<p>I've started figuring out drupal, and so far most of the results are just ugly.
May be I need to learn it in something similar to a real-life project.
I thought — to reproduce this site's functionality might be a good learning project. But I need help. :)</p>

<p>Without assuming this site is based on drupal (it most likely is not — too quick, I think) is there a way to build something similar in functionality (yes, slower, OK if not as fancy as this one, but close) with existing drupal modules and schemes (or with minimal tweaking)?</p>

<p>Or drupal is not good enough for that?
Or — is it too complicated project for a student?</p>

<p>Which existing modules and schemes might help to build something similar?</p>

<p>(No competition is intended with stackoverflow.)</p>

Firstly, Drupal is by no means a slow system, actually it works quite well.
Secondly, this has been already asked and answered
here
.
By the way Drupal has a medium learning curve but, once you learn how to use you'll find it simple and you'll find it will satisfy almost everything you want to do with it. Its plugin system is just great and it's very SEO friendly (I don't get paid from Drupal I swear, I just happen to like it a lot)
My
website
is made in drupal if you wanna take a look (is in spanish though).