Major-General Evgeny Feoktistov, Military Commissar of the Khabarovsk Territory, tells about the problems of selecting applicants for military universities

- Evgeny Vladimirovich, you will soon again have to work for many months to conduct professional selection of candidates from among civilian youth to study in military educational institutions. But let's analyze what we've already done. In particular, did the task for selecting candidates received by the Regional Military Commissariat for 2000 differ from the tasks of previous years?

- If you look at the quantitative indicators, the year 2000 can be called a turning point. In the old days, apparently, due to the reduction in the number of military universities in the country and their reorganization, plans for the selection of candidates changed in descending order. A downward trend has been observed since 1996. And only in 2000 there was a turning point, the number of applicants began to grow again. We selected candidates for 73 educational institutions of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and 16 educational institutions of other ministries and departments (universities of the Railway and Border Troops, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FAPSI, the Ministry of Emergency Situations), as well as for Nakhimov, Suvorov military schools, Military Music School, cadet corps and a general boarding school with initial flight training located in Astrakhan.

- If twenty years ago training in an airborne or flight school was considered prestigious, and in the years of post-perestroika confusion, the competition for home front schools increased, then what military specialties are highly valued among today's youth?

- Today there is a rather high competition for the Military Institute of Government Communications (Orel), the Khabarovsk Military Institute of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation and the Faculty of Law of the Military University (Moscow). The profession of a military lawyer has always been prestigious, but the large number of people who want to enroll in VIPS is obviously explained by the fact that an exit admissions committee arrives in the Far East from this university every year. Young men do not have to go to Orel for exams. In the same way, we have a visiting commission from the Civil Protection Academy of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. That's why the competition here is quite high: when we were asked to select 5 candidates, we had five times as many of them. But, unfortunately, only two universities from western regions work in this way. If other military educational institutions also sent visiting admissions committees here, I am sure that many young men would have decided to get other military specialties. So far, most of the candidates we have selected - about 800 people - have expressed a desire to enroll in military educational institutions located in our region. In particular, in Khabarovsk

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military Institute of the Federal Border Service of the Russian Federation, the Far Eastern Military Institute, the Pacific Naval Institute, the Military Automobile Faculty at the Ryazan VAI (Ussuriysk) and the Ussuri Suvorov School. The number of applicants everywhere exceeds the planned selection tasks. But in principle, this situation can be considered normal. It corresponds to the interests of the personnel policy. We assume that the majority of graduates of Far Eastern universities will remain here to serve.

- Evgeny Vladimirovich, I have heard from employees of district military enlistment offices that many young men do not pass the selection process due to illnesses. Here, they say, and the head is golden, and physically prepared well, but because of some illness, the young man will not be able to put on cadet shoulder straps. What diseases, so to speak, are the most common causes of candidate dropout?

- There are two main reasons for rejecting applications for admission to military educational institutions: low academic performance in a secondary school and unfitness for health reasons. A candidate for admission to a military university must have health that corresponds to category " A " - fit for military service without restrictions. If the medical board sets the young man category " B "-fit with minor restrictions or" B-2 " (having these categories, the young man can serve, in principle, even in the Airborne Forces), then the path to a military university is ordered for him. And the most characteristic for conscripted youth can be called diseases of the musculoskeletal system, musculoskeletal pathology (mainly scoliosis and flat feet), as well as diseases of the visual organs (nearsightedness, farsightedness, dichromasia). On average, up to 50 percent of the total number of people who want to enroll in military educational institutions are unfit for health. Well, there are not so many cases when a candidate for admission to a military university who has excellent knowledge is rejected at a medical examination. Today's excellent students are usually not frail bespectacled people, but strong, healthy, physically developed guys.

- Parents of prospective applicants often complain that during the registration of their children's personal files, they have to spend a lot of time and, oddly enough, money to collect all the necessary papers, the number of which, in their opinion, could be half as much.

- Such a problem really exists. Imagine: your personal file should contain a medical examination card, a professional selection card, a statement, a profile, an autobiography, a certificate of current grades for three months, a certificate of physical fitness indicators, a copy of your passport, a birth certificate, photo cards, a certificate from a skin dispensary, and a good dozen more certificates about the results of tests... All this is necessary. But here, for example, entering the Suvorov school, in addition, you must attach copies of the insurance policy, death certificate, if one of the parents died,

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certificates of divorce if the parents are divorced, certificates of guardianship if there is a guardian. Of course, it costs money to certify all these papers with a notary. In addition, not every locality has a notary's office, so you have to go at your own expense, for example, to the regional center. And by and large, there is no need for these papers, because when young men go to enroll, they carry all the necessary documents with them.

Another problem is that now all military educational institutions need special admission. To get it, we send a questionnaire for each candidate to the FSB office in the Khabarovsk Territory. And sometimes it takes up to three months until the admission is given. And then, if the mail also fails, which often happens, and the personal file does not arrive at a particular military institute by the appointed time, then the young man who, for example, spent a week on the train to get from the Far East to the capital's university will simply be sent back as a latecomer. Therefore, here we have to be quick, and the staff of the military registration and enlistment office during this period annually spin like squirrels in a wheel to issue and send personal files no later than May 20, in order to avoid such situations.

- In the past years, some military universities began to practice admitting girls. Has this practice been developed?

- This year, the directive of the General Staff of the Armed Forces concerning the selection of candidates for completing the first courses of military universities did not indicate the selection of girls. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Russia today again turned out to be a country at war, and a warrior is, by and large, a purely male matter. Perhaps there are other arguments. For example, in one of the units of the internal troops stationed in the Far East, there was a case when a female lieutenant, after getting married, gave birth to a child, having received in accordance with the law the opportunity to care for him until the age of three. Then she gave birth to a second, then a third. Almost ten years later, the commander clutched his head when he had to draw up documents for the assignment of this subordinate, whom he, in fact, did not see in the service, to the rank of major.

So today, only young men go to military universities.

- At one time, I chose the school after reading about it on the applicant's page published in Komsomolskaya Pravda. Where do young men get their information about military universities today?

- Unfortunately, now the central civil publications do not publish such information. Only the printed bodies of the Ministry of Defense and regional newspapers, where we apply with such material, help in this. Very scarce funding does not allow most military universities to prepare their own advertising brochures today. Therefore, most of the information is conveyed to high school students by employees of military enlistment offices, who work closely with the departments of public education in the districts, and spend conscript days in general education institutions. So we are constantly engaged in work on military-professional orientation of young men, and its peak falls on the autumn months, when the flywheel of, so to speak, agitation activity turns again. After all, random people are not needed in the army, and in order for a young man to make an informed choice of an officer's profession, you need to talk to him more than once, prepare him for the fact that service is not only romance, but first of all everyday work that requires maximum dedication.

- And what is the average percentage of applicants to military universities from the total number of candidates selected by you?

- As a rule, a third of applicants are enrolled in universities. Not everyone can even become a cadet.

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