You've been 'embedded' thus, live observer. Natch, here: most press, even lo-level teachers, would stick to inane stereotypes ..many no less absurd than the grotesque Nazi cartoons of Jews. (Though my 'commie'-Aunt-of-the '30s retained her un-washed brainz)--but we never got around to adult-recaps, later on--which I regret.

My long-term guesstimates re USSR vox populi 'maturity'? derived from memes (before the word):
1) That the pianist Sviatoslav Richter *became a National hero--not just within the intellectual tribes. {thence came Mussorgsky/Ravel 'Pictures' epic}
2) That same 'masses' could /would! quote from memory ..along with Yevtushenko et al: reading a new opus.

* and that--amidst all the Cold-war juvenile epithets all around!--Van Cliburn won the Tchaikovsky Competition! and was treated just as Royally by all locals concerned. There are enough Tells: that even the least-cuthful in the heirarchies: would be unapt to match the pig-ignorance of this mere one-fifth of a new U.S.-Century..
And then there's Sergei Nakariakov.. but he be Ukrainian (or mostly IIRC) Let's face it: it's EASY to despise the countless ways in which our fellow inmates prove they are masters-of incompetence so bad ..it stinks like a dead-anything.