MOSCOW — Ringling Brothers has shut down in the United States, but the big top lives on in Russia, which carries on a deeply-rooted circus tradition that soars above today’s geopolitical conflicts.

Created in 1927 by the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Education, the M.N. Rumyantsev State School of Circus and Variety Arts — a four-year program with 180 students who attend free of charge — bills itself as the world’s first full-fledged circus college.

The curriculum at the Moscow Circus School, as it is commonly known, includes standard science and humanities subjects, but does not extend to working with animals. That is usually transmitted via family dynasties.