This is the sparsely furnished school dormitory where President Vladimir Putin spent one of his most formative years.

Russian state TV visited the Academy of Foreign Intelligence - a boarding school for trainee spies where Vladimir Putin studied for a year as a young KGB prospect.

Footage shows the frugal bedroom where Putin, then known as Cadet Platov, lived for a year when he was learning his tradecraft secrets.

Putin's bedroom: Russian state TV visited the dormitory of the Academy of Foreign Intelligence - a boarding school for trainee spies

Russian President Vladimir Putin pictured today at a presentation of a joint statement with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, India

Zvezda, the TV channel owned by the Russian defence ministry, which controls the GRU military intelligence agency, went behind the scenes to show where the nation's spies learn their trade.

The presenter said: 'In this room for a year lived a cadet who is currently known all around the world as President Putin.

'We are hiding his room's number, but not from viewers.

'We are hiding it from other cadets so that they don't start fighting for right to live here.

'As you can see there is no memorial boards or anything at all.

The Russian president studied at the school for a year as a young KGB prospect

The cameras panned across a small dormitory with three beds where Putin allegedly lived during his time at the Academy

The reporter said they had been told not to reveal the room number of Putin's old bedroom, as it would mean modern-day cadets would start fighting over who could stay there

Young President: Vladimir Putin is pictured in ninth grade, in 1968, at a party

'Cadets continue to live here, though the room is definitely a lot more comfortable than it was at the time when Cadet Platov - or Vladimir Putin - lived here.'

At the time Putin attended the Academy of Foreign Intelligence.

It works as weekly boarding school with trainee spies allowed home at weekends.

The institution - with its roots in the Soviet era when it prepared KGB agents like Putin - is known by several different names among them Lesnaya Shkola (Forest School) or School №101 and Ka-I.

The current head of the SVR - Russian foreign intelligence - Sergey Naryshkin is believed to have been a contemporary of Putin's at the spy academy before taking an undercover role at the Soviet embassy in Brussels.

Putin was posted to the less glamorous Dresden.