Russian Doctorates for Sale--Just Bring Plagiarized Thesis

The thriving Russian black market in dissertations—and the crusaders fighting to expose the country’s fake Ph.D.s.

Wow. Buy a faked thesis--plagiarized or not--then bribe the university committee and...viola!...you have a doctorate.

Dissernet is fighting back, but if the collective ethos of the culture doesn't care, it won't matter much. Russia has been termed a kleptocracy for many reasons. Another rock on the pile.

 

Many believe that Vladimir Putin plagiarized his PhD dissertation:

Putin’s Ph.D.: Can a Plagiarism Probe Upend Russian Politics? | TIME.com

 

The article mentions that.

 

From what I've read it was generally expected for KGB officers to earn doctorates at a certain point in their careers. When we have a similar expectation for even low level employees to have an MBA we see people taking similar shortcuts.

When the people who are expected to do something also have the political and physical means to extort something out of the institution that has the ability to give it to them, can we expect a different outcome?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/18/russias-plagiarism-problem-even-putin-has-done-it/

The Mystery of Vladimir Putin

Putin's Thesis (Raw Text) - The Atlantic

 

The only Russian things I trust are Stolichnaya vodka and the AK-47.

Almost everything else, be it cars, airplanes, and degrees, seem to be junk. I'm a big fan of the show Air Disasters, and a distressing amount of Soviet/Russian plane crashes are due to mechanical or other component failure of the plane itself. Most Boeing, Douglas, McDonnell-Douglas, Lockheed, and Airbus crashes are attributable to pilot error.

 

Of course, the cause of the crash matters a lot less if you just happen to be some schmuck sitting in the back.

 

Six shots of one and five of the other, please. You decide which is which.

When I was an officer on active duty, I read MiG Pilot by Viktor Belenko. He was the guy who defected in a MiG25 to Japan. He went into great detail about the Russian military's capabilities and practices. Scared the hell out of me. Not because they were good, but because they were incredibly awful. Making hootch out of fuel. Maintenance guys working until noon, then drinking vodka the rest of the day (while still on duty). The key precept behind MAD (mutually assured destruction) was that both sides were so lethal that neither side would start anything. But these guys had their fingers on the nuclear trigger? Yeesh.

 

Bruce: The only Russian things I trust are Stolichnaya vodka and the AK-47.

John: Well, you're batting .500, Bruce. Attorney Susan Smith's website (Susan A. Smith | Kenyon & Kenyon) reports that she obtained temporary restraining orders in three jurisdictions (including Massachusetts) to stop the importation of counterfeit Stolichnaya vodka. Allied Domecq Spirits & Wine USA, Inc. v. Beira Intl.

 

It's not just a matter of "many believe". He did it. Alas, compared to the level of plagiarism in Dissernet cases, Putin's dissertation (lifting "just" one chapter from an American textbook) is almost honest. Then again, he probably didn't write any of it anyway.
Dissernet blog in Russian recounts one particularly funny case. One relatively obscure member of the Duma (parliament) produced a dissertation by taking someone's work on chocolate and replacing "chocolate" with "beef". Simply replacing, in a text editor, "white chocolate" with "domestic beef" and "dark chocolate with "imported beef". Apparently no one cared that the numbers do not make one iota of sense now. He still has his degree - state regulator refuses to investigate it because the work was defended more than 3 years ago.

 

According to the article, the "chocolate" dissertation was itself plagiarized.

 

Haha, whoops!

Good thing I don't drink anymore!

 

Looks like I may have to give back my University of the USSR doctorate. Maaaannnnnnnnnnn.

 

Russian Universities offer excellent research and education.
Obviously the "Degree Black market" still exists while 100 times better then it was in the 90s. This is hurting legitimate majority who graduated and earned great education.

 

Majority of degree holders did earn their degrees legitimately. Having said that, education and research in social sciences (and many fields in humanities) are a bit of a joke there, and "economic sciences" and law more so, and quite corrupt. Given what Dissernet unearthed, I do not know how you can claim that modern doctorate peddling is "hundred times" better than in the 90ies.

As things stand, if a person with Russian doctorate in business, economics, political science, or law is an academic, I would assume his degree was earned legitimately (though the research quality may be quite poor). If the person holds mid to high level position in public sector, is a politician, or successful businessman (any member of "the elites"), I would assume he bought it. The same, I fear, goes for Ukrainian degrees as well.
It seems that all Presidents of Ukraine earned a doctorate of some kind, except possibly Kravchuk (although that might be just a Google fail on my part). It's not even a noteworthy part of their resumes, for the most part. Among the bunch, Leonid Kuchma has one in Engineering (thesis classified) from his days working in USSR military industry (he was a party boss on a huge plant and, at least nominally, a rocket engineer). All the others have degrees of the suspect kind. Yanukovych famously coined the word "proffessor", misspelling his own academic title. Juschenko was an economist and could have conceivably white his thesis (although I don't think he made any Earth-shattering discoveries). The current guy, Poroshenko, is undoubtedly intelligent, but does not advertise his high degree too much. He holds a PhD in Judicial Sciences, apparently earned in 2002 at Odessa Law Academy. In 2002 the guy was already prominent businessman and politician, and the school is a personal fief of Serhiy Kivalov, well-known for his role in rigging 2004 presidential elections (Poroshenko was fighting it back then), a bulwark of corrupt judiciary.
Again, this is not even news. For rich and powerful, doctorates are just meaningless CV bullets they buy without second thought. It's just a status symbol: a Rolex, luxury car, leggy secretary, a doctorate. The rot trickles down to aspiring cleptocrats as well, so minor official will buy a degree to project power and try to advance.

 

More like Купить билет (Buy a ticket.) No graduate degrees by distance I could find. Plenty on-site, though.

This is the school known previously as Far Eastern National University. Name changed in 2000. Back under the old name the school advertised some interesting distance courses dealing with Siberian culture -- but I guess their distance-ed focus has changed. I looked and distance education appears to be confined to 13 specific bachelor's programs. No grad degrees I could see by distance.

Wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Eastern_Federal_University

J

 

Stanislav
WHat I meant bu 100 time better then 90's isthat in the 90's you could purchase easily a degree "Provedaniy or Provodnoy Diplom" with entry to registry.
It was much easier then to get fake degrees then today.
I wasn't addressing the curriculum. Aldo I wouldn't call the programs today a joke.
Corruption yes, it still exists but a lot of good universities graduate world class educated graduates.
I work with many Russian and Ukrainian graduated Engineer who are absolutely brilliant and capable.

 

There's no question that the Russian higher education system produces many, many people who are supremely well educated. I don't think that's ever been in question. However, if corruption is that pervasive then the question remains, "How is someone to know the difference?" Even equivalency evaluators might have difficulty.