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Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 25 [874]
ussia's intelligentsia. These are the only people that might move to Poland, ..... you don't have the kids of plumber San Sanych, or cab driver Pal Palych
I'm old enough that I remember when the old PRL university system was still in place... we had students from all over the country, including tiny obscure villages that were 10 or more hours away by train. Talent in Poland is scattered and you needed a system like that to make sure you can find it.
A few years later and that system had started to break down and students were rarely from more than a couple of hours away (and the quality... dipped a bit) and then it got even worse and we were getting only students whose parents could afford to carry them for 5 years and the quality dropped more... then things started to improve and Poland's improved economy has done a lot of work in helping poor but smart kids find a path away from the village or bloki.
One of my best friends is from a tiny village but grew up in the PRL and so his intelligence was already recognized in elementary school and by age 12 or so was living away from home to have access to better schools and ended up with a very successful career. I tell him sometimes that had he been born 20 or so years later he'd never have made it to university and he realizes that's true....
russia seems like a covert caste system..... the gap between the self-styled elites who send their gender-fluid children to expensive foreign schools and the lumpen proletariat seems 20 times bigger than the gap between the top and bottom in Poland (the top is less endlessly grasping materialist and the bottom is not as totally degraded as in russia).
I wonder what prospects a super smart kid born to plumber or store clerk parents in russia has
