Drunk Professor Inflicts 23-Hour Physics Exam

In a nation known for long winters, long wars and even longer novels, one group of university students may have set a brand new endurance record. A drunken physics lecturer at Kazan University in central Russia allegedly forced her students to take a 23-hour-long oral exam last week—with no bathroom breaks—while she drank and rattled on about personal issues unrelated to the course. Lecturer Landysh Zaripova, who reportedly "stank of alcohol," began the exam at 10 am on June 26—and held her students until 9 am the next morning, forbidding them to leave for any reason. “Towards the end, everyone was just sitting there, totally exhausted,” says one student. “The lecturer would go into another room, drink, come back and start telling us about her business.” Albert Aganov, head of the university's physics department, has denied that his lecturer was wasted, claiming that lengthy exams are “not unusual." Also not unusual in Russia is alcoholism: per-capita consumption of booze is around four gallons, according to the Russian Ministry of Health, and about one-in-eight Russian deaths are from drinking-related causes.