Ukraine

[Klem]

Maybe not in Ukraine. But... and I'm not saying this to make a serious point or anything, I just find it interesting....

My fiance grew up in Russia during the last years of the Soviet era, in a city in the NW of Siberia. She's mentioned a couple of times that her high school had a basement armory that was stocked with AKs of one type or another. All the student there were required to take some kind of weapons training. At the very least, they had to learn how to strip down and reassemble an AK-47 (or 74, I'm not sure what they had), even the girls. That's sure as heck more than we get in the US.

SD,

Growing up, my school had an armory behind the sports-master's office. It housed a bunch of SMLE.303 rifles, two Bren light machine guns, and two 2" mortars (no ammunition). The school's Army cadets shot the rifles every fortnight at the local range, and very occasionally the proper Army would supervise use of the heavier weapons at an artillery range three hours north. And no-one, including the wider community thought anything of it.

That didn't last however as society changed and the weapons were transferred back to the regular Army. The cadets shot rifles less often and eventually not at all.