- I’ve seen your recent TV interview with Vladimir Legoida. You described yourself as a person who always moves forward, but at different speeds. What’s your speed at the moment?

- I believe, it’s moderate.

- Have you been forced to hit the brakes or was it your own choice?

- Each age has its own speed. When you are young, you never stop hurrying. You seek to reach your goals as fast as possible. As you grow and mature, you begin to control yourself so as not to hastily overlook something very important and crucial in life. So, self-control comes in handy!

- When did you become aware of that?

- Really aware? When I turned thirty-five. I started looking back on the past. Up to that moment, I had lacked any real understanding of what I was doing and where I was going and why. In other words, I was making great plans for the distant future. From where I am today they look funny and naïve.

- It seems unlikely that you’ve dreamed of becoming a government minister since childhood?

- That’s correct. I never dreamed of becoming one. I wished to see the world and meet interesting people. All these plans of mine began to quickly materialize. As a student at the choir conductors department of the Moscow State Institute of Culture I traveled a lot about the country with folklore expeditions and met wonderful old people - our babushkas and dedushkas. The things I learned and heard then were very important for me at a certain stage.

- Though you prefer moderate speeds, we’ve been moving too fast to miss the stop called Bugulma.

- Yes, that’s the place where I was born. We moved to Moscow when I was still three years old. My memories of Bugulma are few and fragmented. It was there that I learned to read. My granddad taught me. He spoke several foreign languages. At a certain point, he even tried to study Hindi. In his younger years, he was an active participant in Russia’s revolutionary events. Back then, he served in the army in Turkestan, chasing the Basmachi – anti-Soviet rebels…

On the way to the pre-school childcare center, my granddad used to point to shop signs or Soviet banners and posters on the streets and asked me to read them. I was a fast learner. My recollections of this are vague, but my parents swear that all this happened precisely this way.

My earliest memories go back to the age of six.

- In other words, the moment you started going to school?

- I started going to school when I was five and a half. My sister Irina, who is four years my junior, got sick quite often so our mother had her hands full looking after both of us, so I was sent to school early to stay out of the way. Our home was at the junction of Moscow’s outermost circular highway MKAD and Kashirskoye Shosse. For many years, my father worked at the main research center of what is now Gazprom. In 1964, we were given an apartment in a nearby community of gas industry employees, and my mother still lives there.

My school was not special in any way, not an elite establishment by any means, but we had great teachers. Many of them are still alive. I remember all of them and I really love them.

- How did you manage to get your high school degree just short of your 15th birthday?

- First of all, as I’ve already said, I started going to school early. Secondly, I skipped one year literally jumping from the third grade to the fifth. School was easy for me, but I won’t say that I really enjoyed going there. I always liked to learn something new, though. For instance, I graduated from the Diplomatic Academy when I was 47. By that time, I had already defended a doctorate in history and had obtained the title of professor along with the position of chief of the religious studies department at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

One day a clever plan popped into my head and I rushed to share it with my dad. I asked him, “What if I passed the exams for the next grade ahead, and then took that whole year off to spend with my grandma in Georgiyevsk?” I really liked to go and stay with her during the summer. Russia’s southern Stavropol Region with its warm climate would be good for my health. Just as my sister Irina, I often suffered from sore throats until I had a tonsillectomy. My father liked the idea. He went to the local school supervisory board and got their approval. So, I was then tested in all subjects mandatory for fourth-graders. I had prepped myself for the tests well enough and passed them all.

However, my cunning scheme instantly came crashing down. Instead of enjoying a year-long vacation, I was sent to the fifth grade!

- Did this ‘injustice’ hurt your feelings?

- I joined a class where I met wonderful boys and girls and I’ve never regretted this twist of fate. We made great friends and still keep in touch. Over the past five years, we’ve meet every three months. It’s turned into a great tradition.

I was a good student and scored only good or excellent marks in almost all subjects. Physics was the only one I found difficult to cope with somehow at a satisfactory level. It was not my cup of tea, I must confess.

- Was it your decision to apply to the Institute of Culture right after graduation?

- No. Quite a few 14-15-year-olds have the right to choose. Perhaps, there are very many of them, but that was not my case. My father, whom I adored and respected immeasurably, made the decision. We might have arguments and discussions about various things, of course, but he had the final say, as a rule.

You may remember that getting a second university degree during Soviet times was extremely difficult, in fact practically impossible. Some extraordinary circumstances were required. My father ruled that first, I had to become a choir conductor and then, when I got my head together, I would be able to decide what to do next in my life. My father had a mathematician’s mind and he knew very well that it was highly unlikely that I would remain a music teacher for the rest of my life.

I don’t feel an iota of regret that I applied to the Institute of Culture. There I met excellent teachers and made new friends… As I’ve already said, I regularly meet with my former classmates. The same happened to my fellow students at the institute. We, eight people from our group, have been friends for 43 years. Forty-three! A whole lifetime.

- Your father was a scientist, right?

- Not only was my father good with theories, he also was equally skillful when it came to practical matters. He worked in the oil and gas industry, making calculations crucial to the development of Siberian oil and gas fields. His first job as a post-graduate student was in what today is Tatarstan’s oil company Tatneft. Then he was transferred from Bugulma to Moscow.

My dad passed away in January. He was advanced in years – 86. It was a colossal loss for everybody who knew him. And for me, of course…

- Your profession of a historian – was it your father’s choice?

- No, when I made this decision, I had to use my head. It would be rather hard for me to explain logically what exactly attracted me to it. To make the long story short, I was a student at the evening department of a teachers’ training institute and at the same time taught history to high school students in Moscow. In 1985, I obtained my university degree and applied for a post-graduate course at the Institute of History within the USSR Academy of Sciences. My intention was to join Viktor Danilov’s group. The choice was quite conscious. He was a great authority on Russian village history. Back at the institute, I took an interest in the subject of the famine in the Soviet Union during the early 1930s, which remained largely obscure. In the end, though, I began to conduct research under the guidance of Georgy Kumanyov, a specialist on the history of the Great Patriotic War. He was my mentor.

Life guided me along a different path. I am certain that nothing is accidental. Everything was predetermined by my guardian angel. This is how I focused on the place of the Russian Orthodox Church in the policy of the Soviet state in 1943-1948. I spent 26 years on the subject and it was the happiest time in my life.

- Then? Not now?

- Our dialogue today is open and honest, without any omissions and understatements, isn’t it? Then I should say without false modesty that I have something to be proud of professionally. To begin with, it’s the collection entitled The Russian Orthodox Church. The 20th Century. Everything may be forgotten, but this book published in 2009 will live on. It was a colossal piece of work. I delved into a totally unfamiliar subject nobody had ever probed into before. Also, doing research within the Academy of Sciences is a pursuit that has no equals in terms of the joy and the feeling of self-realization you get. I spent 16 years in archives to collect unique material. I’ve had no time to summarize it yet, though. It is to be hoped that someday I will pass it on to my own post-graduate students…

In 1991, Yaroslav Shchapov invited me into the Center of the History of Religion and Church he had founded, where I moved up the entire ladder from junior research fellow to the center’s chief.

And in 2002 I embarked on a teaching career.

I can say that I have some dreams that have not been accomplished yet. I would like to write about Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov). My previous attempt was unsuccessful. I failed to accomplish what I’d originally planned. I did publish a book called The Russian Orthodox Church and the Second Vatican Council, but that’s not what I had originally hoped to achieve. I was literally drowning in the collected material. The essence remained unidentified. I hope that my second approach to this subject will be more successful.

- Do you keep writing?

- There was a time when I published eight or nine articles a year. But I’ve written nothing since the moment I became a government minister. For several reasons. My tight schedule is one. Secondly, a researcher’s work requires a special state of mind. I’ve not lost the desire to write …

- Was it easy to move to a civil service job?

- It was sheer chance.

- But as you say nothing in life happens without a reason?

- And still… In 2010, the process of merging academies began. The old-time scholars I’d worked side by side began to quit and then to leave this world. I reacted painfully to this. I felt that a great injustice was being committed. My inner motivation was gradually waning. I began to lose interest in work. Back then, the Russian government’s department of culture opened the position of a deputy director in charge of the nationalities and religious polices. I was invited to take it. For six months, I remained hesitant, wondering if I should accept or decline the offer. In February 2012, I eventually agreed.

In the autumn of the same year, the presidential staff created a department for public projects. At the beginning of 2013, I was transferred there to serve as deputy chief.

The slightly less than four years have been a wonderful time. The job I was doing was familiar and clear. In a sense, it was somehow linked to what I had been doing before. In-depth analysis in the field of education with a certain emphasis on culture, literature and the arts. I liked everything.

- When was the prospect of a government minister’s position mentioned for the first time?

- In 2016. I hoped that the actual appointment would follow not so soon and that I would have more time to get ready, I mean to brace myself psychologically, above all. However, as you may understand, the decision was made regardless of the way I felt back then. There was a job that had to be done. All doubts had to be brushed aside.

Let me say once again. Everything in life is predetermined. This means that all previous events lead up to this scenario. I’d worked at school, conducted research, then did teaching again, tried my hand at being a manager… Apparently, all those were stepping stones leading to the definitive challenge. I heeded the challenge and accepted it. In such situations, many people may walk on by without getting the message addressed to them.

- You’ve become the first woman ever to head the ministry of education… Incidentally, how old is your ministry?

- It was established in 1803. I can’t see anything surprising in the fact all of my predecessors were men. You should remember what a woman’s role in the past was. My advice to you is to read books by Professor Lyubov Denisova on this subject…

But believe me, gender was the last thing on my mind when I took over.

- Have your colleagues ever made you feel like crying?

- Do I look like a crybaby? I’ve never been one. It’s hard to make me cry, unless I take the liberty myself. That’s a joke. Seriously, I seldom well up with tears in my eyes. This may happen in a moment of despair, when it’s impossible to change anything.