Most of Moscow's universities, higher educational institutes and major research centers are losing experienced talent to private businesses in a "domestic brain drain" caused by low state wages coupled with increased living costs.


Nearly a quarter of lecturers at higher education institutions have given up teaching careers since 1991 for new sales- and business-related jobs offering higher salaries, according to the state Higher Education Committee.


Anatoly Torkunov, head of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said in an interview that his institute, like many others, is suffering from a "walkout trend" which has led to a sharp decrease in academic standards.


"We are understaffed, and there is a particularly noticeable lack of younger and middle-aged teachers," he said. "We need a lot more money than we have to pay adequate salaries and buy even the most indispensable of equipment or maintain our internal infrastructure."


Heads of advanced institutes said in a recent poll that the condition of higher education was either disastrous or difficult, Vladimir Rodionov, a deputy director of the Independent Institute research center, said.


Rodionov said that one of the most important problems of Russia's higher education is that "most teachers have seen themselves in the social group of economic outsiders."


According to the poll, higher education is no longer a guarantee against poverty. "Those who are part of the standard western middle class in Russia have the lowest salaries," Rodionov said.


He added that the prestige of intellectual work in Russia is on the decline because of the low pay.


As many as 15 percent of professors and 10 percent of doctors have relinquished their posts in educational establishments in the last five years, he said.


Employment agencies and labor recruitment centers in Moscow estimate that at least 35 percent of their clients with educational backgrounds have now acquired business training and are in search for new business-related jobs.


Natasha Gremitskaya, marketing manager at Ancor, an executive search and support personnel recruiting firm, said, "We get many resumes from lecturers and teachers from different universities and institutes, some with strong teaching experience and excellent communication skills."


An official at the Higher Education Committee who declined to be identified said: "Well, it happens everywhere. Teachers have the liberty to move and it's our duty to improve the condition of service to keep them at their posts. But how?"


Yury Osipov, the president of Russia's Academy of Sciences, said purely scientific expeditions have practically ceased to exist and that academic scientists are increasingly moving into commercial activities in foreign countries.


Osipov added he still believes that the economic woes will be overcome in the long run, since he believes that the state education budget will eventually increase.


"But in the meantime," he said, "many scientists, especially the younger ones, are increasingly losing hope for a better future."