Putin: idea of creating Sirius center was at first met with skepticism

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the idea of creating the Sirius Educational Center for gifted children in Sochi was at first met with skepticism, and critics said it was doomed to fail quickly.

"I came up with this. And one colleague of mine who was invited there told one of his colleagues: ‘He's not going to succeed’," he said, while sharing his recollections in an interview for TASS’ project entitled "20 Questions with Vladimir Putin".

That critic’s arguments went as follows: "To start with, your hockey players will beat up the math whiz kids." Yet, nothing like this has occurred there. Because kids, even powerful athletic lads, respect their peers who achieve noticeable successes in their fields because they know that this requires great efforts and talent," the Russian leader revealed.

Putin said that the choice of the center’s name was also his idea. "I was sitting and thinking about the name and suddenly I recalled that the brightest star in the sky is Sirius. It is the gathering place for the brightest kids. That is why I proposed this name. And the name stuck," the Russian leader recalls.