We Interviewed 1,700 Russian and Foreign Students. What's on their Minds? It’s Unbelievable! Or is it a Reason to Better Understand and Find Out

The aim of the research was to study the cognitive responses to a number of social and political issues of Russian and foreign students studying in the Russian Federation (Moscow). We tested ideas, feelings, moods, imagination, and reaction abilities in responses to non-standard questions that go far beyond the content of the formalized university system of education and training. The questions were related to those areas and subjects that are widely discussed in the media and find their way to the students’ minds, still weak, but ardent. Their answers are the reaction of the new generation of students to the circumstances and conditions of their involvement in the understanding of their future and present of the Russian Federation, their preferences in determining the best country in the world, attitudes to the politicians, leaders and institutions. The results of our research showed that 71.5% of the respondents from among the Russian students would like to move or possibly move to another country and only 20.5% would stay or would not move under any circumstances. There is also a significant difference between our data and data from other sources, both domestic and foreign, regarding answers to such questions as: what government or social institution of the Russian Federation do you trust more? Which President (head of state) do you trust more? Russian and foreign students answered the above and other questions. No matter how frightening these data are for the official world, no matter how damaging they may seem to Russia's reputation and image and no matter how critical and suspicious we may be of the survey results, we felt it necessary to carefully consider and analyze them. We suggest our own version of the analysis and explanation, debatable, in any case. The totality of the study results is the basis for the updates not of the relevant but of the conceptual nature of understanding, especially by the structures and social - political process participants engaged in the development of the youth policy, and for the analysis of the dynamic changes in the consciousness and behavior of today generation of youth and students.