Russian leaders are trained as warriors

If you really want to become a governor in Russia, you'll probably have to jump off a cliff nearly ten meters high to prove your bravery.

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According to RT, Russia's future governors showed their toughness by jumping off a 7m-high cliff in Sochi in early October. "This is a good team-building activity," Gazeta news site quoted Sergey Kiriyenko, the Kremlin's first deputy chief of staff.

The cliff jumps were part of the “Gorge” program, a nine-month training project for senior regional officials of the Russian government. “Gorge” is an extremely harsh program, in which participants have to cross canyons on their own without the help of special flotation devices, RT reported.

"Participants had to wade into the river, cross obstacles and jump off a cliff... It was a test of people's reactions in dramatic situations," a media representative of the School of National Economy and Public Administration of the Russian Presidential Academy, which co-organized the training program, told RIA Novosti.

According to Gazeta, cliff jumping is not a mandatory challenge, some officials were unable to participate in the program due to work.

RBC news agency confirmed that the Director of the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations of Russia, Mikhail Kotyukov, and Aleksandr Burkov, who was recently appointed Governor of the Omsk region, also appeared in the video.

This is the first year the training program has been held, but the Russian Presidential Academy said it would become an annual event. The program includes lectures, mentoring sessions and physical activities as Moscow looks to improve its future governors’ leadership, negotiation and teamwork skills.

The Kremlin began replacing a series of governors last September and appointed new leaders of regions in the Republic of Dagestan, the Samara region, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk and several others.

According to VNN