It's too early to be thinking about the three "Rs" here, but four areas of Russia have revealed school curriculum plans for the fall that may surprise you.

According to a feature story on Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty last Friday, it will be mandatory for schools in four regions to teach the Russian Orthodox religion this fall. Ten other regions will have the choice of teaching about the religion or not.

The four mandatory regions are Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border; Smolensk, which is northwest of Moscow and the Kaluga and Bryansk oblasts to the southwest of Moscow.

Radio Free Europe interviewed a few people in Kirov, which is not one of the mandatory regions, and found them in favor of the new subject. Under the rule of the Soviet Union, practicing religion--Orthodox or otherwise--was pretty actively discouraged. The great St. Isaac Cathedral in St. Petersburg was turned into a museum of atheism. But since the Soviet Union collapsed, there has been a revival of Orthodox Christianity, a revival so great that the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow was rebuilt to its former glory.

But the story notes that not everybody in Russia is so sure that a state embrace of religion is a good idea. Several members of the Russian Academy of Sciences signed an open letter, published in several papers, to President Vladimir Putin voicing dismay at the blurring line between church and state. And while the overwhelming majority of ethnic Russians say they are members of the Orthodox Church, Russia does have other religions, including, as the Radio Free Europe story notes, 20 million Muslims. (Estimates of the number of Jews in Russia range from 700,000 to 2 million. Two years ago, 15 members of the Russian legislature, the Duma, called for the banning of Judaism and Jewish organizations.)

The story doesn't explicitly describe the new curriculum, but implies, through a teacher it quotes, that it will be closer to a religion in society class than catechism. It will be interesting to see what happens to this story as Russian children head back to school.