The same situation takes place in the U.S. sometimes. Kids who are too immature to go to college wind up in universities with all expenses paid. They goof off for a year or two and have no idea what they’re doing.

The problem was exacerbated with my Russian colleagues because the first year of language learning is “make or break.” If you don’t succeed, you’re out. The Russians that made it into the school (and the Moldovans who spoke Russian) were generally older than the rest and therefore they were wiser about the situation.

The “Communist” mindset I’ll be talking about soon is not specifically about Russians. It is a prevailing outlook on life that manifests itself in several distinct ways throughout all Eastern Europe, Romania included.

But if I had to guess in this particular situation, I would say these guys are getting free education and don’t really want to be studying that. Russian whole education system, starting from primary school to post-graduate course is completely free. You would definitely pay much more attention to classes when you know you are paying an arm and leg for them.