A reference to a 1990s joke that existed in various versions. The variant closest to the text.
A professor is administering an exam — winter session, one day before New Year's. Times are hungry, cold, the lecture hall isn't heated.
A student walks up in an insanely expensive fur coat, draws a question card. She glances around. No one's looking. She slides a bag under the desk with her foot and says:
– This is for you.
The professor peeks into the bag: cervelat sausage, cheese, chocolates, Hennessy cognac, and an envelope. Inside the envelope, a hundred dollars.
The professor, astonished:
– Top marks, but first, answer a simple question — what do you do for a living?
– I do oral.
– Er… you mean, you suck dick?
– Professor, forgive me, but are you the one who lives on the Garden Ring, eats out every night, flies to Paris on weekends, and shows up to exams in a Mercedes?
– No. I live in Orekhovo, I take the trolleybus.
– Then you're the one sucking. And I – I do oral.
That, roughly, was the state of Russia's entire scientific and technical elite in 1993.