The second question you have to ask for yourself (;)) (But I was not surprised at least- i mean, I think it's plausible).
I think you mean what do you know about Russian educational system (else: there is just so much to know, it's a vast country, with main language Russian, but there are many other languages and cultures there, some small and slowly dying out in Siberia, but also big nations, such as the Chechens who have their own republic. Other nations are free to use their languages as long as their use the Cyrillic script )
The Russian educational system stresses learning knowledge, while the US system stresses learning skills. So Russians would learn more topics in mathematics, but maybe tend to practice them less- Still, they are not too bad at them, as you see by their frequent participation in math competitions).
