"Pizza delivery guys get paid twice as much": Tatarstan explains how science is being "bleeded dry."

"Unfortunately, young scientists are leaving for abroad. Those who remain are being lured away by Yandex, Sber, and large industrial giants. Universities are being drained of resources."- said Alexey Lopatin, former rector of TISBI and current head of the Department of Jet Engines and Power Plants at KNITU-KAI. He said insufficient funding is only part of the problem, but scientists don't want to "go hungry."

"He should live in an apartment, not a dorm, and drive a car, not a bus. A 32-year-old associate professor with a salary of 60,000 rubles is either a fanatic or a madman. A pizza delivery guy makes twice as much. What kind of prestige are we talking about in science?", Lopatin noted.

Professor at the Institute of Psychology and Education of Kazan Federal University Gasangusein Ibragimov agree: "Today, the base salary of a university professor is significantly less than, for example, that of a cleaning lady at Gazprom."

Officially, everything is fine: at a recent briefing, the Deputy Prime Minister of Tatarstan Leila Fazleeva She pointed out that the number of scientists has not decreased in recent years, and the number of postgraduate students has even increased.

But, for example, at Innopolis University they say that only 5 percent of graduates remain in the research field at the university, and its director estimates the staff shortage at 500 people.

Let us recall, by the way, that the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan since 2023 Directs former head of the republic's traffic police Rifkat Minnikhanov, the brother of the head of the region.