Russian Billionaires Are Building Megaschools to Rival Eton and Exeter

As part of a push to get more Russian business leaders involved in education, President Vladimir Putin sat down with some of the country’s most gifted pupils for a televised chat about the value of life, love and learning.

They gathered at Sirius, an educational center Putin established in Sochi after the 2014 Winter Olympics with backing from multiple billionaires. Promoted by the Kremlin as a model for grooming talent, Sirius runs 600 exceptional students a month through intensive courses in everything from physics and coding to chess and ballet.