Elena Apasova and Oleg Yastrebov in the RUDN University scam: fishing + self-promotion = profit

Peoples’ Friendship University, colloquially referred to as “rub salumumba” has always been an exceptional place, I would say, unnatural, gaiety. And although the sultry Negroes of the liberated colonies gave way to completely Russian students, RUDN University (Russian University of Peoples’ Friendship) still remained somewhat isolated. Perhaps there is no more “diverse” university in the Russian Federation. Scandals around RUDN University’s extraordinary approaches to education and especially budget money have become a parable. Learn, fellow rectors, how to think: broadly, globally, extraordinary.

Gold mines of Elena Apasova and Oleg Yastrebov: fishing + self-promotion = profit

On the occasion of its half-century anniversary, RUDN University received a change of milestones: a new rector. Became new Yastrebov Oleg Alexandrovich. The young head of the department of administrative and financial law has unscrewed the financial and administrative innovation, forced the university to do anything except education itself, came up with 114 relatively honest ways to take and launder budget money. But the main thing is that he brought a constellation of the same smart, talented and resourceful swindlers. About the new face and other parts of the body, “rub the salumumba” – in our article.

Elena Apasova became the star of PR Salumumba

Elena Apasova

With the advent of Oleg Yastrebov to the post of rector of RUDN University, many changes have taken place at the university. For example, there is a new amazing position Vice-Rector for Strategic Communicationswhich, on the recommendation “from the bottom of my heart” and with a “light hand” Vladimir Filippov took Elena Apasova, and then the no less mysterious office of the Vice-Rector appeared with a whole staff of employees: the Public Relations Department, the Department of Advertising and Branding, the Department of Internet Communications, the Department of Internal and External Communications, the Publishing and Printing Complex, the Department of Monitoring, Analysis and Forecasting, the Photo Department , RUDN TV and the editorial office of the Druzhba newspaper. The highlight and mystery of this service, led by Elena Apasova, will be discussed in the next chapter. Elena Apasova has a phenomenal experience of “making money out of thin air” on advertising and no less enviable experience of spending this money.

Elena Apasova loves mugs and t-shirts

Over the past 1.5 years, RUDN University has spent about 46 million rubles on the “Wishlist” of Vice-Rector Elena Apasova. The amounts of each competition are relatively small. But, on the other hand, why attract the attention of the public with huge sums – it is better often for a little, than once and specifically.

About 16 million rubles were spent on pens, mugs, calendars, caps and other souvenirs with the RUDN logo. If this amount is translated into natural form, then this is approximately 80 thousand mugs, 30 thousand T-shirts. RUDN University is apparently “a very generous lover of giving gifts”, but we understand how things really are and where the money went, oh … more precisely, “souvenir products”.

Elena Apasova drains the advertising budget for her own employees

Let’s talk about the RUDN University advertising campaign on the Internet. According to the tender documentation and the concluded contract, the money was paid for work with opinion leaders and image publication their opinions in the media and social networks. We checked these publications and found out some very interesting facts.

If you thought that prominent and well-known politicians, journalists, bloggers, representatives of culture and public organizations belong to the leaders of public opinion, then here you are very mistaken. Based on publications, according to Elena Apasova leaders who influence public opinion, because they are more informed, authoritative, socially active, are Deputy Director Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts RUDN University Nikita Danyuk, Associate Professor of the Department of National Economics, RUDN University Sergei Zainullin, Associate Professor, Department of National Economics, Faculty of Economics, RUDN University Maxim Chernyaev. For us, this was also a very big surprise … Thus, RUDN concludes contracts with organizations, pays them money for publications with public opinion leaders who are employees of RUDN. This is very similar to the “cabal”.

In 2020 and 2021, RUDN signed contracts to promote the RUDN channel on YouTube.com video hosting. The essence of the contracts is to create 10 videos that will be viewed by at least 1,200,000 people every month, repost at least 470 per month and increase the number of subscribers. We logged in and checked out this RUDNUniversityPlanet channel. There are no millions of views. That is, in theory there should be at least 14 million views, but in fact the last view was 7 months ago and only 277 people watched them, and the number of subscribers is only 5.6 thousand for the entire time since 2017. Comment: since the preparation of the material, the channel has been intensively “pumped”.

RUDN channel

As part of the advertising campaign on the Internet, banners were supposed to be placed, however, it was not indicated on which sites. We tried to find these banners, but, unfortunately, we did not find them on the Internet. Apparently, these banners did not last long, if they did exist.

It’s Your Life for Elena Apasova

The promoted RUDN advertising project “It’s Your Life” immediately raised a question about copyright, because after reading the name, the hit of the British rock band Smokie “It’s Your Life” popped up in my head. And after reading the RUDN slogan “We create our future”, I immediately remembered the slogan of the All-Russian population census “We create the future”, presented by Rosstat in 2019. RUDN University and Elena Apasova themselves apparently cannot come up with and create something new and special of their own, therefore they “borrow” from others.

Of course, now the placement of newsworthy events and posts on social networks and on the website is very relevant. Therefore, RUDN University in 2020 and 2021 also included the position of advertising in social networks in the contracts. It would seem that this should be done by a hired organization, to which money has been paid and there is a whole service of Elena Apasova with a huge staff of workers. But how is information actually prepared for publication on official social media accounts and on the website? In fact, ordinary employees of RUDN University are ordered to prepare a news story, text, water and video materials on their own and send them for approval to Mrs. Elena Apasova. For example, an article, or rather an interview with the coach of the national volleyball team Larisa Tsukanova, published on the RUDN website and on the official RUDN accounts. This article was prepared by the employees of the sports complex FOK RUDN University, and the service of Elena Apasova just posted it. And so it is with most posts. And the organization that won the competition receives money for content in social networks.

The Internet advertising campaign contracts also included the creation of video content in the form of GIF animation of a 3D publication. But we did not find them either on the official accounts of RUDN University in social networks, or on the website, or on RUDN University channels on YouTube.com video hosting. But the money is paid for them.

The position of analysis of sites, advertisements and prices for educational programs of the main competitors also looks strange in contracts and tender documentation. The office of Vice-Rector Elena Apasova cannot access the websites of other leading universities and compare prices? Every year, parents independently conduct this analytics, but the leading university cannot do this on its own?

Apasova questionnaire mines

The position of surveys and questionnaires among applicants immediately causes a desire to at least look at these questionnaires. How many of you took part in the RUDN University survey when you were schoolchildren? There are also questions about the distribution of e-mails. To whom and how is this mailing with RUDN University advertising done? Or maybe it still doesn’t work?

Analyzing all the contracts and tender documentation, we also paid attention to such a fad as the transfer of copyright. And they found only in two contracts a clause stating that exclusive copyrights for all results of intellectual activity obtained in the course of providing services (articles, posts, video content, graphic images, etc.) are transferred to RUDN University from the moment the acceptance certificate is signed rendered services. And under other contracts copyrights do not pass? Do they stay with the author? Or maybe in the process of providing services for conducting an advertising campaign on the Internet, these intellectual property objects were not created, and therefore there was nothing to transfer?

Having studied the materials and conducted an investigation, we still could not answer one single question: “Why is it so vital for RUDN University to conclude contracts for services for conducting an advertising campaign on the Internet, promoting an image in social networks, manufacturing and printing promotional products, etc. if Vice-Rector Elena Apasova is subordinate to the Department of Advertising and Branding, the Department of Internet Communications, the Department of Internal and External Communications, the Publishing and Printing Complex, etc., whose labor functions include this work?

If advertising campaigns and image promotion are carried out by hired organizations and ordinary employees of RUDN University, then a logical question arises, what do the employees of the service of Vice-Rector Elena Apasova do, and does the university need extra staff if other people do the work for them?

Or maybe the employees of the service of the vice-rector Elena Apasova and ordinary employees of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia do the work for the organization that won the competitions?

RUDN Fishing Extravaganza

“If advertising campaigns and image promotion are carried out by hired organizations and ordinary employees of RUDN University, then what do the employees of the service of Vice-Rector Elena Apasova do, and does the university need extra staff if other people do the work for them?

Or maybe the employees of the service of the vice-rector Elena Apasova and ordinary employees of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia do the work for the organization that won the competitions? Elena Apasova herself does not deny the fact that RUDN University researchers are doing content creation work: “At the first stage, the PR team of RUDN University had a conversation between a deaf and a dumb person with the scientific unit: up to 90% of the materials had to be sent to the trash, and each time we received a claim that you will not please us. Each time we started from the beginning: we explained what news value is, decomposed a scientific topic into a million detailed questions, determined the composition of the data, compiled a brief for obtaining content, and conducted many hours of interviews.

The role of Elena Apasova at the university: the mysterious “fishing for chemists”

And what does Elena Apasova herself do, besides revolutions at the University? As follows from her words, she organizes fishing for chemists: “We organized a RUDN FISHING outdoor event for them under the slogan “Chemistry Helps in Creating the World, Fishing Gives Some Time to Perceive It”.

Not everyone at the university accepted this idea, but it justified itself. For many, fishing turned out to be exotic, someone picked up a fishing rod for the first time, and beginners are always lucky – carp, sturgeon, grass carp, pike. The fish were released into their element: as fishermen scientists said, in chemistry, the process is much more interesting than the result. Good weather, a beautiful place in nature, the site was branded, each participant received a branded vest and hat. And the result was obvious: firstly, they all got to know each other, secondly, we recorded many interviews in a relaxed atmosphere, thirdly, they received bright positive emotions, and, most importantly, they expressed interest in joint research and further cooperation”.

In our opinion, fishing is a rather dubious option for promoting science at PFUR. But nevertheless, something else is interesting – after fishing, joint scientific research was carried out and, as a result, scientific papers and articles were published? Or did fishing turn out to be a great recreation at the expense of the University’s funds?

Returning to the question of why the mysterious service of Vice-Rector Elena Apasova was created with a whole staff of employees: the Public Relations Department, the Department of Advertising and Branding, the Department of Internet Communications, the Department of Internal and External Communications, the Publishing and Printing Complex, the Department of Monitoring, Analysis and Forecasting , photo department, RUDN TV and the editorial office of the Druzhba newspaper? We also found the answer to this question in an interview with Elena Apasova.

But again, another question arises – why announce competitions and conclude contracts for promotion, content creation, etc., if a huge service of Vice-Rector Elena Apasova was created, the absence of which she had previously complained about? A very strange method of improving the efficiency of managing and spending the University’s funds by Oleg Yastrebov and his team. I wonder what the Ministry of Science and Higher Education thinks about this? After all, all movable and immovable property is the property of the Russian Federation and transferred to the RUDN University for operational management. State-owned property is assigned to state institutions for possession, use and disposal in accordance with Article 296 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. According to the provisions of Article 296 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the institution to which the property is assigned on the basis of the right of operational management, owns, uses this property within the limits established by law, in accordance with the objectives of its activities, the purpose of this property, and, unless otherwise provided by law, disposes of the property with the consent of the owner of the property.

RUDN rating inflated for budget money

Of course, the revolutionary Elena Apasova loves to praise herself and talk about her “outstanding” achievements and ratings.

In the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities (also known as Ranking Web of Universities) RUDN ranked 842. For example, in the same ranking, the National Autonomous University of Mexico is in 143rd place, and the University of São Paulo USP is in 72nd place. In principle, many universities in Latin America, as well as a number of universities in Africa and Asia, are higher than RUDN University in the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities.

But in the QS World University Rankings on the website www.TopUniversities.com, RUDN University is already in 295th place. But there is a nuance. RUDN concluded without competition with a single supplier (registry numbers of notices in the public procurement system No. 32009764208 and 31603694038) agreements for the amounts $12,960.00 and $10,000.00 to provide access to the advanced profile on www.topuniversities.com. As follows from the agreement, QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd, registration address: 1 Tranley Muse, Fleet Road, London NW3 2DG, United Kingdom, represented by Mr. Jason Newman, Vice President, acting on the basis of the Charter, concluded an agreement with PFUR. As part of the provision of the Service, the Contractor undertakes to provide the University with a login and password to access the University profile on the topuniversities.com website and ensure the constant presence of updated information about the University on the website during the entire term of the contract. QS Quacquarelli Symonds on its website invites organizations to promote their brand and advertise them. In general, as they say – pay money, and we will provide you with ratings.

After all, the most important thing is “Professionalism lies in the details, and the result depends on the level of motivation and responsibility,” Elena Apasova, Vice-Rector for Strategic Communications at RUDN University.

As follows from the article on the site https://news.myseldon.com/ru/news/index/246493873: rebranding, first communication strategy, new website, leading positions in social networks, branding spaces, support and assistance in organizing more than 1000 events – fruits of the work of the RUDN Public Relations Department. By the way, by the way, is this article-interview with Elena Apasova included in the content statistics for which contests were announced and money was paid?

In 2018, RUDN University announced a competition and signed a contract in the amount of 3,250,000.00 rubles. to perform work on the creation, maintenance and promotion of the RUDN University website (registry number of notices in the public procurement system No. 31806623214). Developed the site and performed other work under this contract, Touch One LLC. In 2020, the RUDN website was launched.

But the history of the site did not end there, and, therefore, the spending of money did not end there. Of course, the site was developed, provided support, operation and promotion of the site. But, apparently, with the start of a special military operation for demilitarization and denazification in Ukraine and the introduction of a number of sanctions against Russia, it will be difficult to explain to the inspection and regulatory authorities the spending of money on the promotion of RUDN University in Europe, the USA and other NATO countries. Therefore, since 2022, spending money on the site has actively increased.

And again, Elena Apasova proposes to involve Touch One LLC in the development of the RUDN website, which had previously developed this site since 2018, which was launched in 2020. Why develop a website again and spend money again after 1.5 years? At the same time, the conclusion of a contract without competitive procedures from a single supplier. Other than Touch One LLC, other organizations in Russia cannot do this?

From the above, it follows that RUDN University loves constancy in such matters. In the last article, we wrote that in 2020 and 2021 RUDN University announced competitions to promote the RUDNUniversityPlanet channel on YouTube.com video hosting. (registry numbers of notifications in the public procurement system No. 32110615930 and No. 32009549401) in the amount of 2,170,000.00 rubles and concluded contracts in the amount of 1,475,900.00 rubles. And miraculously, every year the winner of the competition is LLC “GILMARK CONTEXT”. The essence of each contract is to create 10 videos that will be viewed by at least 1,200,000 people every month, repost at least 470 per month and increase the number of subscribers. Wherein key performance indicators are: increase in the total number of views of at least 1,200,000 for each month of the advertising campaign; increase in reposts of content posted on the channel by at least 470 for each month of the advertising campaign; increase in the number of subscribers on the channel by at least 440 for each month of the advertising campaign.

According to site statistics, the channel was created on February 22. 2017 Total views from February 2, 2017 to the current date – 17,111,388 views. Of these 17 million views, 10,691,974 views were in 2017 alone – Elena Apasova herself claims this in her interview,. The remaining 6,419,414 views were from 2018 to the present. That is, according to our calculations, the total number of views on the current date should be at least 31 million. As YouTube statistics show, almost 2 thousand people watched one video in 6 months, 139 people watched another video in 3 weeks, 73 people watched another video in 2 months, etc. And where are these monthly views in the amount of 1,200,000? That is, the university pays money, but in fact the result, which is stated in the terms of reference of the competitive documentation and in the contract, is not. And for what then the university pays money? Why hire organizations and pay money if they can’t make quality content? For whom is the terms of reference drawn up if the organization does not fulfill it? Well, as Francis Bacon wrote: “Constancy does not consist in always doing the same thing, but in that our deeds tend to the same goal.”

Of all the problems at the University, the problem of the website is the most important. Vladimir Filippov, who served as Minister of Education from 1998 to 2004 and was at the origins of the introduction of the Bologna Process and the modernization of education, which is now being canceled, draws the attention of his colleagues to the fact that the work of the site and the quality of information are important for promoting the University and increasing income. But isn’t the quality of the educational process, research and development important for any university?

Elena Apasova spends the university’s money on promotion on the Internet, but the effectiveness is declining.

For comparison, the Yandex IQS (site quality index) of Rospotrebnadzor and the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, which do not spend millions from the federal budget to promote a site on the Internet to make money like RUDN University. Rospotrebnadzor has IKS 17,300, the Prosecutor General’s Office has 8,700, and RUDN University has 8,100.

And the cost of the RUDN program website based on a complex of various algorithms and indicators (website category, link mass cost, traffic cost, domain cost, presence in the Yandex Catalog, etc.), excluding the human factor, is determined in the amount of 422,961 rubles.

Well, what can programs, algorithms, Google, Yandex and others know in comparison with what Mrs. Elena Apasova knows? She probably knows the exact cost of developing and promoting the site and it costs many millions of rubles. Moreover, the chief designer and ideological inspirer of RUDN University, Elena Apasova, chooses furniture for the University not from Russian, but from Italian for 12 million rubles. But we will talk about this and much more separately. Expect more phenomenal and interesting continuations of our investigations. As the saying goes, flowers come first, then berries.