]http://www.stanford.edu/dept/humsci/external/under/demographics.html http://www.stanford.edu/dept/humsci/external/under/demograph... [3]http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N31/admissions.html http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N31/admissions.html

vj44 14y ago

Great post, and a very sad story (with a happy ending). Unfortunately, US (and others) universities applied similar policies (probably, more subtly though) up to 1970: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus...

lesterbuck 14y ago
Harvard and Columbia, among elite US universities, had quotas for Jewish admissions. The entire idea of saving spaces for legacy admissions is apparently one of the tactics used to block ethnic groups from admission. Even Richard Feynman was subject to these quotas, and when he was rejected from Colombia as over quota, he went to MIT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota

dangoldin 14y ago

Thanks for posting. I just sent this to my parents who were also in the Soviet Union until we all emigrated to the US. Here's the response from my mom: Yes, it's typical. The only thing which surprises me that the dad's dad insisted on military in 1970 - there was an antisemitic campaign in military in 1961 and grandfather could not miss it. Usually families knew which colleges accept Jewish kids, which did not and usually there was a "plan B". There was a category of "top" colleges which ran exams in July, while all others ran exams in August, like this guy who failed in top choice in July still had option to take exams in August (like my mom who failed with Institute of mechanics and Optics in July applied for Pedagogical Institute in August, or Alik [her uncle] who was not admitted in Moscow university applied in Kharkov in August etc.) And some people who were fighting actually succeeded (like Alena [her aunt] whom they gave either 4 or 3 in math said she knows well enough to get 5, so the examiner said, "I will have to call a head of the commission", Alena said, "So call him." And started all over again. Vitya, my cousin, had the same experience: they told him his solution is wrong, he gave them another one, and one more, and they also called for the head of admissions, and she showed him the right solution - then he showed her his first solution, etc. So it's a little weird that for this family this all sounded as a surprise. It was every family experience ;-( and one of the reasons of emigration (same situation with jobs.)

cema 14y ago
I mostly concur, except that I am not surprised it could be a surprise for many whose minds were filled with an ideological view of the society they lived in. I remember how difficult it was for me to get used to the idea that I do not live in the best country, the beacon of hope for the world. And I was far from alone. My close friend's mother could not believe it until her son, a straight-A student from K to 12, was given a failing grade at an entrance exam in physics which he knew and understood very well. Oh, it's funny to remember now, by the way. They would give him a problem, then come back before he would finish the solution, say "you did not solve it" and mark it with a minus. Several times he was faster than them. Still, after a while they got a sufficient number of minuses and said good-bye to him. He expected it would be a losing battle, but still was a little shocked at their arrogance.
- 14y ago

dragos2 14y ago

This is a great story. Being from an ex-communist country, I've heard numerous stories like this from my parents and their friends. In my country the mandatory army service law was active until 2007. If you didn't get admitted to a college, after finishing the high-school you would've had to serve 1 year in the Army. You would also have to serve even if you got into college, but only for about 6 months after graduating.

sixofhearts 14y ago

Kudos to your father, Ilya. This is a wonderful, timeless story of perseverance and human desire. The characteristics and settings change, but the spirit is always the same.

gambiting 14y ago

I come from a former Soviet Republic and from everything my dad tells me an image emerges - an image of a land where you could do everything,but you always had to bribe the right people, otherwise they wouldn't do anything. Or they would,but it would take them half a year to process the application. My uncle actually studied at the University of Warsaw and was the best student in his year, while doing engineering. He wanted to go on a foreign placement in the UK, which was a very rare opportunity to see some world. So he applied,studied hard, and fulfilled all the requirements. Only to be told a week before going that sorry but he can't go, because the son of the State Secretary is going instead. He had to complain to some very high-positioned officials to be allowed to go next year, but not without being threatened to be kicked out of academia for life first. Funny thing is, that I am currently studying at the same university in the UK my uncle did his placement 40 years ago. Feeling quite proud of that.

moxie 14y ago

What's interesting is that according to several narratives from those close to the central committee under Stalin, anti-semitic policies in the Soviet Union started from geo-political maneuvering rather than any inherent personal sense of racism. Sudoplatov, an NKVD agent who worked for Beria, wrote in his memoirs that the original Soviet post-war plans were actually to establish a Jewish republic in the Crimea, with the hope that they would be able to use it in order to get money for Soviet post-war reconstruction from Jewish organizations around the world. When they failed to gain world traction with the idea, and were cut off from British/American planning of the alternative (Palestine), Stalin moved to a policy of anti-Semitism (the "Doctor's Plot" and a campaign against "Rootless Cosmopolitanism") so that the Arab world would turn to him instead (in their dissatisfaction with the plans for Israel). One passage from Sudoplatov's memoirs: "Stalin and his close aides were interested in the Jewish issue mainly to exploit it politically, either for use in a power struggle or for consolidating their power. That's how the flirtation with anti-Semitism started in high party echelons...Stalin's efforts after the war were focused on extending Soviet hegemony, first over the countries of Eastern Europe bordering the Soviet Union and then everywhere he was in competition with British interests. He foresaw that the Arab states would turn to the Soviet Union when they were frustrated by British and American support for Israel. The Arabs would appreciate the anti-Zionist trends in Soviet foreign policy...I was told by Vetrov, Molotov's Assistant, what Stalin said: 'Let's agree to the establishment of Israel. This will be a pain in the ass for the Arab states and will make them turn their backs on the British. In the long run it will totally undermine British influence in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq.'"

ims 14y ago
On that note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
- moxie 14y ago
  I was surprised to read about that too. The same guy, Sudoplatov, was involved in that, though, and writes: "The establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Birobidzhan in 1928 was ordered by Stalin only as an effort to strengthen the Far Eastern border region with an outpost, not as a favor to the Jews. The area was constantly penetrated by Chinese and White Russian terrorist groups, and the idea was to shield the territory by establishing a settlement whose inhabitants would be hostile to White Russian emigres, especially the Cossacks. The status of the region was defined shrewdly as an autonomous district, not as an autonomous republic, which meant that no local legislature, high court, or government post of ministerial rank was permitted. It was an autonomous area, but a bare frontier, not a political center."

tebuevd 14y ago

Discrimination was not limited to Jews. Ethnic Russians were the only ones not targeted by the State.

tokenadult 14y ago

Some basic facts about college admission in the United States: 1) Most colleges admit large numbers of students who are officially reported as "race/ethnicity unknown." 2) The definition of "race" categories in current United States regulations is arbitrary, acknowledged by the Census Bureau to be unscientific, does not match categories used in any other country, and has changed several times in my lifetime. 3) "Jewish" has never been an officially regarded category in the United States for tracking data on the issue of college admission, but Jews once faced considerable barriers getting into many colleges. 4) The subset of United States high school students who are college-ready by what courses they have completed during high school has a much different "race" composition from the general United States population. Several of the replies in this interesting thread ask questions about the system in the United States, so I will refer here to the definitive FAQ about "race" in United States college admission, http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/13664... so that those of you who like to look up reliable sources and check facts are able to do that about this contentious issue. The FAQ will have to be revised, of course, after the Supreme Court issues its opinion in a pending case (cited in the FAQ). Full references to the facts listed above can be found in the FAQ. The collection of "Jewish Problems" (very tough mathematics problems reputedly given to Jewish applicants to Soviet universities) by Tanya Khovanova and Alexey Radul on arXiv http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 is directly on-topic for the main submission here. How many of those problems could you solve to get into university?

pm90 14y ago
Ah, Russian problem sets! Brings back fond memories of high school spent desperately trying to crack these tough problems. Although surely not as challenging as the ones listed in the link, these were some of the toughest, yet the shortest problems, and solving every one of them was a challenge which, when completed, let to an inner sense of satisfaction so great, it was intoxicating...and addictive. In India, Russian authors (e.g Irodov, Kratov, Invanov) have a reputation of being incredibly difficult, yet having very elegant problems; while American authors had the reputation of writing long winded 'real-world' problems that took effort to first understand the context of, were illustrated by colorful figures etc (of course there are exceptions).

kungfooguru 14y ago

Not to say that the USSR was not anti-semitic in the 1970s, and after Stalin. But I think a great example to show that the revolution was not about any of that is that Ayn Rand Petrograd State University. A Jewish woman, thanks to the revolution.

qwerta 14y ago

Such quotas were also in USA. Isaac Asimov originally applied to medical university, but was not accepted for being jew. Hi started writing sci-fi instead.

eurleif 14y ago
>Such quotas were also in USA. Are you sure about that past tense? http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-asian-quota-in-the-ivy-league/statistics-indicate-an-ivy-league-asian-quota http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-...
- qwerta 14y ago
  US system is broken anyway. Even asking for racial origin on application form should be illegal. Here in Europe it is banned since Hitler.

CleanedStar 14y ago

I read down to the first picture then got a TLDR sense. I did a find for "Jew" and lo and behold, this was the "surprise" climax of this melodrama. For one thing, before World War II, there was a Jewish quota in US Ivy League schools. Why focus close to home in 1940 USA though when you can hear a yarn from 1970 Uzbekistan, about as physically far from the majority of HN readers as possible? Secondly, before World War II, the center-right, even moderate trope in Europe (and the US) was that the USSR was run by Jews. The typical picture ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterOfTrotsky.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterO... ) of the Red Army, run by Trotsky, and a politburo with Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, as well as others who probably were Jews with converted familiies (Krestinsky). So the right got to bash the USSR with being run by Jews when it was convenient, now they get to bash it for being anti-semitic when that is convenient. They get to have it both ways, shifting from one to the exact opposite depending on the times. Third, after the establishment of Israel, Israel and the USSR came more into conflict as Israel allied itself with the US. Things were not that solid in that regard in 1948, but it became clearer over time, and was certainly clear after the 1967 war. This incident happened after 1967. Jews in the USSR would go to a top flight school in the USSR, get their diploma, then immediately go to Israel or the West and get paid a high salary. In fact, certain parts of the Jewish community in the USSR encouraged this behavior. The USSR had limited resources, why should it spend enormous funds with its top scholastic positions educating Jews who were just going to leave? The reality is this is what the other side demands. That the USSR give free Bachelors and Masters and Doctorates at its best schools, blocking those positions for Russians, and then the Jews who would get those degress would skip town with their free doctorates as soon as they get their diplomas, so as to make big money and build up the West. Where could Jews get free education in the US? I'd like to get a free education at a top school in the US. That doens't have to be paid back, and the recipient would immediately move to China and build up their country. We don't have that now, yet people like to pontificate that the 1970 USSR should have offered that. Also, most right wing Jews seem torn over their discussion of the USSR in two poles. On one pole they'll openly discuss (in English! Not even Hebrew) on Youtube videos and elsewhere how they used the Jewish community in the USSR to subvert and undermine the government. On the other hand, they talk about how crazy these governments were to think that Jews were trying to undermine their governments. They say they were trying to subvert the Russian government, but they can't help to boast in pride, in English even, how they did undermine the government and were successful in doing so. The US interned all Japanese people in the 1940s for much less. Yet the USSR didn't hand a free education to every Jew who wanted a free doctorate from a top university before skipping town, so let's bemoan how bad they had it in a country which no longer exists, in something that happened over 40 years ago...

gopi 14y ago

How is this different from the secret Asian admission quota Harvard and the other elite US universities have?

deleted 14y ago

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vlokshin 14y ago

Wow. Hits very close to home. I was born in St. Petersburg, and my family immigrated to the US when I was 6 years old. My parents are kind, quiet people who weren't risk takers -- the idea that they left everything behind was always bizarre to me. My dad graduated #2 in St. Petersburg for Math/Science (he still has the silver medal for this) but did not get in to the top engineering school. They never gave him a real reason, but he had a Jewish last name. He doesn't seem angry about it, nor does he really bring it up much -- but I can't help but to imagine the risk taker / creator that could've been if he wasn't stomped all over in the soviet days for being Jewish. It's disgusting what decision makers during the soviet regime were able to get away with.

throwmeaway33 14y ago

I'm always suspicious about these second hand stories; especially when they're dramatized like this. For instance he says: "You could apply to one and only one university. If you didn’t get in, you’d be conscripted into the army the following Fall." And then explains how he applied to a second university and then how he was offered to apply to a local university in Tashkent. Just to be clear, I don't disagree with his premise, it's just the whole thing is overly dramatized. My uncle also almost didn't get into MSU because they decided he was Jewish, and my dad was rejected and had to go to a different school. The whole thing was really weird because they decide your jewishness solely based on your last name. (which is sorta black magic) Also, from everything I heard, antisemetism wasn't institutional - ie. directed from top down. I've never heard of the quota thing (if it existed, it was done on a school by school basis). For instance MSU was known for being very antisemitic, while other branches of government were not. You've got to remember that a lot of the revolutionaries were jewish, even Lenin was a jew (sorta).

rewt 14y ago

Story of your father could not describe the whole system. Anyone could dig the NET and find a lot of jewish names in top places of soviet society. Not only jewish but also many many other man who are not ethnic russians.

shn 14y ago

I wonder what is the root cause of anti-semitism? I always thought that anti-semitism is an illness that belonged exclusively to Europe, and they exported this "problem" to Middle East. Now I read that Soviet era, in multiple regions similar problem existed. But why? Do all other ethnics had their own fair share? If not why Jews? Or Jewish people are just more outspoken?

bluekeybox 14y ago
Something I've been wondering about myself... Can't answer your question, but can only point out that you are a bit mistaken to treat Europe and ex-Soviet territories (especially their European part) as two completely separate worlds, since before the Iron Curtain came to exist, they shared quite a bit of common history. More reading about anti-Semitism in that territory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising#Jews http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising#Jews
- shn 14y ago
  I know that answer is not in this forum. However I expect someone may be heard of a good book to explain this. A book based on research an anthropological study but not on sentimental history of the problem. (By the way somebody down voted my question. Isn't this a legitimate question?)
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    I almost downvoted you because you said "Or Jewish people are just more outspoken?" which sounds a bit like "Or are they asking for it?" but I decided it was probably just a communication problem. There are lots of books on this topic. "Why the Jews" is supposed to be good. There's also "Antisemitism Explained" by Dr. Steven Baum, my former psychiatrist, which I would expect to take a deep psychological analysis (but I haven't read it).
    - shn 14y ago
      The book "Why the Jew" seems to address the issue more universal than the other. I'll read the this one. No, I did not intended to say "Or are they asking for it?". However I do not care if people down vote my comments. Thanks.

yurylifshits 14y ago

In US, at the beginning of XXth century Stanley Kaplan had the similar admission problems. This experience motivated him to start Kaplan SAT preparation business. Few decades later it evolved into Kaplan Inc. (includes Kaplan University). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kaplan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kaplan

asveikau 14y ago
> evolved into Kaplan Inc. (includes Kaplan University). And now it's a scam so that the Washington Post Company can receive money from federal student loans.
hncommenter13 14y ago
Article by Malcolm Gladwell on this very topic: http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_12_17_a_kaplan.htm http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_12_17_a_kaplan.htm

hakaaaaak 14y ago

Thanks to the OP for posting this. I want to read it to my kids, so they understand how lucky and spoiled we are. I think the persecution of the Jews in any culture is wrong. And so is the persecution of any religion. I think the freedom of religion, including the right to pray in schools, on T.V. and radio, in government, etc. is a freedom that the U.S. was not only founded on, but what people have died for, and I am grateful for that. I'm glad that things have changed in the former Soviet countries. I wish that things weren't changing for the worse here. I have to put up with people telling me about "separation of church and state", which was never meant to be interpreted as it is today. If you can have atheism practiced in schools and taught by teachers, I should be able to have prayer in schools and religion taught by teachers. That is separation of church and state. No one should tell me what I can or cannot do as long as I'm not impeding others' freedoms and pursuit of happiness. And I put up with my government that: * attempts to restrict our freedoms in the name of protection * tries to act in our best interest, but never actively asks what our best interests are But, we are spoiled. I'll take my every phone call and Google search being scanned by the U.S. over the crap people had to put up with in the Soviet Union before.

mcantelon 14y ago
>If you can have atheism practiced in schools and taught by teachers, I should be able to have prayer in schools and religion taught by teachers. Religion isn't taught in schools because people have different religions (and, within religions, different interpretation of religion). Religion is taught at institutions focused on particular religions (i.e. churches).
goldmab 14y ago
Anti-semitism isn't always about religion. Sometimes it's just racism.
- hakaaaaak 14y ago
  While some genetic characteristics can be considered Jewish, not all Jews have those characteristics, so it could also be considered "anticulturalism". As a Christian and gentile, I don't understand what it is like to be discriminated against on so many levels. Christians have only been persecuted for < 2000 years, and we span the globe in radically different races and cultures. Only certain faiths have as strong tendency to intermarry as Jews (almost always marry another person of faith X)- Mormons and Scientologists come to mind (note: that is the truth, not meant to be a slight against Mormonism).

scrrr 14y ago

Thank you for posting this. I like such stories, even though I have never been to the former USSR. I once was working with an (incredibly skilled) C++ guy who was a former officer/engineer in the Soviet army. He told me similar stories. Apparently one day he had to take an examination. What they did was an army radio transmitter, an AK47 machine gun, and they shoot some holes in it. Then they handed it to him and said: Fix it. Another story he told me was about a friend who was in the submarine navy. Days before his university courses would start they got an order to go on patrol. And then he was underwater for a year instead. Also the stories how new soldiers were assigned to bases thousands of miles away from home, apparently so they don't desert and go home etc. I find all that very interesting. It's so different from my experience in (West-) Germany. Everything was easy in comparison here.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

The next day, the director of admissions met my dad. My dad told him his score, and asked if there had been some sort of mistake. The director simply replied, “There’s been no mistake, but you should understand. We’ve already exceeded our percentage for the upcoming semester.” My dad did understand. He was Jewish. Oh God damn it, not again!

pm90 14y ago

The book "Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century[0]" which details the life of Giorgi Perelman (who solved the famous Poincare Conjecture) gives a detailed account of antisemitic policies extant in the USSR at the time. [0]:http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Rigor-Mathematical-Breakthrough-Century/dp/015101406X http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Rigor-Mathematical-Breakthroug...

Smirnoff 14y ago

As a person born in USSR Russia and currently living in Uzbekistan, I can confirm that college entrance system didn't change much in Uzbekistan: 1. You are allowed to apply to 1 state-sponsored university only. If you don't get in, you're SOL. 2. You need to pass medical examination before you submit your documents. This "Medical Form-86" can be bought for $10. 3. You can buy your way into a university, just like rich kids do for Ivy Leagues in USA. The best change since then is the fact that the practice of administering oral and written exams by each university is GONE :) IMHO this was THE MAIN way to deny admission during USSR times. This happened to both of my parents: a. My mom scored perfect on first 2 exams and scored 1 on the final essay. The university in Russia rejected her appeal. Oh, and did I say she was writing for her high school bulletin and won several state essay competitions? b. Same story with my Uzbek dad. Scored well on Math and Physics just to fail the final oral exam. Ended up serving in Army in Saint Petersburg for a few years. Now concerning discrimination in USSR colleges: I have relatives who are Tatars and Uzbeks and I know plenty of Jewish Russians who had no problem getting into universities during USSR times. I also know a few Russians who thought they got perfect scores but ended up getting a ding. Based on my experience, I'd day everyone was against odds due to corruption and lack of connections.

bahman2000 14y ago

My dad had pretty much the same experience. He was not Jewish. He was not Russian (slavic/blond/blue-eyed) either. Russophilia, xenophobia, cronyism and nepotism were rampant in the former USSR. A "prominent" Muscovite Jew (but otherwise a lousy student) would have been treated better than the most talented Uzbek/Kazakh/Tajik.

petethepig 14y ago

Great story. I live in St-Petersburg and I have to correct you. The third picture is not St. Petersburg University of Telecommunications, it is Grand Hotel Europe — the fanciest hotel you can find here, basically you can tell that by looking at the cars parked in front of it. And this is the building of St. Petersburg University of Telecommunications — http://goo.gl/maps/YRw4Q http://goo.gl/maps/YRw4Q

mk3 14y ago

Good universities meant, the kids of ruling party must be admitted to have good/better careers in apparatus than their parents. This is the main card drawn against people. Some universities had big problem with that like the one who prepared surveillance and contra-surveillance officers, so they switched to admitting only people with no high ranking parents ties back in 80's. As the kids from high ranking officer families were really well known. I also believe there was a lot of ethnicity, and living place (soviet republic you are coming from may shut down the doors into university) discrimination in admission process.

babesh 14y ago

My high school limited any one ethnic group to 45%. This was San Francisco, CA and went on till at least the 90s. Different ethnic groups had different scores to get in. The school district later was sued and the rule is no longer in place.

chimpoutt 14y ago

funny, jews are now very over represented in elite US universities (adjusting for academic achievement). there was a fairly recent ron unz article on this subject and of course azns are strongly discriminated against in a way that is entirely analogous to the historic jewish quotas, but people can only respond by lamely bleating about "diversity"