It seems that this year does not bode well for one of the oldest universities in the country - the Russian State Agrarian University. K.A. Timiryazev. In 2016, the public managed to defend the training and experimental fields of Timiryazevka, which were supposed to be put under residential development. Now almost forgotten history suddenly again can become actual. However, as a result of the scandal and zeal of the rector of the university Galina Zolina, close to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev, not only agrarian science, but also the rating of Vladimir Putin may suffer.

The situation in Timiryazevka was aggravated on the eve of the New Year, when the Russians were preparing for the holiday, and therefore they did not follow the news much. On December 25 a group of students from Timiryazevka conducted a series of pickets. They demanded that the rectorate leave alone the dean of the Faculty of Agronomy and Biotechnology Alexander Solovyov, who was threatened with dismissal. Two days later, police officers came to the hostel of the university, having started to interrogate the students participating in the picket. As reported by the Interregional Trade Union of Higher School Workers, in the absence of lawyers, the siloviki demanded that the students draw up explanatory notes in which they were to "stipulate themselves and their comrades by recognizing the organization of an unauthorized rally" under the guise of single pickets. " Also, students were threatened with expulsion.

In total, as reported, recently, about 80 scientists were dismissed from the university. Later a representative of the university told Bfm.ru that there were no mass cuts, and the dismissed ones left at their own volition. However, protesters say: among those who no longer work in Timiryazevka, there were people who a year and a half ago were most active in opposing the alienation of the lands belonging to the university with subsequent transfer to commercial development. And that is the essence of the whole conflict.

About the intention to withdraw from Timiryazevka 101 hectares of its territory, where the training and testing fields and breeding fields are located, became known in March last year. To the giant site located in the expensive area of ​​the capital, developers, including scandalous businessman Pavel Ty from the Capital Group, were eyeing Yuri Luzhkov, but then all attacks were repulsed.

This time with the initiative to transfer the land of the university to the RHD Foundation, the Government Commission on the Development of Housing Construction and Assessment of the Efficiency of Land Use. This decision caused sharp criticism from part of the teaching staff, students and the public. Pointing out that the "confiscation" of the land will be destroyed by the Timiryazevsky garden, which has no analogues, and also will not allow the university to prepare agronomists, experts noted: after that the university can be closed. Teachers did not change their opinion even after they were promised in the Ministry of Agriculture 300 apartments in future homes. And the students of the Ministry of Agriculture, Jambulat Hatuov, who came to the university, were ridiculed by the students, offering him to distinguish the beetroot from the sugar beet.

As a result, the conflict around the Timiryazev Academy received a wide public response. Ten former ministers of agriculture wrote a collective letter to Vladimir Putin with a request to cancel the decision on the transfer of land, and in the university itself a meeting was held, which gathered more than 2 thousand participants. Finally, in the spring of 2016, during a "straight line" with the president, a student, Ekaterina Lavrova, asked the head of state about the fate of the university. In response, he assured that he had become familiar with the situation and Timiryazevka would be left alone.

However, it seemed that it was too early to rejoice. In the wake of the scandal at the university, the head was replaced - the place of the departed Vyacheslav Lukomets on the initiative of the head of the Ministry of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev in the status of acting. took Galina Zolina. This decision immediately caused some concern: some said that a person without a profile education can hardly lead an agricultural university, while others pointed to the apparent solidarity of views on the life of Tkachev and Zolina - previously she worked in an agro-complex, and then worked under him. The piquancy of the situation was also added by the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture almost forced Zolin into Timiryazevka by changing the university's charter. In connection with which there were versions - Zolin "dropped" into the university for a reason.

The current situation shows that these assumptions were not entirely unfounded. Over the past time, dissatisfied people managed to get rid of, and the student's protest will surely be stopped - any protests can now be made without any difficulty even under the article. However, the demonstrators can appeal to Vladimir Putin - because he once promised that Timiryazevka will be left alone, and if the lands are still attempted to be withdrawn, it turns out that the presidential word is worthless. It is unlikely that such a disservice in the run-up to the elections will be appreciated.