It is well known that to a large extent, it is the young people of today who will determine the intellectual, economic, cultural, and spiritual face of rural Russia in the twenty-first century. Unless young people take part in the modernization of the economy and in its social development, the Russian countryside will not have a future. Among school graduates and their parents it is widely believed that life in the countryside is primitive and offers no prospects. According to the data from studies by the Institute of Social and Pedagogical Problems of the Rural Schools, Russian Academy of Education, a major portion of young men and women are oriented toward going to the city to attend school and work. Only 12 percent want to find self-realization in the sphere of agricultural production, while another 8 percent would like to work in the village if the right conditions were provided. One of the most socially vital categories of knowledge that are in high demand today is agricultural knowledge. And yet it is more frequently the case that students and, in fact, their parents lack that kind of knowledge. Young Russians have little or no interest in working in agriculture or living in a village, and so Russian agriculture remains underdeveloped and short of manpower. In this article, the author discusses the role of the schools in encouraging students to consider working in the rural sector. The author stresses that the viability of the country's agrarian sector and its labor resources, the vital necessity of preserving the countryside as a historically conditioned model of life and work that is traditionally characteristic of Russia, all depend on the education, culture, health, life plans, and professional intentions of young people. Only with support from the state and society will young people be able to have an active influence on the pace and the character of the development of the Russian countryside, and serve as a moving force of that development.