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Before the conversation began, Vladimir Putin, and the head of the educational Talent and Success Foundation Yelena Shmeleva, visited a residential complex for students at the Sirius Presidential Lyceum, examined the display stands at the lyceum complex construction project and saw models of new buildings. The new five-floor dormitory has 132 rooms for 250 pupils and tutors.

The Sirius Presidential Lyceum opened on September 1, 2020. It includes a school with grades 1–11, and preschool groups for children aged 2–7. The learning process includes general education, extracurricular activities and self-training, as well as more than 200 elective programmes in engineering, the social sciences and humanities, natural science, art and physical fitness and sports.

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Yelena Shmeleva, Head of the Talent and Success Foundation, moderator: Good afternoon, colleagues, Mr President.

Mr President, we are very grateful to you for these meetings that regularly take place at Sirius, because it is a good opportunity for teachers and students to discuss interesting and important issues.

As we are meeting at the Presidential Lyceum, we are certainly eager to talk about what we are doing and how our programmes are growing. The lyceum is already three years old; it is serving 1,500 students from grades 1 to 11 and has a preschool department. This new residential building has been developed on your instructions. It accommodates 250 children, the students in specialised programmes, and we would certainly like to develop these programmes further, including at our new school for 3,000 students, which we are also building.

However, Mr President, I am getting ahead of myself. I would like to give my colleagues an opportunity to tell us exactly how we did it, what we designed and what we expect from this new school of ours on the federal territory.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Please.

But, you know, before we begin, I would like to say that I think tomorrow is Teachers’ Day.

Yelena Shmeleva: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: I would like to congratulate all the mentors, educators, and teachers in Russia on this day, through you, as they usually say in these cases. And I want to wish everyone all the best in their professional journey, and I hope that everything is fine at home with our mentors. This is not a profession but a mission, we all understand this.

Every person, no matter where and what they do, no matter where they live and no matter what age group they belong to, always remembers what their school, their teachers and mentors gave them. Therefore, a low bow to you and Happy Teachers’ Day.

I would also like to congratulate you on your new site. The Lyceum is progressing; a nice and beautiful campus has appeared. Ms. Shmeleva was just talking about this; she basically talked about what has been done here and what is planned.

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