There is alternative use of classrooms in Russian schools. Some classes go to school in the first half of a day, others - after 14pm. But birth-rate has dropped significantly in 1990s, so many schools do not use such system any more.

Let's continue the story. After 9th class putil passes state exams and gets certificate (called "attestat" in Russia) confirming that its owner has "not-full secondary education" - nepolnoe sredneye obrazovaniye. Here's the first crossroad. Person can whether leave the school and enter thechnical school, or continue to study in secondary school (classes 10,11). All that matters is pupil's desire. You do not pass any exams to enter 10th class. After 11th class there're state exams once again, and pupil gets certificate of "full secondary education" (polnoe sredneye obrazovaniye).

There're two kinds of thekhnical schools. One kind, "PTU" gives a working profession after short study (no more than 1 - 1.5 years. "Technikum" gives a profession and "full secondary education" (that toghether form secondary special education or "sredne-spetsial'noye obrazovaniye" in Russian), but that requires longer study, about 3 years. Such specialists occupy higher positions than those who graduated from PTU. Recently some technikum-level facilities were renamed to colleges. So term colleges also exist in Russian educational system, but they're roughly equal to technikums.

Full secondary education (after 11 classes or technikum) is requred to ender an institute, academy or university to get high education ("vysshee obrazovanie"), which is required to occupy position of engineer, manager, chief accountant, etc etc. It took 4 to 6 years (depends on specialization).

After graduation from university one can take post-graduate course, write a thesis (dissertation), defend it, and become "candidate of science". That's first scientific degree.

Of course, there's military education also. Military educational facilities can be also "secondary" (level of theknikum) and "high" (level of university).

That's all so far.