I don’t know how reliable these university rankings are, but assuming they bear some kind of roughly accurate relation to the real world, there’s a comparative dimension that is interesting in the light of recent observations on this country’s standing in the world. The first Russian university in the list is Lomonosov Moscow State University at 120. The UK has 19 universities ranked higher than this. The population of the UK is less than half that of Russia. Just to round out a certain picture here, the US has 36 universities ranked higher than Lomonosov Moscow State University.
The point of these comparisons? Let’s just say that the quality of a country’s education and research is something it can reasonably be proud of. (Thanks: RB.)