Eight U.S. Students Leave for Siberia on Unique Exchange
Eight students from the elite Andover prep school set out Sunday on a trip to Siberia for a first-of-its-kind exchange program that will bring eight Soviet students to the American school next month.
“I’m really looking forward to it because this is really an opportunity to get to know the Soviets, especially the teen-agers, on a real human level rather than just blindly following the propaganda we hear from both sides,” said Thomas Clyde of Berkeley, Calif., before the students left Logan International Airport for their five-week stay.
The students, aged 17 and 18, are scheduled to arrive at the Novosibirsk Physics Mathematics School on Tuesday and begin classes Wednesday, said Victor Svec, a Russian-language instructor at Phillips Academy in Andover and the students’ chaperon. Their studies will include Russian, science and math.
The students were chosen for their proficiency in Russian and their ability to be “good diplomats,” school officials said.
Their Siberian counterparts are tentatively scheduled to arrive at Andover, about 25 miles north of Boston, on April 4.
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