Eight U.S. Exchange Students Return Home From Siberia

Eight American prep school students returned Saturday from Siberia, bringing back a better perspective of Soviet life as they resume studies at their elite Phillips Academy in Andover.

They were met at the airport by eight Soviet students who have been at Andover since April 12 and were eager for news the Americans brought back about their classmates at the Novosibirsk Physics Mathematics School.

Alyson Horvath, 17, of Akron, Ohio, said she made some “very good friends. I miss them already.”

She said classes in the Soviet Union, where the Americans studied Russian, math and science, were about the same as those at the 1,200-student Phillips Academy.

The Andover students, who left for the Soviet Union on March 15, described daily calisthenics before breakfast at the Novosibirsk school, evening sing-alongs in the dorms and classes about as tough as at their school.

The exchange grew out of President Reagan’s 1985 Geneva summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

At the airport, the Siberian students were joined by U.S. parents waiting nervously for the return of their offspring.

“It isn’t every day that your son comes back from Siberia,” said Sheri Clyde, mother of Thomas Clyde, 18, of Berkeley, Calif., who flew to Boston for the occasion.