Essay 6. eugene

Eugene Romashov, Zhenya, was the oldest in our group. In the first year he was already 32. He had graduated from a medical school and was an X-ray laboratory assistant. He was born in a city of Kant, which is 20 kilometers away from the capital of Kirgizia - Frunze at that time - and Bishkek now. Zhenya and I made good friends, he was like a dad to me, or rather like an older brother. I was a quick learner, so I was glad to help him during the classes.

From his previous experience it stuck fast in his head that koumiss (fermented mare’s milk) therapy was a panacea for all diseases, and in all classes he would tirelessly repeat this.
The professors, some tactfully, and some in a more brusque way, tried to explain to him that Koumiss therapy should be used with caution; after a check-up and that it could be prescribed with consideration of local peculiarities, there, where it was available. All in all, the criticism and laughter of the group when he would habitually start talking about the koumiss therapy, led to Eugene’s not mentioning it. So during a phthisiology class he happened to answer a question about a lungs’ tuberculosis treatment.
I was diligently prompting to Zhenya, naming the medicines and methodologies, and Zhenya was also diligently repeating them to a professor. And there I told him (told Zhenya): “Koumiss therapy”, but he was silent, did not repeat the answer; perhaps he assumed that I wanted to make a laughing stock of him. I continued to prompt to him, but louder and more persistently: “kou-miss the-ra-py”. Zhenya was silent. Finally the professor could not contain himself any longer and told him that Syedyshev was prompting correctly: “kou-miss the-ra-py”.

And there Zhenya fired up and for the first time promised to beat me up after the classes. The group as usual met that maxim with a loud laughter.

I want to add a couple of words about our group. If most of the groups were generally female with one or maximum two guys in a group, than group 18 was male. There were eleven of us, guys, and only three girls.