We once had a Russian teacher, let's call him Ivan.
In his first year as a teacher at our uni, we were a bit scared of him, for he was simply too smart; So smart in fact that he couldn't understand that we, university students were not as smart.
When someone asked a question, he used to laugh out loud, not out of arrogance, but simply because he thought the student made a joke. Then, when he realized it was a real question, a smile appeared upon his face.
"Zis ees an eazy problem", he used to say, but he explained it none the less.
"What DO you learn at zkool in ze Nyetherlands?"

At the end of that year no one dared to raise his hand, and Ivan was pleased, for if his students had no questions, they must have understood his lessons. I admit that was partly true, for although Ivan was a little bit scary in the beginning, he was also a brilliant teacher, who took the time to explain things we were 'supposed to have learned in highschool', and triggered our enthousiasm for the complex issues of complexity theory. In fact the only A+ I got at the uni so far, I owe to him.

Soon Ivan grew into an icon. The guys wanted to talk to him after class about all sorts of mathematical problems, multidimensional figures and Turing completeness. The girls adored him and many even had a photograph of him over their beds.
His skinny posture and his enormous glasses seemed to radiate intelligence. He did not look like James Dean or Brad Pitt, but he was charismatic and funny, and when it was found out that he was also a skilled musician, who could just as easily have earned his money with the violin and piano, he almost became a pop-star.
Behind this mathematical genious, there was a gentle, sensitive man. The guys all wanted to be his assistent, hoping his glory would reflect on them. The girls simply wanted to marry him.
I bet some female students must have been disappointed when we saw him walking along the canal, holding hands with a gorgeous woman. His wife had come from Russia, with love...
A baby was born and there was some confusion over its gender. Ilya was a girl's name, wasn't it? Not in Russia! No? Are you sure?
It was indeed a son. If he has the brains and charisma of his father and the beauty of his mother, I bet he'll become famous some day.

The Dutch government had to spoil it. This was in the days of Pim Fortuyn. Foreigners were no longer considered a contribution to the Netherlands, but were labelled luck-seekers, adventurers and even parasites. Residence permits became difficult to get and Non-Westerners were closely watched.
After the summer holiday, Ivan was stuck in Moskow. His papers weren't ready yet. The students waited for months for his return, but no, the Dutch government deliberately delayed his visum. Weeks were wasted, months in which this Eastern European genious could have educated us dumb Westerners.

And to add to that disaster, the Dutch educational system had collapsed. Ambitious government officials wanted to make history by changing the way schools were run. Instead of simply pumping knowledge into the pupils' heads, they had to become 'interactive', whatever that meant. A new load of freshmen appeared, who were even less educated than those which Ivan had laughed about.
Many Dutch professors and their assistents saw a gloomy future and left for Britain and America. Every student of our departement that had graduated with honours that year left for the UK, because the Netherlands no longer offered any oppotunities for those who were smarter than average. I bet the universities of Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh are very grateful to the Dutch government...

But back to Ivan. Ivan was thus stuck in Moskow for two months, and when he returned at last, it appeared this would be his last year in the Netherlands. I supose that from a safe distance he had seen how our tiny country was going down the drain. Once the Netherlands had been lauded in Moskow as an example of an area which was similar in size and population to the Russian capital, but a lot more productive. Now it was a country inhospitable to foreigners and suffering from a serious brain drain.
He made no secret about the main reason for his permanent return to the Motherland: He wanted little Ilya to get a decent education...