Numerous studies show that the Russian educational system generates a number of paradoxical strategies, practices, and attitudes that illustrate various aspects of educational inequality. This paper highlights the paradoxes that accompany the process of instrumental modernization of education: the discrepancies between formal education levels and actual competencies, shifting attitudes toward education, and challenges for teachers in a tech-driven environment. Russians spend comparable time on education as in other countries, yet higher education yields lower competencies and economic returns. At the family level it reproduces inequalities through cultural capital, and the younger generations view diplomas instrumentally as "crusts" for jobs, prioritizing self-education, experience, or proximity over quality of education. Digital tools accelerate education's mixed educational format in the context of the post-pandemic shift to digital platforms, but teachers face a digital stress from increased workloads, student disengagement, and decline in the prestige of the profession. Elite schools adapt better, and this reflects the systems institutional divides.