‘Girls, your great grandmothers were better than you.’ Russian eighth graders study why men should only marry virgins

Did you know that your DNA is composed of genes from your mother, your father, and any other men your mother ever slept with? If you're an eighth grader in Krasnodar, there's a chance you're privy to this scientific anomaly, as it's at a school in the region where students are shown a curious film that makes this claim, along with several others that are likely to blow your mind.

According to the film, the United States is actively corrupting Russia's youth by promoting feminist and LGBT values. As a result, the film argues, the average age at which Russian women become sexually active is falling. “Girls,” the film intones, “learn from your great grandmothers. They were better than you. It's a scientific fact that a woman who sleeps with many guys is a dumpster holding all the genes of all her men.”

Boys get slightly different advice: they're told to date women only if they're virgins. “A man having children with a woman who isn't a virgin is a cuckold,” the film's narrator declares authoritatively. “Women should have just one man in their entire lives. This is how it's always been, and it's how it always will be! Men and women should date only when they've decided to have children.” 

The decision to show this film to teenagers in Krasnodar belongs to a health teacher named Lyatif Bruki. The lesson featuring the film is titled “Reproductive Health: A Component of Individual and Social Health,” and it's coupled with a textbook (published in 2011) that says social reproductive health in Russia today is “unsatisfactory.” The book's authors urge students to create “strong families.” 

The sister of one of the school's pupils told Meduza that a student interrupted Bruki's lesson to ask if showing such films is actually “legal.” The teacher reportedly ignored the question. After the film, the entire class discussed the film.

Georgy Kaishev, the school's principal, told Meduza that he doesn't “see anything criminal” in the film, adding that he lacks the scientific expertise to discuss its claims about genetic inheritance. Kaishev also refused to say if he agrees with the film's assertion that a man should never marry a woman with any past sexual partners.