Vladimir Putin answered the students’ questions
and reviewed some of their projects.
The President was shown, among other things,
a device for laboratory blood testing, the so-called Lab
of the Future, which, according to its inventors, can replace
a number of tests with just one. Vladimir Putin also saw
a wireless charging device for drones used to inspect power lines.
Also, young scientists showed the President a technology they are
proposing for computer processing of x-ray images,
and the Moon Greenhouse project which studied possibilities
for growing plants in the moon’s gravity.
The Sirius Educational Centre was established
on the basis of the Olympic infrastructure
at the President’s initiative in December 2014. The aim
of the centre was to reveal talent early, and develop
and support gifted children from all Russian regions. These are children
who display exceptional abilities in the arts, sports,
the natural sciences or who have achieved success in technical
creativity.
Every month 600 children aged from 10 to 17
receive tuition-free education at the centre. They are guided
by over 100 teachers and coaches. The 24-day programme includes
studies on a specialty, intellectual games, workshops, meetings with
recognised professionals in their area of knowledge, sets
of health-building programmes, and general education classes during
the school year.
* * *
Beginning of the conversation with
the Sirius Centre students
President Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon friends,
Your session and the academic year are
coming to a close. So let’s say our meeting is timed to these.
But for the beginning of our meeting,
and I hope it will be interesting to everyone, I would like
to return to where we started and say how this project –
Sirius – came about.
You know that all countries that host major
international competitions like the Olympic Games, always face
a challenging question – what to do with the buildings
and facilities, all that infrastructure that was built for these
major international competitions. We, Russia and the city
of Sochi, also faced this question. We had various plans for them;
and we built a lot. In fact, Sochi has changed its image
a lot and become a major international resort destination.
But I really wanted that project to be
expanded with something that would truly be worthy of the Olympic
legacy. This is how the initial idea came to create sport centres
here – but for popular sports for which we, as they say
today, have the greatest aptitude. These are primarily winter sports
because we hosted the Winter Games and there were plenty
of artificial ice arenas. First of all, I thought about ice
hockey and figure skating.
Then it occurred to me: Why just sports? Why
just sports for which we have developed an aptitude over decades? We
have other abilities – for example, in science, education
and the arts. We have always been proud of our musicians
and our ballet, and the world admires them. Then
I remembered that we also have specialised educational institutions that
were established back in the Soviet times and still exist. These
are not only ten-year schools for future conservatory students but also
physics and mathematics schools, chemistry schools, and biology
courses that opened later.
