ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA - President Vladimir Putin's choice of Olga Vasilyeva as Russia's education and science minister is proving to be one of his more controversial cabinet appointments, at least for the country's human rights activists and some representatives of religious minorities.
Vasilyeva, historian of the Russian Orthodox Church, wrote her doctoral dissertation on Soviet state policy toward the church during 1942-48, when dictator Josef Stalin ruled the Soviet Union.
