The Russian School in the American state of Vermont was founded in 1960 by Dr. Marianna Poltoratskaya, a teacher at the language college in Middlebury. Initially, the school was located at Windham College in Putney, and in 1968 it moved to the campus of Norwich University, where it remained until 2000.

The school attracted notable representatives of Russian literary and political emigration. Among the teachers were such outstanding figures as Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Volkonskaya and Professor Nikolai Vsevolodovich Pervushin. Tatyana Alexeevna Rodzyanko, born Lopukhina, also taught here and staged amateur performances. Her husband, Oleg Mikhailovich Rodzyanko, a well-known church figure of the Russian Diaspora and the grandson of the last chairman of the State Duma M. V. Rodzyanko, often visited her. The school educated not only Americans but also the children of emigrants, including seminarians from the Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville. Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn once visited the school, and his wife Natalia Dmitrievna and mother-in-law Ekaterina Ferdinandovna often came here with their children. Two of his sons, Yermolai and Stepan, later studied at this school. Poet Lev Losev taught at the school, and other poets such as Igor Chinnov, Koma Ivanov, Yuri Kublanovsky, Anatoly Naiman, and Yunna Morits attended seminars.

One of the graduates, Evgeny Sokolov, recalled that Old Russian was taught by Debbie Gerretson from Dartmouth College, one of the oldest universities in the USA, part of the elite Ivy League. He noted that the mastery of Old Russian, with its complex laws and tenses, was truly remarkable for an American.