In Soviet times, scouts from Moscow and Leningrad regularly roamed into the USSR’s furthest outposts, discovering children for free training – the Siberian Rudolf Nureyev, the Kazakhi Altynai Asylmuratova, the Uzbekh Farouk Ruzimatov and the Georgian Nina Ananiashvili, for example. Since the end of communism, regions have lost free access to the Mariinsky and Bolshoi schools, and increasingly the companies’ profile is narrowing on to a north-western population. This has opened interesting opportunities for ex-republics such as Georgia who are building their own…