A friend of mine wrote a 'memoir' of his start in mathematics research as a schoolboy in St Petersburg: http://windowsontheory.org/2013/04/12/research-life-stor

A friend of mine wrote a 'memoir' of his start in mathematics research as a schoolboy in St Petersburg: http://windowsontheory.org/2013/04/12/research-life-stories-ilyamironov/ http://windowsontheory.org/2013/04/12/research-life-stories-... Incidentally, he was on the team finishing in 2nd place in 1998 ACM finals.