President Vladimir Putin’s choice of Olga Vasilyeva as Russia’s education and science minister is proving to be one of his more controversial cabinet appointments, at least for the country’s human rights activists and some representatives of religious minorities.
Vasilyeva, historian of the Russian Orthodox Church, wrote her doctoral dissertation on Soviet state policy toward the church during 1942-48, when dictator Josef Stalin ruled the Soviet Union.
In late June, while she was still working as deputy chief of the presidential directorate for public projects, Vasilyeva was quoted as saying during an address to a youth forum that the most important thing for …read more
Source: Voice of America