Its sister ship the Kuznetsov survived, but by the time the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the Varyag was a white elephant marooned off a port in the Black Sea.
The gymnasium was built in 1937 and in 1944 it was named after Heroes of the Soviet Union – sister and brother – Zoya and Aleksandr Kosmodemyanskys (Zoya was the first female hero of the USSR).