Russian Students Throng to Elite British Schools

It's unclear whether this report says more about the British or the Russian education systems.

Once only a distant dream, for some Russian families sending their children to schools like Eton, an epicenter of Englishness and exclusivity that has been molding young gentlemen for the best part of six centuries, is increasingly within reach.

Regardless of the increasingly strained diplomatic relations between the two countries, from Harrow to Cambridge, the number of Russian students in Britain has soared.

And with Russian children starting to attend British schools at a younger age, parents becoming more knowledgeable and more students coming from middle-class families, the trend only looks set to grow.

The number of students has been described as a torrent ever since 1991. Part of the reason is that top British schools are actively recruiting students in Russia with education fairs, seminars and the Internet.

After graduation, most return to Russia where they are uniformly welcomed in business and government circles. Of course, what all this means is that the next generation of Russian leaders could likely be British-educated elites.