"Mr. Nobody Against Putin": How one Russian teacher confronted Kremlin propaganda
CBSN
Right after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Karabash Elementary, like schools across Russia, was ordered to indoctrinate young minds with a so-called "patriotic curriculum." Pasha Talankin, the school's videographer, was assigned to shoot it all, to prove to Russia's government that the school was toeing the line. In:
Right after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Karabash Elementary, like schools across Russia, was ordered to indoctrinate young minds with a so-called "patriotic curriculum." Pasha Talankin, the school's videographer, was assigned to shoot it all, to prove to Russia's government that the school was toeing the line.
But much as he loved his students, Talankin hated the war, and felt trapped. "I love my job, but I don't want to be a pawn of the regime," he said.
Talankin also hated the way his colleagues were forced to parrot the state's propaganda, such as referring to Russia's "special operation" in Ukraine as "de-Nazification." So, he decided he would record everything – not just for the government, but to show the world.
His work became the basis of the documentary, "Mr. Nobody Against Putin." Talankin and the documentary's American co-director, David Borenstein, spoke to "Sunday Morning" in our London office, ahead of this weekend's Academy Awards, where their film is nominated for an Oscar.
"When the teacher had to say Ukraine had taken the path of neo-Nazism and neo-fascism, and we must 'liberate' it, at that moment I understood that I had no moral right to delete this material," Talankin said, "because it is part of the evidence of what's happening in Russian schools today."
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