In early 2026, new ads appeared where students openly said they worked at a drone factory, like a sixteen year old girl named Darina who bragged on camera about making 150 thousand rubles a month starting next year. Another second year student named Alexander claimed he already makes 150 thousand, and another guy said his father called him a real man after he started working on drone production. These videos were archived under the name "Lotkia", which is how Alabuga has been coding its combat drone production for years. The ads showed huge workshops with long rows of characteristic black drones, and the Counter Strike tournament that got streamers banned was also part of this campaign.

But what do students actually get? A former student said the beautiful ads convinced her to enroll, but then she arrived and saw reality. Alabuga Polytech is not really an independent college but a branch of the Yelabuga Polytechnic College, and in reality it's just an additional professional education course with a fancy wrapper, lacking full educational licenses. Some subjects are never taught or just given as self study, teachers skip their own classes if they have something more important to do, and the main priority is always work, not study. Students are sent to learn nursing at a nearby medical school, they work on production in the morning, then have three or four classes after lunch, and after that forced paintball.

You can enroll without any entrance exams, without the Unified State Exam, and even without a high school diploma, which is suspicious for a place that claims to have 25 applicants per seat. The answer is simple: they don't need geniuses or future engineers, they just need working hands. The diploma you get is only recognized by Alabuga's own enterprises and nowhere else, so for three or four years you work for pennies and get a piece of paper that's worthless outside the same factory where you slaved. Meanwhile you are required to work a total of three years at Alabuga enterprises during and after your studies, and if you don't, you'll owe them money. The education is formally free, but if you decide to leave, you have to pay back the cost of your training, which ranges from 170 to 420 thousand rubles per year of study.