Dudes

Oleg Syedyahev

Humorous Essays. Based on students' memories

Dudes
INTRODUCTION

Time comes and our life experience turns into philosophic reasoning leading us to the world, which is accessible only to our memory, and thanks to the miraculous power of our brain we can return to the past and tell those, who are still alive about what they forgot about. They say having memories is like looking through old letters, not everyone is capable of keeping them. Some people have never received letters in their lifetime and have not known what love is!!! "What is this book about?" - you may ask. It is about us, about what we've left in the other country, the other world the only way to get back where is with the help of this book or ... a book like this one! The author gives us an opportunity to enter the world, which is familiar and at the same time not familiar, to walk along the waves of memory, like through the history of Russia, which is smoothly interwoven into individual life stories. Everything comes alive in the book: people, buildings, the epoch, and wise philosophic sayings combine all that into silver fleece of a winter night. I wish there is enough time! I wish there is enough time to tell, read, answer, find, catch, stop a gray-haired old man and offer him a handshake and say: "Hello, my dear friend!!!". The matter is not in what literary language the book is written, it is in a significantly deeper understanding of things that are in the very bottom of our souls. We are the children of the USSR, like children of the Galaxy, we already do not know, whether all that was with us or not, but only a book like this one makes us believe again that we were, we are, and we still want to tell the generations coming after us, how much one should love live and treasure its moments, because it is just a blink.

The author of the book Oleg Syedyshev has managed by his essays to press the acupuncture points, which are the painful ones; with that he emphasized that we are alive, we are thinking people; so let's read about ourselves and cry, and this means that we will cure our souls, being aware that they are immortal. May every reader find in the book his or her tiny corner to warm up!!! All of us are alive in the book; we are full of energy and plans, optimism and youthful ardour, courage and unselfishness, tenderness and love to our families and friends, to our Motherland!!! God will forgive us!

Lyubov Nacheva (Reshetnikova)
Doctor of Biological Sciences, professor, head of the Department of Biology and Theory of Genetics and Parasitology of Kemerovo State Medical Academy, academician of Petrovskaya Academy of Sciences and Arts, academician of Russia's Academy of Natural Science, "Honored worker of higher educational institution of RF"


A  READER'S  LETTER

Greetings! My patronymic name is Yevgenievna, so correspondingly my father's name is Yevgeniy Dmitrievitch Romashov. I visited your web site and read your essays. My mother, my son Zhenya and I were thrilled by what we had read. I was reading aloud, and my family were listening to me with their hearts sinking. We reacted inadequately to many of the essays, i.e. we were laughing until we cried; especially Zhenechka, who will turn 19 in two months. He heard about his grandfather only from his grandmother's and my lips. Of course, we had told him a lot about his grandfather's hobbies and interests and what a wonderful father, husband and person in general he was, though what we had read about him in your essays made all of us happy. Of course, he was a live wire in everything. One was never bored with him. His hobbies made everyone happy. One of his passions was photography. From the very first days of our life my sister and I are photographed at different angles; and for sure there are more than a hundred of photos. And how wonderfully he used to draw…
He used to copy from books and magazines pictures of various animals with exceptional precision. And I am not going even to mention fishing and hunting. At work he managed to obtain some area for a huge garden, where he himself planted and looked after flowers and trees. On that day (7 June) when he passed away, a red rose blossomed for the first time in his garden in front of the oncology clinic. It is still in my book as memories. Strange as it may seem, but after my father's death none of the roses blossomed, all of them perished some time later. He also had a huge collection of cacti at work. Especially for it he was given a vacant office, which he transformed to provide for good growth of the cacti.  That was really beautiful!!! It was a pleasure to the eye of the patients and the staff. When my parents went on vacation abroad, at their free time all tourists rushed to do shopping, and my parents were looking for rare species of cacti.

Of course, one can say and write a lot, and, perhaps, it is impossible to describe everything, but I am proud that I had such father. And, of course, I do not want to offend other men, fathers, but there are no such men like my father, and if there are some, then there are very few of them. I remember my childhood very well, as if it was yesterday, and I was the happiest girl, because I had so wonderful parents. I am really very grateful to you, that there are people in this world who remember and even more to that write about my father. Many things were discovered by my mother and me for the first time. For instance, we did not even know that my father had radiation sickness. And we saw many of the photographs for the first time. We were overfilled with emotions while we were reading. We were laughing and crying. I cannot say that everything I am writing about comes easily, as memories of any kind bring me back to the time, when all of us were happy and to some extend carefree near my father.  For the time I have been writing to you I've brushed away a tear more than once. It is really hard! They had a reason to call me a father's daughter, not only because I took after him more; the matter was that till I turned seven I believed that it was my father who had given birth to me. It happened so that in a family of medics I was not explained the basics, sure enough, I did not know, where children came from. Though, when in public with my head proudly up I was telling about who had given me birth, everybody around were laughing, and my father was happy and proud of himself. I am sorry for the photo. I am at work now and finishing the message at the spare moment.

Sincerely,
Tatyana Romashova.
S.Lvova
“Humorous essays” about no laughing matters
(Review of a book by O.P.Syedyshev “Dudes”)

In a collection of memoirs about his great contemporaries A.M.Gorky (Aleksey Maximovich Gorky, 1868 –1936, was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist) wrote: “Russian literature is the most pessimistic literature in Europe; all of our books are written on one and the same topic of the way we suffer, - in our youth and at a mature age {…}”. Aleksey Maksimovitch would have changed his opinion, if he could familiarize himself with a book by Oleg Petrovitch Syedyshev, published in 2012 in a city of Mariupol, Donetsk region. Life of characters of the book is not serene, it is not rich (financially), but the author tells in it not about how he suffered, but how he enjoyed life.
A smiling face is looking at us from the cover. The first thing we read is: “Humorous Essays based on reminiscences about student life”. Under the photo there is the title of “Dudes”; it is a popular colloquial word, which means “fools” and “idlers”. There right away appear three reasons to smile: the 1st – to respond to the author’s smile, the 2nd – to the word “Humorous”, the 3d – to “dudes”. I kept the serene smile till the end of the reading. Not all readers react the way I did. For example, Tatiana Romashova, Syedyshev’s fellow student’s daughter writes about her family’s reaction: “We were laughing and crying {…}”. And Sveta Titova was “laughing loudly and whole-heartedly, it’s been a long while since I had that much fun…”. My reaction turned to be more restrained. However I was smiling until I finished reading of all the 295 pages.
Humor is the main key word. It runs through the entire narration from the title to the very last page: “That was the end of the day, which was full of events and adventures. And a photo with an inscription: “A criminal case, which the guys escaped”. With merciless truthfulness the author revealed himself and his friends, but his sense of humor colored his reminiscences. I want to believe that by depicting bad and vicious public phenomena as funny, people get rid of them.

The book is written in purely Russian spoken language. I insist on the word “purely”, as there are no barbarisms or bookish words (even participial constructions or adverbial participle constructions with their annoying suffixes -vshi-, -shi-), there is actually no slang and abusive language there. These days teenagers quite often talk in such a way that one is ashamed and scared to go by them. How much they abused themselves! The author has demonstrated that the standard of knowledge, culture and moral of young people of his youth was higher, than the one of modern young people.
The guys are students of Kemerovo state medical institute of 1966 – 1972. However are they really idlers and fools?
The main work of students is their studies. The author to be read through all the additional literature suggested by his professors, he graduated with honors.  And the way they studied for their examinations! They used to forget to eat and sleep! Studies meant for them absolute concentration, devotion, ultimate strain of all their physical and moral power. For their anatomy exam they remembered “thousands and even tens of thousands names of bones, bonelets or prominences on the bonelets”. They crammed for their pharmacology exam for days and nights, but still were nervous to the point when two of the group overdosed stimulants of nervous system and were non stop repeating names of medicines and their doses. A surgical training professor gives only two grades: an “excellent” and “unsatisfactory”. And the graduates agree with him: to know this subject for a “satisfactory” grade is a crime.
The author fearlessly reveals how the students try to cheat during exams: they make and agreement with an assistant to place examination papers in certain order they know. However that was done more for their peace of mind, as they know all material.
Nightmare-like nights of studying fade from their memories, but knowledge remains. Their hard work is repaid: they become top professionals. Under one of photos we read: Lyubov Natcheva (Reshetnikova), doctor of biological sciences, professor, Head of the biology department of Kemerovo state medical academy, academician of Petrovskaya academy of sciences and art, academician of Russia’s Academy of Natural Science, “Honored worker of higher educational institutions of RF”. Under another one: Agadzhanyan Vagram Vaganovitch – doctor of medicine, professor, fellow of Russia’s Academy of Natural Science, honored doctor of RF, member of American academy of surgeons-orthopaedists. And so on.
Manual labor is also not alien to the students: they cleaned trolleys and detrained freight cars, and worked as hospital attendants. It is not without reason that from the word “labor” there was derived an adjective “laborious”. Quite often the students work on the edge and try even above the limits of their physical abilities.  Remember, when they were detraining Cuban sugar, and Oleg Syedyshev was turning over the sacks, he felt like carrying a sack by himself. The lightest one was 80kg, the bigger ones were 120kg. Oleg weighed 50kg back then. Even though his steps were shaky on the ground, he kept making attempts to carry the load. The guys were aware of how hard it was for a simple man to earn his living.   
From my point of view, the book describes the most important gain of the student years: friendship, solidarity, remembering of those who are gone forever, which makes them as if alive, mutual assistance, mutual readiness to help, and cooperation, and ability to forgive practical jokes and mischief.
 However, the latter, as the courageous author writes, “was the case” perplexes. How could Mikhail put into his friend’s album prepared to be presented to a professor a piece of paper with a swear word? What for did they unnoticeably put spoons of salt into Dimka’s soup? Why did they have to bring sleeping Zhora together with his bed into a lady’s toilet? What for did they hide a heavy weight in a bed of a heavyset student? I am trying to understand this.
Similar phenomena were observed even among offsprings of the nobility, even in Tsarskoselskiy Lyceum, when Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin studied there (The Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg was founded by the Emperor Alexander I in order to give education to youths of the nobility, who should afterwards occupy important positions in the Imperial service.).
I am re-reading Y.Tynyanov’s novel “Kyukhlya” (Yury Nikolaevich Tynyanov, 1894 –1943, was a famous Soviet/Russian writer, literary critic, translator, scholar and screenwriter. He was an authority on Pushkin and an important member of the Russian Formalist school.).
I will allow myself excursus into the book. Maybe the past will help to understand the present. The author described how Wilhelm K;chelbecker was tormented, he tried to drown himself, and Pushkin was calming him down, and the lyceum students admitted that all of them loved him. There was mockery, harassment and later friendship and devotion to death. In the novel there is an episode related to the period, when they were finishing the Lyceum. Vilya was listening to a new Pushkin’s epigram:
I had too much to eat for supper
But Yakov had negligently left the door locked
My dear friends I felt sick
and like k;chelbecker-ing up.

Wilhelm immediately challenged his friend to a duel. First he was aiming right at Pushkin’s forehead, “but then saw his alive eyes” and shot to the left side. And Pushkin threw his pistol in the snow. “Shoot!” – K;chelbecker was shouting. - Vilya, - Alexander firmly told him, - I will not shoot at you. “K;chelbecker-ing up” – is really very funny!” Luckily his friend realized the inadequacy of his reaction.
I made all these quotes in order for us to individually consider every similar case, though there is something in common between them. Perhaps, this is the human nature: for the young their need for fun overpowers sympathy for a person they are making fun of. How can this be set right? I believe this can be helped, as there are cures from illnesses, even the most serious ones.  Let Sedyshev’s book serve as a pill or even better an immunization against harassment of inferiors, depression, propensity for suicide and other ailment of these days. Oleg Petrovitch fearlessly exposed evils of his epoch. Let the stupid get wiser! Let the wise learn on somebody else’s mistakes!
Amusing pictures of students’ everyday life are a true to life and bright description of any sphere of social life. Similar to many-colored pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope, they make a social fabric, which offers a thorough understanding of life of the society. The author does not make any conclusions, does not reason, he believes that his readers will understand everything by themselves. 
For example, the educational system at higher educational institutions that was till 1990. The institute was supplied with the teaching staff, preparations, text books, etc.; students had for their convenience dormitories, sports complexes, equipment; amount of student stipend did not meet all the needs of young people, though it made it possible to receive higher education to everybody who whished to. The main thing was the professors’ attitude to their job and students, and from the students’ side – their attitude to their study and professors. For the most part they found mutual understanding. 
The author draws the most vivid portraits and characters with signs plus and minus. What a great skill of details he has! Even strings at an excessively long and wonderfully white doctor’s smock of T.F.Ryzhov, nicknamed as Faradey suggest fear. He covers his student from any offender and at the same time protects his science against ignoramuses and idlers.
However not all professors are understood by the students from the very beginning. For instance, K.T.Somova (the one who demands by the outline of a tooth by touch tell from what jaw and what side the tooth is) was honored with a bow from her former students for her exactingness only after they started working with patients in real life.
The author does not conceal that there are some “profs”, at whose lectures letters to friends are being written, and stockings are being mended.  By the author’s intonation it is clear that he praises his friends for not wasting their time. Those lecturers are not worthy of any attention.
Portraits of students are also colorful.  At the beginning of their first year at the institute they have just left their parent’s homes and were able to do not many things by themselves. Syedyshev boiled chicken with head and legs and in feather and even wrapped in paper. Gradually they learn everything. In essay #98 there is an ode to pilau. The cook, the author of the book, knows every tiny detail of the process: how to choose ingredients and in what order put them in a cauldron, and how to stir. The cooking process conceals unlimited love to people he is making the pilau for. They are his absolutely loved family: his wife Natasha – Natalek., “his home front deputy”, and his daughter Katyusha – Cathy, who is about to graduate from a medical institute.
However it is not only his family who is awarded with a ceremony of cooking. Kemerovo students make a real show of cooking pilau at the Issyk Kul lake. The vacationers of the holiday hotel applaud to the cooks. No, they are not just applaud, but “award them with ovation” and then enthusiastically enjoy the food.  Now the students teach the people around to enjoy life, create joy not only for themselves, but to other people as well.
In another case they fail to reach their place by the beginning of the New Year. They are hungry and cold on a tram. So what? Do they complain about their life? Nothing like that. They uncork a bottle pour its contents in a jar and offer to everybody who happened to be on the tram, they laugh and sing all together. What can be better than that?
The author is merciless to his own and their sins. He is writing that now his hair stands on end, when he remembers about that. They are stealing chickens from a barn and potatoes from cellars, and chocolate from a confectionery producing factory during their excursion there, and bags with food hanging outside of windows. Can this be combined with everything said before? It turns out that it is compatible. Why did this “take place”? Oleg Petrovitch writes that they did not think about possible consequences of what they were doing.
In addition to that an essay #99 “Always hungry” provides more insight into that. As it is known, one should not be careless with those who are hungry. If once they successfully ate somebody else’s food, then they feel like doing the same again and again. In those days many people treated socialist property like their own. The words: “Everything around is Soviet, everything around is mine!” were almost a universal slogan.
 Now the former students from Kemerovo are absolutely different people. In essay #93 the author writes with what pleasure he presented one hundred thousand disposable syringes to a children’s department of Mangush hospital, which is near Mariupol. “People, be happy!” is the name of the essay.
What prescription has doctor Syedyshev given in his book? Row the boat you are floating in. Do not rely on will of the flow. Create your own destiny by yourself, if you want it to be successful. Somebody would say: “What a banality! What a case of primitivism!” And were they not the same things that were said in the second part of Goethe’s Faust? Hope there is no little man found to say that I place the author of the essays next to genius Goethe.
I only want to underline the main idea of “Dudes”: labor is both salvation and happiness for the human race and every individual Homo.



From the author

After finishing school I faced a question of where to go to continue my education. By that time I already had a firm decision to enter the Medical Department of the Kemerovo Medical Institute. I implemented it when entered the Kemerovo State Medical Institute (KSMI) in 1966 and graduated from it in 1972. They say that student years are the best in man’s life. I will not insist on this statement and convince you, my dear readers, everyone will have his or her own answer to this question. Though I believe that this is true, because all exciting impressions and emotions experienced during the years of study are unique and stay in our memories for a long time. So to prove this I want to bring several essays about my student life to the attention of the guests of the site.

Wikipedia gives the following definition of an essay:

Essay (in French essai "an attempt, a trial, a sketch", from Latin exagium "balancing") – a literary genre of a short prosaic writing with free composition. Essay expresses author’s personal impressions and points of view on a certain event or an issue and does not claim to be exhaustive or definitive (in Russian’s parody tradition " a view and something"). As for its size and function, it verges, on the one hand, on a scientific article and a literary sketch (which is often confused with an essay), and on the other hand – with a philosophical treatise. The essay style combines figurativeness, flexibility of associations, aphoristic character and quite often antithetic thinking, focus on intimate sincerity and spoken intonation. Some theorists consider it to be the fourth, together with epos, lyric poetry and drama, kind of fiction literature. Essays are based on real facts. All the described cases of my student life really had taken place. All the characters of the essays are the students of the Kemerovo Medical Institute of different years. These are the reports of retro- events. For your convenience, my dear reader, I arranged my narration in the form of separate stories.

Life is life, and, alas, all of us are mortal. Now, forty years later, we said good bye forever to many of our former fellow students and lecturers. May the peace of God be with them, we will always remember them. I on purpose did not say about anyone "the deceased". All of them are forever alive to us.
Not without reason it is said: "A man is alive while he is remembered".
I really like the words of Confucius: "All have died except for those who are alive, and those  whom we remember".

This postulate is especially important now, forty years later, and I took it as an epigraph to the collection of Humorous essays based on students' memories. At first I wanted to call it a collection of essays, "40 Years Ago or A Point Of View And Something." The name was taken out of nowhere. In 2012 I will celebrate the 40th anniversary of my graduation from the Kemerovo Medical Institute. Here is the first part of the name. "A Point Of View And Something" is a colloquial expression about something ironic, very superficial, insipid what contains no serious analysis of the topic. Well, it is exactly about my Humorous essays. And I borrowed this part of the name from the words of Repetilov from "Woe from Wit":
"You'll find an extract in a journal, by the way,
It's called 'A Point Of View And Something'.
What is it all about? Everything."

Well, I hope you will agree that the last line is great. However, after rereading the essay one more time, I suddenly realized that I wrote about the blockheads. Yes, we were excellent students and no less desperate blockheads who became the wonderful doctors later.
This is my first literary experience. Well, it’s up to you to decide, what came out of it. I will be happy if you leave your comment (whatever it is) in the guest book on my website at
http://www.syedyshev.com/book/index.php

So,  "Dudes" read the Humorous essays based on students' memories.



Essay 1: HOW I BECAME A STUDENT

When entering a Medical Institute I had the following entrance exams schedule: chemistry, physics and a composition.  I passed chemistry with an A, though physics almost put an end to my epopee of entering the Kemerovo State Medical Institute.

In the morning at the appointed hour I arrived to the main building of the institute (at that time it was in Kirovskiy district of Kemerovo) and lined up for the exam together with other early risers.
Soon there was time to enter a class room, and I could not find my examination record book, then terror-stricken I remembered that I had left it at home in a settlement of Kedroskiy opencast mine where I lived with my parents at that time. Now it is difficult to remember the gamut of emotions and swirl of thoughts in my head, but everything added up to one: “This is it, I’m done with my entrance exams”.

Yet, I went home to Kedrovskiy opencast mine, took my examination record book and went back to the Institute. It should be mentioned that there is a thirty or forty minutes bus ride from Kedrovskiy opencast mine to the district of Rudnichnyi of the city of Kemerovo, then one should take a number three tram to continue the trip for 30 minutes longer.  All in all, it took me about three hours to go there and back. I do not know why I did not take a taxi; perhaps, had no money. So I was walking from the tram to the Institute, not in a hurry, as I was sure that I was late for the exam, and there was no reason to hurry up. Though every undertaking is to be finished, and I was dully moving along.

There was nobody at the door of the classroom where the exam was to be taken. And all of a sudden miraculously the door opened and a girl came out (perhaps a secretary) and asked if there were any other institute entrants to take a physics exam. I was dumb-founded and said that I wanted to take the exam. The girl literally pulled me inside the room and announced that she found one more. I remember that the head at the board of examiners was a man. I remember that he was loudly reprimanding me and said that he himself would hold my examination. I took an examination paper and I clearly remember even now that one of the questions was Archimedean principle, then some other question and a problem.
 
Because of all the worries and especially because I was literally pulled into the examination room, I became completely blank. About the Archimedean principle I remembered only pictures from the physics text book, where there were tanks and other containers with water and a man in them and some objects. So I drew all these on two pieces of paper. The second question I do not remember at all. I might not know or remember the answer to it, as for the problem, I solved it and put the answer in a nice way on paper. Then I do not know why and do not know for the life of me what for I drew a dust formula (DDT dichlorodiphenil…, etc.) at the bottom of the paper.
So I was sitting and waiting in an absolutely calm way as I knew exactly that I failed the exam, I was just waiting to see the end of all that. Finally the head of the examination board picked up my examination paper and my pieces of paper with the answers and asked what had happened that I was almost late to the exam. And I honestly told him about everything – the gamut of emotions and swirl of thoughts and about the trip I made. And then his words imprinted themselves in my mind: “But he does know physics!”. “And why did you write this?” (this was about the dust formula). I honestly answered – “that I did not know, it drew itself somehow”. He wrote something in my examination record book and gave it to me, and said: “Good bye”. I looked into the book only when I was in the hall and there was an excellent grade there.

For the composition in the Russian language I was given a satisfactory grade, though, nevertheless together with some other institute entrants I was invited to the Rector’s office, where we were announced that considering two excellent grades on chemistry and physics even with a satisfactory grade for the Russian language, I was enrolled as a first year student into the Kemerovo State Medical Institute.
 

Essay 2. Mini-dorm

Right after my ahead of schedule enrollment to the institute my parents became concerned by the necessity to find a decent place for me to stay at, as it was a long way to travel from Kedrovka every day, and the trips took a lot of time. Now I do not even remember, but I was introduced to four guys, three of who were the second-year students: Kolya Kozlov, Zhora Chernobai and Vadim Severin, and one, Zhenya Romashov, was supposed to be at the same course of study with me. Funny enough that Zhenya and I happened to study in the same students' group # 218. These guys were occupying two rooms in a house and agreed to make room for me. It was later when  I had come to a conclusion that it was better for a student to live alone, but at that time I was impressed that the second year students would give me pieces of advice about "what and how" at the institute.
Though here is what I wanted to write about. The guys had an agreement that they ate at the place where they lived, and after I joined them, we developed a schedule (my day was Wednesday, on Saturday and Sunday each of us could eat where and how he wished, for example, I used to go to Kedrovka to my parents) and agreed about the amount of money, which each of us had to spend to buy food. The tastiest days were when Zhora Chernobai was on duty. He himself loved to eat and spoiled us as well. He could make pancakes for the whole gang and make some of them with stuffing. Or he could bake pies filled with liver sausage or make a real borsh. Two or three Saturdays in a row I was frying tons of potatoes (what I could do) on lard. And though the guys were praising me, I felt that I was repeating myself.

I've always loved a Czeck writer Yaroslav Ha;ek. Those who read him - remember, like Schweik made up his mind to give "horizontal" pleasure to lieutenant Lukash and made chicken soup for him.
Under the impression of this fact I decided to make the guys happy with a chicken soup. I bought a chicken in a store. I chose the bigger one. I bought egg vermicelli - it was a hard-to-get thing at those times. Well, it produced the right effect. When the guys came home, there was such delicious smell of chicken broth from the kitchen which was in the semi-basement, that they became very excited, rubbed their hands, saying - come on, treat us! We came down to the kitchen, sat at the table. The owner had a round table in the kitchen. Started eating, all of us ate with appetite asking for another helping. I was on the seventh heaven. I told the guys about the "horizontal" pleasure. To put it short, everything was fine.

And then, it was the time, and I took the chicken out of the saucepan, and we charged Zhora to cut it. Zhora was the most fair of all of us. Zhora was also pleased with the credit he was given and that he was well-fed, he started tearing the chicken into parts. And then happened what happened. A limp paper bag fell out of the chicken's chest. The paper was the wrapping one, brown. One won't find it these days. I suspected that something was wrong and quietly while everybody were staring at the paper bag moved closer to the stairs leading upstairs. And I did the right thing by this maneuver. Zhora unwrapped the bag, and a chicken head all in feather, legs with claws and pluck (leaver, chicken stomach and heart) fell out of it. I decided not to wait longer for further events and like a bullet flew upstairs and shut the door, and even managed to lock it. There were shouting and scolding coming from the kitchen. I was sitting upstairs behind the locked door and exhorting the guys, asking them to calm down reminding them of how much they were praising me and asking for a second helping, as it was really tasty. So what, a head and legs! And if one looks into it, there are no chickens without heads. I'd rather not said that to them: they almost appeased when we were talking about a second helping, and after that lost their temper again!

And suddenly I made an excellent move. I apologized and said that I was going to open the door and come down to them to their mercy. So I did. And the guys forgave me. Though Zhenka, a pest, suggested not togive me the chicken meat, but give me the head and legs instead, as there was no chicken without a head. Though the rest of the guys put him to shame, and the dinner was finished in amiable peaceful atmosphere. There were stories about the incident, and all did their best to make it sound as funny as possible.

 Yes, everything ended up fine, but in a month I left the guys. Five people are too many to have life.

Essay 3. ARKASHA

I am not sure and even have strong doubts that what I want to tell now is funny. Though at those old times...

Arkasha Bliakher, a red-haired guy from Kishinev.

We met at the Russian exam (composition), we sat at the same desk. So this guy helped me at the exam, he taught me how to check a composition. When reading my composition from its end (like Arkadiy advised me), I found about ten mistakes. That helped me to receive a satisfactory mark, I overlooked two mistakes yet. After students' groups were formed Arkadiy and I turned to be in the same group # 218.

Starting from the very first roll call - for some reason teachers felt shy to pronounce Arkasha's family name and used to say Blyukher, or Blekher - each time I would shout: "Not Blyukher, but Bliakher and with a hyphen!". Then it seemed very funny to me, and even more the group would back me with a loud laughter. Arkadiy was annoyed, he told the teachers the correct pronunciation of his family name, yet from his lips it sounded not very convincing.

They say in Odessa that a joke repeated twice - is not a joke any more. In our case it lasted for six years in our group. Of course, with time Arkadiy stopped noticing my attempts, but even in the sixth year the group was greeting my constancy with laughter.


 PS:  Now Bliakher Arkadiy Aleksandrovitch lives in New York and works as an orthopaedist.

Essay 4. Ditto

Mkheidze Dmitriy - a handsome Georgian, though a blond with blue eyes. He used to keep saying that the true Imeretines (a region in Georgia with its center in Kutaisi) are fair-haired and with blue eyes, and that Mkheidze is a time-honored princely family name. I should say that Ditto was a true prince: he was generous, sympathetic, kind and loyal in friendship. We made friends with Ditto as well and even shared a room in the first year. So Dimka (as I used to call him) started teaching me Georgian from the very first days of our meetin. I was happy to study and was a diligent student. We practiced everywhere: on buses and during rides on a tram. As for Dimka's Russian, he spoke Russian with a very heavy accent at the beginning.

One day during one of our rides Dimka and I as usual were practicing in pronunciation of Georgian words ignoring people around us. Suddenly one of the girls who were sitting next to us addressed  Ditto and started loudly reprimanding him that he, a Russian guy, was: "burring the language", "imitating a Georgian", that he should be ashamed of this. What was the most important, she held me up as an example, saying: "Here is a Georgian (me - a Georgian!!!), but he speaks Russian well, without any accent, and this should be respected." I was silent. Though Dimka was not a pretty sight, his self-control failed him! He took out his passport, the good thing was that it turned out to be with him, and was shoving it to the girl's face as if saying: "I am the Georgian!" And was repeating with the same heavy accent: "Olleg, tell her, Olleg, tell her..."


Now Mkheidze Dimitriy Dimitrievitch is a highly respected man. He lives in Kutaisi and works as a chief otolaryngologist of Imereti.
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Essay 5. Vagram

It is now Agadzhanyan Vagram Vaganovitch is a Doctor of Medicine, professor, honorable member of RAEN, Honoured physician of Russian Federation, member of American Academy of Surgeons-Orthopaedists. Though at those days we used to wash trolleys together, and unload wagons at the "Gastronom" depot. And we also held crisscross competitions during lectures.

This Letter of Commendation was made by Vagram himself from a page torn out of a 96 pages notebook (then at the lectures we made notes in that kind of notebooks).

Here is a story I would like to tell. I do not remember any more where from and where to we were going together with him, but at the stop Drama Theater (it happened in winter when streets were slippery with ice) a woman slipped and fell down. Two of us, Vagram and I immediately rushed to her, helped her to rise to her feet and even to get on a crowded bus 51. Everything could have been ended just there, but we were in a good mood, and at the very first lecture Vagram and I were telling everyone we approached that we rose to her feet a fallen woman and directed her to a path of true virtue. We were talking nonsense, but for some reason that rubbish about the fallen women spread around the whole Institute. We were approached by students from other departments who asked us to tell what it was about the fallen woman and how we directed her to the path of true virtue.

We were enjoying the unexpected fame. It was such a PR! To put it more exactly - self-made PR.
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.
 

Essay 7. SLAVA SIZIKOV

Slava Sizikov, a nice guy, was born in a town of Kuzbass region. He had a very good memory, though he used his gift in a very peculiar way. He could catch someone in a hall, grip his button and tell everything about a carbine (arm is meant by this). He knew the inventor of a carbine, his biography and all carbine's parts. Or he could for no reason at all start talking about hunting or a rifle's calibre.

Why it was necessary to know to me, for example, (as I also was many times caught by a button) I have no idea. There were two ways to stop that "intellectual torture": either leave a button in Slava's hands and run away, or give him a cigarette. I do not want at all to say that Slava never bought cigarettes. He bought them, but once a month for his stipend money. And then the situation was the opposite. Slavka would wedge himself in any group, he did not care what the conversation was about; he cut in on it and started foisting on everyone his cigarettes. It was much easier to accept a cigarette than explain to Slava that you had just had one and did not want to smoke. Slavka could not have cared less about it.

Though this piece of reminiscences is not at all about Slava's nicotine adventures, on the contrary, it is about something very different. Slava had a habit to put his briefcase under his pillow. All our group knew about that. So on the eve of the holiday of 7 November during a class (I will not make up what kind of class it was, perhaps physiology) we were dissecting a frog. I do not remember, who was the first to come with an idea to put the dissected frog into Slavka's briefcase. Zhenya Romashov and I (though the oldest in the group, he was a notorious mischief-maker) took the most active part in the undertaking. Zhenka took Slava aside, distracted his attention with a question about a microscope or some other trifle, and at that moment I secretly filched a frog from a preparation table, wrapped it in some paper and put it into Slavka's briefcase. Zhenka and I did not tell anybody about our mischief, for the information would not reach Slavka before the time. We knew that after the classes Slavka would hurry up to the apartment where he rented a room, leave the briefcase there (we hoped that under the pillow), collected some stuff and would go home, either to Leninsk or Prokopjevsk, for two or three days.

Well, after the holidays, when early in the morning we arrived to the institute, Zhenka and I of course, told everyone about the frog in the briefcase. Everybody was extremely excited. All of us were waiting for Slava to come. Slava had one more peculiarity: in spite the fact that he lived two hundred metres away from the institute, he was minimum ten minutes late for classes on a regular basis. He even set his watch thirty minutes ahead in order not to be late, but it was of little help for him.

You can imagine how the group was suffering and scolding the absent Slava for his habit to be late. It was, as it seemed to us then, worse than tortures at Muller's torture chamber.

That day Slavka was a whole period late. Though he came before it was over, he did not dare to come into the class room. The classes were over, the professor left, and Slava entered the room.

One could not look at him without tears - there was absolute confusion and feeling of doom in his face. The group fell silent, and Slavka started complaining: "Guys, I can't get rid of a strange smell. It was not there at home, but when I came back to Kemerovo this morning, I feel the smell of rotten stuff in my nose, it is not strong, but permanent".


Of course, we started asking how he had spent the holidays. What he was drinking? What he was eating? How he felt? Whether the cigarettes' smell kills the stink… There were oceans of questions. We felt that Slavka was enjoying attention of the whole group, he did his best to answer with all details and even did not notice that no one went on a break. And then Zhenya gave up and asked where the stink was coming from, and even offered a hint   - maybe from pockets or the briefcase. You know, Slavka was eccentric, but quick witted. Confusion and feeling of doom disappeared from his face, and he yelled: "You, bastards!..."
He dashed to his briefcase, opened it and found the bundle. Maybe for a week Slavka was trying to find out who arranged all that for him. Then Zhenka and I invited Slava to a cafeteria and treated him to Zhiguliovskoe beer, so when his soul softened, we confessed in the committed. Slavka was happy with the treat and forgave us. He said that he had suspected that it was two of us, as others were not capable of this.

Essay 8. BATYA

Batya was how I called my father Syedyshev Petr Andreyevitch, a disabled WWII veteran and a very nice man. For some reason my parents were convinced that all students were starving. And of course, their own offspring was sitting hungry at the lectures, dreaming about a piece of bread. So not to let me starve to death, I regularly received sacks of potatoes and jars of jam and pork lard - I vividly remember - in postal (plywood) boxes. In addition to that I was given sufficient amounts of money to buy food. My mom and dad used to give me the money secretly from each other and asked not to say a word. In those remote days I remember I liked home made Kurniki (chicken pies). My mother, Aleksandra Mikhaylovna, made them wonderfully well. Just imagine: a lower crust of yeast dough and on the top of it there are finely cut potatoes, then chopped into small chunks chicken or duck (better low-fat) meat, then onion rings, though not very thin. Of course, there are bay leaves, black pepper and obligatory salt. All these were in quite a big quantity covered by an upper crust made of yeast dough as well.

Kurnik's edges are carefully pinched together for juice not to leak from the inside of it. And then into an oven it goes.  Unfortunately, I do not know how long it should sit in the oven, as I never made this meal myself, and had it only ready to be enjoyed. Of course, my parents knew that I loved kurniki, so just imagine the following situation.

My group and I are having a class. And at that time my batya came from Kedrovskiy open cast mine and brought my favorite kurnik. It was huge - of the size of a baking tray from the oven. Batya put it on veneer not to break it and wrapped in towels and something else, I do not remember now, to keep it warm. So there was batya sitting at the institute's administrative building (which was in Kirovskiy district) and getting at all the passing by students and professors with a question of how he could find his son, Syedyshev Oleg. I think that at the beginning all who were bothered were ready to swear at him, in spite of the fact that batya looked quite respectable. But no, their intention disappeared as soon as they smelled the odour which was coming through all the rugs the kurnik was wrapped in. Batya would add that he brought a pie to his son and wanted his son to eat it while the pie was still hot. You know, the people changed right away. Everybody wanted to help my batya to find his starving son. At the institute and in the hall on the first floor some animation started, everyone asked each other who Syedyshev Oleg was and how one could find him. My batya was helped by our Dean Muroseyev Lev, if I am not mistaken, or maybe it was not Muroseyev, I do not know, it's not that important. One of the professors came into the class and apologized to the lecturer and asked him to let Syedyshev leave the class, as there was his father waiting for him at the entrance with a pie. I went out, met and exchanged kisses with batya, accepted the pie. He was a tactful person, mentioned a long trip back as an excuse and quickly left.

I do not remember how this happened, the classes were over or something like that, but our whole group gathered around me together with some fellows, and all of us went to try the kurnik.

I will not describe the party in details, just say that each of the present received a small piece of the pie, though there were drunk oceans of wine. Everybody loved the kurnik, I was asked to tell my parents that they were marvelous and wonderful people, and that next time there would be no need to look for me around the institute for a long time.

And it was exactly that way; batya brought kurniki many times since then.
Essay 9. Tolik and Vagram

Fruit and vegetable depot "Gastronom" of Kemerovo is between Kemerovo and Yagunovskaya mine. My grandmother lived in Yagunovka. So in early autumn or rather in September I was going from my grandma by bus #8 and passed the "Gastronom" depot. I already had experience, worked there once in a while, so when I saw several wagons-refrigerators at the depot, I realized that some freight was brought there, and they would hire loaders to unload it. I quickly got out at the stop and found out that there were three wagons with grapes, which had to be loaded into other wagons to be sent around the region, and that the loaders were not hired yet. The loaders were found each time in the same way: they called student dormitories and invited students. I did my best to convince the people at the depot not to call the dorms, as I would go home and bring my friends, and we would reload all the three wagons. I do not know why, but they trusted me.

There were no cell phones at that time, so I went to collect my team as quickly as public transport made it possible.

I decided to go to Tolik Lopatin and Vagram Agadzhanyan, who shared an apartment. They both were tall and strong guys.

Tolik and Vagram turned to be at home and agreed to go and do the work, especially as because I learned at the depot, that for each wagon they promised to pay 150 rubles. They were the rubles of the times when one could eat for 50 kopeks in a canteen! We knew that we were fooled anyway, even though that much money was paid to us, so we brought Tolik's huge veneer suitcase to take grapes with us. Yes, in lawyers' language that sounded like "defalcation of socialist property" and provided corresponding liability. Though, we did not care about all that then. That much stupid we were! Further there is a stenographical report: we came, worked all night long. In the morning our bodies were shaky because of fatigue, but we were satisfied. While the stockkeeper  was out once in a while at night, we picked out and put the best bunches of grapes into the suitcase until it was full. The grapes were terrific. As we read, it was some kind of a muscat.  Generally speaking, in the morning each of us received the promised 150 rubles. Then with a suitcase full if grapes, by bus #8 and then by tram #3 we went to Kirovskiy district, Sevastopolskaya Street, where Tolik and Vagram lived. I stayed over night at the guys' place as well, though lived not far from them - was too exhausted to go home.

Though this story is not about how hard we worked and chose the wrong path of "defalcation of socialist property". The most interesting started when we woke up and saw what a huge heap of grapes we brought from the depot. The grapes were the most delicious. But what should we do with it? It was not possible for the three of us to eat that quantity of grapes. So we decided to sell it. Without any hesitation we agreed to sell the grapes in the yard and call it Armenian as if it was sent to Vagram.
The trade was brisk, we gave generous overweight; the bunches of grapes were gorgeous. In less than an hour we sold everything and earned extra about one hundred rubles. We divided the receipts and forgot about our enterprise.
In about three days this muscat was sold for one ruble fifty kopeks at every corner of Kemerovo. We were selling the grapes for five rubles. Yeah, Tolik and Vagram had some tough days; they heard a lot of nasty things from their once grateful customers.

 Our luck was also in that that our commercial activity and initiative passed unnoticed by the competent authorities. But since then we never went to the depot "Gastronom" again.
 
Essay 10. Ilgam and Otari

They were my two friends, two the brightest representatives of their people. As one says now: "persons of Caucasian nationality".  But what kind of the persons! Both were original and handsome not only by their looks, but by the souls.  They were very different, though recognizable.

Gasanov Ilgam Risa Ogly was thin, but slender and tall. His face was one of a classical Azerbaijanian. His eyes were dark, and nose... Ilgam could be both fierce and kind. He was born in Baku, and was very proud of it. When he was telling about his native city, his face was radiant.  Like myself, Ilgam was enrolled in the institute ahead of time, so we were offered to work for a couple of weeks in September at the military department instead of going to a collective farm. At that moment we did not know what was "a collective farm" or "a military department", though had a hidden idea that the military department meant personal contacts with professors, which could be very useful in our future student life. By the way, all this proved useful to me in my fifth year, during a military assembly which lasted for a month. Though, about this later...

Teodoradze Otar Refikovitch came from Batumi. Even at that time, when he was a very young guy, characteristics of a mature man expressively showed in him. Otari was a man of few words, but every word was meaningful, he was self-restrained and as they say imposing. His face was manly, and he always had his moustache neatly cut and well-groomed. And his Eastern gesture, when Mussulmans press a hand to a forehead, a heart and a mouth, was elegant and liked by everybody.

Here is what I wanted to tell about. In the first year of the Medical Institute there is a required class of physical training. The students did not like it, but it was necessary to have a pass in it. Those who attended sports groups were guaranteed to receive it, like your most humble servant, for example. I used to do sambo under a supervision of a prominent athlete Kravchenko, and even was a champion of the institute in my weight category. But I will tell about it in a different story.

Ilgam and Otari just did not enroll in any sports groups. So when winter came, they had to do ten kilometers of cross-country skiing along a birch grove in Kirovskiy district, where they lived. I was a witness of a skiing start of the guys. Otar and Ilgam went out of the main building with armful of skis. After walking down the steps they immediately started putting on the skis. And if Otal was wearing a track-suit, then Ilgam was in a long light overcoat. So just imagine: a tall guy in the unbuttoned coat and on skis... This was worthy to be seen! Nevertheless, Ilgam made the first step and ... stepped with one ski on the tip of another one and broke it. Happy Ilgam brought the broken skis to the department, cherishing a hope that he would be sent away and not tortured. Alas, he was mistaken: the teacher reprimanded him and gave new skis. Otari was patently waiting at the entrance all that time. With great difficulties Ilgam again put on the skis, and the two athletes started to the birch grove, where there was a ski track. And there at the very first meters of the track happened something, because of what I started the story.

Otar (and you remember that one was from Batumi, and the other one from Baku. In both places snow is a rear thing, to put it mildly) moved fast ahead, and Ilgam barely moving his skis shouted at him: "Otari, you are flying like a bird, like a whirlwind. Do not leave me alone." Ilgam was trying to make a dash to catch Otari up and suddenly broke the second ski. That time Ilgam's ski was not replaced, but he still received a pass in PT.
Essay 11. Petya Kozlov and a pipe

If to be formal, something can be written about any of my former fellow students. Yet, I believe that one should choose extraordinary personalities and remember impressive events (more precisely retro-events). As it seems to me, what I am going to write about now meets the both criteria.

Petya Kozlov had a personality type, which could be described as: "A plain fellow, though tightly buttoned up". He came to Kemerovo to enter the Medical Institute from Belovo (a town in Kemerovskaya oblast). He entered not only the Medical Institute. Simultaneously he entered a Kemerovo Music College to major in grand piano.
 


Though, one day Petya "unbuttoned one of his fasteners" and confessed to me that although in his passport it was written that his birth date was 1 March, 1948, he was born on 29 February. Then Petya asked me to promise that I would not tell anyone about that while we studied. I think I fulfilled the promise. I kept it to myself when we studied and 39 years longer.

On one of Petya's birthdays the group greeted him and gave him some trinkets, one of which was a toy clarinet. We were in absolute astonishment, when the next day during a break between classes Petya took the clarinet and played any tune we ordered on it. Everyone in our group loved Peter, and we missed him, when he transferred to the Tomsk Military Medical Academy.
Essay 12. Golubev and Sasha Plokhikh

Golubev, I do not remember his name and middle name, but I bet you that any graduate of the Therapeutic Department of 1972 remembers this professor of the Social Sciences Department. Golubev stuck in one's memory not only by the fact that he read lectures to the students of all departments, but by how he read them. He gave his lectures in a very peculiar way. The academic material was presented quite understandably and clearly, there were given intelligible to everyone authentic examples (considering that it was a Political Economy Course).

So imagine the following: a not tall, one can say even short, frail professor is giving a lecture walking slowly along the lecture hall in front of the students, and suddenly as if a hidden spring throws him up, he shoots up to the upper rows of the lecture hall and venomously asks those playing "sea battle": "Well? Did you hit the target?", and not waiting for an answer as swiftly comes down of the hall. Such a way of lecturing of his was very impressive.

In this story I want to tell about a widely known incident during a Political Economy exam. I received my credit "mechanically" - on the basis of my achievements during the semester - and did not have to take the exam, but I could not leave my dear group to the mercy of fate, especially that we had tailored a splendid plan.

Sasha Plokhikh was appointed as a leader in the implementation of the plan. A couple of words about Sasha: he studied with us for four years, and in the fifth year transferred to the Tomsk Military Medical Academy. Well, Shasha was an inspiring center of any company. He had a talent to make everybody laugh by telling not only a funny story, but a sad or even a tragic one. Everyone around were roaring with laughter, and he was standing there with an indifferent, even sad face, which made things even funnier.

Now about the exam, in the morning we managed to find a carafe (if you remember, at those old days there were faceted carafes) and poured two bottles of vodka in it.

So, the first group of five students - it seems to me, except Plokhikh, there were Kardashov, Romashov, Sizikov and Salmayer in it - entered the examination room, took the examination papers and sat down. All the rest of us, who knew about the plan, were looking through a chink of the door. Then Sasha Plokhikh loudly stated: "It's hot. And are you, so and so (I am sorry, I do not remember Golubev's name and middle name), perhaps, hot, too?" The professor replied in a sense that students should not fool him, but be busy preparing. But Sasha continued on the topic, insisting that it was hot, and asked: "May I have a drink from your carafe?" Golubev dropped his jaw and allowed Sasha to drink. And then the events started swiftly unfolding: Sasha got up, took the carafe, poured almost a full glass, shoved it in Golubev's hands and with the words "You are hot" practically forced it up to Golubev's mouth and nose. And there one should see how Golubev at the beginning was actively resisting, then suddenly jerked with his nose, sniffed and started willingly drinking himself, at the same time Sasha still controlled the process of drinking and with his hand directed the glass. Golubev's first words were: "Wow! That's something! Well done!".

Should it be mentioned that after that the exam turned into a formality? Everyone passed it, practically everyone got an excellent grade, and by the end of the exam the carafe was empty.

Essay 13.  Serezha Sherbinin

Having entered the Institute, I decided that I would work hard in all courses. So from the very first days of the studies I became a regular reader of a reading hall of the institute's library. I diligently took all the extra literature, which was recommended by our professors. I literally was going nuts because of the number of the books we had minimally to look through and at least something to remember.

Earlier in the story "Mini Dorm" I wrote that I used to live with the guys one year older than me. So those guys enlightened me that at the institute scores for some exams could be received without taking it. Though the guys themselves had never had the so called "mechanical exams" (when a student's achievements during a semester are considered, and the final grade is given on the basis of summing up the previous grades, so the student skips an exam), so they could not teach me how to do that.

So, Serezha Sherbinin was a calm and even attracting little attention guy in glasses. He held himself somewhat detached. Even though he took part in various events, including parties, but only in a passive way. To put it short, he existed, and at the same time he somehow was not there.

But it was when he spoke at a CPSU History (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) class, the professor did not call on him, he raised his hand and spoke, that I was deeply impressed by the form of his speech. And after his second presentation I realized: "That was it. Now I will receive mechanical exams at least in Social Sciences".

The CPSU History during the Fall Semester in the first year in our group (to be more precise, in a group and a half - group 117 was divided, and one of its halves studied together with our group 218, and the second half - with group 116) was taught by Elena Shalneva, if I am not mistaken Stepanovna (her middle name). She was a very kind and charming person. It seems that even at that time she was aware that students could not care less about the CPSU History, and being a communist, but not a fanatic one, she pretended not to notice various tricks the students played to avoid studying her subject.

Well, Serezha Sherbinin - it happened so that during that memorable class he sat next to me - to answer Old Lena's question (this is how the students lovingly called E.S. Shalneva between themselves) - the meaning of the question was irrelevant, because the answer was abstract as well, - raised his hand and without waiting to be called, stood up and literally said the following: "Let me answer, but not to spoil the beauty of the original I will read ..." and read from the text a whole passage of some text. When he was done, he said: "This is all I have. Thank you!" and sat down. Old Lena was very confused for some time, but she quickly came to her senses and gave Sergey and excellent grade. The same trick with some minor changes was repeated during all the following classes. And at the winter examinations Serezha Sherbinin took one exam less. So I, thanks to Sergey and his wonderful phrase: "Not to spoil the beauty of the original", made the proper conclusions to myself and before the state exams received only mechanical exams in Social Sciences.

I am very sorry, but I did not find Sergey's photo in my photo archive.

Essay 14. Operative surgery exam

I remember very clearly that an operative surgery exam we were taking during winter examinations.

So, that year the examinations started on about 10 January and were supposed to be over by 1 February. And after that there were vacations for a couple of weeks. I am describing the time frame in so much detail, because by the will of student destiny I did not have to take two of the three exams - I passed them mechanically (on the basis of the summation of my achievements during the semester).

So operative surgery was the only exam left; it was scheduled sometime in the middle of February. At that time for some reason I wanted very much to go home to Frunze where my parents moved from Kedrovskiy opencast as soon as possible.

In our group operative surgery was taught by an assistant professor V.G. Volkov. I diligently attended classes, were prepared on a regular basis and thought that I knew the subject. But it was the operative surgery, the stories, which were told from generation to generation of students were frightening. For example, there were rumors that Sherstennikov himself gave only two grades at the exam: excellent and bad, because he believed and stated every time that to know operative surgery satisfactorily was a crime.

I decided to ask V.G. Volkov for an advice, if it was worthy to risk and take the operative surgery exam ahead of the schedule; in the end of December the Dentistry Department had several examination days. My dreams were very vivid - I imagined that if I took the exam before the schedule and fly home right away, then my vacations would be more that a month and a half. I liked the idea so much that asked Volkov whether he was involved in examining the Dentistry Department and what he would say if I tried to take the operative surgery exam before the schedule, and whether he could examine me before the settled date. I did not offer a bribe; I relied on the fact that Volkov knew me from the seminars, as he was teaching in our group.

Poor Volkov grew dumb with astonishment because of such impudence. He said that as far as he could remember no one ever came to take the operative surgery exam before the schedule. He added that he did not advise me to take a risk, that I'd better took the exam together with my group, then according to the common procedure he would be able to examine me, though if I dared to take the exam before the schedule, he was 100 per cent sure that Sherstennikov personally would like to listen to me. Yeah, I faced a dilemma: "to be or not to be". I can honestly say that I am a reckless person with an extravert personality type. It even flattered me that I could be the first student who took the operative surgery exam before the schedule. So I went to the Dean's office to take a permit for an early exam. That was the procedure to follow then. At the Dean's office the permit was issued to me, but with such a meaningful smirk that I again hesitated whether I was doing the right thing.


When I came to the exam everything was going on the way Volkov had presupposed. Sherstennikov  was surprised, almost dumb-founded, and welcomed me with exaggerated politeness - come on in, well...well... I started growing anxious. I took an examination paper, sat at a desk and, believe it or not, calmed down. I had a look at the examination paper and saw that I knew all the questions. I absolutely relaxed. The Operative Surgery department had a rule that one could use posters at an exam which could be a good prompt. I got up and went to select the posters. I even did not notice that Sherstennikov left his seat, took my examination paper and stood behind me watching what kind of posters I was selecting. When I was done with the posters he pointed at one of them and asked me for what question that poster was? I answered that it was for the conduction anesthesia. And there Sherstennikov addressing for some reason Shklovskiy said: "This is the way to take an exam before the schedule!". Then he said to me: "Congratulations! Excellent!".

I was very happy. I passed the exam before the schedule to Sherstennikov himself, who used to say about himself: "I come into a bathroom and see that it is written in the wall "Sherst is a fool". If they write, then I am popular".  The second: I prolonged my vacations for more than a month. And the third: I realized that next semester I would receive enhanced stipend.

In a couple of days I was in Frunze and celebrated the New Year at home.


Essay 15. Striptease of Leada Syrkasheva

It just happens this way that this story has something in common with the previous one, at least in both stories the name of E.S. Shalneva is mentioned.

Lida Syrkasheva was a nice girl, she dressed quite fashionably, well, one can say, her cute little nose was always downwind of fashion. Lida lived somewhere in the downtown of Kemerovo, or as we used to say then, on the left bank. She came to classes to Kiyevskiy district by # 51 bus from the Drama theatre.

On the winter day, about which I am writing, Lida was late for classes, and it was right the CPSU history class. It is not important how much time passed since the beginning of the class, but just imagine the following picture: the door opens and Lida literally rushes into the class room. Her cheeks are bright red (no wonder, winter that year was very frosty), and she explains to Old Lena: I am sorry for being late, the bus turned over at the church, and we had to walk almost all the way. And all in the class room, including Old Lena have dropped their jaws, everyone is amazed and in shock, Old Lena is silent. Lida takes it as permission and takes her seat.

I cannot help but return to the part of the history in which I describe Lida's appearance, other way you will not understand, why we had our jaws dropped. So, Lida literally rushes into the class room, her cheeks are bright red because of the frost, she is in a chic grey-white downy sweater, instead of a skirt is a lacy light pink slip, short up to the centre of her hip, black stockings and black high boots. Well, you understand that our jaws definitely dropped. Old Lena's eyes grew round, though one should give her a credit for not saying anything not to confuse Lida. But the girls from the group tried to give Lida a sign, meaning, where was your skirt? Anyway, Lida, and she sat at the same desk with Zhenya Romashov, went for a break in the same way, and demonstrated herself once again, only then she was told, to be more precise, asked where her skirt though was.

It turned out that the bus on which Lida was overturned, but in lucky way, if one can say so, at least no one was hurt. Lida was dressed in a very tight long skirt, she could not get out of the bus, so she tucked it under her sweater. And then she simply forgot about it.  During the break together with Zhenya Romashov I went downstairs to the cloakroom and asked the students who were on duty there, whether they had seen that Lida was without a skirt. They said that they did saw that, but did not want to deprive us of the chance to see that as well. Here is what a real men's solidarity like!


Essay 16. It's a small world

Not without a reason it is said: "It's a small world". In the most unexpected place one can meet the most unexpected person. For example, I had many various accidental meetings in my life. I will tell you about two of them. The stories are combined by the fact that both of them took place in Dubai in the hotel Burj al Arab. The difference between them is that they brought contrary emotions to me.

Well, the first meeting. In the hotel Burj al Arab there are to huge escalators to go up or down from the first floor hall to the main lobby on the second floor. One day, I was hanging around the first floor waiting for my wife and checking a descending escalator. I looked at it and saw that there was Richard Gere coming down on it.

Well, I am not his fan, but the film "Pretty Woman" was one of the first I watched when the iron veil had fallen dawn. Involuntarily I made a step forward to Geer, smiled, and he came up to me, shook my hand and also smiling asked me: "Are you OK?" I gave a reply in Russian: "Vsje prekrasno!" (Everything is fine!) and we parted. I really was in a great mood. Later I was teasing Natalka that I almost had become buddies with Gere, that we had become like two birds of feather flock together, and things like that. Generally speaking, it was a wonderful topic for idle talk on vacation.

The second meeting at the same place in Jumeirah was with Anton Tabakov. In that case I was a passionate fan of the talent of Anton Tabakov and his father.

I also with smile greeted Anton and asked: "How is OBLOMOV? How is your daddy?" (OBLOMOV is a restaurant in Moscow owned by Anton Tabakov). I do not know what I did wrong, but on Anton's face (Mother Nature rests on the talented people's children) appeared an expression of such arrogance and contempt, that my desire to talk to him absolutely disappeared.

The story was intended to be not about Gere and Tabakov Jr. I wanted to dedicate the story to Arkasha Blyakher once again. So, after the second or the third year Arkasha as if woke up after a long sleep, like the Illya Muromets (worrier, character of Russian historic epic). Only Illya Muromets went to defeat the infidel and all those whistling robbers, and Arkasha started chasing girls like crazy. No, of course not, we did not blame him, but even envied him sometimes. Arkasha was a fine talker, he was a handsome guy, that that he was red haired made him stand out right away. He had no complexes. He could start conversation on any topic and absolutely talked some ladies' heads off. Arkasha met girls in the streets, in a reading hall, on a tram, on a bus and in a cinema.
 
So, one day at the corner of Vesennyaya Str. and the bank of the river Tom, where there used to be a dumplings place, and later was an ice-cream caf;, well, in the very caf; Arkadiy fancied  a voluptuous blonde, who was eating a huge ice-cream with currants jam. Arkasha was doing his best to impress her, though the blond was neither sending him away (she was sitting alone at the table, Arkasha practically set at her table without her permission), nor demonstrating any interest in him. And there Arkadiy made a mistake, he started lying to her and pretending that he was somebody else. And as it is well known lie is always punished. For Arkasha the blonde's words were like a bolt from the blue, when she said: "You are lying about all this, Blyakher." As it became known from reliable sources, Arkashka had quickly left and not even finished his ice-cream.

The sources were very reliable. The voluptuous blonde was my own aunt Valentina. Of course, I was telling her about my study, about my group and showed her photos. Of course, she knew Arkasha Blyakher from my stories and knew only good things about him. When he started making things up about himself, Valentina simply decided to teach him a lesson and show him his place.

I would be happy to tell the story from Arkasha's side, but he did not want to talk about that. And I asked him not directly, but through hints.

The bottom line is: it is bad to lie, and it is good not to lie.

Essay 17. Pseudo wedding

No doubt that all students are or were in a situation when they needed to shirk their classes. I mean not just skip classes, but for some noble reason shirk school. How do students deal with this now? I browsed the internet, but did not find what I was looking for, pure shirking of  school not just by one student, but by the whole group.

Somehow it happened so in our one-and-a half group (earlier I said in one of the stories how unifications of such kind were made) that the motivation for such kind of shirking were parties, which we gladly arranged on any occasion. And we did not want to and could not wait till night or postpone them, say, to a weekend. We resolved those issues by a short circuit principle: if decided - then done.

To skip classes for the sake of a party, even though in a good company was above us. It took us not a long time to contrive the ways of how to do that, the idea of a wedding came up by itself. None of professors would refuse to reschedule a class or intensify it (cover two topics for the time of one class); of course, the professors understood that Registry Offices were open during the day time and that more time was needed for various rituals.

Well, we had the reason. There remained to find a groom and a bride. And there we, too, did not have any long debates or doubts. Sasha Plokhikh was nominated to the part of a groom; I had described his talents earlier. I just want to say that he was a well-built guy, not handsome, but a devilishly charming one. As Sasha Plokhikh's substitute there was suggested Volodya Bobkov. He was also a well-built curly-headed guy. Volodya was known among us for his doing of skydiving and having several diving to his credit. He was very proud of that. I will say right away that he never played his part.

Generally speaking, we had no debates concerning the bride. There were a few girls in our group, and all of them were peculiar. I think, they will not be offended now, if I say that Tatyana Yanchilina was the best candidate for the part of a bride.

She was a voluptuous blonde. She was self-confident. Tatyana was always smiling, she was an incorrigible optimist, and at the same time she was very smart and quick witted. And one more of her unquestionable virtues was the fact that she lived at the final stop of a # 3 tram in a big "stalinka" apartment and did not deny territory to the group to have parties on.

There was such a beautiful couple: Sasha and Tanya, a groom and a bride. And I was quite often the negotiator with the professors, but we also took with us Zhenka Romashev. He kept silence, but the fact that he was 10 years older than us was obvious and that added credibility to the negotiations.

I even do not remember how many of such pseudo-weddings we arranged, but I can confirm the fact that they were a lot of fun. It's a pity though that Volodya Bobkov failed to perform his part of a groom's substitute. He remained in our memories as a skydiver.
After Sasha's departure to Tomsk the weddings ceased, well, there was no alternate for him; there was a substitute, though at the same time he kind of was not there, and the idea itself became obsolete.

Essay 18. How I was a trade union organizer...

It happened so that I was elected to be a trade union organizer in our group. For the first two years the trade union organizer was Dima Mkheidze, but when he took an academic leave, I was elected. It was a position not burdened with many responsibilities, yet it was my first position. Not much was required from me, just to collect trade union dues: those who did not receive stipend paid 2 kopeks, and those who received it - 10 kopeks a month. Once a semester groups' "triangles" gathered together - a group monitor, a trade union organizer and a Komsomol (Young Communist League) organizer; they kind of influenced the awarding a stipend to those students who were in need. Though I do not remember any of such cases. So, my main task was to collect dues.

Well, there I should be given credit for: everyone paid dues with me. Though how it happened that I managed not to take the collected dues to the trade union committee was a mystery to me. For some incredible reasons the collected dues were used for the needs of the group. Yes, for the needs of the group, and not just like that, but after the voting of the whole group. For example, Arkasha Blyakher was a Komsomol organizer, and he also collected two or ten kopeks from each student a month, and the Komsomol dues were taken to the Young Communist League Committee, but the trade union dues collected by me were not taken anywhere.

And then everything was growing on like a snow ball. The next month I was collecting four kopeks from each student, then six ..., twenty kopeks ..., a ruble, etc. For some reason as soon as I finished to collect the money forcing it out of everyone, a spontaneous "trade union meeting" gathered, and a decision was made about how to spend it, for example on a party dedicated to a wedding of Tatyana Yanchilina and Sashka Plokhikh. You just do not assume that the money was literally spent on drink. For example, if that was an examinations period, the money was used to buy chocolate to a secretary or a laboratory assistant of a department where an exam was supposed to be held. One could not call that money spent on drink, it was spent on a sacred thing: to assure that the examination papers were arranged in certain succession. Then everyone would not hesitate and took his or her last from the right or last from the left examination paper and gave an answer with no worry.

Well, I, perhaps, should not even bother to finish the story. You, my dear readers, already realized that after the state exams all the university leavers were filling out a clearance chit (the so called loan slip), so when the students of our in the final year already 618 group came to the trade union committee for a signature and a stamp, they were drawn a quite an impressive bill for the dues not paid. I, a trade union organizer of the group, had to pay the bill as well. So, now I am curious: why I was not kicked out from the position of a trade union organizer? Kicked out not by the group, but by the trade union organization of the institute? I believe that that was a disgraceful fault of the trade union organizer of the institute. That's it, well, did he expect any kind words?..


Essay 19. Anatomy

Anatomy! Yes, this is the subject after attending which some nervous students quit their study at a medical university. This is the subject, without which there is no medicine at all.  I still can hear in my head the counting-out rhymes and  recitative which helped the students to remember hundreds, what hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of names of bones, bonelets or prominences on those bonelets. Here are a couple of them:

In a valley, in a village,
In a house on the river Hudson
There lived three handsome brothers - Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetral
And their sister Pisiform.

Or here is one more rhyme to memorize the names of wrist bones:

Trapesium, Trapesium, why are you late?
I went to visit my cousins: Trapezoid, Capitate and Hamate.

How many legends and various stories about anatomy are told among the students! I want my reader to learn about a couple of stories, which have witnesses.

Here is an example, Tolya Lopatin told me and swore that it was true that Valera Kofeyev, when answering a question about a breastbone during a class picked up from a basin with preparations a sacral bone. And one could not say that he was hesitating. You yourself remember Kofeyev; it was seldom when he hesitant. Well, when answering about the anatomy of a breastbone, he managed to find and show on a sacral bone all hollows and prominences of the fist and was very surprised by discontent of a professor. Though, anyone of us could be in Valera's place.
 
Here is a story which happened in our 118 group. Its main character will be again Lida Syrkasheva. You for sure remember the story which I called "Striptease". In this one Lida is absolutely different. Well, first of all, for anatomy class everyone wore surgical coats, so those who are waiting for more striptease are out of luck. And now about Lida, during anatomy classes there were used pointers made of wire instead of wooden ones. Well, Lida when she was giving an answer on anatomy and was not confident in the answer used to unintentionally take the tip of a pointer in her mouth. We racked our brains over how to tell Lida about this for a long time; as her reaction could be unpredictable. Poor Lida! She was so sick and throwing up after a professor reprimanded her for that.

The characters of the next story became two friends: Zhenya Romashov and I. The story is also trivial. For sure, a similar story happened not only in our group. And what connects this story with anatomy is the fact that after answering a professor's question Zhenya sat down, and I put a radial bone under his butt.  Of course, I was wrong. I had to take a different bone. The radial bone has a very sharp appendix at one of its ends. Zhenya was in pain, and he pushed me with anger so hard, that I fell down from my chair. And the professor kicked out of the class both of us, Zhenka and me. Well, it was obvious, why Zhenka, but what for I was kicked out? In the hall Zhenka and I, again friends, started contemplating our revenge on the professor. Just imagine, two freshmen are contemplating a plan of revenge on the professor!

And the professor was (I, as usual, do not remember his name and patronymic, and even his last name) the youngest assistant of the General Anatomy department. It was in 1966 - 1967 academic year. If anyone remembers that, please, let me know. The internet helped. I found a list of those who were teaching and are currently teaching at Kemerovo State Medical Institute. The professors' name was Zolotukhin Mikhail Ivanovitch. So, our minds were busy concocting a scheme of vengeance, even when after a break we were allowed to return to the class. And we did revenged ourselves, though later, when we studies entrails. We tied one end of bowels to a strap of a surgical coat of that young assistant professor, and the other end was trailing after him along the hall when he was walking to the assistants' office.

I agree that it is not nice. But what about the saying that it is better to regret about what was done, than about what was undone?
 

PS: The idea of the first plot was suggested by A.G.Lopatin.


Essay 20.  #118 Group

If to be logical, this is the story with which I should have started my memoirs about student life. At least this story had to be the second after the essay "How I Became a Student". Initially there were groups which studied the English, German and French languages. While the groups were formed, it was found out that there were some students from remote villages and some, who for various reasons were not taught any foreign language at school. There was made a decision to form a # 118 Group, half or which was supposed to study English and the second half - French, though their courses were started from the alphabet. Valya Timoshenko was, for example, from a village where there was no a foreign language teacher at all. Zhenya Romashov had finished school fifteen years before entering the institute in a small town formed around a spirits producing factory in Kirgizia; they both were in the group, let's say, on the legitimate basis.
Though how did Oleg Syedyshev, who had in his school leaving certificate Excellent in a foreign language, happen to be in the #118 group? Or the very Arkadiy Bliakher from Kishinev? Or Vagram Agadzganyan? Or Tatyana Yanchilina, who lived and studied in the center of Kemerovo? Or Valera Kaigorodov or Kolya Kovalchuk? They both were from Kemerovo.

Mysterious are the ways of the Lord...

I believe one does not have to be Solomon to make a conclusion that practically all students from #118 group were united  by one common characteristic - adventurism. Yes, adventurism. Just ask me now, how I dared to go to the Dean's Office to ask to move me into #118 group? I hardly will be able to give an answer. Though I went there and even was not scared by the fact that a copy of my school leaving certificate was in my personal history file. Through logical speculations I come to the conclusion that #118 group was a bunch of slyboots. I am not saying that it is bad. All of us had original way of thinking, and we were quick in uptake. Except us there were also other "slyboots", who wanted to study in that group, but we turned to be more agile. I stressed out the word to make it clear that: no, we were not smarter, but more agile and brighter, if you like it. Everything happened like at a train station: "those, who were not in time, were late!"

How else would you interpret Nadezhda Svechnikova's words: " ... I read your sketches and regretted  that I had not studied in your group, you told about things in such a fun way". Judge by yourself, dear readers, how her words should be understood.

A proof of the unique group thinking is a student group photo album, which was made before the spring examinations in our second year in order to receive "excellent" in English. We made that album practically by whole #218 group. The Foreign Languages Department liked it very much, and all of us got excellent grades.

Though the most important thing is that I liked the album very much too: I put my whole sole into it then, so I just stole it from the Department! I repent of that!!!

Reference for those who want to look through the complete album - student photo album
 

Essay 21. RW

It happened so that right during the tutorial before the state examinations one of our group mates was taken to be treated to a dermatovenerologic dispensary. Of course, it was the news of the day for us. It is understandable that all of us were sympathizing with the unlucky fellow student, but basically it was his personal tragedy, so it quickly lost its topicality, as the state exams were just around the corner.

Vagram's wife, Galina, was in hospital for maintenance of pregnancy. So Vagram offered me to stay at his place for that month. It was more fun to prepare for the exams together, especially as because we had studied together before and passed exams just fine. I agreed. In principle, between Vagram and me there was absolute mutual understanding, and we were comfortable together. We agreed to eat mostly at home, but to celebrate the passed exams in a restaurant.

Those days there were stores "Gastronomy", so we bought prepared food there: goulash, beef-stroganoff, chops and etc. For a side dish we as a rule fried a big frying pan of potatoes. It was delicious. Especially that we fried potatoes in a special way: when potatoes were cut, we wrapped them in a towel to dry out, at the same time we were melting cut into not very large pieces lard on a hot pan. The lard was melting, and when it became almost glassy, the dried out potatoes were put into the pan. Well, then it was a pure technical matter: one had to watch that potato chips were brownish fried, in five-ten minutes a frying pan of potatoes was ready. Then we mixed the fried potatoes with separately cooked goulash or beef-stroganoff.

Yes, I should admit that being almost a doctor, I could not use a knife and a fork simultaneously. I just could not hold a fork in my left hand! So, Vagram decided to train me, and do it quickly. I consented. The training was simple: take a fork in your left hand and a knife - in the right one and eat. At the beginning I left the table hungry, the parasite-teacher ate everything, while I was scrabbling in my plate. He was stuffed, but said: "I will teach you. You will starve and soon will become an ace". Generally speaking, it happened exactly that way. Well, many thanks to Vagram for the training.

Preparation for the state examinations, frankly speaking, was only called the preparation. Well, what could be done? The thoughts were getting into our brains: "You were taught for six years, and you really believe that you will be turned out now? Never ever..." Vagram and I did not resist these thoughts. The landlord of the apartment where Vagram lived had a huge library of detective stories, so Vagram and I started reading them. Each day we took a new book and finished it by night. We read on public transport, when we were going to the tutorials, at lunch, in general, everywhere.

So one day we happened to be in the downtown of Kemerovo, in Vesennyaya street, between Ostrovskiy and Soviet avenues, where there was a dermatovenerologic dispensary. We had classes right there, and our professor was Raisa Viktorovna, who was called by the students RW for short. So, like in the case when we picked up a "fallen woman", we unanimously went to the dispensary to Raisa Viktorovna and asked her to test our blood for RW. We did not explain to her, that one of our fellow students ... We told her that we were leaving Kemerovo and wanted to go healthy. RW laughed loudly, saying that we were scared, and we had better not played studs that much. RW was not shy in her expressions, though took our blood for the test. Some time later, we picked up the results of our tests, which, of course, were negative.

In principle, we were not worried about the house infection, as we sacredly believed into the words of the docent V.V.Chichikov, who at one of his lectures told us: "And he tells me that he got infected with syphilis at a public sauna. Just think, for how long the poor thing had to rub his dick against the benches to catch that spirochaete."

So armed with the certificates, more exactly, with the test results, we approached the guys we knew and venomously asked them: "And you have not done the RW test yet? Well, we took it long time ago and live without any worries now". Several guys really went to take the test as well.

As for the state examinations, Vagram and I passed them just fine: with one "good" grade each, the rest grades were excellent.

 

Essay 22. Brothers Romashov

After Yevgeniy had became comfortable at the institute, to be more precise, had studied for two years and had been moved up into the third year, his younger brother, Konstantin, came to Kemerovo. Kostya was about twelve or fifteen years younger than Zhenya. He was also sturdy built, like his elder brother, but Zhenya did not see or did not want to notice that his brother was a mature man. Perhaps, it was because of the elder brother's sense. Zhenya loved Kostya, it was obvious, and at the same time he blew up at him for the slightest fault. It was true though, and Kostya had to be given credit for that, he did not quail before his elder brother. And the story I want to tell you is the following.

It happened so that my parents left for Kirgizia, namely to Frunze, in summer 1968. And the Romashevs had lived in Kirgizia long before the moving of my parents. Zhenya and I did not know that we became fellow-countrymen. As it turned out, Zhenya's parents lived in a settlement at a sugar refinery of a town of Kant, which was twenty kilometers away from Frunze. They lived in a house and had a big garden. So Zhenhya invited me to visit him in Kant in summer when we were on vacations.

I already wrote that I loved Zhenya, he was like an elder brother to me. So, of course, I came to the Romashevs, like we agreed. The meeting was very warm. It was then when Zhenya introduced me to his younger brother Kostya.

And now tell me, please, why the aspiration for freebie is ineradicable in a Russian man? At that time all markets of Frunze were heaped up with watermelons of any kind: local, Uzbek, and from Fergana valley, and from Osh. So there was choice to any liking, and the price was five, maximum ten kopeks a kilo, and in Kant they were even cheaper.

Nevertheless Zhenka offered to go to a collective farm's watermelon field, and I thoughtlessly consented. Well, as the visit was arranged only by us, and the hosting side did not even suspect, that the medical students from Siberia decided to pay a visit to them, it was planned to leave when it grew dark. For the time before night we were chatting and enjoying food. Culinary talents of Kostya and Zhenya's mother were incredible, and she treated us to various delicacies with local flavor.

So it grew dark. "Take the sacks" - Zhenya snapped at Kostya, and we left. It was difficult to say whether it was near or far as we were talking all the way. And there was a watermelon field. We decided to check if the watermelons "from this side of the field" were ripe.  Zhenya picked up a watermelon of half a meter in diameter and gracefully by his hand, like by a sward, stroke it on its side. The watermelon fell into two halves. Even at night one could see that it was dark red. It tasted deliciously; it was with sugar granules, sweet and with a slight flavor of herbs. Well, you understand that the watermelons "from this side of the field" were approved by us. The leader among us was, of course, Yevgeniy. I just did not know what to do and how, as I was at the watermelon field for the first time and at night too, and Kostya simply knew his brother and let him lead. Well, we took orders from Zhenya about what kind of watermelons to pick up and moved in different directions. In about ten minutes fifty watermelons were collected in a heap. Zhenya was strictly controlling the process saying that we were even doing "good" for the collective farmers, as when we fill our sacks, there would be many watermelons left, and all of them will be in one heap. It happened exactly that way.  We chose watermelons of three - four kilos to fit more of them into the sacks.

So when the sacks were full, Zhenya asked Kostya to give him the lace for the sacks. But Kostya replied in a sense that he was told to take the sacks only, and nothing was said about the lace. He asked me for the confirmation, which I made. Well, poor collective farmers, they did not get the watermelons which were left after our sacks were filled. Zhenka took a watermelon and threw it at Kostya, who deftly dodged. I got my part as well for protecting Kostya. But the situation was extreme: we collected the watermelons, but to carry them in untied sacks was risky. I do not know how it happened, but right in the field we managed to find a not long piece of an aluminum wire. Zhenya managed to tie up two sacks. One sack was left untied. So Zhenka started racking his brains over the situation. He made Kostya to take out a string from his boxers - I swear, he did that! - and tied the last sack up.

The way back was not that easy. Well, first of all the sacks were quite heavy, the second Zhenka was scolding Kostya all the way along and promised to deal shortly with him, when we got home. It happened so that Kostya and I got to carry the sacks which were tied up with a wire, and Zhenya was carrying the one tied up with the string of the boxers. Well, when there were about three hundred meters to the house, the string slipped off the sack and the watermelons from Zhanka's sack started falling down, and as all of them were ripe, they cracked when fell down. Kostya, who knew his brother's temper, while he was standing in shock, put his sack on the ground and rushed away so fast, that we barely winked, as he disappeared in the darkness.
Well, if I studied the anthology of the Russian foul language, at that moment I would receive so much material that it would be enough to write a doctoral thesis and about ten popular science articles. I barely talked Zhenka to calm down and go home. And when we came home Zhenka's mother started soliciting for Kostya. He managed to come home and tell everything there. With our collective efforts we somehow calmed Yevgeniy down, and he promised not to touch Kostya, who came out of the next room. The rest of the night we spent enjoying delicacies baked by the brothers Romashev's mother and sampling mead.

I was very pleased by the visit to the Romashevs.

 


Essay 23. Pharmakology

If one cannot be a medic without knowledge of anatomy, then there cannot be any treatment without knowledge of pharmacology.

Pharmacology was born long ago. There were Hippocrat and Galen, who made their contribution to the development of pharmacology like a science. And because of the fact that Hippocrat treated by "indivisible plants", and Galen used chopped or dried plants or decoctions made of them, because of all of that, life of modern students-medics was not less complicated. If in polytechnic institutes they say: "If you passed the study of the strength of materials, you can get married", then in a medical institute one can say the same about pharmacology. The credit should be given to the students, as the majority of them were very serious about the study of pharmacology and could explain, how pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics differed from pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics. And sure enough, they knew what metabolism was and how it differed from absorption. Our group, too, was doing its best to master the ABC of pharmacology. To achieve that, we attended lectures and seminars in "pharma" practically without any skipping. And finally there came the time of the examination.
 
It happened so that Vagram and I prepared to the exams together. It was quite curios that we lived separately, but our study for the exams was very well organized. We pestered each other with counter questions, which were quite often very unpredictable, and together were looking for the answers. To cut it short, it was convenient for both of us to prepare to the exams together. We already developed certain rituals, and sacredly obeyed them. For example, one of our rituals was that a day before the exam we obligatorily went to sauna, the one near the main building of the institute in Kirovskiy district. As a rule we went to sauna after lunch. We took a steam bath without any hassle as long as we pleased. After the sauna we simply had a walk or visited one of our group mates and had an idle chat. We went to bed early at night and got up early in the morning and started brainstorming of the subject, in which we would have an exam the next day.

It was that way on the eve of the pharmacology exam. Gasanov Ilgam tagged after us to the sauna. We did not object. When we bathed and splashed around to our hearts' content, we decided to have a walk before going home. In Sevastopolskaya street at a grocery store, where we came in to buy cigarettes, we ran into Arkadiy Blyakher. We started jabbering "bla-bla" to Arkadiy, but he reacted in a way "sorry, I am in a hurry". We surprised: "How come, you are in a hurry? We want to have a chat". Arkashka knew about our habits and rituals, he looked intently at us and asked: "Did you really go to the sauna?". We replied: "Yes, we did." And there Arkashka started laughing: "You mixed up the dates, the exam is not the day after tomorrow, but tomorrow." It was late evening already. Blyakher hurried away. Vagram and I stood in shock, it was good that Ilgam was with us, he brought us back to senses and literally dragged us home.

I hardly can describe now, what kind of night it was.

Yes, we studied hard, yes, we attended lectures and even made notes, but the stress which Vagram and I created ourselves, was a heavy pressure.

In the morning we were among the first who came to the exam.

Earlier than us came Valera Kaygorodov and Slavka Sizikov. They too studied for the exam together. That time they found somewhere and took some nervous activity stimulators. It was noticeable, especially in Slavka, who was talking non stop. He was spouting drugs' names and kinds of doses and etc. All in all, it was obvious that he knew the subject. Though we were concerned about, how our professors would react to his agitation. But both of them passed the exam just fine: Valera received "sat" and was happy about it, and Slava got "good". So there were us, Vagram and I at the exam. I do not remember what questions I had. I vaguely remember that I knew something, and was hesitating about something. But destiny sent to me a savior, as a student with who I was sitting at the same desk, Tatiana Krylova from the 5th group. That was the one who had self-control! She had a brief look at my questions and literally with two-three phrases sorted out everything for me, and I, not waiting for too long, got up and gave answers to all the questions to A.V. Sapozhkov himself.

I got a "good". When at the examination room I noticed that Tatiana was explaining something to Vagram as well. He got a "good" as well.

After the exam I came up to Tatiana and with the words of sincere gratitude presented a chocolate bar "Gold Anchor" to her, which was considered one of the best brands then. Tatiana felt embarrassed, though took the chocolate. As it turned out afterwards she always had remembered that gift. I like this.

In conclusion I want to say that it is great to obey the rituals, but the students' mutual assistance is the major basis!

Essay 24. Sambo

*sambo – Russian abbreviation for: self-defense without arms; type of wrestling developed by the Security Service of the USSR.

No matter how funny it may seem to those who know me, but I will inform you that in 1967 I was a sambo champion of the institute in my weight category.
It was, if I am not mistaken, a light weight category. I had never considered myself and athlete. I had no athletic ambitions. At school, like other kids, I used various tricks not to attend physical training classes. Though, I tried to play in a children's or, as it was called, Junior Bandy team of Kedrovskiy opencast mine. But when a so called bandy ball came flying at my forehead, I quitted doing it. It was not a ball, but a grenade! I had a minor brain concussion for sure. In general, I did not do any sports at school. It was a different matter, when together with my friend Vitya Belkov we skipped classes and with our fishing rods went fishing gudgeons to the dam of Kedrovka...

Unfortunately there was no sports fishing then. And when I entered the medical institute I did not plan to do any sports at all. I wanted to study to be "a doctor".

Though, the institute curriculum included a physical training course. And a pass from that department, no matter whether the students wanted that or not, had to be in a student's record book. One could receive the pass only when diligently attending all classes and passing all qualifying standards or joining a sports group. I chose the second.

Vagram was doing volleyball, and tried to persuade me to enroll in the group as well. Why sambo? It just happened so that I had known Volodya Kravchenko long before, even not knowing that he trained a sambo sports group at the institute. I'll say honestly that I tired to talk Krava (this is how we called him) into reporting to the Department that everything was "O.K." and not to torture me. But being usually gentle and kind, Volodya demonstrated such firmness, that I held my tongue. He said that he would not allow me, knowing my character, to say that I was trained by Kravchenko and not to master any of holds, and to be beaten up in the very first fight, not being able to protect myself.

Yeah, it was a tricky situation. But I did not want to attend physical training course very much. And the most important thing was that I had already boasted that I was enrolled in a sambo sports group. And Arkashka, Vagram and Zhenka Romashov cunningly asked me to show them at least a hip toss. It was above me to tolerate their gibe, and I joined the sambo group. Krava, as if broke loose, started grilling me according to the individual program. Just a warm-up was not less than for two hours. After the warm-up my hands and legs were shaking because of weariness. And only then the real training stared, at which I studied the holds and practiced them. It was much later when I found out that Zhenya Romashev knew Volodya Kravchenko very well, too, and he had asked him to grill the living daylights out of me, that I would be not only a bully, but become a fighter. Though in my mind, Krava overdid it.

Nevertheless training after training I felt more confident and mastered ankle trips, and holds and painful holds. I was made to train hard also by the fact that every time my friends: Datto Ibidze, Ditto  Mkheidze and Ilgam Gasimov came to visit me at the training. They could come at any moment, so I was doing my best for them not to see me hanging around. At the training they cheered vigorously every time I performed a good throw or a hold. Of course, they were playing thrilled fans, but still that stimulated me a lot and tickled my nerves in a nice way.

One day Krava announced that there would be an institute's championship. Of course, the championship was a too loud name for the event, nevertheless, that was it. In my weight category there were eight guys, so to become the champion of the institute, one had to win four matches.

Volodya advised me about some helpful wrestling rules of thumb. For some reason I remembered only one: one should always stick to the innermost ring of the mat so that, if the opponent performed a successful gimmick, to be thrown out of the bounds of the mat, and then the opponent's points did not count. Yes, for the first three bouts I regularly flew out of the bounds. Ouch, it was very painful to crash with a face to the floor boards of the gym of the institute's morphological building. And the guys, my fans, were cheering and shouting at me. Yet, the first three matches I won by the accumulated points. My throws were right into the center of the mat. There came the final bout. My opponent was from the Sanitary and Hygiene Department; I do not remember his last name, I guess, I never knew it. Oh, he was quite a strong and persistent guy. He, like a post, stood fast on his feet, and I could not perform any of the moves. I was even given a notice for avoiding contact. The opponent had already thrown me a couple of times, though, out of the mat again. My friends were raving, they demanded that I tear the opponent into pieces or not call them friends any more. So several seconds before the end of the match I performed a "power" maneuver: a hip toss with a hold of an arm to perform a painful hold of an elbow joint. According to the rules, if one holds the painful hold for certain time, he is considered the winner, and if the opponent who is held gives a cry when he is held by a painful hold, then the victory is called an absolute one.  So, I was holding my opponent's arm and to keep him still tried to fix his body with my leg. Perhaps, I unintentionally hurt his weak point, and my opponent gave a howl.

Of course, I would win with just a painful hold, but to have an absolute victory in the final match - that was especially nice. How my friends and I celebrated my championship is a totally different story. The next day I was called to the Physical Training Department and given a pass. 


Essay 25.  Dimka the Wine-Maker

I already wrote that my parents were very hospitable. Their strong conviction that all students starve was the reason, that all my friends who came to us on a weekend, while my parents lived in Kedrovskiy opencast mine, overate and asked me to save them. Well, why I had to save them, I suggested them to eat for their good. In those old days it was difficult to find something special in a town of Kedrovka, but Aleksandra Mikhailovna, my mother, made delicious cabbage soup, baked incomparable chicken pies (kurnik) and wonderfully fried potatoes with pork. In general, my guests ate everything with pleasure, and it was obvious. But my parents liked most of all when Ditto Mkheidze came to visit us. With him Aleksandra Mikhailovna was especially welcoming. And Peotr Andreyevitch liked to talk with Dimka "about life". Batya - as I called my father - liked Dimka's reasoning, because they were the thoughts of a mature man, but not of a young guy. His Caucasian upbringing, respect to older people, was noticeable in everything.

I do not remember in what fall month, perhaps, in October, Dimka received a big parcel with grapes. It was very pity, that the grapes turned to be frostbitten. Fall in Siberia was different from fall in Georgia. Dimka's parents did not think that in October there could be frosts in Kemerovo. That year we had frosts.

Dimka received the parcel, opened it and got very upset at the beginning, but like I said Dimka was a smart guy, he offered to me: "Let's go to your parents and make wine from the grapes". It was done as it was said. On the nearest weekend we went with the grapes to Kedrovka. My parents were a bit surprised, though assisted us in everything. We needed a washing tub to press the grapes. Dimka strongly insisted that we did it with our feet in order not to break the ancient traditions of his ancestors, who had never used any presses. I do not know where, but Batya managed to find a zinc washing tub. Well, could where one find a wooden tank? There was a long argument between Batya and Dimka, but finally Batya convinced my friend, that the grape juice would not be kept for a long time in the washing tub, that it would be poured in glass containers; Batya had a quarter - a glass vessel for 25 liters. 

Finally everything was ready to start the work. The grapes were put into the washing tub. Dimka and I washed our feet and got started. My parents were loudly laughing, watching us, to boobies, shifting our feet and pushing one another in the washing tub. Soon the process of pressing grapes was over. Dimka in all details explained to my Batya, what should be done afterwards. Batya listened attentively.

The weekend was over, and we left Kedrovka for Kemerovo to continue our study to be doctors. Student working days, classes, absorbed us, and we forgot that we had founded a wine-making tradition in Kedrovka. And our joy was very sincere, when on the Eve of the New Year Batya came and brought amber-colored liquid.  It was the wine. It was not just the wine, but the splendid wine. And that was not only Dimka's and my opinion. That was the opinion of everyone, who then tried it at the institute's New Year party.

Essay 26. Brewery

I learned how hard it was for working people to make their bread even before the beginning of my study in the first year of the institute. Though let me tell you everything in order.

I had already written that I was enrolled into the institute ahead of the time together with some other "lucky guys" like myself. Yes, we were called by the provost I.V. Kopytin to his office, and he informed us about "the mercy". I do not remember all of those who were in I.V.Kopytin's office then, but several guys I kept in my mind. One of them was a tall, stocky young man with an open, kind face. He was self-possessed and calm. We got acquainted later, it was Anatoliy Lopatin. The second one was a slender and tall handsome guy with dark eyes, he was obviously Caucasian. He was not just slender, but even a bit thin. His features were not massive, though his huge dark eyes and a nose like a yataghan of a Turkish janissary made him not just handsome, but a very showy young man. That was Gasanov Ilgam Risa Ogly. We were offered instead of going to a collective farm to work for a couple of weeks at the Military Training Department. It was there where I made friends with Ilgam. Yes, he was hot-tempered and hasty, but not with his friends. With them he was very thoughtful and caring. Arkadiy Blyakher, with who we had got acquainted at the Russian language exam, was also sent to the Military Training Department. Though his assignment was to glue together and mend posters (no wonder, as Arkadiy himself boasted to us, the colonel Pyatov was a friend of Blyakher's family). Ilgam and I were given a task of constructing a roof above the department's garages, which were located between the main and the morphology buildings of the institute, right at the fence of a military unit. It was a cooler task than a well-known "go there, don't know where...".

Well, we, too, neither Ilgam nor I knew what to do and how. I had never built anything as well as Ilgam. I will not beat about the bush; just will say that we finished the work on time. Though you will guess yourself, how well it was done, if I tell you that the very roof crashed down the very first winter after the very first snowfall. Assistant professors from the Military Training Department managed to find us and told us that to our good luck the colonel Feodorov's car had not been there, when the roof crashed; otherwise we had serious problems. And what had those tactics and strategists of medical service expected, when they had given to seventeen year old guys (I was seventeen, and Ilgam was twenty one years old) a job of constructing a roof of the garage of the head of the Military Training Department? Well, forget about them, the mockery of worriers. As we see now, there was a similar mess in the whole country then.

Let's change the subject, as I was going to tell a story about hard life of working people. What kind of a garage roof could there be, if Ilgam and I managed to moonlight at a brewery during the construction? I remembered especially well one occurrence. Once Ilgam came and said: "A wagon of sugar arrived to the brewery, and it should be unloaded". Then he asked me, whether I would go with him. Well, it was out of the question, as I without giving it the second thought agreed to the adventure of constructing the garage roof. Though we could refuse and go to a collective farm to dig potatoes together with the rest of the students. So, the next morning we came to the brewery, which was in Kirovskiy district at the embankment. We were met there and forwarded to a storehouse. The task was the following: a wagon of Cuban sugar, those were twenty tons, which were brought by a truck in four runs from a train station.

So, we had to unload the truck, and stow the sacks with sugar in a storehouse. We had to weigh every tenth sack. Cuban sugar was delivered in nonstandard sacks, which weighed from eighty up to one hundred and twenty kilograms. That was the way to determine average weight of a sack. Unlike the Military Training Department, we had a person in charge there - a storekeeper. He was lame and half-drunk, as he constantly drank turbid, brewing beer. But he knew his job. He placed Ilgam on the truck to turn the sacks over and put them on the guys' shoulders. And I was sent inside the storehouse. I had to turn the sacks over and stow them along the wall. Ilgam and I were handling our job well. The students of the Chemical-Technology College, which was near the Sanitary-Hygiene building, were carrying the sacks. The guys were noticeably doing that job not for the first time. The first truck was unloaded quickly, and while the next truck was on the way, the guys made a quick run to the brewery's production shop and got back with a ten liter can of the same substance the storekeeper was drinking - the turbid, brewing beer - and started drinking it with pleasure. They offered it to Ilgam and me. I did not like that slops right away. Though Ilgam had a half-liter mug, and he was sick till the end of the day: it was such a disgust that brewing beer. Though the guys and the storekeeper laughed at us and were urging us to have more of it, saying that it was healthy to drink it, Ilgam and I did not give it the second try.

After the second unloaded truck, I suddenly decided to show off and bring at least one sack into the storehouse. Everybody was talking me out of that; the guys and the storekeeper were saying that it was heavy, and one had to know how to take and carry it, but I insisted. Ilgam chose the smaller sack for me and very gently put it on my shoulders. As Ilgam told me later, I was standing with a sack of sugar on my shoulders and slightly staggering. The matter was that I could not move my foot. At the moment when I tried to make a step, I fell down, and the sack fell next to me and broke. Half of the sack of sugar poured out, and the storekeeper gave me a pail and a broom. He announced a break to everyone, and I swept the yard and took the sugar into a special bin at the storehouse. Then the last truck with sugar arrived. We were quite tired by that time, but we had a work to do for not less than for an hour. I do not know why, but I wanted to assert myself again and yet bring the sack inside the storehouse. I was making noise, shouting, whether I was a man or not. Everyone was laughing, as I weighed fifty kilos, but after some consideration, they allowed me to carry a sack to the scales for control weighing. It was about two meters from the truck. Again I stood at the truck's body, and Ilgam carefully put a sack on my shoulders.


You know, I made two small steps right away without any thinking, and moved half a meter towards the scales. Then I stood still again. I was trying not to lose the balance. I was driven on by laughter and shouts of the spectators, who were already making bets, whether I would reach the scales or not, I made three or four steps more and stood still again half a meter away from the scales that time. There was the last spurt - I made one step, two, and I was driven somewhere to the other side, I twitched to the scales and fell down again. I fell on the ground, and the sack crashed on the scales. I was greeted like a hero. To toast to me there were raised jars with turbid slops. Later it turned out that the scales broke down. So the guys finished unloading the last truck without the weighing. Ilgam and I came to the brewery once again, but I was not let to carry sacks any more, though I myself was not eager to do that, as I had personally experienced, how hard it was for working people to make their bread. I became very glad that I would study to be a doctor.


Essay 27. Delicacy

Why I started on writing a story about delicacy, I cannot understand. Perhaps, I wanted to show off.  So what? If a job is once begun, never leave it till it's done. To start with I decided to brows the internet to have a clear understanding of what I was going to write about.

I found a whole lot of synonyms to the word "delicacy"; they are "tact", and "politeness", and "tenderness", and "courteousness", and "ticklishness". And there were only two antonyms: "rudeness" and "boorishness". Well, it's up to you to judge, whether the narration is about the delicacy in the following stories.

Vagram Agadzhanyan and Anatoliy Lopatin that was how close amplitude of their bio fields was, their residence together was similar to an episode from the film "Diamond Hand", when one of the characters says: "Maybe we should?.." and the second replies: "No, we shouldn't". The first: "Then this...", the second: "Yes, try this." Yes, they understood each other, and that helped them to live in piece and comfort.

One was an Armenian and the other was a Cossack from the Don River area, one was a hearty eater, but the other loved good food not less. The second as well had a talent for cooking. Quite often he had no time to make anything, but once in a while...He was especially good at making lobio (a Georgian dish made of beans). He never started boiling beans right away, they had to be soaked in cold water, which had to be changed often for not less than twelve hours, and only then he started boiling them.

One could salt the beans at the beginning of boiling, but no, he salted them closer to the end of the boiling and determined the right moment for that by the signs known only to him. I always wanted to call him a virtuoso of a beater or at least a magician of a ladle. He was spectacular when he was cooking! I suspect that those were the very moments, when Tamara was inspired with love to him, which was kept till now. Though let's get back to the lobio. Tolik liked to say: "Potherbs will not spoil the lobio" and used everything he had at hand. Then that were deal, parsley and spring onions. These days he would have also added to the beans a little bit of basil together with deal, parsley and medium-sized spring onions. Then there came the turn of walnuts. He fiddled with them for a long time, examining and sniffing them. To my question he once answered: "One fusty walnut can spoil the whole dish." After he sniffed all the walnuts, he fried them in vegetable oil. Tolik divided the fried walnuts in two parts, and chopped one part, and practically ground the second one. He added them to the beans and stirred the potherbs and the nuts. He was stirring in a special was as well: slowly, with measured moves. The last ingredient was onions. The onions could be sliced, but no, Tolik diced the onions and fried them in vegetable oil till they became completely glassy and only then added lemon juice into the onions. He surely covered the frying pan and kept it closed for a couple of minutes. Well, and after that he mixed the onions with the beans.

Even now, while I am writing these lines, my mouth is watering. Tolik never let eat lobio immediately after it was cooked. Minimum half an hour had to pass before it could be eaten. Why am I writing about this in so many details? Just because I want delicately move on to the main part of the episode. You already realized that Tolik was a fan of dishes made of beans. So, one day the landlord of the apartment, which Tolik and Vagram rented then, solemnly announced that she wanted to treat them to bean soup, and, if my memory does not fail me, at that time they lived already not on Sevastopolskaya street, but on Myzo, 6. I was not there then, and I knew about that from Tolik and Vagram's words. The guys became curious and started asking the landlord questions. Without any answer she brought a plate of bean soup to each of them. As the guys told me, the soup looked appetizing, but when they started eating it, they felt a very unpleasant smell, and its taste was of similar quality. Tolik, the fan of beans, was in shock. "How is it possible to spoil a bean dish?" - that was what Tolik kept asking Vagram. No wonder, the very moment the landlord left the room, both of them ran with the plates to the bathroom and pushing one another emptied the plates into the toilet. And now about the delicacy: they were expressing indignation and protest only between themselves, and delicately praised the landlord, though as well delicately and flatly they refused to have another helping of the soup. The second episode of our student life is also about delicacy. Yes, the topic, which is discussed in it, also requires special delicacy.


Everything I will be telling about took place at the Forensic Medicine Department. This course was read by V.A. Shakul in our group. One should be a real forensic medic to do this job day by day, year after year. Here is only one episode, after which I told myself that I would never be a forensic medic.
In general I am not fastidious, but one day we were dissecting a corpse of a man. It was in spring. The whole group was present. Shakul himself was doing the dissection, and we were standing and staring around. So after the stomach was dissected, such a smell spread around the room, that the whole group burst into vomiting. Sorry for this not delicate thing. The dead drank the wine "Solntsedar", which was popular among the alkies then and ate ramson before his death.
 
After that case more than half of the group quitted attending the course. We agreed with V.A.Shakul, that he would conduct the exam ahead of the schedule. In general, all of us were aware that we would pass the exam and pass it just fine, but Shakul decided to have some fun. He provoked practically everyone into some joke. But the question, which Zhenya Romashov got, did not require any provocation. It was provocative by itself. So Shakul squeezed everything he could out of it.

And Zhenya got the following question (I give my honest and delicate word, it was exactly that way) - "Virginity and it forensic characteristics". When Zhenya came up to the professor's table to give an answer, and when everyone who were in the examination room heard his question, and Shakul did his best: he loudly read the question out; everybody put their preparation aside and started listening, and as it could be said, hung on every word. All of us knew that something would come out of that. Zhenka was a bit embarrassed by the examination question and did not know from where to start. Shakul helped Zhenka and asked him only two leading questions: "Well, and you, did you see the virgin yourself?" Zhenka went without any thinking: "Yes, I saw her". Shakul: "And where?" And there like thunder, like explosion of a bomb came Znehka's answer: "In a maternity hospital".

Everybody went roaring, it was the very roaring! Shakul was flapping his hand on the table and slightly jumping on his chair because of laughter, Vagram Agadzhanyan and Marik Golubkov slipped down from their chairs and were sitting on the floor beside themselves with laughter, and Olya Ptitsyna and Sashka Salmayer hugged and were crying because of laughter, tears were running on their cheeks. Yeah, helothology had never experienced that kind of laughter before! And only Zhenka did not laugh. Poor thing, he was trying to shout everyone down and explain, that that girl was at Old Lyuba's (L.A.Reshetova) examination. Though who listened to him? Even those who stood behind the door in the hall, but heard everything were hysterical with laughter. Well, after Zhenya the examination was over. We collected our student's record books and said who needed what grade, and Shakul did as it was said, gave someone an "ex" and someone a "good". Zhenya got an "excellent". We celebrated that exam in a restaurant "Kuzbass".


And the last delicate episode. Everyone who in those years lived in a dorm, which was near the regional hospital, for sure remembers, how once the dorm celebrated the 8 March (the International Women's Day, one of the most popular holidays in the USSR).

In the senior years of my study, I, even though I rented an apartment, had an official accommodation in that dorm. In a room on the fifth floor there lived Zhenya Romashov, Kolya Kozlov, Zhora Chernobay and I. The guys are from the story about the mini-dorm. Zhenya, Kolya and Zhora liked that a lot, as the occasions when I stayed in the dorm over night were once or twice a semester, and Zhenya had many night duties. He worked part-time as an X-ray laboratory assistant at a traumatology centre of Kirovskiy district. Well, there came the eve of the 8 March holiday. Its celebration began in groups, then many guys moved to restaurants and cafes. And only after that dorm inhabitants on their tired of the celebration and hardly moving feet, gathered in the dorm. So that time, I do not remember why, I also happened to be in the dorm, in my room. The dorm continued celebrating the holiday.

Some people walked along the hall back and forth, somewhere they were even singing. In our room all four of us got together. But all of us were in a different condition of drunkenness, and the most important was that Zhora Chernobay got drunk and slept in his bed. And the rest of us were brimming over with emotions; each of us was telling about how he spent the day. And Zhora was snoring, and doing that so loud that we felt sorry for the other inhabitants of the dorm, and the three of us: Kolya, Zhenka and I with great difficulty (Zhora weighted one hundred and fifty kilos), moved him together with his bed into the lady's bathroom. Why not, it was the Women's Holiday, after all! In that case we also had to be given a credit for that we were delicate till the very end. We did not strip Zhora stark naked, though we received such suggestion from those we met on the way, when we were dragging him into the other end of the hall.

The only thing we did was that we tied Zhora to his bed up, perhaps, for him not to fall down in the bathroom.

Well, what was a sheet for Zhora? He tore it up after three or four hours of sleep. As they said later, people came from all the five floors to have a look at Zhora, and someone tenderhearted woke him up. So when woken up, Zhora tore the sheet up and almost whacked "the tenderhearted" in the face (he'd better did that - as such a good joke was spoiled), and then he rushed into the room, where we were peacefully sleeping. Frankly speaking, that moment we had to wake up and swear to Zhora that that had not been us, that we kind of thought that he, Zhora, was out of the dorm celebrating the holiday somewhere else. And he believed us, or maybe did not believe, but did not start beating all three of us. Though, he did not speak with us for a month.  I have a feeling that in this episode, it would be better to use not the synonyms of the word "delicacy", but its antonyms. Though what happened that happened, one cannot omit words from a song line.


Essay 28. Muster

After graduating from the institute all male students were given a rank of "a lieutenant of medical service of reserve". During our study we had a Military Training course at the Military Training Department. What was left was the muster in an annual camp and an examination. The muster was in summer, in July, in my fifth year. As for me, I got lucky again. Our whole group passed the forensic medicine exam ahead of the schedule. I passed the propaedeutics of children diseases ahead of the schedule as well, but alone. So I flew to Frunze to summon up fresh energy before the muster for the whole month ahead. My Batya was a law obeying person. During the war time he was raised from a private to the rank of a major. He was giving talks to me about respect to the senior by rank and all the other army intricacies. I was listening to Batya, but, without any offend of him, not very attentively. All in all by the beginning of the muster I came back to Kemerovo being physically stronger and politically well prepared after the talks with Batya.

The muster was in a village of Plotnikovo on the base of a civil defense division. The territory of the military unit was fenced in by a two meter fence. At the gate at the control post there was a twenty four hour post.
 
I am not going to tell you how we were taken to banya (sauna) right away and were given a heap of uniform each. The uniform was outdated, so we differed from the units' soldiers very much. Before the departure for the muster the officers of the Military Training Department explained to us, that we had to obey all the requirements of the service regulations on the unit's territory, for example, salute to the approaching officers of the unit, not to violate the regime, etc. At the assembly all the students were called the cadets and all of us together - the company. After we settled at the military unit, we were divided into platoons, and platoons - into squads of nine-ten people. Each squad was given a tent, where we slept. Felix An, who had served in the army and received the rank of a sergeant before entering the institute, was assigned to be the master  sergeant of the company. The platoons' commanders were the Department's officers, and the squads' commanders were assigned from our cadets, and to distinguish them from the rest, they were "thrown a drop of snivel on their shoulder straps". This military jargon means that they were given a rank of a corporal. I was assigned to be an orderly of the colonel Feodorov (the head of the Military Training Department), the one whose car Ilgam Gasanov and I merely ruined five years ago. The position of an orderly was good because I had a permanent pass at the control post to come and leave at any time of the day. And the most important thing was that Feodorov visited the muster camp only once. So I was free like the bird. Of course, I was not left without tasks. All officers who came to the muster lived in a small house, which was about one hundred meters away from the military unit. So, all officers shaved by electric shavers, and only major Glebov was using a safety razor. My main and the only duty was to bring to the major a kettle of hot water from the kitchen at six thirty in the morning before the reveille and wake up the officers. Well, that way I got acquainted with the kitchen, and that turned to be a useful thing during the muster. I will not waste your time by telling you about the hardships of the military service we faced.

Upon the arrival the students brought with them who a carton, who two or three cartons of fine quality cigarettes. Though for some reason in the open air, and we were constantly outdoors, because one could be inside the tents only during the lights-out time, we ran out of the cigarettes, and then it started. First we smoked all the cigarettes' butts, and then (that was the first time, when my position of an orderly came useful) equipped me with a backpack and money, and I went to the village store to buy something cheap to smoke. It was good, that by that time I had already known all stores in the village of Plotnikovo, as the officers concluded that one task (to bring Glebov hot water) was not enough for me and gave me one more duty - to bring them wine in a backpack from a store. So I brought the backpack full of packs of rustic tobacco to the unit. Yes, everybody learned how to make hand-rolled cigarettes, and when we returned to Kemerovo our fingers were yellow because of tobacco.

How could it happen! I almost forgot about one more of my duties, which I got from the students that time. I liked to perform that task, and was doing it with all my zeal and diligence. Even more to that, in the performance of that task there were elements of adventure, detective and real danger, the danger to be locked up in the detention room (to be arrested in order to be punished for...). Well, I was given a task to get out of the tent every night after the lights-off time and as loud as I could shout: "To the first (and then the second, the third and etc.) day of the camp assembly FUCK...", and the whole company very loud as well, at the top of their voices, as it is called, replied: "... OFF", I would go - "FUCK...", and the company - "...OFF". And we did that three times in a row. The detective element and the danger were in that, that the officers of the unit, and event not only the officers, but the head of the headquarters of the Civil Defense - were hunting for me.

He promised to lock me up or someone else he would catch performing that thing in the detention room for a month. Thus, every evening one of us followed that head of the headquarters and watched him, and as soon as he moved away on a sufficient distance, we were informed about that, and then I with my "FUCK..." made my entrance. Wow, how outraged he was! A couple of words to describe the appearance of that head of the headquarters. His height was one meter and sixty centimeters max, he was frail, and had a rank of a captain. He obviously did not make his jacket, but received it at the storehouse; its size was two or three sizes bigger than he needed. The sleeves were long; the jacket was almost down to his knees. To put it in one word, he was like a clown. To compete with such a character was pure fun. The matter was that he did not have right to penalize us personally. All he could was, after we shout, come running and order everyone to fall in, then run in front of the line, sputter, and that was it. He could ask our officers to announce a penalty to us.

Knowing all that Felix An always in about five minutes after the captain had made us fall in, asked him whether he remembered that the students after the "hard" day needed some rest; and he let us go or went to our officers to deal with the issue. I cannot say that the department officers protected us that much, though when that oddball ran to them with the demand to punish us, they told him to get lost and did that so convincingly, that he never came to them again.

And what did he expect? In the village there was delivered vodka, and the very evening I brought to our department officers a backpack not of wine, but of vodka, and at the very high point the captain rushed in.  It looks like he was not lucky in his life. Things were that way day after day.  We swore in at the parade ground of the unit. I shouted three times "FUCK..." for the 24th day. And there came the twenty fifth day of the muster, the last one. The buses were waiting to bring us to Kemerovo to the institute. For the last time we were drown up at the ground. Someone from the military unit, some of our officers were talking about the sacred duty of protecting the Motherland and so on and so forth. The speeches were over, and then Felix loudly went: "Private Syedyshev, three steps forward march." I stepped out and faced the line. And Felix continued: "Command!" And right on the parade ground in front of our and other officers and that captain I loudly, clearly and distinctly shouted: "To the camp assembly "FUCK..." and everybody answered: "OFF", and three times like that. The whole company moved to the buses. At the institute at the department the military training exam was a pure formality. I was taking the exam to the major Glebov. Instead of answering the examination questions I asked him directly, whether he had any complaints (to be more precise, whether he had had the complaints) about the boiled water. And I clearly hinted him that I was about to get an enhanced stipend next semester. Glebov looked in my student's record book and gave me an "ex". The other guys had approximately the same. It is me, the major of medical service of reserve, is telling you. I did not serve until any higher ranks. That's kind of a pity!

Essay 29. Festival


It just became customary that practically all student parties were accompanied by singing. No, it was not choral singing. It would be more accurately to call it group singing. We always enjoyed singing, and sang, as one can put it, with all our hearts. We felt it easy to sing. Perhaps, it was that way, because our life was easy at that time, it was open, without intrigues and ambiguities.  The most important thing was that all groups lived without any conflicts, it would be even better to say lived in peace and friendship. Though, each group had its own repertoire.

It will be easier for me to tell about my group. It is important to start admitting that we got lucky from the very beginning. We had Petya Kozlov in our group. As I already wrote, he came to Kemerovo from Belovo and entered not only the Medical Institute, but the Music College of Kemerovo as well, and for one semester he studied in both schools, but later however gave preference to medicine. In his heart he stayed a musician. He played any, I make a special stress on that, any instrument available to us at that time: a piano, button accordion, accordion, harmonica, guitar or balalaika. And how well he played saxophone! It was ecstasy. So, the song repertoire of our group depended on the condition stage, in which the group was.

Of course, we started with "Red May Rose". Everyone was doing his best, when making the roulades about how the May rose became ripe, especially that part of the song, in which the girl, from whose name it was sang, confessed that her sweetheart had a terrible character, as because of a trifle, some nonsense, he dumped her and went to the other one. You see, she did not please him. However I believe that the choice of this song was made because the group was mostly male, and subconsciously everyone was indignant by the girls' behavior: "what does it mean, "did not please"? And he did the right thing! - to demonstrate his protest "went to the other one". Each of the guys experienced a similar moment; maybe each of them had a situation in life when she "did not please" him, and he left her for the other one. Well, that was a starting song, so to say. Then there were "A Leafy Mountain Ash" and "Oh, frost, frost" and closer to the end of the party, when the alcohol percentage was close to the top, everyone sang a favorite song of Zhenya Romashov, the one about how "my route eleven is going lonely under the sky". What was the most interesting was that for six years none of us had learned, why Zhenka had tears in his eyes every time we sang that song.


Because we were so much in music, we did not object much, when the Foreign Languages Department offered our group, to be more precise, its male part to sing "Those Evening Bells" at the festival, which the Department held every spring before a successive student group completed a course of a foreign language.

Well, why not to agree, when the price of the performing of that song was a pass for a semester. And in addition to that we wanted fame, if it was not for a disappointing misunderstanding, who knows, maybe in this photo you would see our faces and a caption "An English Choir".  Everything was just fine. At the rehearsals we all together puffed our cheeks out before pronouncing the main words "Bom, bom". We were not upset by that that we failed to learn how to pronounce correctly in English the words "Those evening bells, bom, bom. Those evening beeeels, bom, bom". All of us were confident, that everything would go fine. Though the organizers played a mean trick on us, yes, in its direct meaning, they played the mean trick on us. And how else could we estimate the fact that we were lined up to sing after NASNANE? Just imagine; four girls young and cute, and how well they sang! They were the favorites not only of the course, but of the whole institute. And full house at their performances was the best prove of that.  Nadya, Sveta, Natasha and Nelly chose the abbreviation of their names for the name of their quartet: NASNANE.

So it happened so that NASNANE not only warmed up the audience, but also set its expectations about the following numbers very high, the audience did not let them leave the stage for a long time. But finally the curtain went down, and the girls ran away. So we, eleven guys, started lining up to strike our "bom, bom" up. The curtain was raised, and we hardly started singing, as the audience began laughing quietly first and then burst into swelling laughter. As we later learned from the audience, when the curtain was raised, Sasha Salmayer and Vagram Agadzhanyan had their cheeks puffed till the extreme to sing really loud "Bom-Bom". We started singing: "Those evening bells", and Sasha and Vagram joined us with "Bom-Bom", and then we continued: "Those evening bells", and then all together for some reason three times "Bom-Bom-Bom", though it was supposed to be only two times. The audience was literally lying; the roar of laughter was even louder than applause after the performance of NASNANE. So we broke and started retreating behind the curtain. The curtain was dropped. The audience was roaring for quite a long time after that. Maybe they were happy for us. And we even did not manage to sing the first verse till its end. From the stage one could go down directly to the audience hall or go downstairs to the gym and only then enter the audience hall via the entrance. We chose the second way to leave the stage.

 A credit had to be given to the Foreign Languages Department - we nevertheless received the pass.

Essay 30. Can't wait to get married
After the school leavers, then college entrants finally became students, they received some personal freedom. They became their own masters. That was very natural. And there was a lot of opposite sex around, and young, and in its majority pretty, too.  The head was spinning.

I do not remember in what novel I read a phrase, which for the years of my study became my life credo. I did not misuse it, but if there was an occasion, I pronounced it, and everybody liked it. Well, I won't intrigue you any longer, here is the phrase: "I am not one of those refined ninnies, who resolve their sexual issues via marriage".  The phrase was good to be used at the institute. At home I behaved in a different way. I was the only child in the family, and, of course, the spoiled one. Though I was spoilt not to the extent to fall down on the floor and jerk my legs and cry "I want!...". But I was used to obtain what I desired by any means.  So, with my parents I chose tactics of blackmailing. I was a scum, I do not object, though that was the way the tings were, one cannot omit a line in a song. If there was something I wanted, and my request was denied, I used to say: "Well, then I'll get married and will be independent and won't have to ask to get a refusal".  Apparently I was saying that very convincing, as even my batya (not to mention my mom) calmly started explaining to me, that there was no need to be in a hurry, that one had to get married once and forever, that it was a very important decision.  With that conversation the topic was over, and then I saw that my request was complied with. Of course, I used that tactics not often; I was aware, that one did not use a sledge-hammer to crack nuts, but I practiced that. And I was successful in it till somewhat the middle of my fifth year, when again I threatened my parents that I would get married, and my mother, as usually, got scared, my batya calmly as before said an absolutely opposite thing: "Well, get married, it is high time". It was, as if he poured cold water over my head.  To the credit of my parents, they satisfied my request that time as well, but I scared them with my getting married never again.

My fellow students, not all of them, but many of them, got married while they were students. What kind of problems they resolved by their marriages was their personal matter. Among my close fellows who got married being students were Marik Golubkov, Tolik Lopatin and Vagram Agadzhanyan.

I was at Vagram's wedding and even proposed a toast, which was liked by all Vagram's Armenian relatives. I'll share it with you: "Now, after the reception, the newlyweds will go to the nuptial bed and put their heads on their mutual pillow. So let's drink to that, that when they grow old, they still kept their heads on their mutual pillow!" I remember, Vagram's father came up to me and gave me a hug, and his mother kissed me. It's a pity, that I put not much emotion in the toast then, as since recently they put their heads on separate pillows.

Well, enough about that.  So, those days marriage was nevertheless an obstacle, though not to those who were married, but to some people around.

Well, why do you think that popular quartet NASNANE ceased to exist? The answer is trivial - because of Sveta's marriage. Sveta got married and dropped the course. The girls were looking for someone to take her place. But how could one find an equivalent? So, while they were doing their search, Nelli Sashenko got married, too. 

That was the end of NASNANE. We never again heard them singing "A Blue Modest Headscarf", or "You are the only one for me, like a pine tree in steppe...", or "Come back, I am without you for so many days", and their hit "My splinter, be alight, I will burn down together with you...".  NASNANE left, but the memory of them and their songs is still there, and that memory is good.

Essay 31. Beer at lectures

Of course, we were not the first ones who invented the way to make lectures briefer and more interesting. It just happened that way in life, that some courses were interesting and the lectures, who read them, were wonderful. Though, there were courses, which were delivered by professors, who were, to put it mildly, not that good, and they taught even very interesting material in a boring and tedious way.

And what was typical of those courses was that those lecturers had the strictest penalties for the students for non-attendance. They were the professors who brought their lectures' attendance tables to examinations and asked questions on the topics which had been missed by a student. Of course, those professors were not liked. Their lectures were attended, not to receive knowledge, but a tick in front of one's last name. Yes, there was one more thing, those professors called over the roll at random during their lectures. People attended those courses. And during the lectures everyone was doing what he or she pleased.

For example, Petya Kozlov brought beer "Zhiguleovskoie" to that kind of lectures.

To our luck, there was no need to go anywhere far away to get it. When we were in our first year, beer was sold in the cafeteria, which was in the basement of the main building. Then beer vanished from that cafeteria. Though, next to the main building of the institute, literally one hundred - one hundred and fifty meters away from it there were Russian baths (sauna). At the baths' cafeteria beer never ceased. So, one could easily load a briefcase with two-three-four bottles of beer to make a lecture much more interesting. Petya took off a pipe of his phonendoscope and put one of its ends into a beer bottle (the bottle was in his briefcase), he put the second end of the pipe into his mouth, and covered the pipe with his hand. Do you remember Rodin's Thinker? He looked very much alike. Petya used to say that with the beer he started enjoying the lectures much more. It was cool among us to change rubber pipes of a phonendoscope, those blue-black or red, for the tubes of an artificial kidney or disposable systems for blood transfusion. Though both things were the hard-to-get-ones, the students managed to fetch them and replaced the rubber pipes on their phonendoscopes. So, Petya Kozlov said, when he had replaced the pipes, that the lectures became more interesting, because there was no smack of rubber any more, which was felt because of the reaction of a pipe with beer. One should notice, that Petya's followers quickly emerged. I will not tell about the other, but in our group Volodya Kartashov made quick runs over to the Russian baths before the lecture as well. Sometimes Slava Sizikov and Zhenya Romashov joined him, but that was very seldom, only when they quarreled with one another. When they did not quarrel, they had an interesting occupation, too.

Zhenya and Slavka played Scrabble. Remember, that game? One took a checked piece of paper, drew a square - ten checks by ten, wrote a word with four letters in the middle, that there were two consonants and two vowels, for instance "pipe ". Then the players taking turns were adding a letter to make a new word of the set of letters. The more letters a player managed to write in the word, the more points he got. It looks like a simple game, but the excitement it caused was no joke. Once Zhenya, after he inserted the next letter, gladly wrote a word "rasolnik" (meat soup with pickled cucumbers) and added to his score nine points. Slava calmly started explaining to Zhenya that the word "rassolnik" had two letters "s". In vein! How could Zhenya lose such a real victory; and they played on lunch at the canteen (the one, who lost, was supposed to buy lunch for the winner); it was practically like Las-Vegas or Monte Carlo.

To put it short, Zhenya absolutely did not want to concede.  To anyone, who was invited by Slavka as a consultant, Zhenya demonstrated his fist and menacingly said: "Mind your own business!"

So when Slava categorically refused to recognize Yevgeniy's victory, because there were exactly two letters "s" in the word "rassolnik", Zhenka lost his temper and gave Slavka a solid punch with his fist saying: "Take your change out of that! Two "s" in "rassolnik"!" Slava even fell off his chair. Zhenya punched Slavka not in his face, but on the shoulder, and to their good luck, it was the break time already. That was why the two following lectures Zhenya and Slava made a quick run to the Russian baths, though they sat on different sides from Petya and Kartash.

Well, and I was a representative of a different way of spending time at the lectures. Our group did something for future us. For instance, I spoiled my parents by sending them letters every day; and they received my letters practically daily.

So, I was writing those letters for future use at the lectures. I wrote as many letters as I had time for. So in my briefcase there was always a reserve of letters to be mailed and make my parents happy by hearing from me. I made the professor-lecturer happy, too, by my presence at the lecture.

Essay 32. Examinations

Exams, exams... What a wonderful time period! How many emotions and adrenaline it evokes in examinees! And then exams are passed, and the pre-examination fuss is long forgotten. One relaxes, calms down and everything he or she has left are recollections. Well, recollections obviously differ: someone's are good, and someone's are kind of not that good. Recollections from the category "not that good" come to one's mind not often. This is a wonderful property of memory - to store something good better and in more details. Well, I cannot help, but remember a Propaedeutics of Internal Diseases exam, when one of my questions was "Chronic bronchitis treatment".

I remember how well I structured the answer, how thoroughly and in all details I told the professor (in my mind, it was A.G.Khasis) about the treatment by sulfanilamides and antitussive derivant therapy and so on and so forth.

The professor, it was A.G. Khasis, for sure, said "Excellent". And then he asked me: "Well, and you? How do you treat yourself, when you catch a cold? But without what was previously said". He meant without what I had said as part of my answer. I took the liberty to tell him that I went to a store and bought vodka with pepper "Pertsovka", and with two peppers on the label, and went to a steam room of Russian baths in Vesennyaya street. I stayed there for not less than two hours.

A bunch of green birch twigs and pepper vodka worked miracles, and in a couple of hours I, though not completely cured, came back home and went to bed. And in the morning I was one hundred per cent sound. And there he broke: "It's a wonderful method. For what sake have you been pulling my leg with the derivant therapy and expectorant drugs?" Recollections... those were good recollections.

Or the story about a Pharmacology exam I wrote earlier about, to which I was studying together with Vagram, the story about that dreadful night of study. Now everything is over. And recollections are everything that is left. I remember my confusion at the beginning and a young and pretty rescuer, she was more than pretty, she was petit and beautiful, and most importantly, she gave me an opportunity to pass the exam. This is the image of Tatiana Krylova, which imprinted in my memory. Only now, when I started writing my "Humorous Essays", I learned that Tatiana Krylova too, had memories left after that exam. And her memories are not about how she saw two confused faces, Vagram's one and mine. And not about how following the feeling of students' solidarity she quickly and clearly explained to us our examination questions, in such a way, that we passed the exam, and passed it well. She has the emotional component of the exam left in her memory. From her words, after the exam I came up to her and after the words of gratitude presented a chocolate bar to her.

She says: "The chocolate was delicious, and it was "Gold Anchor". And the main thing she remembers is that no one has ever presented to her chocolate before that. It was very pleasant to me to learn that my action, about which I did not remember, had left such bright emotional memories with Tatiana; Ribot's Law is no match for that. I do not know about the impressions about that exam of the third character, Vagram. Though, his friend Tolik Lopatin shared with me his recollections about another event - an Obstetrics exam.

Liubov Aleksandrovna Reshetova, who of the medics of Kemerovo did not know her? She was the pride of the Medical Institute. She was a peer of the century, "Old Liuba" - how the students used to call her. How destiny brought together Tolik Lopatin and Slava Sizikov at the exam, he did not know and could clearly explain. He also did not remember the beginning of the exam. But the final part of the exam in Tolik's memory looked the following way. Slava was giving an answer to Old Liuba, and it looked like he was doing well. The last question, that was the contraceptives, he reported like a song, and Old Liuba said: "And the last one, tell me, for what time period Kafka's cap can be worn?

If you give an answer, you will get an "excellent". Slavka replied hesitantly: "Well, for five or six hours". Old Liuba: "And what if for two or three days?" And there Slava as if with some humor uttered: "And how she will pee?"  It was something, what happened after those words. Old Liuba, who generally possessed great self-command, made him leave the room and could not calm down for a long time after that, she even asked Tolik (his turn to answer was right after Slavka) how he liked that? How she would pee? Tolik knew how and got an "excellent". Slavka received an excellent grade as well, but after the second try.

I did not analyze, why students had joined in pairs to prepare for the exams. If one considers a factor of mutual comfort, then it can be said off the cuff, that each of the two is looking for support. As a rule those pairs were of the same gender. For instance, Vagram and I are males. Slava Sizikov and Valera Kitaygorodtsev are the same case. Sveta Titova and Marina Emikh are females. Though during the preparation for an anatomy exam there was formed one more pair of Dmitriy Mkheidze and Larisa Mirkina. As Dmitriy rented an apartment, and Larisa was a Kemerovo-born resident, they were studying at her place. All the students who knew Larisa and Dimka, and they were known practically by everyone, believed that the preparation to the exam was good, as both of them passed the anatomy; though the recollections about the exam were left only in the context of the preparation to it. And nothing can be done about that, as recollections are something that is kept in one's memory.

 23 July, 2011


Essay 33.  THE MURDER WILL OUT

There is saying: "Necessity is the mother of invention." I would like to paraphrase it: "A student can do anything!", and without regard for his or her rank, position and status in future life. Sure enough, my grandmother Agafia was right when saying, that there was no use crying over spilt milk.  How many unbecoming actions, which we regret about now, we could have avoided or, to be more exact, not committed them at all. And I bet, each of us did something to regret about now. The story I want to offer to your attention happened with two generally speaking nice guys, but if they knew, what they would become in forty years, they had hardly done what they were doing with fun and youthful ardor and pride for their actions. I will give the parts of the main characters to my close friend Zhenya Romashov and myself.

Well, anyone who lives or lived in Kemerovo remembers that place on Vesennyaya street, near the drama theatre.  In the photo there is a canteen behind me. The story will be about it. The location of the canteen is good: it is the city center, next to it there is a number 51 bus stop, which we took to get to the main building.

And the canteen was also famous by its good cooking.

Now I will remind you the layout of the rooms in it. One entered the door with the sign "Canteen" and came into the cloak room, to the left there was a door to the first hall. By the door there was a cash desk, where the visitors paid after they ate. That hall was huge. There were very many tables in it. Further to the left there was an arch and one more hall, which was a bit smaller. There was where the food was taken from.

The visitors came to the stand with dishes and then went to the left or right sides. They picked up the dishes and then came up to one of the two cash desks, where the cost was calculated, and a receipt given. And if one took double dishes, according to his request there could be written "Two" on his receipt.

And now guess from "three notes", what ideas were inspired in students' heads by such layout of the cash desks? No, not from "seven notes", but from the three ones. Right, it was exactly that way. One day Zhenya and I came to that canteen to have lunch.

I do not remember what was wrong with Zhenya's arm, but it hurt, and I went to pick up the dishes, and he was left to sit at a table. I took food for Zhenya and for myself, and at the cash desk a cashier asked me whether I was alone or with anybody else. I pointed at Zhenka and said that there were two of us, and she wrote "Two" on the receipt. I brought everything to our table. The lunch was delicious! Even more to it, that it was spent in a vivid discussion. We were considering all the variants; we did not leave things out of control and left for tomorrow what could be eaten that day. Zhenka was reckless. He, in spite of his sore arm, went to find out whether our theoretical reasoning was correct.

He approached the food stand, took two beetroot salads, two fried meat pies and two glasses of stewed fruit and went to the other cash desk to get a receipt.

At the cash desk he said that he had taken all the food for two of us, and a cashier without any questions wrote "Two" on his receipt.

I will tell you honestly, the beetroot salads, and meat pies, and stewed fruit were wonderful.

And they could not be any other way, as they confirmed correctness of our strenuous considerations and calculations of whether it would work well or not.

It worked out! And worked out well!

When we left the canteen after we had paid, of course, by the receipt "Two", where there were calculated beetroot salads and meet pies, and compared how much we paid and how much we were supposed to pay by the receipt we had withheld, the difference was five times over. After that day many of our fellow students were very intrigued by the reason of why Zhenka and I loved that canteen that much, that even when it was not on the way for us, we still went there for lunch. And we liked that. The canteen was super. The cooks were wonderful, they cooked in the most delicious way, and what was the most important for a student, - the food was very cheap.

Though, as they say: "the murder will out". Zhenka and I noticed with jealousy that our fellow students started visiting our favorite canteen as well, and in pairs. The number of them grew bigger and bigger. They started talking at the institute that someone had brought a dozen of stakes from the very canteen, which were obtained exactly in that way, and overate as had all of them for dinner. And here I want to give a credit to Yevgeniy's wisdom. In half a year after our first visit to the canteen he told me one day: "That's it, Oleg. It's time to stop. We do not go there any more. Too many of our fellow students started visiting the place. Sooner or later they will notice the big quantity of the "Two" receipts and that the amounts of half of them differ".  I listened to Zhenya. He knew better about everyday life. We quitted going to that canteen, and in a week or two there was a rumor, that someone was caught in the canteen. Though, they kept the conflict quiet.

I have honestly told you about that and changed only the names of the main characters, but described the rest of the story as the things really were.


Essay 34.  An accident

You, of course, thought right away about an accident which costs a man his life or health. Of course, what happened to Icedora Dunkan was an accident; and how else one would consider death caused by a scarf wound round an axle?

I believe I should not take the extreme cases that ever happen. I will not take them. I will better give you an opportunity to evaluate the following case and tell, whether it was an accident or not.
 
It was in spring, no, it was already summer, 1967; of course, it was summer, as physics was the last of the examinations. It was my only second examination period at the institute. In general, one started already feeling tiredness because of the diligent study, but reactions to it were different.

Because of the tiredness Marina Emikh felt herself stupefied and knowing absolutely nothing in physics, exam in which she was supposed to take. Marina decided not to resist the feeling and not to come to the exam; but in fall after having a good rest take the exam without any nervous tension. And perhaps, things would go that way, but her best friend Svieta Titova dropped unexpectedly in. They did not arrange that, later Svietka said, that as if it had been the sixth sense that made her fetch Marinka. And what did she see? Marinka was in tears, she was absolutely in hysterics: "I will not go, I do not remember anything. I no nothing, I will not disgrace myself. I will take the exam in fall".

No one would ever suppose that a petit and slim girl like Svietka could have such stamina. Quietly, without raising her voice, but in a clearly imperative way she said: "Get dressed quickly, and let's go, and if you fail, you will come in fall". Marina was dumb-founded, got dressed, and as she told later, noticed that she calmed down. In Kirovskiy district at the district entertainment centre there was a beautiful birch grove. You won't believe, but Svietka took Marina not to the exam, but to a shooting gallery, which was at the entertainment center in the grove, and offered her to make some shots. And they not only made the shots, but hit the targets every time they shoot. And after that they went to the exam, which they both passed with excellent grades. You will ask me, where the accident is? There was no accident that time; and it was good, that they did without it.

Here is one more story. It is not important when it took place. Preparation to the festival of the Medical Department was in the full swing. The program of the festival was extensive and rich. In its musical part Marik Mendelenko was already performing; he was a handsome guy, and all the girls who knew him were in love with him. Marik was preparing to sing his hit "Dark night, and only...". Vadik Abrosimov (he studied in a senior year than us) prepared a number of Vysotskiy's song (Vladimir Vysotskiy was a famous actor and singer in the USSR). Remember: "there were people and fells scattered all over..."? There also was the line: "... you'd better give me a tub or port, and I do not want the bride even for free, I will defeat the monster anyway...". And, of course, the girls from NASNANE were diligently preparing for the festival. They were preparing so hard that a day before the festival, when they were rehearsing till late night, and after they were done, it became clear, that it was too late for public transportation to go, and what kind of buses there could be at two a.m.? And what do you think they did? They decided to continue the rehearsal till the next day. They did that because of their zeal, of course. And there the "accident" almost took place. To be more precise, it did took place, as Nadya Nagornova lost her voice.

She lost her voice first last and all the time, as it is called. What could be done about that? The festival was the next day. Eggs did not help. And how could they help, if even when one breaks them against a nose of Mozart's bust, they do not always help, and the situation was even worse, as there was no bust. Ear-nose-throat doctors from the local policlinic did not help as well. Though, the girls extricated themselves from the difficult situation. They did over Nadya's score literally on the run, and Nadya had to sing in a deep voice. Nevertheless, they had saved the situation. They did not allow the accident to take place.

If, my dear readers, after the story "Beer at a Lecture" you assumed that the students had drunk only beer at the lectures, you are sadly mistaken.  They drank not only beer, but something stronger as well.  The 23 February (Soviet Army Day, a national holiday in the USSR). Of course, the students were celebrating it. And how could the nationwide popular holiday be ignored in the group number twenty? After a practical training class we passed a hat round, pooled our resources and threw lots. Everybody went to a lecture, which was at  the conference-hall of the main building, and Tolik Lopatin went to a store. The heavy lot fell on him. But Tolik was an optimist, he was singing a song in Georgian (Otar Teodoradze had taught him the song from the film "Dolls are Laughing") when walking with two bottles of brandy in his briefcase into the main building, looking forward to the tasting. No, not the lecture, I was not mistaken.

And right at the steps of the entrance of the main building he slipped. He did not fall down; Tolik was an athletic guy, he tucked and made a brusque squat. And there he heard the sound, which he even now calls the accident. Yes, the sounds DING and CHUMP were exactly the ACCIDENT. Many of the students were quite surprised when they saw the following picture: in front of the main building steps there was a guy sitting and crying. Around his briefcase there was a small brown pool with extremely familiar smell. "Wow, look at how he is going through the celebration" - they thought and passed by him. Some offered him help and some asked what the matter was. But Tolik grew literally dumb.

When he entered the conference-hall, the guys from his group understood everything by the strong brandy smell and the expression of his tear-stained face and were looking at him with pity. Though there were some malicious looks, which as if were saying: "How did you like that?" Oh, excuse me: "How did you drink that?"

Essay 35. Vendetta

Vendetta is feud. Let them say, that it is practiced in Sicily and the Caucasus. Though, I will state, that the desire of revenge appears in most different nations and social groups. I like more the principle of balanced revenge, which is defined in the Old Testament like "a tooth for a tooth" or "an eye for an eye". And when the one who is taking a vengeance on someone also has a well-reasoned motivation for the revenge, then it is difficult not to come down on the side of the avenger. Here is for you to judge by yourself, whether my main character could resist the desire to avenge or not, and if his vendetta was the righteous one.

Sasha Popovitch, was there anyone, who did not know him?

Being a joker and an outgoing person, he had an exaggerated feeling of collectivism and justice.

Well, though justice was considered in a particular way, but it was justice anyway. And the situation was the following: the group number seven was preparing for a Hospital Surgery examination. It is clear, that the group of the therapeutists to be was focusing on therapy during its last year and put surgery aside, so in order to exclude any chances they decided to secure themselves. The gentlemen of the group burdened themselves with all the fuss of the negotiation with an assistant of the Hospital Surgery Department of the Institute Liudmila Aleksandrovna Krikanovskaya. At that time it was much easier to have that kind of negotiation than now. Male charm and chocolate candies with champagne melted the department beauty's heart, and she agreed to place the examination papers in the order the group wanted. On the day of the exam, at eight a.m., half an hour before the exam, the group was already in the examination room.

Everyone took his or her examination paper, I would like to underline that, and looking forward to their brilliant answers was waiting for the examination panel.  And there the panel came. Nobody knows what happened there, I mean among the panel members, but all of a sudden Liudmila Aleksandrovna started taking the examination papers away from the students and giving them the other ones. They are right, when they say that there is just a step from love to hatred. One step back the group loved Liudmila Aleksandrovna and that moment they hated her. But the situation was not right to express the hatred immediately.  They had to take the exam. And the group passed the exam, and did that not bad, no wonder, as it was one of the best groups of that year. According to the tradition the event was celebrated. All the conversations were around the treacherous act of Krikanovskaya. She was picked to pieces. The exam was passed and everyone moved on. But Sasha could not calm down. His exaggerated feeling of justice demanded vengeance.  And Aleksandr decided:

Vendetta! Only it could appease the restless soul. The vengeance scheme was developed right away.  Not to put the matter off, Sasha found out Liudmila Aleksandrovna's home phone number and called her at two in the morning. It looked like Liudmila Aleksandrovna was fast asleep, and that was why she was not answering the phone, but Shasha was persistent, too. He was patiently counting the beeps and finally heard a sleepy: "Hello?" Sasha changed his voice and asked: "Do you have everyone at home?"

The answer was already not sleepy: "What do you mean, whether my family is at home or anything else?" - "Something else" - replied Sasha. Good Lord, what started then, there were screams and choicest swearwords. She was shouting that he would not receive his certificate of degree, as she would take care of that. But the problem was that she did not know who that was. And there were no caller ID devices at that time. And Shurka (as he was called by his group) had a motorbike. Aleksandr was cautious; he rode his bike to Kirovskiy district, and there from a pay-phone made a call again, and again asked her if "she had everyone at home". And again he listened to everything his telephone interlocutor was thinking about him.

You won't believe that, but Sashka turned out to be so curious and persistent that every night he asked her if "she had everyone at home?" But one cannot acquit Liudmila Aleksandrovna there. She could give him an honest and direct answer, and the conflict would be resolved. But on the contrary, Liudmila Aleksandrovna would not plea guilty. Sasha was insisting. And there came the ceremony of diplomas' presenting. Everybody was happy. There was a party for the graduates. And like a bolt from the blue it downed on Sasha: "She is a liar in addition to all of that; she promised that I would not be given the diploma and she lied". On the very same day, to be more precise at night, he inquired her about why she had lied to him. In the answer there was again screaming and obscenities. Sasha did not receive the answer to his question again. 

For the subsequent year, not often, as a rule when he was on duty, Sasha called L.A. Krikanovskaya and enquired about "whether she had everyone at home". No, do not hesitate, Sasha remained true to himself and did not change the time of his calls. And why did one have to change what he was accustomed to? If that was night, let it be night.

Though, everything wonderful comes to an end. One day in spring a year later, when Aleksandr arrived at work, he noticed that everyone was reading with great interest the "Izvestiya" newspaper. In the newspaper there was an article about a Kemerovo doctor L.A. Krikanovskaya, who was engaged in blackmailing via telephone; she called Felix Andryeyevitch Pyatakovitch and told him in bright colors, what a bad and, she would say, unfaithful wife he had, and with who and to what places she went. The article said that the man had got sick of all that stuff, and addressed the police; and Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Krikanovskaya was found, and an article was published about that in a newspaper. Generally speaking, Shura was a kind person; he dialed her number right away and expressed his sympathy. Though, he added that she was very luckless. As he was calling her for a year long, and that was nothing to him, but she got immediately caught. And even worse, they wrote about her in the newspaper. How could she manage to do that! He did not call her since then. And what for? Vendetta took its place. Though, it was not exactly "an eye for an eye", but anyway. 

Essay 36.  A lesson to remember for a lifetime


Of course, I should have told this story in the narration about beer at the lectures, where at the conclusion I wrote that I represented a different trend of using lecture time, and our group used to do things for future use. For instance, I was writing letters during lectures.

But Olya Ptitsina from our group, which became already number fourteen, did not write letters, she busied herself with something else during the lectures. And that business occupied her so much, that she sometimes did not react right away, if she was spoken to.

Olya was a pretty, always elegantly dressed girl, calm and sober-minded, though in spite of all that, she readily participated in all adventures of the group. Of course, it is difficult to picture Olya drinking beer through a phonendoscope tube at a lecture, though, I do not rule out that the guys offered her to have a try, and she did not say no. She had the adventurism in her nature, yes, she had it. And how else one should think of that? As for me, I was writing letters during the lectures, but copied the notes at home.  I knew who made notes in all details and quickly, and had a good handwriting, too. Olya dealt with that in a simpler way, she did not copy the notes, she simply asked for the notes before tests or examinations, and she was given them.

Well, during lectures Olya did not waste her time on playing Scrabble, she also did not play crisscross, like Vagram and I did, she did not play, because she was mending capronic stockings during the lectures.  Yeah, some had beer in their briefcases during a lecture, others envelopes, the third - notes, and Olya had a bag full of capronic stockings.

We enjoyed watching how she deep in her thoughts took a stocking out of her bag, examined it, assessing a missed stitch, and started the mending or for some reason took another stocking, which was studying for a long time as well. Olya had a special device for the mending. It was a small one. It is difficult for me to describe it now, but the girls of that time were aware of it, and all the thrifty ones, like Olya, had the device.

There was one more representative of the students, who did not drink beer, did not play Scrabble or crisscross, that was Lyosha Lapenkov. Sure enough he liked beer. And how a marine boatswain could not like beer or booze in general? He would have never become the boatswain the other way.

And Lyosha Lapenkov was a boatswain, though a former one.  Well, Lyosha attended lectures on a regular basis, but slept during them. And he was not dozing, but having a good sleep; sometimes his sleep was so deep, that his plump cheeks (Lyosha was a heavy-set guy) blew out and sometimes he even produced some light, almost inaudible snore. It even could not be called snore, perhaps, it would be better to say "snuffle".

And that was at the lecture. We did our best to guard him. Everyone liked Lyosha. He was one of the few, who studied without any support, the financial one. That was why Lyosha constantly worked at night. And at the daytime there were classes. We liked to visit with Lyosha. He never lived in a dorm; always rented an apartment. He rented apartments at the outskirts of the city, which had no any conveniences. The main criterion was that it had to be cheep.  So Lyosha had a huge barrel, and he made sauerkraut in it. He took cabbages (of course, without any permission) during autumn farm work, where the students were annually sent. So if some students tried as hard as they could to wriggle out of it, Lyosha on the contrary was always the first one to go. Well, it is clear enough that he laid in a supply of cabbages and potatoes for winter. You will laugh, but once he even had a piglet. And he did a very foolish thing, maybe it was done because of his gratitude, that everybody helped him to provide the supply of food for winter; he invited our whole group to help him to slaughter the pig. I am not going to describe the suffering of the poor animal, whose life the drunk "sadists" were trying to take. Finally, when everything was over, and the pig was cut, there started the time for the fresh meat. The fresh meat was fried and eaten washed down with home brew by fifteen hungry mouths. Later Lyosha informed us that exactly the half was eaten, and half of the container with home brew was drunk, and the container's volume was of three buckets.

And I should have told this story in the narration called "It's a Small World".

Just tell me, how in Kemerovo could possibly meet Vitya Belkov, my high school classmate (we had studied together for ten years, were friends) and Slava Sizikov, my university group mate? Anyway, they knew each other.

At that time Vitya studied at Kemerovo Polytechnic Institute. I remembered about the story, because Slavka never recollected it and refused to talk about it. The story was told to me by Vitya. The story is downright simple and similar to the events of "An Accident". So, Vitya and Slavka decided to celebrate something. And how was anything celebrated among us? They went to a store and at the cashier got a receipt for 3, 87 rubles (for those, who do not know, that was the price of a bottle of "Moscow Special" vodka). They came into the department, and Slava automatically told a sales clerk: "Tow bottles for three and eighty seven", and the clerk without looking at the receipt accepted it and gave them two bottles.

Vitya was dumb-founded, and Slavka was very glad. He was stroking and kissing the free bottle in the most tender way imaginable... and dropped it. You know, as Vitya said, the sound of the broken bottle was very similar to the one, which had astonished Tolik Lopatin. And they both had alike stupor, the only difference was, that Tolik sat on the ground in snow and Slavka on a bench in a city garden. Summing up the story, Vitya said: "I had a lesson to remember for my whole lifetime". Yes, it is true, as they used to say in old days: "Don't covet what is not yours!"
Essay 37. Whyte chrysanthemums

I believe my readers will forgive me for deviating from the student life topic. What can I do? I am itching to write about my guardian angel called Natasha. Yes, by a happy accident she plays three roles for me: my wife, friend and guardian angel. If you are honest to yourself, my dear readers, you will agree with me, that this is a rear case. I got lucky - my case is exactly the one. I will add that I also call her "My deputy at the home front".

I met her on a number eight bus. One day I was going from Kemerovo to Yagunovka and saw as an extremely beautiful young lady was getting on the bus; there was one misfit about her - a huge bag, which was just a bit smaller than its owner.

As a rule, the notorious "number eight" was overcrowded, and that time, it was surprisingly half-empty and there were many vacant seats. I'll give a credit to myself, I immediately jumped up and helped to drag the damned bag inside the bus. The girl was pleased. I trivially asked her: "How many bricks are in the bag, I wonder, and in what street in Yagunovka are you building a house? Otherwise what for does one bring bricks from the center to Yagunovka?" The girl appreciated the joke and agreed to sit next to me on the back seat. Those who in the olden days used to travel by LAZ buses, know that the warmest seats in it are the back ones, because, there is an engine under them. And the event I am describing took place in November, it was cold then.

Though, Natasha and I were not cold on the back seat. We introduced ourselves, and Natasha told me that she was carrying not bricks, that she would be happy if there were bricks in her back for construction of her house, but...

The reality was that Natasha worked as a laboratory head at the Meat Department of Kemerovo Food Institute. The lab was at the meat processing and packing factory, and that was the way she delivered reagents to the lab for the study process.

She was complaining, and I was listening. I was sincerely sympathizing with her. I thought it would be better, if the bag were full of the produce of the meat processing and packing factory, or, as Natasha and I had already agreed, with bricks. Talking like that we did not notice like the bus got crowded. We did not look out of the windows, we were innocently talking and looking at each other; and when we had a look out, we laughed as we were coming to Yagunovka. We had passed the meat processing and packing factory long ago. Later Natasha blamed me that I on purpose had distracted her to make her miss her stop, and I reasonably answered that she herself had missed her stop to get to know me better.
And what is significant, is that even then we already had consensus - we agreed that everything happened to our mutual pleasure.

Of course, I did not leave the bus in Yagunovka, and Natasha and I returned to the meat factory on the very same bus, and I helped her to drag the bag with reagents to the lab.

Then the events were developing swiftly. We met every day. On the dates I used to bring a jar of plum compote, or some canned food. I will explain: at that time I worked as a district psychiatrist - narcologist of Leninskiy district of Kemerovo; my patients and their relatives did not want their doctor to die of starvation. It was the time of Perestroyka, and stores' shelves were as bare as a bone.
Well, Natasha invited me to her place to meet her parents. It was 24 December, the birthday of her mother, Mareya Nikolayevna (the correct pronunciation of the name is Mariya). It is not a misprint; that was how I called her mother because of excitement, and later called her that way permanently. Mareya Nikolayevna was making a fuss demanding me to pronounce her name correctly, but from the silent approval of Parfen Safonovitch, Natasha's father, I was consistent in that. All that was later, and on the eve of the visit I was rushing around looking for gifts for my fianc;e's parents. Natasha did not know yet that she was a fianc;e; it was me who decided that way. It happened so that a wife of one of my alcoholic-patients worked at a greenhouse, where flowers were grown. I will remind you once again that Perestroyka was in a full swing. And where could one get flowers in December? It is now that there are no problems.  And then I was helped to put together a chic bouquet, and in a similarly tricky way I obtained a bottle of "Dvin" cognac produced at Yerevan factory for Parfen Safonovitch, and for Natalka I prepared an awesome terry bathrobe with a hood.

Finally loaded with the gifts I rang the bell of the door of the Kaygorodov's apartment. The door opened, and I was met by all three of them: the mother, father and Nataleok. The first greeting smile I received from my mother-in-law, excuse me, my mother-in-law to be, when I presented her the bouquet.  Well, I gave right away the cognac to my father-in-law to be. He saw the label and dropped his jaw. A credit should be given to him; he knew much about cognacs. At that time one could trust a label. It is now that with the extensive development of printing, one can make a label of any kind. Parfen and I shook hands, and he offered me to feel like at home. Then there came the turn of Natalka, when she saw the bathrobe, and it was really great, she kissed me and immediately put it on. Birthday dinner went wonderfully. Home made sausages were the most delicious. We talked, and during one of the intermissions of the party I proposed to Natalka, and she accepted the proposal, and I right on the spot asked a blessing from her parents.

And at the very dinner it became clear, that I had not brought even a single flower to Natasha, and my first bouquet was presented to the mother-in-law. Yeah, it was an awkward situation, I tell you. Since then we have always had a bouquet of flowers at our place, and in December we have chrysanthemums, white chrysanthemums.


Essay 38.  A wedding ring

Maybe it is a disputable statement that our Tanya Yanchilina looked like a famous Soviet actress, her namesake Tatiana Doronina, though, on of the characters of the story insisted on that in the distant1968, and keeps stating the same even now. Tatiana was tall, had a fine figure and a pretty, open face lit up with a radiant smile, sure enough, she was showy and a blonde, too. And she was a blonde not in the sense, which is implied, when they talk about blondes now. My batya (father) when talking about women like Tanya always made a rounded gesture, depicting the figure. To cut it short, men liked Tatia. No wonder that Kostya Romashov, the younger brother of Yevgeniy Romashov from our group fell in love with her. Whether it was good or bad, it's not for me to judge, but Kostya was shy. He had kept his feeling to himself for a long time, but when could not bear that any longer, told everything to his "senior", as he called Yevgeniy among the family with a  stress on "o". Well, as for amours, one could address Zhenya without any hesitations. He always was ready to help, if had a chance, or give an advice, and one could be one hundred per cent sure that he would not tell anyone, would not blurt out a secret. Zhenya could keep a secret. He listened to the "young" and started contemplating how he could help Kostya.

Well, first of all, we were old-timers compared to Kostya, both by age and experience. In fall 1968 he was only in his second year, and we were already in the third! The second, Tanya Yanchilina was well known as a person, who easily made friends, but not more than that. For the two previous years nobody heard anything about Tatiana's affairs and amours. It is though true, that we even did not try to interfere into Tatiana's personal life. Zhenya cared for Kostya very much, but he also liked Tatiana as a friend, and did not want to perform a part of some pander. And suddenly Tatiana herself helped Zhenka.


At that time gold came into fashion. Well, there is no need to say that gold has always been in fashion. I am talking about the medical students. Anyway, female students started wearing golden earrings and golden rings with small gems. Though, that was expensive. And a golden wedding ring one could buy quite cheap, if one had an invitation from the registry office (after putting in an application for registering a marriage at the registry office, they were given coupons for a jewelry store). And do you think the students did not use the opportunity? You are very wrong, if you think they did not. First, pure adventures went that way, one can say, reconnoitered, well, and after that, it was like to go out to a restaurant. Though, the topic is not about the beginning of the campaign of selling wedding rings by invitations (coupons) from a registry office.

And how could Tatiana not have what was all the go of that time? What, when and where? Like in a popular TV show, the questions were haunting Tanya. She wanted to wear a golden wedding ring on her finger way too much. More than that, in her group Petya Kozlov had it already, and your humble servant, too, was wearing it on his ring finger, and she as well wanted to. And Tanya approached neither me nor Petka Kozlov, perhaps she knew, that we would start fooling around, lying obnoxiously that we were given them (the rings) and things like that. Tanya approached Zhenka as the oldest in the group and offered him to go to the registry office and apply for getting married, then receive the coupon and buy rings, Zhenka for himself and Tanya for herself. And forget about the application. Before that Zhenka was making fun of Petka and me, meaning, what for one would need that? And there he was deep in thought. He could not turn down Tatiana's request. So he decided to buy the same ring for himself as well. Though when Tatiana and Zhenka looked into his passport, they'd better did not do that; there were so many stamps of registered marriages and divorces in it, that none of registry offices would ever give him a coupon. The coupons were for those who were getting married for the first time.

And there it occurred to Zhenka; he offered Tatiana that instead of him his younger brother Kostya would go with her to a registry office to apply for registering a marriage. There was it, an opportunity: to help Kostya to get to know Tatiana and to buy a ring. Zhenya wanted just to introduce Kostya to Tatiana and with that implement his brotherly duty of help, and then let Kostya to fuss around and charm Tatiana, though he knew beforehand, what all that would result in. But the experience would be important for Kostya. Oh, what a sly Yevgeniy was. He told Tatiana that his brother would go instead of him, that he was trustworthy and would not blab. Though, he had to be talked into doing that. And he left it for Tatiana, saying that even though he was the elder brother, Kostya did not obey him that much. Tanya hemmed, it was unlikely that Kostya did not obey Zhenka, but her desire to have a ring was too strong. Well, do I have to say that Tatiana put a lot of effort into persuading Kostya? No, she put not much effort at all, as Kostya (he himself said that) had a crush on her. And the love was Platonic, like of a school boy to a female teacher. Finally, Kostya, a model Young Communist League member, and even more - Komsomol group leader, agreed to go to the registry office, agreed to commit the fraud. And at that time his idea of marriage was like the one of Kisa Vorobyaninov, that "marriage is for one's whole life!!!" It was later when three of them, to be more exact Zhenya and Tatiana in his, Kostya's  presence, were discussing the scheme, Kostya made a feeble attempt and asked: "And could they be made to get married in spite of their will?" Zhenya understood his brother's timidity and cut short: "You are doing this". Oh, how wet Kostya's palms were, how his full, sensual lips were quivering, and how bright crimson his cheeks were! He was scared, as he was brought up following the example of Pavlik Morozov (A Russia's Civil war hero of 1918 - 1921) in, he was going to deceive the state! Though he wanted very much to please Tatiana and make a "heroic deed". At the threshold of the registry office Yevgeniy threatened Kostya with a fist, and the latter new, that Zhenka never warned.

To Kostya's surprise, everything went smoothly at the registry office. Tatiana took the lead, even the registry office director said: "Well, it's clear to everyone, who will be the master in the house."

From the registry office Kostya and Tatiana went to a store for those who were getting married, but without Zhenka. Kostya did not know, where he disappeared. In the store Tatiana was leading again. She was looking at rings picking out one for herself and the other for Kostya, who got a thin little ring of 375 standard.

From the store Tatiana took Kostya to a pancake place, which was in Lenina street, next to the central book store. And there Zhenka was waiting for them with a bottle of "Promontor" (there used to be Hungarian red wine then) and two helpings of pancakes with fried eggs for each.

And at the pancake caf; thay made that kind of pancakes in the following way: pancake dough was poured on the hot frying pan and at the same moment an egg was beaten in the middle of the pancake. And when the pancake was turned over, the egg appeared in the center of the pancake under the dough. 

Personally I liked when yolk was fried until it was hard, but was "soft-fried".

 So, Zhenka was waiting for Kostya and Tatiana to celebrate the event. They drank the wine, ate the pancakes and started trying the rings on. Well, what was the reason for Tatiana to do that? It was she who selected them, but Zhenka tried hard to put a ring on, but it was small to him. An attempt to blame her for that was instantly brushed aside by Tanya, who snapped that Zhenka had himself said that he and Kostya had fingers of the same size. It turned out to be wrong, the fingers were different. But Zhenya would not be Zhenya, if he did not say in high-and-mighty manner: "Have it, the young, let it be my gift for you" and added right away: "And you will work off eighteen rubles!!! (that much was the cost of a ring)".

PS: Kostya and Tanya's relationship became nothing, but friendship. And Kostya was wearing the ring till 1998. It could not be removed off his finger and already started causing skin atrophy, and it was taken off being cut by a wire cutter.


Essay 39.  A BRICK ON THE TOP OF THE HEAD


Somehow I am driven to the wrong aside. For instance, I, as if pestered, can't help writing about the stock exchange downfall, which has taken place this week. And again it was on Wednesday. Maybe I was impressed by the amount of the withdrawn investments - more than a trillion of dollars.

Of course, the sum is hard to grasp for me as well as for the majority of average people. Please, do not judge me severely, if you find my arguments funny or primitive. And what else can you expect, as this is my first try, before that I talked about the crisis mostly with my wife in the kitchen. I studied financial basics through TV news, and improved my qualification in economics via the internet. Loaded with such a baggage of financial and economic knowledge, I, like everybody in the world, was waiting for "will approve or not approve?" all July long. I had a gut feeling that, of course, they would approve; they were not kamikaze. They have a long way to go compared to the Japanese in that respect. And what was significant, my wife, my deputy for the home front, too, thought that they would approve. We followed our desire not to lose anything in our business. Finally, the second of August was over, the U.S. nevertheless marked up the top level of the state debt (who would doubt that), everything was supposed to be good, but in a day - BANG! And for a trillion and something we fell deep in a hole. Together with my deputy for the home front I was in shock. There has been nothing like that since 2008, when that crisis started. And where did the investors dash, I wonder?

It just cannot be so that money was withdrawn from one place and not invested anywhere. My teachers and consultants (TV news and the internet) clearly stated - dollars left to be turned into gold and other currencies: Swiss franks and Japanese yen. And what the investors got scared of?
As for me and my deputy for the home front, everything is clear, we are concerned about the deterioration of our fortune, and as for them, what are they afraid of? I do not believe, that the investors are afraid of recession in America, they know precisely that, if there is a need there, they will negotiate, and if necessary will not just raise the limit, but double or even triple the threshold of the state debt. And what should they be scared of? They broke all possible economic taboos long ago, and now they have nowhere to step back anyway. It seems to me that the investors fear that, it bursts in Italy, where default is maturing, like a furuncle; and if this happens simultaneously with  Spain, then the bang will be nothing to compare with August the fourth.

Though, as far as I am an optimist, I would like to say that there will be no crisis now. The benefits of the passed stock downfall will be used by those, who brought the situation to that state, as it is a sin not to make any use; and so far there will be no big crisis, I mean the world one. This is what I told my deputy for the home front: "Relax, my dear, this won't touch us". And she did relaxed. My deputy for the home front did not ask me about why I thought so. Otherwise I would have expounded my thoughts about the world crisis in general

and it's influence on welfare of a singled out family, which, of course, up to some grade will suffer because of the crisis. I would have told my deputy for the home front that not every "financial and economic bang" results in the world crisis. For instance, last year the indexes dropped by ten per cent!!! And so what, we live. In my mind, and I would have also told my deputy for the home front about this, the world crisis is like a brick on one's top of the head, if a person does not expect that. If a man assumes that there is a brick, he would go to the other side of a street. And if he is walking, lightheartedly whistling, then, here you are, get all of it. It seems to me that Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy was exactly the brick on one's top of the head. And happened what happened.
Anyway, my deputy for the home front and I had some nice tea and a good conversation, and concluded, that we will not rush and transfer our capital into yen or francs, luckily we have nothing to transfer anyway.

And what will happen to the franc, if everybody darts to exchange dollars for francs? Where is America with its' economy and where is Switzerland? There is a beautiful lake and mountains there, but they are for the tourists to spend their money, and the lake will not be enough for the transfer of dollars of the world into Swiss francs. Thus, Natasha and I agreed to live quietly and interpret everything philosophically, and, of course, continue discussing everything in the kitchen while having nice tea with gooseberry jam. Otherwise, what for did we receive education and consultations on TV.


Essay 40. How different all of them are


University instructor is a position classified as intermediate between an assistant professor and professor. Instructors' responsibilities are to conduct seminars and laboratory classes assist a lecturer at conducting tests and seminars. As a rule, pedagogues without a scientific degree, but with vast experience are assigned to this position. This is the definition of an instructor I found in Wikipedia.

I even do not know how to start a story about our instructors. We loved and hated them. Loved the ones and hated the others. And some students liked and some hated one and the same instructor. Though, these are the extreme revelations of feelings. There was also not hatred, but mere disrespect and, to be honest, even almost rudeness demonstrated by students to the instructors. Well, and what else could one expect from maximalists, like we were at the age of seventeen? For instance, I was enrolled to the institute when I was even under seventeen. And that referred to majority of the students.

So, about our instructors. Though, I will talk about not all of them, but only about those, who left a trace in my memory. I do not at all consider my opinion right or objective. I will only share my recollections.

Mikhail Ivanovitch Zolotukhin (unfortunately, there is not photo) an instructor of the Anatomy Department. He graduated from the Stomatological Department of our institute and became an instructor at the Anatomy Department. Well, I will tell you honestly, I do not know, what kind of person he was. Maybe he was a very clever man, maybe he discovered and unknown aperture in Lamina Cribrosa, and maybe he discovered a new prominence on Crista Galli.

It was known that Mikhail Ivanovitch received a scientific degree and became a head of a TSNILKGMA Pathologic division. But we did not respect him, well, perhaps it was because he was young. Perhaps we were jealous of his position, as we were almost of the same age, he was an instructor, and we were his students, and he gave us grades. It was our biased attitude to him, which resulted in an ugly trick. And how else could one interpret Znenya's and my behavior, when we tied to a strap detail of Mikhail Ivanovitch's doctor's smock a bowels specimen? And everybody, who was during that break in the hall of the Morphology building, was laughing loudly at him. Though, even now I do not regret about what happened.

Well, and who does not remember a Histology Department instructor - Vladimir Aleksandrovitch Poponnikov?

However in this case, somewhere and somehow one can understand him, and maybe even forgive his conduct, which also cannot be called perfect. Some students were played a practical joke on by their friends, and some wrote his last name incorrectly in a student's record book, just because of their ignorance. That was why those record books were flying into a corner of a class room or out of a ventilator window, like mine, for example. Well, it was my fault, I sat in a hall at the Histology department and did not ask laboratory assistants how to spell the associate professor's last name, and wrote "Popoynikov" (there is a word which sounds similar and means a "drinking bout"). I passed the test; Vladimir Aleksandrovitch requested for my student's record book, I gave it to him being very pleased. And then an interesting thing happened: V.A.Poponnikov took my record book, signed it and then read how I had written his last name and with a shriek: "I will show you Popoynikov" threw the record book out of a ventilator window. Luckily, there was no rain that day.
I dashed out of the room not knowing what I had done wrong, but realizing that I had committed something serious, if a man had such a reaction. I went flying out into the street. The window, out of which my student's record book was thrown, was at the front of the main building, to the right from the entrance. I ran up to the spot, my record book was on the ground near a pool. If it was just an inch closer, I would have to issue a new student's record book, and that was a hassle.

I returned with my record book into the building, as my briefcase was left at the department. And there was Zhora Chernobay coming my way, by the way, he was a prospective instructor of the Pathologic Anatomy Department, during our study he was a year senior than I. I told him about what had happened. He looked into my record book and laughed loudly. It was him who enlightened me that some wrote in their record book the last name as "Pokoynikov" (that sounded similar to a "deceased"), and I was not the first one who had written "Popoynikov".
What did I have to do? I did not think of anything better than to carefully correct letters and return the lawful last name. It came out not bad. So I went to the department. I peeped into the room, it was empty, then I darted to get my briefcase, and at the very moment Poponnikov came in. I did not let him to utter a word, started apologizing right away, saying that I had not known, that it had sounded similar, and I was asking for forgiveness ... and the whole song with a refrain, as it was supposed to be done. And you know, Vladimir Aleksandrovitch asked me calmly if I really had not known? I replied: "I swear...", and he explained to me that he was tired, that it was offensive, when students could not remember the last name of the instructor, who is conducting their test. He was so sincere, that at that moment I felt ashamed and started apologizing again. Then he barked at me: "Get out of here!..." As soon as my record book had been signed even before it was thrown away, I did not make him persuade me for a long time, and quickly left.

Tigran Petrosyan, a relative of Vagram Agadzhanyan from the Stomatology Department, found himself in a similar situation, like me. And Vagram and I were the witnesses of that situation, because for some time we were together working off the topics of the Latin classes we had missed, and our instructor was Galina Petrovna Pronina.

A couple of words about Tigran. First of all, he was about thirty years old, had private practice as a dentist, which was, perhaps, illegal. He came to classes by "Volga" car, and it was the twenty fourth model. And at that time those cars were only coming to the market. Well, generally speaking, he was an impressive aristocrat, stout, but quite handsome. He entered the institute in order not to seek knowledge, but to receive a certificate of degree. Just do not assume, that I intend to offend him. He himself said that to me and others, and did not feel shy because of that.

Now a coupe of words about Galina Petrovna. She was an experienced instructor, who had worked for many years and devotedly loved her subject. Galina Petrovna had one physical defect; it was a leukoma of the right eye. So students gave her a nickname of Obliqua, which in Latin meant "squint-eyed ".

So we arrived to work off the tasks of the classes we had missed: Vagram, Tigran and I. To be more exact, there were two of us, Vagram and I who came to work off the tasks, and we met Tigran on the way, when he learned that we were going to work off the tasks, he remembered that he, too, had topics to work off to Obliqua, and joined us. He made us promise him that we would be prompting to him. On the way he asked us what was Obliqua's patronymic name, and we told him that it was Petrovna, but that went beneath our notice. We came into the class room and sat next to each other; Tigran was in the middle, for us to prompt to him from both sides. Galina Petrovna was in front of us. Those who knew her, remembered, that her face was always gloomy, as if she was permanently displeased by something. Now I do not remember the topic we had to present, I just remember that I studied an exercise number 65 and Vagram - number 66. We, as usually, studied together, and that was why, we knew somehow each other's exercises. For some reason, Galina Petrovna decided to start from Tigran. And there it became clear that he had an absolutely different topic, and she asked him to answer the 67 exercise, which was a new topic for us. And there one had to be present in the room. Tigran replied and with Caucasian accent, which went like that: "Nope, I'd be' answer' sixt' fif'". Pronina objected: "No, excuse me, you have to present a different topic, so, please, it should be the 67th".

Tigran insisted: "Eh, there's no ‘ifference ‘is topic or ‘at topic, well, okay, let ‘ompromise, let it be 66th". Galina Petrovna cut the further bargaining and said: "We are not at the market place; you will come here next time". And there it happened. "Why, Obliqua Petrovna? Ah?" - Tigran was sincerely surprised. "How did you call me?" "Obliqua Petrovna" - Tigran repeated, and he was absolutely calm. He just did not know the meaning of the word "Obliqua", and all around were constantly saying Obliqua. He had asked us about her patronymic name, and we had given it to him. "Get out of here!" - Obliqua said firmly, and when he left the room, she addressed us: "And what do you have?" We replied that we had exercises 65 and 66: "Now it's clear, why he wanted these exercises. You may consider you passed the topic", and she circled the classes Vagram and I had missed in her list. Tigran was waiting for us in the hall and attacked Vagram asking why he had lied to him? Why had he told him her name was Obliqua Petrovna? While we were in the class room, Tigran was already enlightened that Obliqua was the nickname. Of course, we did not agree to the blames. The question had been about the patronymic name, and we had answered it, and what was after... Well, Tigran himself was not angry, he was acting just for the show. When we parted Tigran said just one thing: "What ‘ould I do na'?" and left deep in his thoughts. Tigran found the way out and graduated from the institute. Later at Vagram's wedding we remembered that situation together with him, and all, who were near us and heard the story, had a good laugh.

Of course, Golubev, too, left a lasting impression in my memory.

Golubev

He was short, frail, weighed not more than forty or fifty kilos, but extremely swift. His wife worked as a janitor at our institute as well. I also remember that he had four children. Though, I do not recollect his name. And all of those who I asked, too, hesitantly said: "Seems like Feodorovitch", or "Perhaps Igor Viktorovitch". No one gave his name correctly. But all remember Golubev. In the internet I found a list of instructors, who worked or work at the Kemerovo State Medical Academy, published in 2005 to the 50th anniversary of the institute. There it was said: Igor Viktorovitch Golubev, Histology Department. But the second Golubev was not in it!!! What does it mean? Here he is in the lower photo from my student album, photographed together with Vadik Osetrov.

If someone has not yet read my story "Golubev And Sasha Plokhikh", read it, and you will understand. You will understand why he could not be forgotten.

Our instructors Yevgeniy Nikolaevitch Sherstennikov and Ariel Mendeleyevitch Shklovskiy I mentioned in the story "An Operative Surgery Exam".

I am writing about the two of them, as this is the way they imprinted in my memory. Remember, how I passed an operative surgery exam for an excellent; for some reason, Ariel Mendeleyevitch was the first one Yevgeniy Nikolayevitch informed about that, and he also told me that my answer was excellent. It was weird, as I did not give any particular answer at all then. Great variety of most different stories was told from generation to generation through student rumors. Here are a couple of them about that couple; what a nice tautology came out. They said that every year Sherstennikov greeted Ariel Mendeleyevitch with 8 March (the International Women's Day), and the latter seriously thanked him for the greetings. Then Sherstennikov himself told about that at his lectures. Here is one more. There was a regular scheduled operative surgery examination. One group of students was taking the exam with Sherstennikov, and the other with Shklovskiy. Sherstennikov gave only two grades: "excellent" or "bad"; he used to say that a doctor who knew operative surgery for a "satisfactory" was a criminal; neither more, nor less than that. Maybe he was right; I am not going to judge.

And Ariel Mendeleyevitch gave any kind of grades, though an "excellent" was a very rare case. So there was an exam, Yevgeniy Nikolaevitch unexpectedly came into the room, where Scklovskiy was conducting the exam, studied the examination record list and declared: "Ariel Mendeleyevitch, why do you have only "good" as grades? Is it possible that all of them know the subject that well?" And believe it or not, after that three or four students received a "bad". Until the moment when Sherstennikov again rushed into the room and rebuked Shklovskiy sharply: "Do you want me to conduct re-examination till summer? Are all of them that ignorant? - and ran out of the room. And then several students were given good grades.

Now tell me, how could one not to remember those two for one's whole life? There were rumors that at instructors' parties Yevgeniy Nikolayevitch was a jester and a wisecracker and a wonderful speaker at various meetings. Well, and all students had first-hand knowledge of what an uncompromising fighter against ignorance Y.N. Sherstennikov was in the area of responsibility of his department.

So, here is the last character of my story. At the time period I described in the story of "Mini Dorm", i.e. in 1966, when I had just entered the institute, my older fellow students Zhora Chernobay and Kolya Kozlov intimidated me with anatomy, with what a complicated and hard the subject was. And what was the most important, they were scaring me with Faradey.

According to them, if I was not lucky and got enrolled into the group where he taught, or answer to him at an exam, that would be it, a wash-out. I still cannot figure out, why they used the expression "wash-out". Perhaps, because one could be washed out on some minor mistake, I don't know. Afterwards I met Faradey in the halls of the institute. Yes, he was quite a personality. For some reason I remembered that he was tall, dressed somewhat sloppy. For instance, if Sherstennikov's jacket fitted him perfectly, then Faradey's was a bit baggy, though all of that is mere trifle. Just remember his look! Remember his piercing glance, which went deep down to one's transverse process of vertebra. And his brows were cooler than those of Leonid Illitch (one of leaders of the USSR), and they were tangled in such an inconceivable way, that were scary just by itself. And if one looked down his face and saw his nose, he would start trembling. His nose was big, but not fleshy, and it was scary because of his bristling Budenny moustache (Budenny - a Red Army cavalry leader, during the civil war in Russia 1918 - 1921).
No, you were wrong, if you assumed that the moustache was at the proper place under the nose. That huge moustache was bristling right out of his nostrils, which made his look fierce. And if to consider that I was not the only one who had been intimidated by him long before I met him, it became clear why when seeing Faradey all of us felt like pressing ourselves into a wall and whispering: "Keep away from me!.."

Before I started the story I had mentioned that in our group practical training was conducted by Mikhail Ivanovitch Zolotukhin, and I took exams conducted by Lidiya Viktorovna Remeneva.

So I did not have a chance to meet Faradey, in everyday life Timofey Fadeyevitch Ryzhkov, though I do not regret that a tiniest bit. Who ever would regret that, if he heard roaring "To the mine...", as a rule that was the reaction to a guy's wrong answer, or "To a beer stand... to sell beer... to the market place...", if a girl made a mistake. Though, if to believe the student rumors, Faradey had one more passion. Just do not assume that I will judge him. None of real men would ever condemn another man for his attraction to women.

I did not have a chance to get to know Faradey well, but the students of 41 group of the Stomatology Department had such a pleaser for three years. For three years T.F. Ryzhkov was the group's supervising professor and taught a course of anatomy to them, and conducted their exams. I know what I am writing about from a student of that group Kostya Romashov. I am not going to describe all events in 41 group's life, let their historiographers do that, though one situation was quite characteristic of Faradey. Just read about it.


The first year was almost over. All students were taking tests and examinations. And 41 group was taking a general anatomy test conducted personally by Timofey Fadeyevitch.

In their group there was Lena Dubovitskaya from Prokopievsk. She was a beauty with fair hair and blue eyes and fine figure, to make it short, all guys not only of 41 group, but of the whole Stomatology Department were in love with her. And if to add that at that time Lenochka was wearing extremely short skirts, it would be clear that she was not suffering because of the lack of attention.

So there was the test. Everything was democratic; there was a class room at the General Anatomy Department, an iron table in the middle of the room, a specimen stinking of formalin on the table. Faradey and the students were sitting around the table. Unlike the abovementioned M.I.Zolotukhin, Faradey allowed to answer when sitting.

Lena Dubovitskaya was giving an answer. She was speaking clearly, enthusiastically and glibly. Faradey interrupted her and asked: "Well, Dubovitskaya, take for me that poster off, and we would have a better look of the picture". And the posters were hanging in three rows, and the upper one was right under the ceiling. Several guys immediately offered their help. But Faradey insisted: "I would like kindly to ask Yelena such and such..." And Lena had to climb up on the table at the head of the specimen and reach with a special pole with a hook on its end for a rode under the ceiling to get the ill-fated poster. She was in a miniskirt, and her surgical coat was even shorter than her skirt, Lena stood on tiptoe, her skirt and surgical coat went up and opened the view for the group and Faradey of pretty legs and small pieces of paper covered with fine minute handwriting under the stockings on her thighs. After that Faradey for about fifteen minutes was lecturing the group about what kind of surgical coats medical students had to wear and what was the difference between a doctor's coat and the one of a market woman.

At the end he offered to those who did not want to study to go to a mine or a beer stand. The group had to have the test once again.

A petty tyrant is a person who acts according to his whim and his self-will, humiliating dignity of other people.

I am not going to label anyone. I simply offered you a definition of a petty tyrant from Wikipedia, and it is up to you to consider it and contemplate. Life is a complicated thing. After the muster, when buses brought us to the main building of the institute, the chancellor A.A.Tkachev addressed the students with a request to stand in turn guard of honor at the coffin of Timofey Fadeyevitch Ryzhkov. And we were standing the guard, and we forgave him the offences, if he had possibly offended someone. I was just standing and thinking about perishable nature of life and was wishing to Timofey Fadeyevitch Ryzhkov: "May the piece of God be with him."


Essay 41. Product #2

Yes, the assembly conducted by the Military Training Department in summer, 1971, right after we had finished our fifth year, was remembered by all its participants, and for a long time. No wonder that I wrote already about the assembly and have again reverted to the subject. I remembered several more episodes of that summer camp life and can't wait to share the stories with you.

The assembly was conducted in a village of Plotnikovo, which is sixty kilometers away from Kemerovo. The village is known only by its brewery producing well-known "Taiezhnoe" beer,  that a Civil Defense Division is located there, and that a student of Kemerovo Medical Institute A.A. Shmalts was born and grew up there.

Yes, Leosha Shmalts was born and grew up in the village, where we were going to have the assembly. Shmalts was a calm and self-possessed guy. As a rule he did not participate in adventurous undertakings at the institute, but he contrived to get married a week before the assembly. Of course, his young wife followed him to the middle of nowhere, like a wife of a Decembrist (Decembrists are the rebels who protested against a Russian Tsar Nicholas I, December 1825. The rebels were arrested and sent to Siberia. Wives of many of the Decembrists followed their husbands into exile.); she was standing all days long at the wicket in her mother-in-law's yard waiting for him.  We could only guess how she, young, longing for her husband's caress, felt when waiting for him! To Shmalts' good luck we sympathized with his situation and helped him in many ways. To be honest, Shmalts spent more time at home than in a regiment at the assembly. Everybody covered for him. Our master sergeant Felix An was his group mate. Shmalts was a grateful guy, and every time he came back to the regiment he brought us huge bags full of gifts of the village. There was salted pork fat and all kinds of greens, reddish and cucumbers from a vegetable garden, and freshly-salted cucumbers, too. And the most important, he brought a three liter jar of fruit essence almost every day.

That was an alcohol substance of 70 per cent of alcohol, it had concentrated smell and taste of various fruit. It was used to make fruit caramel in a shop of a bread-baking plant in Plotnikovo. Someone of Shmalts' relatives was a boss there. So, we stood for Shmalts, but could not help playing a mean trick on him. In the story, which I called "The Muster", I described in all details how we all together in chorus by all our company counted the days. But there was one more thing we did for fun. Someone made a simple rhymed riddle and shouted it out loud, and the company was shouting the answer back.  So someone also made a riddle about that kindest Shmalts guy at the very first days at the summer camp: "Whose sweet honeymoon is spent masturbating in a tent?" The riddle was shouted out in the evening. And the whole company stroke up like one in reply: "Shmalts!"

The next character of the story is Badri Lipartiya, a handsome Mingrelian.

As he used to say - he was a descendant of Dadiani himself. Everything was all right with him, except for one distressful problem. He started loosing his hair very fast as soon as he came to Kemerovo.  That was depressing him so much, that every evening after combing his hair he was counting the hair left on the comb. We were convincing him to stop using a comb. But Badri was very stubborn, like a Ukrainian villager (please, for God's sake do not blame me for chauvinism or anything else), and still every evening was counting the hair left on his comb.

The process was pretty fast, and soon before the assembly the crown of Badri's head was clear of any hair. There was a grand bold patch on his head. One day of the assembly all our company was taken to the shooting ground.

Everyone had to shoot from two positions: standing and lying. To perform the exercise each of us was given twelve cartridges, six cartridges per an exercise. One could make two shots in a row. Somehow we managed to insert the cartridges into our Kalashnikov machine guns; the mainspring was very tight. I wonder how soldiers insert 33 cartridges in there. Well, let's skip this.
Back to the shooting exercise; the shooting marks were about one hundred meters away from us, and if we hit a target, it was put back with an electric motor without approaching it.
So another group of students, in which there was Badri Lipartiya, was called to the position. Even before the beginning of the shooting Badri was demonstrating such tricks with his machine gun, that the officers commanded "Strike ground!" twice and fell down too. Somehow everyone was put in the right position. The students were told what to do and in what sequence and warned that they could shoot only at the command.

While major Glebov was giving all the explanations suddenly there were many shots fired one after another. Not more than five meters in front of the students the ground splashed in small fountains, and all the five targets which were much further away fell down hit.

We burst into a storm of applause and the officers into yells of indignation. It was found out that Badri Lipartiya closed his eyes and pulled the trigger without waiting for the command and did not let the trigger go before all twelve cartridges were shot. Everybody was surprised how he had managed to hit all the five shooting marks, as he had been shooting down almost at his feet. And when they started lifting the shooting marks for the next group, it became clear that Badri had cut with his shots the cable of the electric motors, which were lifting the shooting marks. That was the end of the shooting exercises on that day. We were sent back to the regiment, and on the way there it happened so that Badri stepped into a cow's poop.

That caused even a greater wave of talking.

Before that everyone greeted Badri with successful shooting, but then they started explaining to him that that was a sign of good luck with money, etc., etc. Badri was doing his best to defend himself against those who were offering him their congratulations or explanations. And in the very evening someone made and shouted a riddle: "Who is bold and all in poop moving backwards to the group?" No one rehearsed or knew about that beforehand, but the whole company shouted the answer: "Li - par - tiya". Badri, unlike Shmalts, did not keep silence, he dashed out of his tent and demanded to name the one who had shouted the riddle and promised to kill the one. There was no one eager to confess.

Vadik Pochekutov was, like me, from Kedrovskiy opencast mine.

It happened so that during the entrance examinations Vadik and I did not meet. We saw each other when we already started our study in parallel groups.
We were not friends when in Kedrovka. Vadik was finishing his eleven-year secondary school, and in 1966 I was finishing my ten-year secondary school. We knew each other when in school, but not more than that. We did not make friends at the institute as well. It happened so that Vadim had his company, and I had mine. When we met, we formally exchanged a question: "How are things going in Kedrovka?" At the institute Vadim was an inconspicuous student. He passed tests and exams and together with the rest of the students reached the time of the assembly in Plotnikovo. During the assembly Vadim was unobtrusive as well.  Though after the first day off, when the whole company had free time, Vadik became famous. Well, he became if not famous, then known. Like I said we lived in tents during the assembly. The tents were big, like a marquee, and if it was hot a tent's sides were lifted up and there was draft in the tent. So that Sunday it was hot. Our officers were resting and gave some rest to us.

Well, and what kind of rest there could be in a regiment? Someone was idly hanging around, someone was strumming on the guitar, someone was singing along with the strumming. So everybody was doing whatever he wanted. And Vadik Pochekutov decided to have a nap. His camp bed was in the corner at the end of the tent. It was hot during the day, as it was July; the tent's sides were folded up. Vadik was asleep so fast that he sprawled out on the camp bed like on a granny's feather bed. And how could he only contrive to sleep on his back, put his left hand under his head and throw his right arm away, and in such a way that it fell out of the tent and blocked the passageway. And the palm of the hanging out hand was up.

Vadim was tall with long legs and long arms. At the beginning nobody noticed him, later someone put a kopek on Vadik's palm, then another one. They were in his palm, because Vadim's fingers were brought together a bit. Afterwards someone put two lumps of sugar on the palm.

Vadik was still fast asleep and did not change his posture. And then the news spread throughout the camp that everybody put anything he wished into Pochekutov's hand. Our imagination broke loose; someone offered to find a poop and put it in the hand, but no one was willing to look for it. Someone had an idea to find and put a condom (a Product #2, as you remember, it is mentioned in the film "A Window to Paris"), and it had to be a used one. Everybody immediately liked the idea. Though there was a big problem; we were in Plotnikovo, and not in Kemerovo. And there Badri Lipartiya came and offered a Product #2, though the brand new one. At that time they were not packed that fancy as they are now. We questioned Badri: "Where did you get it?".

And Badri told us that he had brought it from Kemerovo just in case. Well, as soon as we did not have any used condoms, we collectively decided to imitate as if it had been used. We opened it and carefully put it somehow on his finger. Vadik was asleep in spite of whispers and giggles around him. You just image an arm hanging out of the tent and in the hand there are several coins of one and two kopeks, lumps of sugar and on the index finger there is the Product #2, one end of which is hanging down.

There were also many other different ideas, but we accepted the one from Badri again, though not all of it. Badri brought five more Products #2 and a lottery ticket for him to check it and win something afterwards.

The lottery ticket was rejected by all of us at once: "What kind of winnings? His arm is full of so useful things - what does it mean? Isn't it the winnings?"

Soon there were no those who were idly hanging around the camp; everybody was waiting for Vadik's reaction when he woke up. Guys even moved to the benches, which were close to Vadik's tent. But something incomprehensible happened. When we looked at the tent the next time, no one saw the arm hanging out of it, but there was nothing on the ground there as well. There was no Vadik's reaction at all. It was much more interesting to watch how Badri was annoying everyone while expressing his indignation that his idea to put a lottery ticket in the hand had been rejected.

Shura Popovitch was beating up on himself that he had not taken a photo of the hand. In the very same evening there appeared a new riddle: "Who grabbed as many condoms as he could?" and the answer: "It was Vadik Pochekut!" The matter was that everything we had put into Vadik's hand disappeared; he did not throw anything out, which meant that he kept the stuff. Badri approached him several times and demanded his items back, but Vadik gave nothing to him. And such a noble impulse would be laughed at, as at those days to come to a drugstore and buy the Product #2 was for some reason a shameful act.

10 August, 2011.



Essay 42. A guitar

How much since my secondary school years I'd wanted to learn to play the guitar! And to sing! I liked it when in a company someone played a guitar. There were listeners crowded around and the guitar player was singing in a sincere manner love songs. And the songs had to be only the love once, that kind of idea I had. "In a long forgotten pile of letters, I accidentally   found one, in which a line of beads like handwriting ran on the paper into a lilac stain...".  My parents refused to buy me a guitar. The matter was that before the guitar I had become keen on a button accordion. All I had wanted was the button accordion. I had promised to attend a music school, just "give me a button accordion, golden buttons". Well, what my parents could do, if their son wanted the button accordion that much and promised to study? (And what was the button accordion for in another case?). I was bought a button accordion; its brand name was "Rostov-Don".  They said it was a good button accordion. So I went to the music school at the Kedrovskiy opencast mine to learn to play the button accordion. My class mate Vadik Smolenko and a boy from a parallel grade Volodya Dus' went there at the same time with me. And there our competition started. I remember that after the scales I learned to play the song "A Lonely Accordion" and performed it at the examination for the first grade. I passed the exam. But Vadik and Volodya were already fluently playing a waltz from Lermontov's drama "Masquerade", and they were playing fine. I lost any interest to the study and the button accordion in general. So I decided to find the way out... Batya (father) asked me why I did not attend the classes and did not do my music home assignments? And my answer was that the button accordion had been broken. My batya could play the button accordion too; he new the repertoire of the parties of those days. He checked the button accordion, and saw that that was true. At the nearest weekend he went to Rudnik (a district of Kemerovo) to a repair shop. In a week the button accordion was ready. What could I do? I again opened it and tore half of sealing disks off the buttons. And again my batya took it to Rudnik. When they were repairing the button accordion for the second time, they asked my batya: "Do you have a son?" Batya said: "Yes." - "Does he attend a music school?" - "He attended it when the button accordion was fine". - "If you want the button accordion not to be out of order any more, do not make your son go to the music school."

And after all that I asked my parents to buy me a guitar, and a seven-stringed one. Seven-stringed guitars were hard-to-get things. Guitars with six strings were available everywhere, but the seven-stringed ones were not to be found anywhere.

Generally speaking my batya was kind, he loved me and used to say that to learn whether one liked something or not he should try that. If the guitars were available, one might be bought for me, but that was not the case. So in my second year at the institute my dream came true; my group gave me the guitar for my birthday. I was happy. At that time the procedure (greeting me with my birthday) was directed by Petya Kozlov.

Everyone remembers the store "Melody", which was at 40 Years of October street, near the Sanitary-Hygiene building. So Peter, he was a womanizer and used to go to the store quite often, got acquainted with the ladies-sales-clerks. He charmed them and asked to get a seven-stringed guitar to give it to me. During the socialism that was done in an easy and simple way. The guitars were not possible to find in stores, but they were available at a warehouse. The sales-clerks asked their director to get a guitar as if for themselves. And they were given it. So on 26 September, 1967 Pet'ka took all of us to the "Melody", the sales-clerks gave him the guitar from under the counter (it had already been paid for by him), and he said happy birthday to me and presented me the guitar; everybody was cheering together with the sale-clerks. I was thrilled and even shed a few tears. Everyone was making fun of me, but in a kind and not offensive way. Pet'ka had tuned the guitar up in the morning, long before presenting it to me. I invited everybody to a canteen at Leonova street; they cooked well there, the prices were rather moderate, and in a refreshment bar they sold "Rymnikskoie" wine, pink and white, which our group liked very much.

On the way from "Melody" to the canteen we were walking all together along the alley, which was in the center of the 40 years of October street, and singing out loud Vysotskiy's songs, who had just released a series of war songs, for instance: "I will never forget this battle..." After the canteen, where we sang to Peotr's playing the guitar, our whole crowd went to the birch grove, which was across the street from the canteen. There we sang to the guitar, but much louder. It was warm; generally speaking, the birthday party was a success.

Petya Kozlov took me under his patronage and was teaching me to play the guitar; and I could already strike three chords and sing hoarsely: "Yellow lights are in my dream and I am wheezing in my sleep...". To all parties where our group was invited I brought the guitar and was singing in a hoarse voice about a dream which was like yellow lights, and afterwards the guitar was taken from me and given to Pet'ka. So two or three month later, but before the New Year, Pet'ka and I were walking home from somebody's birthday, do not remember whose one. It was quite late at night. We were walking along the very alley, and at the Kirovskiy district entertainment center, where there were portraits of "The Best People of the District", three drunks molested us with the usual "Got a cigarette?", and that was rather aggressive. When I was doing sambo (a kind of wrestling), our coach Krava (Vladimir Kravtchenko) taught us that it was better to be the first to start in order to control the initiative. So at that moment I remembered his words, and without thinking for a long time conked the most impudent on his head with my guitar (my coach taught me that as well - to conk the leader off, the rest would run away). Everything happened exactly that way: the bully whacked down on the snow, and the other two ran away. For you not to call us chatterboxes, I will not conceal that we kicked the bully a little bit while explaining to him that one could not bother decent guys. Then we went home; I used to live at Leonova, 1, and Pet'ka and Sasha Sal'mayer - at Leonova, 6 or 8, next to me, in other words.

In the morning I came to the institute. I passed the area where we had the fight the night before, but did not notice anything. And at the institute everybody was expressing his or her condolences to me because of the loss of the guitar and greeted me with the victory over the three hooligans. It turned out that Petya had come to the institute earlier than me, and had placed an announcement at an unfilled place of the "The Best People of the District" board, which said: "Yesterday at the very place Oleg Syedyshev broke his favorite guitar on a hooligan's head". Of course, not many students read the announcement in the morning, but Pet'ka diligently visited everyone he knew and told them about the fight, and after the classes many stopped there on their way specifically to read Pet'ka's scribble.

And since then I have not had any musical instruments, and I doubt whether I will ever have one.

Essay 43. A stranger in medicine

Are there any come-and-go people in medicine? Yes, as many as one likes! And in Soviet times one could meet a doctor with a vacant look, and now... It is difficult for me to talk about this, as I am a former doctor myself with 25 years of practice as a psychiatrist. Though Vladimir Fainzilberg states that there are no former psychiatrists, I consider myself a former one. Many times I was offered to have a surgery as soon as it became clear that I was a businessman; and some doctors even did not react when I hinted to them that I had a degree in medicine and 25 years of experience. So, a doctor at Kiev clinic "EUROLAB" persistently recommended me to ablate a lipoma of a size of a millet grain, which I had behind my right ear. I told him that I was a former doctor, but he continued even more insistently: "It is even better; you can imagine what will happen, if it starts growing." I replied timidly that I had already had it (the lipoma) for ten years like that, and he: "So what? Nobody knows when it can start progressing, and what consequences this will inflict".
He was speaking with confidence, was trying to be convincing, was referring to doctors from Canada and America for some reason, but I could not meet his eyes even once. I am not going to start any discussions; I made up my mind that that was a stranger in medicine. I did not argue with him as well, and was listening to him in silence. I was curious how long he would last and how he would finish our conversation and his proposition. He did not last for a long time, he dashed off our talk and also persistently asked me what I decided. At heart I swore at him, and said aloud that I had to think. That was five or six years ago, I have not observed any progress of the lipoma since then. Though, I keep thinking whether I did a right thing when I swore at the doctor at heart or I should've sworn at him aloud.

So Kolya Kovalchuk had decided that he would be the odd man out in medicine even before he became a doctor. Though, I'll talk about it later, first about Kolya.

You just have a look at his photo and you will understand that I am sincere, when saying that he was a handsome guy, tall and slender. By his temper he was calm and had great command over himself. I do not remember any case, when he had a conflict with someone during those three years, he studied together with us. And what kind of study it was! If he stayed at the institute till the graduation ceremony, he could have received a red diploma (a red diploma is given to top students with excellent achievements). And at the same time he was a regular participant of all our parties and feasts, after which he had most awful hangover, no matter how much he had drunk. Kolya even used to say about himself: "I drink in order not to get drunk, but to be sick because of hangover". Kolya was also an active participant of our mischief.
Here in the photo you can see our civil defense training. During the training Slavka Sizikov was imitating a wounded in the right arm and as if he had a broken leg. Zhenka and I offered Kolya to tighten knots on Slavka's bandages. And Kolya not only did that, but he even overdid the task. He volunteered to bandage Slavka and not only made the bandages' knots dead tight, but also poured beer on them
Slavka was lying with his eyes closed (according to the legend he had lost his consciousness), but when Kolya started pouring beer on his bandages, Slavka smelled beer and opened his eyes. And Kolya also demonstrated good actor skills, he shouted loudly: "I brought him back to his senses, I brought him back to his senses" and gave him a sip from the bottle.

Major Glebov approached them; he reprimanded them for appearances' sake, and then announced that though there were forty minutes left before the end of the class, as soon as all of us were actively participating, he dismissed us; afterwards he warned us that, if we had more classes later, we'd better have no more beer. And he left. From other groups we knew that the scenario would be like that and had brought a significant supply of beer beforehand. And there it started. Part of the students left, though the most active stayed. We were having as much fun as we wanted. It was late spring. It was warm, and the very first birch leaves started showing up. And there Kolya and Valera Kaygorodov, our group monitor, had an argument whether it was possible to climb a birch tree with one's heels over head. Kolya Kovalchuk was stating that it was impossible, and Valera Kaygorodov was insisting that one could do that.

The rest of us were involved in the argument as well, especially when Slavka Sizikov, who was hammered by that time (he always got tipsy quite quickly), announced that Valerka was his best friend, and he would climb a birch instead of him. We made our bets: it was beer against brandy, that he would not climb the tree; he had to climb as high as one's height. Kolya Kovalchuk demanded that his height had to be the criterion, Slavka was objecting. It was decided that the bench-mark would be one meter and fifty centimeters. We did not have a tape measure, so Slavka started measuring with a matchbox; the distance was thirty matchboxes long. Slavka was measuring, and the rest of us were blaming him for cheating and three or four times made him start from the very beginning. Like I said, we had a lot of fun. Somewhere in my photo archive I have the photo of Slavka in a birch tree upside down, but I cannot find it. Well, Slavka lost, to be more exact, Valera lost the bet. Afterwards for quite a long time we were telling everyone how Slavka tried to climb a tree with his legs ahead and even demonstrated that.

Kolya Kovalchuk also excellently shoot Margoline (a small-caliber gun brand), he even had a permanent pass from the Military Department to the shooting gallery of the military unit that was near the Morphology building.

So Kolya believed that he would be a stranger in medicine and did not want to enter a medical institute, but his parents strongly insisted. Kolya loved his parents and agreed to compromise: he entered the medical institute and studied there for three years, but if his opinion about his place in medicine did not change, he would do whatever he wanted. His parents secretly hoped that Kolya would feel sorry for the three years of study, it turned out that they did not know their son well enough. After finishing his third year at the institute Kolya invited our whole group to a restaurant "Kuzbass", and himself paid for the reception (usually we clubbed together to go to a restaurant), and he announced that he had fulfilled his parents' will and was leaving the institute. We sincerely felt sorry, we did not want to part with him, but that was life. Kolya quitted.
According to the rumors he graduated from Kemerovo Pedagogical Institute and received a PhD degree.



Essay 44. Oh, sports - You are life!

Let them say what they like, but sports played a notable place at the institute. There was a paradox, nobody liked physical training, but many did sports, and the rest were cheering for them. Let's take me as an example. I did not want to attend physical training classes at any cost, though if to sum up the time I spent on my sambo (type of wrestling) training, it took twice more of my time. And I could mention by chance that I had been exempt from the PT. In our group except me Volodya Bobkov was also allowed not to attend PT classes; he brought a reference letter from an airfield, where he was doing skydiving. Volodya used to say: "If you failed the very first time, skydiving is not for you".  He loved black humor. Kolya Kovalchuk was exempt from the PT by the Military Training Department, as he was good at shooting. Vagram Agadzhanyan and Volodya Kardashov were in the institute's combined volleyball team. Totally there were five guys out of fifteen. And in addition to that many of my friends were doing sports, that is why I remember many interesting stories of my own or the ones they told me. If one looks into it, except achievements there are also sports related events in sports. For instance, in a weight lifting combined team of the institute, a member of which was my friend, a powerful man from the Don river area, Tolik Lopatin, there was the following incident. But let me tell everything in order. A coach of the Kemerovo State Medical Institute team Velantin Mikhailovitch Kalinin, an instructor of the PT Department, was a "playing" coach, as he also performed in the team. His motto was: "The teaching of weight lifters is omnipotent!".

A member of the team was one of my first acquaintances at the institute Zhora Chernobay from Kuban, you remember him from my other essays. I did not mention that in the story "A Mini Dorm", and that was the following: every time Zhora went out of a bathroom, Kolya Kozlov and Zhenka Romashov asked him: "Well, the weightlifter, have you established a record in a jerk? (In Russian the word "jerk" and a spoken name of a "toilet" sound the same). How is the equipment, did it stand it?" Everybody was laughing, and Zhora gave a good-natured answer: "You are fools..." At first I did not dare, but then, too, started inquiring about Zhora's achievements in a jerk. In the team there were several guys I did not know well: "Yasha Kutsenko, Kim or An, Serezha Markov and Volodya Terekhov.  So the Kemerovo State Medical Institute (KSMI) team went to a Siberia and the Urals weightlifting Championship among the medical schools. Zhora Chernobay was in the second heavy weight, and in the light heavyweight there were two guys: Terekhov Volodya and Tolik Lopatin, and there was nobody in the first heavyweight. And there the most active sports related activities started. It was good for the team to be presented in all weight categories; so V.M.Kalinin pointed at Tolik Lopatin and said: "You must gain five kilos for three days, to be registered in the first heavyweight".

Poor Tolik, he turned to be one kilo heavier than Terekhov. And there it started. We were on the train for two days before we reached Chelyabinsk; and Tolik was fed like a prize turkey. Then he was stuffed with food for two days in Chelyabinsk before the competition.
When I came to Ukraine, I learned to fatten turkeys. First of all, they were put in a cage in order not to flap their wings and loose fat. Then they were forced to swallow sweat peas and bay leaves,  and bread soaked in milk for a couple of days, so when a turkey was slaughtered its meat was tender, juicy and sweet. But that was a turkey! And Tolik did not look like a turkey at all; he was much nicer and my friend after all. So he, like the turkey, was stuffed with food, and even three hours before the competition he was made to eat two first courses, three second courses and three glasses of stewed fruit on the top. And when they were taken to be weighed, Tolik (he was a real Don Cossack!) brought a three liter jar of his favorite apricot compote, but in order not to perform all the exercises with it as if with a weight and not to step on a scale with it, but to increase his weight with it, if it would fall short. And it happened exactly that way; the scale showed 87 kg! The weight fell short by 3 kilos, and there were forty minutes left before the official weighing. And there Tolik won his first victory, he slowly, a sip after sip, drank the apricot compote. If before that he had enjoyed drinking it, that time he was literally stuffing the last sips into himself.  Slowly and gradually moving his legs Tolik went to be weighed. It is true, when they say, that all judges are scum, both in a court and at competitions. And Tolik had the one, who was not only a scum, but a sadist, too, who made him take his shoes off! How do you like that ruse? For sure that was the intrigue of the contestants. Just tell me, how could he take his shoes off, if he was afraid even to move? And there Zhora gave a hand. I had always loved Zhora and told everyone, that he had a kind soul. Chernobay made Tolik sit in a recumbent position to avoid any pressure on his belly and himself took Tolik's shoes off. Tolik stepped on the scale, and, just imagine, there were ninety kilos sharp, and it was required to have at least a gram more. And there Zhora again came with help; he poured a glass of water on Tolik, and the judge registered the weight, which was so necessary to the whole KSMI team!!! Hurray!!!

Well, and after that it was a matter of pure technique, which our guys were good at, and they won in their weight categories correspondingly: Tolik - the first place, Zhora - the second place and Terekhin the third one, which moved the KSMI team up to the honorable third place among the medical universities of Siberia and the Urals. Now you see, what we are made of!

Though, we could have had two first prizes and the resulting second place for the team. And there our Zhora Chernobay made an exhibition of himself. He lost the first prize to his contestant by the number of approaches to a weight. I would like to tell you about the very first approach and a jerk. After all the peripeteia with Tolik, Zhora got a bit excited by his wit and Tolik's gratitude and Kalinin's praise. That excitement played a mean joke on Zhora. There was a jerk, which Tolik was especially good at; he knew the technique, and mastered it excellently as well as a "low seat" method, but not at that time. Here is the sequence of Zhora's acts. The weight to start with was the one for children - 115 kg. Zhora nicely and even a bit theatrically performed a technical move "low seat". Kalinin flourished; that well Zhora performed everything. And there the unimaginable happened: Zhora kicked his sneakers against a bump of the platform and fell forward, on his belly. The audience shouted:  "Ouch!!!" The weight, because of the jerk, went backwards and fell on his back and pressed his waist down. Zhora's belly flattened out almost along the whole platform. And what was the most important, Zhora was not in pain, but could not get up by himself. The weight turned out to be between a messive back and even more messive buttocks.  When the audience saw Zhora stirring and that he had not been hurt, it started laughing, and when the assistants freed him from the captivity, the audience burst into storm of applause.

Tolik Lopatin when he was young, or since the moment I got acquainted with him, produced an impression of a calm guy, who possessed great self-command and lacked any adventurism, but as they say, nobody's perfect.  Suddenly Tolik showed his other side.  It was before the spring examinations for the first year. The KSMI combined team went to a regional championship among universities. That time Tolik was competing in high jumps. It was his, so to say, winning kind of sport. He told us that at secondary school his class teacher had said: "All kids have an awl in their buts, but Lopatin has a spring there". It turned out that in the KSMI team there was no one who could compete in pole-vault. The coach offered Tolik to perform the pole-vault. Perhaps because he was absolutely ignorant about what that was  like, Tolik agreed and took his position at the starting line. Just imagine a guy, who took in his hands a pole for the first time in his life and went to perform a pole-vault. He bravely approached the starting line, toll the pole, made his run, pushed off from the ground... and the pole froze in precisely vertical position, and on its top at about four or four and a half meters above the ground, there was "the baby" , whose height was one meter and ninety centimeters and weight - just a bit less than one hundred kilos. The audience at the stands was laughing loud. Tolik jerked, because he felt offended, the pole bended a bit, Tolik unclasped his hands and landed on the other side of the high bar. The judges registered that the bar of three meters was cleared. His friends greeted him, were shaking his hands, and the coach praised him. The next height was 3.5 meters, but Tolik firmly said: "No!" And none of coach's persuasions helped. Those, who are Tolik's friends, know that Lopatin has a heart of stone. If he said something it was invariable.

If you need to form a team to win in pole-vault, you should look for a guy who can pole-vault seven feet high, and not seven ones, who can jump a foot high each. Somebody wise said that. I recollected the expression and liked it, and I took it as an epigraph to the final story.

You will laugh, but Tolik Lopatin was exactly that kind of guy. Yes, he could, and most importantly wanted to pole-vault, wanted to win. The principle: participation prevails over victory was considered by him to be Menshevist propaganda of weakness and inability to carry to completion what had been started.

Tolik could carry to successful completion what he had started. And how eager he was to win! He was longing for victory in spite of anything. The following is for you to judge. Lopatin was a second year student of Medical Department and was preparing to take an anatomy exam; at his group the exam was conducted by the notorious Faradey. So on the eve of the examination Tolik went to a store to buy some bread; the lot fell on him. Tolik's roommate was Vagram; they cast lots when there were any chores to do.  The lot to get some bread fell on Tolik. And it happened so that on his way he met Volodya Kardashov, who was taking examinations as well, but was more interested in various sports competitions, he was a walking poster. Volodya enlightened Tolik that at a gym of a secondary school #54 there was conducted a "Jumper's Day", to be more exact a high jumps open championship of Kuzbass. "It's cool! That's how I've got some bread", - Tolik thought. (Perhaps, it was he who made the expression popular). "Tonight I'll stretch my muscles, and there are three full days left before the exam". Tolik did not walk, but flew as if he had wings back home. Though, he calmed down at the entrance. Vagram was waiting for bread, he was already cutting sausage to make sandwiches; a kettle was already boiled. And when they were devouring the sandwiches with the "Doctor's" sausage, Tolik, innocently asked Vagram for an advice: "Vagramchik, don't you think it would be good, if I stretch my muscles?" and told him about the "Jumper's Day". Vagram himself liked to go to Russian baths together with me before his exams, so he replied without a moment's thought: "Yeah, go, do it, but do not come back without scoring a victory". Tolik even stopped chewing; one could not overeat before the jumps; he quickly put his red T-shirt in his bag. And Vagram continued making fun of him: "And take yellow boxers". Tolik was surprised: "Why yellow? I've got white boxers and socks". Vagram was laughing loudly and promised to tell Tolik the reason why after the competitions. Tolik grabbed his sneakers and his training suit and quickly left.  It was a short walk. Tolik did not notice how he got there. He was not a beginner at that kind of competitions, so he knew all of his potential competitors.

He came on time; Yura Lobastov and Kolya Teplyakov from Novokuznetsk polytechnic institute were already warming up. Kardash was sitting on a fans' bench drinking beer, he waved his hands in a welcoming way, as if saying that he had enough beer to share. Kardash was Kardash, he was incorrigible.

Yura and Kolya were nice, friendly guys, so Tolik confessed to them that he had gotten sick and tired of that anatomy, and decided to stretch his muscles and do something different. So the competition started. Tolik was at his best, and cleared the first three heights of 170, 175 and 180cm from the very first try, playfully and with significant potential. Kardash was raving on his bench; it looked like he had something else except his beer. A height of 185cm was set; that was Tolik's best result, and he cleared it from the first try as well. Yura Lobastov and Kolya Teplyakov had cleared the height too, but from the second and third tries. So the bar was set at the height of 190. And as Tolik said afterwards, he even had not thought that the height was seven centimeters higher than his own height, and that that was his personal record.
Generally speaking, he came to stretch his muscles, and not to compete. He ran up, jumped and heard the enthusiastic yell of Kardash: "He's cleared it!!!". Kolya, too, cleared the height of 190 from the second try, but Yura failed. And then they were shaking in their shoes, the height of 195 was not cleared neither by Tolik, nor by Nikolay. Tolik won by the best tries summed up. Like I told you, he was a Cossack, a Don Cossack, dashing Cossack. "Have you had a good warm up?" - was the only thing the guys managed to ask him.  Don't forget that at that time the fosbury flop technique was not developed, the guys were jumping the regular "throw-over" way.
Tolik barely managed to get rid of Volodya Kardashov, who was demanding to have a party to celebrate his victory; when he got home he announced to Vagram that his requirement to score a victory had been fulfilled, and it was Vagram's turn to explain why he had suggested him wearing yellow boxers. Vagram again was laughing for a long time, and then told Tolik a joke about Chapayev and Pet'ka (Russia's Civil war, 1918-1921, heroes, main characters of series of jokes), the one about Chapayev's red shirt and his yellow riding breeches. That time both of them had a good laugh.

The facts for the story were kindly given by A.G.Lopatin.
16 August, 2011.


Essay 45. Canalis nasolacrimalis

What is good about student recollections is that if you search your own memory and make your friends do the same, then you will be able to retrieve the most unbelievable situations.  That what happened with Lyuba Kerner (this is her maiden name) at an eye disease examination I rate as an unbelievable, though at the same time obvious event. Well and how would you estimate the situation, when a person did not want to take an exam, but was made to do that and received an "excellent" grade? Now I will tell you how it was.

There was an examinations period. There was an eye diseases examination. The fourth question of the examination paper was about "Poisoning".  Everybody who remembers Lyuba during the institute years, know how diligently she was studying and how much she wanted to be a good doctor. She longed to be not just a good doctor, but the one who was loved by everybody.

Lyuba clearly understood that to achieve that she had to control herself and not leave even the smallest chance to doubt her, and  not fail anyone either. So the examination was the next day, and a day before she had no energy left to study the damned Poisoning.  Lyuba without a moment's hesitation decided not to fail her professor Drozdova, not to mention discrediting herself, and made up her mind to take an exam the other day with another group, after she would have finally learned the Poisoning. So with that decision in mind Lyuba calmly went to bed. In the morning she stayed in bed much longer and came to cheer for her group at about noon; and why not? She was not going to take the exam. But then there was an interesting detail; attention, please! She took her student's record book with her!!!...Ah-ha, women's logic! They talk so much about it and will talk about it for a hundred or a thousand years longer, but it is doubtful, if it, I mean the logic, can be understood. So Lyuba came to the department, I'll remind you she had her student's record book with her for some reason, carelessly put on a doctor's smock and did not button it up. And what for? Let them, who were taking the exam button up. In the hall there were hanging around Volodya Robinstorg and Tolya Lomov; they were exchanging their impressions of the exam they had passed.

And Galya Volkova was sitting on a desk, which for some reason was taken out into the hall; she wearily leaned back to the wall. When Lyuba sat next to her, Galya livened up and started insisting that Lyuba took the exam. Lyuba's arguments that she had not learned everything were brushed aside by Galya with laughter: "Show me at least someone who is taking an exam being 100 per cent prepared?"  Yeah, nothing could challenge that argument. Women's curiosity made Lyuba come up to the door and peep into the examination room. And there something improbable happened: somebody literally pushed Lyuba into the room. And there Lyuba was in her unbuttoned doctor's smock, a bit ruffled and with wide open eyes because of the unexpectedness; she was absolutely dumbfounded. She even could not move, but was staring at the associate professor Y. F. Khatminskiy, who started grumbling because of such impudence, saying where she had been before, the exam was coming to its end, and she had to be given time to prepare and so on and so forth. And Lyuba was in stupor.

Then Khatminskiy snapped at her and made her quickly choose a patient. And there Lyuba finally livened up. She came up to a patient, who was as cross as sticks, he was supposed to have lunch time, and there were those students, you see. She examined the patient, gave him the dioptric lenses saying: "Yes", and the patient snapped back angrily "I don't' know". Lyuba thought: "Well, never mind him" and wrote a prescription. And then evaluation of the situation started, student tactics and strategy, if she prepared her answer according to the examination paper, Khatminskiy would be available to listen to her, and he was angry at Lyuba. And if not to prepare the answer, then there was the associate professor V. I. Kobzeva, who had just became available and who had been reading the lectures to the group. She took a risk and went to answer without any preparation to Kobzeva. It should be mentioned that professors like situations of this kind and are favorable to reckless students. Lyuba presented the patient, produced the prescription and clearly without a hitch answered the questions. "Enough", said the examiner and then asked what should be done in case of constant lacrimation. Lyuba gave an answer. "And what is the name of the canal?" (oh, Kobzeva turned to be so inquisitive).  Lyuba has remembered all her life and will remember till the end of her days the canal "ñanalis nasolacrimalis".

Kobzeva took Lyuba's record book, started signing it and at the same time asked: "What are the three main symptoms of poisoning?" Lyuba slowly answered: "Weakness, indi..." - she did not manage to finish, Kobzeva finished herself: "...-sposition", and signed the record book, gave it to Lyuba and said: "Dismissed".

And what do you think about all that? Lyuba, who did not want to take the exam, but came where it was taken and by chance brought her student's record book, with the help of some "magic" power got into the examination room, without any preparation passed the exam for an "excellent"! So, Lyuba was not happy. Khatminskiy made her angry, she felt uncomfortable with Galina for her excellent grade.

Though in half an hour, not even half an hour, but in five minutes Lyuba was pestering Volodya and Tolya demanding them to confess, who had pushed her into the examination room.

The story for the essay was kindly given by L.V.Kovaleova.
19 August, 2011.

Essay 46. Young Communist League (Komsomol)

"I will not part with the Komsomol and will stay young forever..." - this line from a song is for sure not about me. I tell you honestly, I do not remember, how it happened that I did not become a Komsomol member when at high school. As then it was a mandatory requirement for everybody.  Though, that was the way it happened.  When I arrived to the institute to submit my papers, I honestly draw a dash in the column "Komsomol Membership". A girl who was accepting my documents told me that I would 100% have a problem with entering the institute. She advised me to join the Komsomol urgently.

I  decided not to put the matter into the back burner and on the way home from Kirovskiy district visited the Regional Committee (RC) of Young Communist League of Rudnichniy district, which was located next to a Miners' Entertainment Center. It was easy to find the RC. I entered the building, and found out that it was empty, all rooms were locked. I checked all of them one after the other on the first floor, then went up to the second floor, and there was a janitor washing the floor there. She told me: "Everybody is on vacation, my dear." I froze in shock. When I was coming there I thought that that would be a simple formality to join Komsomol, but the complications arose. The janitor turned to be a tenderhearted woman, she noticed that my face changed and I was standing still, she said: "Well, my dear, is it urgent? It seems that "the third" is in his office now, maybe he will help you with your need." And she pointed where the office was. I even did not thank her, went directly, practically ran to "the third". It was later, when I learned that the third secretary was in charge of ideological activity in the district, and it was the second one, who was responsible for enrollment.  When I entered the office followed by a receptionist, I became dumb-founded, as the office was of a size just a bit smaller than an assembly hall at the institute. Somewhere very far away there was sitting a frail man. There are young guys, there are mature, and there are ones of indeterminate age. So, "the third" was exactly one of those. He listened to me first, and then said that he was very sorry, but everybody was on vacation, and he could not do anything to help me. Though I barely made a move to get up and leave, he exclaimed: "Oh, I know how to help you." There was democracy among the Komsomol members even then, so "the third" asked me to call him by his first name and addressed me in a similar way. So, he told me that he would dictate to me the application, and I would write it word for word, and he would try to enroll me to Komsomol quickly. And he added that the RC's meeting would be the next day, and he would put a question of my enrollment in the agenda. And right in my presence he wrote: "#3 Enrollment of O.P.Syedyshev in Komsomol." in the agenda which was in front of him. Then he started dictating, and I was writing like a dictation: "... and when there was a Komsomol enrollment campaign at our school nobody explained anything to me. And I did not understand the reason why it was necessary to become a Komsomol member. Though I was constantly concerned about the question, so I had an appointment with a Rudnichniy Young Communist League RC secretary comrade such and such (well, I do not remember his name and last name), and only after having a conversation with him, I became aware about what Young...".

The comrade asked me to repeat the text of the application the next day at the meeting. Why not? I promised. The meeting was scheduled for 11a.m. the next day. I arrived at 10 a.m. and was hanging about in the RC's hall and in the street and at the entrance. Boredom, hesitation and anger at myself, there were the feelings that were tearing me apart then. Approximately five or ten minutes before the meeting two young women walked into the building and a "Volga" car arrived with one passenger inside. "This is from the very Regional Committee" - the yesterday's janitor informed me. I had said "thank you" to her, and she felt sympathetic to me. "These are our instructors", - she told me about the two women". The RC's meeting was on the first floor in a room as big as the office of "the third", and there was a "Conference Hall" doorplate on the door. As I remembered my question was number three, so I was ready for long waiting, and the janitor told me, that their meetings were long and added a cool thing: "They have nothing else to do".

Though it happened the other way; in about ten minutes after the meeting had started one of the young women called me: "Are you Syedyshev? Let's go. "There was a long black table in the room; the four having a meeting were sitting at one of its ends, and I was standing at the opposite one, at about ten meters away from them.  The woman who had brought me inside, read my application, and the one who had come by car asked me a question: "Is it true that nobody explained anything to you?" I replied "Yes, nobody did." - "Well, you have problems there, we will deal with them in September, put it in the agenda" - he addressed "the third". -"Shall we vote? Unanimously!". Then to me: "Congratulations!"; and "the third" added that I waited for him in the hall. In about ten minutes more "the third" went out of the room, and we headed to his office on the second floor. There he took from his desk a signed and stamped red Komsomol membership card.

He told me that I did a good job and delicately showed me out of the RC to the very entrance.

An idea that they were going to have some merrymaking flashed across my mind, but I had not time to reflect on that, I was in a hurry to the selection commission at Kirovskiy district. Later I learned that they had a new "the second" at Rudnichniy Young Communist League RC.

The girl, who had warned me and sent to solve the problem a day before, was very surprised to see the Komsomol membership card in my hand and with the very same date on a stamp of issue!!!

That time I filled in all columns in the form and submitted the documents. And nobody noticed that I had one and the same date of filling the form in and of joining Komsomol. And do you know why? Simply because nobody cared.

Perhaps the story will not be complete, if I do not say a couple of words about how I discontinued my membership in Komsomol. That was quite simple. After I arrived to a village of Chashi of Kargopolskiy province of Kurgansk region, I was given a huge merchant's mention to stay in,

which had a great stove. So I threw my Komsomol membership card in the very stove, but did not make sure that it burned completely. And a horrible according to those days thing happened. I had to stay longer at a hospital because of a surgery, and asked a medical assistant from an ambulance to burn the stove to make it warm when I got home. So that scum, Volodya Ostanin was the name of the stinker, saw an almost burned Komsomol membership card in the stove, there was just a corner of it, no last name, nothing; and he went to Komsomol regional committee of Kargopol and gave his finding there.

He did not say a word to me. I learned who had done what when in the RC. To cut it short, I managed to get out of a scrape, but the problem could be huge. And how I extricated myself from the situation is "an absolutely different story" - as a well-known actor Kanevskiy says.

21August, 2011.


Essay 47. Unus - one out of five

Of course, Galina Petrovna Pronina, and among the students "Obliqua" - squint-eyed, enjoyed her students' respect, but even she could not make everybody sit quietly during her classes and repeat in chorus: "in nomine patris, et filii; et spiritus santi, ..." or  "Otium reficit vires".

The students played pranks and did that in various ways, harmlessly and sometimes maliciously.  Though youthful maximalizm of most of them did not allow them to critically estimate and cast away spiteful tricks. For instance, you remember a course of physiology at the institute, remember, all of us studied Pavlov's reflexes and conducted the experiments with a lamp and electric shock on ourselves. You remember there was a rheostat there, which switched on the minimal tension current. In our group Slavka Sizikov was chosen to be an experimental object, and the current of 220 volt was switched on!? Well, I agree, that we were boobies, I agree that people may have individual intolerance to electric current. Though to know that one had to study for six years and then had medical practice for forty years more.  And who thought about all that then? Slavka fell down from the chair, and everybody was laughing happily. And nobody asked Slavka how he was. The guys were playing pranks. So, coming back to Obliqua; the students leaned over backwards to play tricks in spite of all the strictness at her classes. 

In group #41 of dentists there was a guy from Ukraine whose last name was Gudis. Nobody remembered his first name, everyone called him Gudis. He was a great guy, never argued with anyone, favorably tolerated jokes, and most different ones. He even was smiling as if he himself was guilty. Well, in the most extreme cases he used to say in a calm and low voice: "Yes, yes, and I saw you somewhere, too...".  That was the way he answered even the instructors. The guys did their best to learn the meaning of the phrase from him. And only once when Gudis pronounced the phrase addressed to an instructor of the Physical Training Department V.I.Konontsev as a reply to a reprimand for his coming to the class without his uniform, Kostya Romashov literally pressed him down demanding where he could see him, meaning Kononstev?

And there Gudis broke down and talked: "In a coffin". Kostya dropped his jaw. Though, after that he did his best to avoid being an object of that kind of an answer from Gudis.

And in the very #41 group there was a guy, I am not giving his name, though if some of the readers recognizes him, it will be not my problem. So the guy was making a nuisance of himself to all the professors and fawned upon them.  It was obvious that professors, too, did not like that behavior, but the guy did not notice anything or maybe did not want to notice. So once Kostya Romashov as if it was for himself (and Kostya sat at the same desk with the obnoxious guy at Obliqua's classes) pinned to a doctor's smock of Gudis, who sat in front of him, a piece of paper as if with a pony for himself.

And Obliqua had a tradition to start her class with repeating popular quotations in Latin. And that time Obliqua as usual offered to repeat what one remembered. And the guy bit at the bait, which had been prepared for him. He enthusiastically raised his hand even jumped a bit with impatience.

Obliqua's always gloomy face with a gaze directed nobody knew where nodded at him and said: "Yes".  So the upstart got up and like a poet in a singing voice (he believed that that was the way Obliqua liked) started reading what was written on Gudis' back. Sure enough Gudis knew nothing about the pony. "Gudis, Gudis - phemeninum...", there was a light laughter in the room, and Obliqua stared at the answering. Gudis said in his manner practically not turning around: "Yes, I saw you somewhere, too...". The guy did not notice anything and continued reading from the piece of paper: "Fortuna non penis in manus non recipe" (I am asking for your pardon, but I could not cast away the words from the song.)

The guy finished, and Obliqua with perfect calm announced: "Unus, one of five". And there the group could not stand that any longer and burst into loud laughter. And the laughter was hysterical, so Obliqua announced a five minutes break for everyone to calm down.
 

The facts for the story were kindly given by K.D.Romashov.
21 August, 2011.

Essay 48.  His Majesty photographer

Zhenya Romashov was one of the students who did not receive any financial support from their parents. He provided for himself and even managed to support his brother, who studied a year younger at the Dental Department. I won't say that Kostya had it like in Christ's bosom, but Zhenya's care helped him a lot. Kostya always had butter to put on his bread anyway.

So Zhenya worked. I remember that he worked as an X-ray photography laboratory assistant at a traumatology centre of # 9 clinic of Kirovskiy district. As a rule he was on duty at night, on weekends and during holidays.

Staff members loved Zhenya, they knew that he would always substitute for them at night, and often asked him to do so. And in the payroll it was registered as if a staff member had been on duty that night, who paid Zhenya in cash later. It was then when black cash became known! In addition to that Zhenya used the facility of the X-ray laboratory for his personal needs.

He developed films and printed out hundreds if not thousands of photos there. Zhenya visited kindergartens around the district and according to the agreement with their staff took pictures of children in different situations - when they were asleep, or sat at tables or played; he made portraits and group photos. All in all there were oceans of variants of pictures. Then Zhenya made the sample photos and brought them to a kindergarten when parents were collecting their kids. He showed to moms the photos of their precious offsprings and wrote down who and how many photos ordered. I do not remember exactly, but Zhenya's prices were very affordable. It seems to me that he charged 10 or 20 kopeks for a photo depending on its size. So the parents ordered tens of photos. And Zhenya's expenses were only on film and photographic paper. He used the reagents of the X-ray photographic lab practically without any harm to the budget of the clinic.

And he also did not waste his time and did everything during his working hours. Except for the time he spent in the kindergartens talking to the parents. Zhenya said that it was better for him when he offered photos to moms, who were ready to buy tons of them. And when dads came to collect their children they, as a rule, were very displeased that their wives had made them do that, and the most important thing was that they did not want to spend even a kopek, but preferred to have a glass of beer somewhere in a pub.

Though there was a case, when a dad bought photos for 10 rubles and told Zhenka that he would lie to his wife as if he had paid fifty rubles. And so he did, but his wife came to the kindergarten to clarify the matter. Zhenka was saved by a teacher's assistant who had heard like the dad was planning the scheme to deceive his family. Zhenka was grateful; he decorated various posters with photos for free. Yevgeniy said that on the days when he was visiting the kindergartens he had plenty of semolina and rice porridge to eat; that was how teachers' assistants liked Zhenka. From Zhenka's words the personal entrepreneurship gave him five-six times more income that his salary at the traumatology center.

Quite often Zhenya told us about different situations he had had when on duty. I would like to share one of them with you, my dear readers.

One day before the International Women's Day of 8 March a resident of one of the buildings located nearby walked into the traumatology center. Everybody who was on duty that night came to have a look at him. The patient had quite a spectacular appearance: he was in his slippers (it was beginning of March in Siberia), without pants, in a quilted coat and wrapped in a white sheet, like Jawaharlal Nehru, to his toes.

And he told the traumatologist on duty, who also was an assistant of the Operative Surgery Department and Topographic Anatomy of Kemerovo State Medical Institute V.G.Volkov and his assistant, an X-ray laboratory assistant, a student of the medical institute Y.D.Romashov about his personal tragedy, which was based on his love to his wife and the holiday buying craze.
He bought a women's slip from a stranger by chance, it was used, but in a very decent condition and beautiful, though made of rayon. He was very happy, as his surprise was an expensive one, and he wanted to give a super great present to his beloved wife. The old lady who was selling the slip wanted to receive 15 rubles for it. The man thought it was way too expensive and started bargaining till he talked the granny into 11 rubles, so he had enough money left for "a little white one" (a bottle of vodka). He came home and found a minor defect - a tiny ink stain in the center of the skirt. And the presenter had had a sip already and was in high spirits: he had a present and "the little white one" was with him, and he had, thanks God, skilful hands. "I will remove the stain" - he decided to himself and had one more sip of "the little white one" and washed the stain with soap. And believe it or not, the stain became more faded, but did not disappear; on the contrary, it grew much bigger. Yeah, the matter could not be resolved without one more sip of "the little white one". He sipped and remembered that in a closet he had a bottle of acetone. He washed the stain with acetone, but it grew even bigger, practically of the size of a half of the skirt. So he decided to take a chance and poured the whole bottle of acetone into the basin and soaked the slip in it. And then he invited his next door neighbor to finish "the little white one" to good health of their wives. The latter gladly accepted the invitation. They had a couple of shots, talked "about life, like humans" and then checked on the stain in the acetone. And there life demonstrated to them that "knowledge is power" and vice versa. The rayon slip (one can say - synthetic) practically completely had dissolved in the acetone, there were some pieces floating in the basin. The drinking companions got very sad, not because of the loss of the present, but of the wasted eleven rubles. Though nothing could be done, and everything that was in the basin was poured into the toilet.  The neighbor left. And the unaccomplished presenter got so excited that he was dashing around the apartment. He wanted to smoke, but his wife did not allow him to smoke in the apartment, only in a bathroom or at the stairway enclosure. Because of his bad mood he did not want to see any people, so he went to the bathroom.

Well, it is not customary to sit on a toilet sink with one's pants on, so he took his pants off and sat down. He rolled a cigarette between his fingers to soften it, stroke a match and lit the cigarette and habitually threw the match between his legs into the toilet sink. Then all he could remember was an explosion and a blow from underneath to his bottom and legs. The blow was strong; he even fell from the toilet down on the floor and lied unconscious for some time, just conked out. And then he took the sheet off and demonstrated the result. That what opened to Volkov and Zhenya's gaze was quite impressive. What used to be a butt was covered with black blisters, the testicles fell out of the torn scrotum, which stuck together with the penis; all that was in carbon black, greasy soot.

V.G.Volkov was a young assistant, but as a surgeon he was a virtuoso. He darned the scrotum, cleared and washed clean what he could and treated the burns.

We so much envied Zhenka that he had assisted Volkov during the surgery. And that was only our second year.

The story for the essay was kindly given by K.D.Romashov.
22 August, 2011.


Essay 49. Three tablets of aminazine

Generally speaking to write stories about the beautiful half of the graduates of Kemerovo State Medical Institute of 1972 from both the Medical Department and the Sanitary-Hygiene Department is a complicated and risky endeavor. In connection with that I remembered a pun of uncle Kolya Fomenkom, which I heard on "Russian Radio": "The weak half of the mankind is stronger than its strong half, and that is because of the weakness of the strong half for the weak one". Isn't it cool?  It is my weakness for the weak half, because of which I am very much afraid to offend the weak half. Though, "if a job is once begun, never leave it till it's done!". Here is a short essay about examinations. Examinations are a bottomless well of subjects and stories. Here is one of them.

Exactly a half of a well known among the students of that time music group NASNANE: Nadya Nagornova and Natasha Androkhanova and one of their friends from the Sanitary - Hygiene Departmnet (san-hyg), Natasha as well (with your permission I will not mention her last name) were studying for a pharmacology exam. They studied hard and even used some innovations, as they like to say  now.

The covered all the walls of the apartment they rented in Arochnaya street with pieces of paper with the medicines' formulae, which were difficult top remember. Instead of "Good morning" they named each other maximum single doze (m.s.d.) of various drugs. For instance, Nadya greeted Natasha, who just woke up: "Natasha, what is the m.s.d. of 0,1% atropine for children aged 4 - 7?" and the answer was: "Nadenka, if  my memory does not fail me, it is 0,1 ml per year of life. And you tell me, please, what is the m.s.d. of ìåíàäèîíà íàòðèÿ áèñóëüôèòà 1% solution?" And the answer came gaily: "Nadenlka, ask me about something more complicated; and there there is the same 0,1 ml per year of life". And the friends continued their study to become doctors. Don't laugh; everyone invents his or her own innovations, if one believes that they will help. In the trio NASNANE + Natasha, it was + Natasha who was a weak element. And she herself was aware of that, she even was convinced in that.  In the head of Natasha from san-hyg everything got mixed up, she was diligently trying to remember everything Nadya and Natasha were talking about, but things got jumbled up in her head and was kind of slightly ringing, or maybe that was a song: "bells' ringing is heard from far away...". Natasha was upset and at the same time nervous.

It happened so that Nadya and Natasha (the girls from the music group NASNANE) and the Natasha from san-hyg had the exam on the same day, but the Natasha's one started earlier. The girls did their best to cheer her up and help her relax, but when the Natasha was at the door she said: "I remember nothing. I am a fool of all fools. Then she left. The girls talked sympathetically, but time could not be wasted, they smartened themselves up and went to take the exam. The passed the exam successfully. Now you are waiting for me to say things like: "Nadya got such and such, and Natasha got such and such.", alas, I am not saying anything of the kind; let it be the intrigue. They passed the exam successfully! And that was it. They were happy and chattering enthusiastically came back home to Arochnaya street. And Natasha from san-hyg was already at home and was sleeping.  The girls ran up to her, tried to wake her up, she did not react, they sniffed, but there was no any particular smell. So they concluded that she was exhausted and let her rest.

In the evening Natasha's group mate came worried to their place and asked if anything wrong had happened to Natasha, because she had missed the party to celebrate the successful outcome of the pharmacology exam. From her the girls learned that Natasha got a "sat", and that the rest of her group had passed the exam and were merrily celebrating such an important event in students' life as passing "the pharma". And then Nadya and Natasha became seriously worried. They started shaking and slapping Natasha in order to awake her, and finally she woke up. The made her eat and gave her tea.

Though Natasha was absolutely remote and fell asleep right away. It was only in the next morning when the girls, who were dying because of curiosity learned the story of Natasha's taking the exam.

Natasha came to the exam hungry, as it was her tradition. We remember how depressed she was, because she could not remember anything up to the point of hearing ringing in her head. When she had arrived to the department everybody had noticed how nervous she had been. So somebody, but she could not remember who, suggested her taking three tablets of Aminazine, and you remember that Natalia ate noting before the exam.

There was the pharmacology exam, and one had to know that the tablets or dragee of Aminazine were of 10mg, 25 mg, 50mg and 100mg. So you can calculate how much totally she had taken 30 mg or 300mg. One had better found that well-wisher and as Badri Lipartiya liked to say: "I'll kill the scum!", well, maybe not killed, but whacked him in the face for sure. Natalia had taken the tablets to calm down and went to the exam right after that.

Well, everything was as usual: she came in, took an examination paper and set down to prepare. While she was looking around she felt fine. Then she tried to read the examination paper and the lines blurred. After that Natahsa's memory was jerky: she went to answer, but felt shaky. When she started talking, she became tongue-tied. They started making fuss around her. It became clear that she was not well, so it was decided to give her a "satisfactory" grade and send her home with peace, out of harm's way. Natalia could not remember clearly that part. She did not remember how she had walked home, gone to sleep, how the girls had woken her up in the evening and made her eat and drink.
Yeah, there could be a tragedy. If Aleutskiy only knew about the reason of Natalia's  "indisposition", he would have hardly allowed to give her a "sat".

As you see Nadya and Natasha had a purpose when they greeted each other with maximum single doses of medicines!!!
 
The story for the essay was kindly given by N.K.Svechnikova.

23 August, 2011.
Essay 50. "Nothern Lights"

Zhora Chernobay and Kolya Kozlov came from Krasnodarskiy Region. To enter the Kemerovo State Medical Institute they came from a city of Kropotkin. There was a major railway station "Kavkazskaya" there; a train "Novokuznetsk - Sochi" went through the station. The train did not arrive in Kemerovo, it came to a station of Topki, which was near Kemerovo.

Why am I writing about this in so many details? Here is why. Zhora and Kolya's relatives, like my batya (father), believed that students were always hungry, and every month they sent to both of them so much food, that it fed not only two of them for a month, but half of the dorm as well. What a variety of delicious things there was there! There was smoked meat, of course, lard, sausages, smoked chickens, home made butter and delicious, home made flavored Kuban wine. There was surely a half a suitcase of home made spice cakes. Those parcels were awaited not only by Kolya and Zhora, but by the rest of the students who they usually treated. There were always so many bags and other things to carry that usually Zhora and Kolya asked me or Zhenka and Kostya Romashov to help them. That time Kozlov and Chernobay's relatives made very special effort and sent twice more presents than usually. And Kostya and I went to help them. It was the thirty first of December; the train was supposed to arrive to Topki at four o'clock, and we planned to get to the dorm for three hours and say good bye to the old year and meet the new one, in an appropriate way at a holiday table loaded with presents from hospitable Kuban. Well, as it is said: "man proposes, God disposes"!

The train was late, and the worst thing was that we were not told for how much time. Maybe someone remembers what a barn was a train station in Topki.

That was horrible. How enthusiastically we were cursing innocent Zhora and Kolya, and they were guiltily apologizing. Time was flying; there was the beginning of the New Year frosty night, and Kostya and I had errands from the older Romashov to do. I had to buy two bottles of champagne and Kostya - two bottles of vodka, and it had to be "Stolichnaya", and Zhenka's favorite waffle cake.

Zhenka even financed those purchases. If in Kemerovo, we would not have any problem, but the time was passing, and we were in Topki, and where could we get what had been ordered?

In a shabby little store at the train station at about three minutes before it was closed we took a chance and asked for champagne, vodka and a cake. All of that was not available in the store. A saleswoman, a fat baggage in a dirty apron, which used to be white long ago, put over her coat said gladly: "I've got that!" and brought us everything we asked for from a utility room. She told us that she had brought that for one of her acquaintances, but the latter had not shown up. Though, she charged the double price.

To our luck Zhenya had assumed that we would buy the order at a restaurant, and there was an extra charge there. Finally at 8.30pm the train arrived. The conductors were familiar and well paid by the Kuban relatives, so all the bags and bundles and boxes had been already brought to the platform of the train carriage. So unloading went

quickly. And there to our good luck came a taxi from Kemerovo; it brought a man to the train, so the taxi driver was looking for passengers for the way back. And there were us right there. But one more blow was waiting for us that time. We were hurriedly loading the bundles, packs and boxes in the taxi, and when we were done, it turned out that there was only one spare passenger seat next to the driver left in the car. We almost had a fight about who would go by taxi. But we were friends, so we did not really fight, we threw lots. The driver was angry; he was in a hurry because of the holiday. The last suburban electric train or some train to Kemerovo was leaving in five minutes. The lot fell on Zhora. We opened one of the bundles and found lard in it. So we took lard and did not allow Zhora to carry packages with champagne and vodka in spite of his persistent offers. All the money left we gave to Zhora to pay for the taxi, and took almost a free ride to Kemerovo right after his departure.  He was having a taxi ride, and we were doing choo-choo, choo-choo. Though, even that way at 10.20 pm we, Kolya Kozlov, Kostya Romashov and I came to the final stop of a number three tram at the Electric Bulb factory to get to the dorm #1 at Kirovskiy district, where a merry company and hearty meals were waiting for us. Zhora promised us to lay everything he had on the table by the time of our arrival.

We had one hour and forty minutes, so we hoped to make it to the holiday table by the chimes (on 31 December at midnight the chimes of the Kremlin tower clock symbolize the beginning of a New Year). The minutes were flying, but there was no tram. There were about fifteen people at the tram stop. Someone went to the Mine, someone to the opencast mine, and we needed to get to almost the final stop. It was time for Zhora to start hiccupping non stop. There was no name we spared for him on that New Year Eve! And Kolya did that together with us. Finally at 11.30pm the tram came, and we got a chance to make it, if the tram raced, like Ferrari. And it was racing, it was literally flying. The car was rocking and squeaking unmercifully. All the passengers had a desire to help it, meaning the tram.

Kolya and I were chattering and did not notice like Kostya came closer to a window, with his breath thawed out a hole in the ice crust and pressed himself against the opening. He had such a dreary smile, that when we saw him, we felt very sorry for him, tears almost came into our eyes. Later we asked him, what he had been thinking about then. He confessed that he had remembered his hometown of Kant in Kirghizia and the settlement near the sugar mill where his parents lived; he  had remembered his loving mother and smell of homemade holiday meals.

By chance Kolya glanced at his watch and gave a loud shout: "The New Year is in a minute; stop whining and uncork the bottles!" Kostya and I started opening champagne and vodka with our frozen fingers and teeth. And it was amazing, but a man and a woman, complete strangers, took their bottle and started opening it as well. Kolya's eyes were fixed on the face of his watch; he was shouting "there are forty seconds left...,  thirty five...". From nowhere there appeared a one liter jar, it was filled till its brims with vodka and champagne - the "Northern Lights", and Kolya started counting backwards: "Ten, nine, ...three, two... Happy New Year!". And we, like real hussars, were visiting all the passengers with the jar, ladies - first, and offering them to have a sip of the "Northern Lights" to the New Year. There were about ten people on the tram, two of them refused to drink as they were going at work to the "Progress" factory: "We will knock back at the other side of the control post". You know what, it became warmer in the tram car. Kostya visited even the tram driver, and she had a sip and offered her sincere greetings in the loudspeaker. Zhenkas' favorite waffle cake was opened; we dropped our jaws, as its name was also the "Northern Lights"; why?  It made a great snack with lard on the top. All the passengers snacked together and praised us. Kolya Kozlov had a good sip and sang Mendelssohn's "Wedding March": "ti-ta tatata ...".

Everyone was having a good time. The liter jar was filled twice, and both times was emptied collectively and in good coordination. And when all of us also collectively were ready to sing "Oh, frost, frost..." the tram driver announced a stop: "Entertainment Center", and the next stop was ours. Everyone got out at the Entertainment Center, except for those going to "Progress" and the three of us. Yet we sang a couplet of "Oh, frost, frost"; the tram driver was singing along with us in the loudspeaker.
We came to the dorm at 0.20, excited and happy. We barely touched the food and headed right away to where Obodzinskiy and Magomajev's (super stars of Soviet pop music) singing was heard. A group of people gathered around us, and we were telling with embellishment and lots of details how we had been celebrating the New Year on the tram, how ice cold bubbles had been tickling in our throats, and how delicious it had been to drink it with lard and a cake, everyone envied us. We were in the center of attention and even forgave Zhora and Zhenka, who both for some reason felt guilty towards us and tried their best to gain our favor.

24 August, 2011.


Essay 51. Gentlemen Of Luck

I loved to write letters when at the institute. It was no big deal to me to write several letters a day. In general I wrote to my parents every day after they had moved to Frunze. Though, if to be absolutely honest, I did not write everyday. Sometimes I wrote letters for future use, but every letter had dates, according to which a calendar could be verified.

And it was not my parents’ whim; it was my own desire. Clear enough, I failed to make my letters rich in contents when writing them daily, nevertheless they were informative. Well, and how else could they be described, if on the top of a page I wrote: “Hello, my dear…” , and at the bottom on the other side I put a date and: “Hugs and kisses, Me.”. At least I believed that. For instance, and that happened more than once, I sent an envelope with a blank piece of paper. My considerations were the following: my parents would receive such kind of letter, and my mother would start grumbling and bewailing right away, and my batya (father) would explain to her: “As soon as the envelope is signed and mailed, then he remembers about us; he is just too busy with his study and has no time to write to you, Shura (my mother’s name is Aleksandra Mikhaylovna), any rubbish.  You’d better pack a parcel for him with dried apricots and Eastern sweets. And I will post it tomorrow”. I remember that after that kind of letters I used to receive a package and an extra money transfer, the wired one. That was my batya assigning to me from his stash “to keep my pants up”.

I also wrote letters to my uncles and aunts and, of course, to my friends. Especially I liked to write letters to Pet’ka Kozlov in Tomsk, where he together with Valera Kaygorodov had transferred after the fourth year to study at the Military Medicine Department of Tomsk Medical Institute. I described our group’s life to Peter and shared my thoughts about anything with him and sent him clippings of the “Kuzbass” newspaper. Pet’ka answered all my letters; he focused on some of the questions and gave his assessments of some events. So how could I conceal from him the following event of our group’s life? It was late fall or early winter of 1970. I do not remember the occasion, because of which our group was having a party at the “Kuzbass” restaurant. Practically all of us were there.

We did not differ from the rest of the folks around us, we were drunk to the same degree and were dashingly dancing to “Freilekhs” and did not sit in the corner to “Sweets and Bread-Rings” as well. And suddenly I noticed through the door that four men entered the restaurant from the hotel, and one of them was ;or;e Marjanovi;. At that time that Yugoslavian star was extremely popular in the Soviet Union, and especially in Kemerovo, as they said that his wife came from Kemerovo. So I saw them and grew dumb with astonishment. The four set at a table to the right from the stage, in the very corner, and because of the columns it was basically difficult to see them. But I had already announced to the guys that Marjanovi; was in the pub! So Zhenka Romashov and I went to their table. What for? Who was waiting for us there? What we were going to talk about with them? We did not bother to answer the questions. On the way to the table Yevgeniy grabbed a box of chocolates from somebody’s table telling its owners: “For Marjanovi;”, and they gave the box of chocolates without a murmur.

And my legs suddenly made a turn to the stage; the good thing was that the musicians knew me and gave me the microphone and I made an announcement in it: “Dear friends, attention, there is ;or;e Marjanovi; among us! Let’s ask him to sing for us!”. The audience burst into applause, no, that was even an ovation. Someone started chanting: “;or;e, ;or;e”.  And you know, Marjanovi; came up to the microphone, the audience started roaring. ;or;e waited for the audience to calm down, thanked everyone for the welcome, but categorically refused to sing, as he was very tired after the flight. He invited everybody to his concert at the Philharmonic Theatre and took his seat at the corner. Yevgeniy with the borrowed box of chocolates hesitated what to do next, “does not respect us…”. Though, Zhenya and I approached the table anyway. I took the chocolates from Zhenka and presented them to Marjanovi; and asked him for an autograph. ;or;e took his pen and asked where to sign. I offered him the box of chocolates, and he laughed: “Is that for us or for you?”, but signed on the corner of the box.  Then I realized that I was a booby. I apologized, took a ruble from my pocket, a new one, bright yellow, and gave it to him, and he signed it.

I did my best to describe everything that had happened in all colors with the tiniest details to Pet’ka! And what question did Peter ask me? I am sure, you are thinking about the same thing. Pet’ka asked: “And where is the autograph?”. That was a question for me too on the next day. After the party Yevgeniy talked me into going to the dorm together with him, it was more fun that way. And we took a taxi for two rubles from “Kuzbass” to the dorm. And how I was looking for the ruble in the morning was more impressive than tsunami in Japan. Yes, Zhenka and I turned everything upside down in the dorm room. Yet, we did not find the cherished ruble. And only then we realized that we had given it to the taxi driver after our ride from the restaurant.  Yes, we found the taxi driver. He turned out to be an adequate man. He sympathized with us in our situation, but he did not know or remember what he had done with the ruble: he might’ve given it to a passenger as change, or had given it to a cashier’s office, or to his wife, two days had passed before we found him.

I also used to buy mailing sets in cities I visited. A set included twenty envelopes and of nonstandard size and most various colors and shapes, and twelve pieces of paper. For the envelopes I bought collection stamps, and then my letters looked very spectacular and were different from regular ones. And collection stamps were sold with margins of white paper if bought as a set; the margins had glue on the other side, just like a stamp. The margins were separated from the stamps by fine perforation.

So one day we were at a lecture. I, as usual, was writing letters. That time I was writing to Peter. I remember the envelope was a long one, the way envelopes are now, and because of that it looked even longer. The envelope was of the color of desert sand. When I took stamps to put on the envelope, Vagram Agadzhanyan, who set next to me, had an offer: “Let’s draw a stamp; you see how wide the margins are.” I agreed without a moment’s thought. We started discussing the theme of the stamp, and got so excited that were reprimanded. We chose the theme “An answer to an aggressor”.

At the right side Vagram drew Egyptian pyramids and a sphinx. You know, Vagram was a decent artist; he even had excellent works painted in oils. Let me continue about the stamp: at the left side there was a tank and there was something like a shot from its gun. On the top from right to left there was a stretched hand with a huge fig and a caption: “An answer to the aggressor”. That was the way Vagram and I expressed our civil protest against the occupational war of Israel against its neighbors: Syria, Egypt and Lebanon in 1967.  Yes, of course, Vagram wrote “USSR Post” and the nominal “10 kop.”, that was the cost of a registered letter. Let me specify that Vagram had drawn the stamp by a ballpoint pen with five colors, those pens were fashionable then.

And did not hesitate, I put the stamp on the envelope of my letter to Peter Kozlov. After the lecture we went to a post office and gave the letter to be mailed as a registered one. The post office employee stamped the envelope with a long rectangular stamp, wrote its registration number and put a round stamp on the stamp and placed the letter into a pile of others. She wrote a receipt to us and then we heard the regular: “Next”.

This is how counterfeiting takes place. Remember in the movie: “Gentlemen of Luck” Kramorov says: “My friend is a scientist too, he has four grades of education, he will draw a ten ruble banknote for thirty minutes, not to tell it from a real one”.  Vagram and I did not have four classes of education, but a lot more, but he drew a stamp for a lecture time, and it was not distinguished by professionals at the post office.

P.S. Peter Kozlov received the letter. Of course, he noticed the stamp. To be more exact, the whole Military Department knew about the stamp. To that institute mail was delivered by an orderly, and the orderly was very curious and talkative, so he told all the cadets that Kozlov had received “a letter with a fig to answer the aggressor”.
 
They say the stamp on the envelope with a postal stamp is priceless now.

29 August, 2011.
 

Essay 52. BROTHER – 2.

Of course, all of those who came to study at the medical institute had different motives. For instance, in my case, a surgeon saved my thumb on the right hand from being amputated. That happened when I was in the seventh grade, so even then I knew that I would become a doctor, a surgeon, too, and would save people’s fingers, hands, legs and lives. Perhaps other students had similar reasons. Of course, diseases one’s own and of family members are a very imperative motivation. Though, there were those, who had been made or persuaded by relatives; and I wrote about one of such cases in the essay “A Stranger in Medicine”. And for someone, on the contrary, family tradition was the main reason of making the decision. Someone simply liked a white doctor’s smock, but the inner call to do good, as Mother Teresa taught, became the main cause of coming to the medical institute.
I would like to tell you how Zhenya Romashov became a medic- student, and later his brother Kostya.  And not because I was a friend of both of them, just their motivation was the most typical. Before entering the institute Yevgeniy had had education in veterinary, and he found a job of an X-ray photography laboratory assistant at a Prokopievsk traumatological hospital. He worked in Prokopievsk under the direction of Faina Samsonovna Golubkova, mother of Marik Golubkov, our group mate.
By his life convictions Zhenya was a very responsible guy, the words “This must be done, Zhenya” said by someone he respected were unarguable. He was ready to shift mountains. If he was asked to, he worked two or three shifts, even more to that, he used to stay in the X-ray lab for several days in a row. And at that time the equipment was Soviet. Of course, it was drummed into our heads that our medical equipment was “the best medical equipment in the world”. And in spite of being the best, it went out of order, too. So in the X-ray lab there was a case of a malfunction of a radiation tube. And who got the radiation sickness?

Yes, Zhenya did, the one who spent days and nights at work. And there Faina Samsonovna played an important role in his life. She was kind and sympathetic by nature, and she also felt guilty that Zhenya had got exposed to rays. She was the head of the Radiology Department at the Prokopievsk traumatology hospital. She gently, but persistently made the whole administration of the hospital go out of their way, and herself brought the papers and Yevgeniy from the hospital to Kemerovo to Yevgeniy Dmitrievitch Logachev, and she managed to do so that Yevgeniy Dmitrievitch Romashov was enrolled to the Therapeutic  Department of the Medical Institute in 1965. Though after one semester of study Zhenya took a sabbatical leave without even taking any examinations; radiation sickness was a serious matter.
I want to step aside and give a credit to Yevgeniy’s tact. We were very close friends, as it is said we shared the last piece of bread, but it was only recently that I learned that Zhenya was well received in Y.D. Logachev’s family, that he had relations of friendship with Faina Samsonovna’s family.


Associate professors F.S.Golubkova and A.N.Frumgarts.

How kindly the brothers Romashov spoke about F.S.Golubkova and her husband! About him they told that he could tell an anecdote to match any word combination, and did that for sure with Jewish accent. By the way, in my sixth year I had a pleasure to hear that myself.
So, Zhenya Romashov was a medical institute student, and Konstantin was preparing to finish his tenth year at a secondary school in 1967. His friends were older, some of them had served in the Army, and some were going to serve there. At that time among the young and people in general there was a clear-cut conviction that “if one did not serve in the Army, he was not a man then”. That was drummed into our heads in such a way that even young girls inquired, why their intended husband did not serve in the armed forces? So Kostya was about to go to the Army.  Fresh air of Kirghizia, its fruit and vegetables together with regular work out made his muscles so noticeable,  that girls started looking at him with admiration.
Kostya’s parents did not interfere in his choice of his way in life, but Yevgeniy (he was 13 years older than Kostya) could not allow himself to stay indifferent.  He loved Kostya very much and wished good to him, so he started persistently advising Kostya to enter the medical institute in Kemerovo. And his arguments were ferroconcrete: after the graduation Kostya would have a rank of a medical service lieutenant; he had to apply to the Dentistry Department as it had a five-year academic program, and Kostya would graduate simultaneously with him, Yevgeniy, after the institute he was free to specialize and then become an anesthesiologist, or at least a dentist-surgeon, which meant plastic surgeries to turn ugly guys into handsome ones. The strongest argument Zhenya saved to be the last one – Oleg Syedyshev studied in Kemerovo! So if before that Kostya was a bit hesitant, then after the final argument he was determined to go to Kemerovo to enter the Medical Institute. And in conclusion Zhenya said: “If you do not enter the institute, you will go to the Army”.

So a train after some transfers brought the brothers Romashov to Kemerovo. That was a long way, so to while it away the brothers were singing a famous sincere song in Kirghis: “Tokhto a train, the wheels bukhtobuly, a conductor ichpesi the breaks…”. Everybody  liked the song, especially the women-car attendants, and they treated the brothers to tea all the way long.

In spite of the summertime Kemerovo welcomed the brothers with drizzling fall rain. The wind was blowing from the direction of karbolit, and there was the smell of phenols in the air. And above their heads there was flying the well-known “fox’ tail”. It was later when Kostya was explained that that was nitric dioxide, and after its reaction with water during the rain, there was nitrous acid dripping down from the sky on heads of  “carefree people of Kemerovo”. Though it was not concentrated, yet that was the acid. Kostya who had grown up in Kirghizia, where the sky was blue and deep, the air the purest, the glittering of glaciers was blinding, where water both artesian or of the glaciers was tasty and had no chlorine or scale, was in shock, and he had treacherous thoughts: “Ouch, perhaps I will apply to the medical institute in Frunze after the service in the Army. And now I will fail at least a Russian Language examination…”. Though, when he looked at Zhenka, he even got scared if he had said that aloud. Zhenya had short fuses.

Then Zhenya brought his brother into the house in Gertsen street, which was in Kirovskiy district. I had already written about the house in the essay “A Mini Dorm”.
From uncle Vasya, the landlord, Zhenya rented a big heat insulated for winter mansard, and locked his younger brother there every day. Zhenya brought chemistry and physics text books for university applicants, a couple of notebooks, a handful of pencils and entrance examination papers of the previous academic year to the mansard.

Every day he left for Kostya a bucket of water, sausage, bread and buttermilk. A toilet was a pail covered with a rug. Every day Zhenya gave Kostya a task to learn ten examination papers and promised to personally examine him on all the ten examination papers, and if Kostya passed the exam, they would go out to a movie theatre or to a restaurant. If Kostya failed, then he would stay locked at the mansard behind its iron barred windows. He demonstrated Kostya his fist and left for the whole day not to distract his brother from his study. 

Uncle Vasya had three boys; there was one year’s difference of age between them; the boys were a bit younger than Kostya.  Their father was very strict with them. They used to come to Kostya quite often, took one window glass out, and Kostya gave them money to buy him cigarettes “Pamir” or “Prima”; he paid twice more than a packet cost, 25 – 30 kopeks was the guys’ “business”, as they were “businessmen”. And then separated by the iron bars they were smoking and talking “about life”. The boys sympathized with Kostya, and he – with them.

So by such a draconian method and because of great boredom Kostya learned by heart physics and chemistry and received excellent grades. And a “satisfactory” grade for Russian made him a student of the Dentistry Department of Kemerovo State Medical Institute. Though Kostya believed and is convinced in this now that that was absolutely an achievement of his elder brother Yevgeniy.
 

The plot for the story was kindly given by K.D. Romashov.

31 August, 2011.



Essay 53. Three Thanks

When I was a student I sometimes had my adventurist inclinations not only felt by myself, but put into real action.  It looked like in our family, my parents did not have them, the adventurist inclinations, and in my case … You remember Mikhail Yevdokimov’s sketch: “… A red mug. My father’s mug is not red, but my mug is so red…”.  So my case is exactly the same.

Well, and how else my actions could be called if not adventurism? See for yourself. I do not remember, whether it was in my second or third year at the institute, when I, being baptized in secret from my parents by my grandmother Praskovia Mikhaylovna, but an atheist by my immature convictions, wrote a letter to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexis I .

I asked him for his blessing of my medical practice. And I received the answer. His Eminence, of course, realized that I was an atheist, though blessed me and persistently recommended me to come to the Church and God. Though wind in my mind and the surrounding atheism did not allow me to follow the recommendations of Alexis I till the patriarchate of Alexis II. I do not know, how you would estimate my action, but I consider it as adventurism.

And here is another manifestation of my adventurist inclinations. That was closer to the time of graduation from the institute. The winner among women of the Figure Skating World Championship became a German figure skater Christine Errat; and I wrote her a letter with a request of an autograph on a bet. I remember we received her answer together with Arkasha Blyakher at the main post office, and I remember the way Yakov Davidovitch Vitebskiy, a surgeon, doctor of medical sciences, an Honored doctor of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and in addition to that a philatelist, looked at the envelope with an art stamp of the German Democratic Republic, when I was having my specialization under his supervision after my graduation from the institute, and together with Arkasha brought the envelope to boast about it. Arkasha told me that Yakov Davidovitch was a devotee stamp collector.

I remember how I made a fine gesture then and gave the stamp to Vitebskiy together with the envelope. So the letter to Christine Errat I believe to be pure adventurism.

Now, as I have remembered my youth, in order to promote and popularize the “Humorous Essays” I again stepped on the slippery way of adventurism. Yes, you’ve guessed it right, I wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper “Kuzbass Medic” with a proposal of a heading “Humorous Essays of a 1972 Graduate”. I sincerely believed that the topics and the stories would be interesting to the modern students, that one-two or three essays in an issue would make it more fun and add some light humor into its official style. However, as it usually happens, my letter got not to the person I had wanted it to be received by. 

Nevertheless, it was also read by a man, who liked the “Humorous Stories”, and I am even going to quote an extract from his letter addressed to me: “… After reading the “Essays” I can state that your sketches will occupy a well deserved place in the chronicle of Alma mater. I took a liberty to place a link to the complete text of the “Humorous Essays” on the site of the Therapeutic Department and send a copy of your e-mail to the editor of  the “Kuzbass Medic” Olga Petrovna Tarasova…”
Well, all I can do now is to wait for what Olga Petrovna Tarasova will say about that, but even if she rejects my idea of the headline, anyway I am glad that I met with Sergey Vladimirovitch Cherno and gladly thanked him not less than three times. And let it be our secret, because of what reason the three thanks were said.

31 August, 2011.


Essay 54. Superstitious Beliefs

The first years in college are very important for the formation of a student. It is in the first year, when the former high school students part with their school model of behavior and master a model, which is new for them, to be more precise, which was unknown to many of them before. First year students make a dramatic leap in development of their spiritual and moral culture. The main aspects of education are being clearly lined up: informational, motivational and operational. It is good when a student becomes aware of these aspects quite early and starts implementing them. It is a spiritual aspect, which helps a student to consciously control, I underline - consciously, control himself or herself and his or her behavior. 
Spirituality is neither more nor less than one of the main characteristics of a student as a person and a human being. Those of the students who mastered control over themselves and their behavior considering the three aspects, I will repeat myself, informational, motivational and operational, later became good professionals in their spheres of activity. 

For instance, I can give names of several 1972 graduates: Victor Kubasov, Vladimir Fainzilberg and Sasha Salmaier and many others. And the students, who quickly learned to detect spiritual characteristics of everybody around them and in addition to that were keeping the three aspects in mind, became leaders during their student years, official or unofficial ones in their groups, among other groups and later in life, and as a rule good organizers.

As an example I can name Vagram Agadzhanyan and Aleksey Krasnov.

It is also true that one can with absolute responsibility say about them that they are great specialists as well.
 
And the last point of my pseudoscientific introductive speculations-schmeculations: at the institute the students do not undergo education. I would divide the process into two elements: from the professors’ side it is teaching; and from the students’ one –learning and self-studies. And it is great when the two streams flow into one, and it is very bad, when they are parallel during the whole student’s time at a higher educational institution.

Well, are you tired? I am tired, too, of such strain of intellectual activity. Though all above-stated explains what is going to be said below.

No matter how the level of spiritual and moral culture develops, none of the students ever avoided superstitious omens and rituals. Just tell me, what kind of a student would ever dare to step on a sewer manhole during his or her examination period? Just none of them! I will tell you honestly that I still try to avoid stepping on sewer manholes. I wrote already in the essay “Phapmacology” that Vagram and I obligatorily went to Russian baths a day before an examination. That was our ritual, but student superstitious beliefs forbade not only to wash, but even to comb before an exam.

There were not only Vagram and I who believed in omens and disproved them by their rituals at the same time. For instance the two friends, I wrote about them before in the essay “Three Tablets of Aminazine”, Nadya Nagornova and Natalia Androkhanova, too, both had superstitious beliefs and refuted them.

I am not even going to mention about the black cat.

Of course, it was considered a one hundred per cent sign of good luck, if the two girlfriends saw a man at the very first moment, when leaving their place for an exam. Well, and if a man was also a macho?!

Of course, one could not in any case leave a student’s record book anywhere, or there would be no good luck. However there was a situation when I before I became a student, had left my student’s record book before my physics examination and received an excellent grade as a result (see the essay “How I Became a Student”); that case cannot be considered as it had been long before I learned about the superstitious beliefs.
Here is a story which happened with Nadya and Natasha. The girls knew the obstetrics well, attended the lectures, made notes and nevertheless were diligently studying for the examination. In the evening before the exam they checked five-kopek coins in their student’s record books, everything was in place. In the morning without any breakfast, but breaking one of the omens, they titivated themselves, though they had no reason for that - both girls were just beautiful the way they were. They went out of their apartment and there was not a macho, but a man coming upstairs. Natasha winked to Nadya meaning everything would be O.K.

They came to the department, and there it stroke Nadya like a lightning: “The record book is left on the windowsill!”, she almost cried. Natasha also did not want to take the exam because of solidarity, but Nadya convinced her to go to the exam, but wait for her to bring her record book. How she was running practically all the way to her place, she cannot remember even now. She says that there was only one phrase running in her mind: “I won’t get away with it; oh, I won’t get away with it!”. Things could have been much easier for Nadya, if she red a prayer: “My Angel, go with me, you are ahead, and I am after you! Make it so that I pass the exam!”, but she was “a Komsomol member, an athlete and just a pretty girl!”, she did not believe in God and did not know the prayer. Nevertheless she passed the exam with an excellent grade. Natasha waited for Nadya and confessed that she had been calling her everything she could lay her tongue to.

It is also a student superstitious belief that if someone close scolds you, everything will go smoothly.

It was not long that Nadya believed in the superstition that a night before an exam had to be spent cramming. The belief lasted till the summer examination period after the end of the first year of study. Natasha and she studied till morning before their biology exam. Unlike Natasha who was absolutely fine, Nadezhda started falling asleep right at the department at the institute. Natasha made every effort in order to wake her up! She pinched Nadya and slapped her on her cheeks, then someone gave her a pin, and Natasha pricked Nadya’s bottom with the pin. Nadya’s shriek made laboratory assistants rush out in the hall to see what was going on there. After she was woken up in such a way, Nadya went to the examination room and passed the exam with an excellent grade. Natasha was almost crying and begging for forgiveness, she felt so sorry for Nadya, that she caused such pain to her. Though her friend had no intention to be mad at her and gladly went together with her group to watch an Indian movie “Love in Simla” at the “Moscow” movie theatre after the examination. Nadya was happy; the film had two parts, so she had a good sleep.

That seemed to be a lesson for the whole student life left, but no. And again that was Natalia, she was really tireless and enthusiastic! She again talked Nadya to study political economy all night long. And so what? Both of them fell asleep at five in the morning. And they slept so fast that woke up only by noon. They woke up at the same time, well, of course, they slept like a log for seven hours, and had a good sleep. They quickly got ready, there simply was no time to have something to eat (at least that sign was observed) and quietly bickering hurried to the department. The examination was over. They found the professor and almost fell to their knees when asking him to let them take the exam. Only God knows what they told him. The professor was in a good mood, and he agreed on the condition that both of them aspired to receive excellent grades. And why would not they; they had had a good sleep. And both of them did received excellent grades.

I.A.Lapshin, and it was him, was a good man; he was satisfied by the exam and paid a lot of compliments to the girls. And there they promised each other to sleep before an examination!
Though there was one sign, which Nadya observed during all the years of her student life. And it never failed her. Nadya had never told about it to anyone, and only in forty years confided it to your most humble servant. And the sign was the following: if in the morning before an exam a joke, or as they say now a “trick” came into her mind, she knew, her sense of humor was with her, and everything would be fine. How mad her girlfriends were at her, when without any obvious reason she gave a giggle before an exam. She did not tell anything about it even to the members of NASNANE group.  What a sample of self-control! Nadezhda constantly had problems with histology. She could not draw. And she was required to draw an amoeba or some cockroach. On the top of that Nadya’s histology textbook, which she had borrowed from the library, was stolen. What a repulsive man was that Anatoliy Georgievitch Mikheyev. She connected him and the textbook. No, he did not steel it, but that was his fault anyway. And he was holding the examination she had to take. She was very upset at the beginning, and then she remembered, that the male-students also had a tradition to beat Mikheyev every year after the examination session.
After she remembered that she laughed and as a result received from Mikheyev, well, not an “excellent”, but “good” was also good.

The plot of the story was kindly provided by N.K.Svetchnikova.

2 September, 2011.
Essay 55. We Are the Eleventh! So What?

“There is no future without past” – the folk saying states. It is difficult not to agree with this; as well as it is difficult not to concur with the undeniable truth, which says: “in nineteen seventy two since the birth of Christ there was the eleventh graduation of doctors from Kemerovo Medical Institute. We were neither the first, nor the fifth or tenth, and let it be so.
We were the eleventh! So what?
I liked the phrase so much that used it as a title of the essay. It happened so that this is the fifty fifth essay. And today there are one hundred and fifteen comments in my guest book. Relax, please, I am not going to store your mind with statistics. They are just two starting figures, which give me an opportunity to say, why and what for I have started all that and continue doing it.

I am a workaholic by nature and “dipsomaniacal”. I have only three periods when I rest during a year; they are in spring – the vitamin deficiency time, so together with my wife I go there, where there are many vitamins and sun, September – the month of my birthday, and again we go to enjoy fruit of the new harvest and to the seaside and celebrate my birthday at the same time, and December – the month of my wife’s birthday, winter is a reason to fly for a week or ten days there, where it is warm. And the rest of the year I work, and without any days off. So in June I had coronary artery bypass grafting – 5, and my doctor strictly limited my workload. And it occurred to me to start writing student memoirs. It captured me, like my work, and I feel that in this activity I am becoming “dipsomaniacal”, too. One of 1972 graduates Volodya Fainzilberg, a psychiatrist, called this rehabilitation method a writer-therapy and wanted to lay scientific foundation to my hobby. Well, if he does that, and I have followers in rehabilitating by such method, and if they have positive results, like I do, I will be especially happy. So, let’s consider that I have answered your first question: “Why am I doing this?”

The second question of “How?” is going to be a puzzler. To be honest, I even did not think about the form in which to write my recollections. I even did not calculate how much of those recollections there would be. The only thing I decided for myself at the very beginning was that the memoirs would be kind in their essence; and if I manage, then a bit ironical, but no, I should not say so. Irony presupposes second meaning, but I have nothing hidden between the lines.  It will be correct to say that I wanted my memoirs to be a bit humorous or to make it simple comic. After I wrote the first five or ten essays I sent invitations to my friends to read them on my site www.syedyshev.com and asked them to leave their comments.

The comments surprised me. All the comments were very favorable, and if there was any critique, it was only of poor correction. And also there were suggestions to write about this or that. If my readers only knew that there was no proofreading at all then. However thanks to those comments I became aware that I am on the right way, and that was the time to think about how to do, what I was doing and in what form. I am not a literary man; this is my first literary experience. It is good that internet can give answer to any question now. So after browsing it I realized that I was writing essays. Well, and, of course, I liked the word by itself “essay”, and without giving it a second thought I changed the name of “Student Stories” into “Humorous Essays”.

I also liked some characteristics of an essay and in order “not to spoil all the beauty of the original”, let me quote. Those, who read my essays, remembered the phrase of Sergey Sherbinin.
So:
“An essay expresses individual impressions and considerations of a certain event or an issue and deliberately does not claim to be a definitive or complete interpretation of a subject”.
“An essay presupposes new, subjectively tinted opinion about something; such kind of a work of literature can have … purely fictional characteristics”.
Well, my dear friends, I have answered your second question of “How am I doing this”.

The last question is left: “What for?” At the very beginning I did not know why I was doing that. And, I will tell you more, I did not bother to think about it. I was just doing that. However, it is wrong to say so; at the beginning I was doing that for myself, in order to kill time. I was released from Kiev Heart Centre on the eleventh day after the surgery, and on the twelfth went at work. My doctor agreed to that on the condition that I would be not more than two-three hours at work, and then go home to do a set of rehabilitation exercises. Though when I started receiving responses to my memoirs, motivation was formed and formulated by itself. Not to sound proofless I will give samples of several responses.
Read and consider carefully.
4 July, 2011 Svetlana Titova
“I read with great pleasure, and most importantly imagined everything in pictures, had a good laugh, it’s been a long time since I had such a good fun. You write in a good literary style, I do not understand, why you were given a satisfactory grade for a composition at the entrance examination. I hope there will be the second set of your stories. I received a sufficient supply of positive emotions. I am looking forward to the continuation!”
4 July, 2011, Victor Kubasov
“Listen, with so much pleasure I read this!! As if the student years came back again… Write more, please!!!”
7 July, 2011, Anton Nikolayevitch Kazantsev
“Oleg Petrovitch! What wonderful and funny stories these are! I am reading with pleasure and laughing! It is just obvious that you need to write a book!!! I am thrilled!”
10 July, 2011 Lyubov Natchaeva (Reshetnikova)
“Very interesting!!! Good job, you gave a good idea!”
23 July, 2011 Nadezhda Svechnikova
“I read everything, interest is only growing. Continue writing! I wonder if you remember the quartet NASNANE; we were popular from the 1st up to the 4th year; there were student festivals, which were held with the full house. And our names were Natasha, Sveta, Nadya, Nelya…”.
28 July, 2011, Larisa Kamenetskaya
“Hello, Oleg! I envy you in a good way; you managed to keep in your memory so many events, and tell about them so vividly and brightly, and with such warmth created images of once young friends… Of course, everyone, who reads your stories, has something of his own, which comes alive in his memory; and one feels even though briefly 40 years younger. It’s great, that you stirred all that up! And the institute’s buildings, and the professors, and the number 8 bus… You had your grandmother in Yagunovka, and I lived there with my parents. We graduated from the Therapy Department in 1973, we were after you. And Valera Kafeyev, L.Syrkasheva and D.Mkheidze you mentioned finished their 6th year together with us. You are a strong man, if after the coronary artery bypass grafting you picked up on everything so fast. I personally know what kind of surgery it is. I will be reading your memoirs with pleasure even if the student period is over”.
2 August, 2011 Aleksandr Slavitskiy
Hello, Oleg!
With great pleasure I read your “Student sketches” for one night. It’s great! I returned to Kemerovo at the beginning of 1970s, though what you are writing about is referred to the end of 1960s (this is felt from the context of the “Stories”).
There are familiar names, similar situations, charm and indelibility of our youth with its joy and disappointments, findings and losses. Anatoliy Mukhordov was our leader, when we were digging potatoes in our third year at the Yelykayevo collective farm; we had our own adventures there. Larissa Mirkina was my wife during 1977 – 78. This is how interestingly life has interwoven; it is Brownian motion subjected neither to logic nor control.
With the wishes of strong health and success. Hugs!
Sincerely yours,
Aleksandr Slavitskiy.
5 August, 2011 Boris Gorban
“Good evening, Oleg! I read all of your pieces of writing… they are wonderful! Student years will never be forgotten. Where else one will meet such a unique associate professor as Golubev with his public world-view of Hegel. The story with a carafe became student classics, and looks like it was repeated more than once…  Only a story with a number 8 bus is unique, on which I used to ride many times to a part-time job of a substituting intern at Yagunovka medical clinic... I failed to meet my deputy for the home front with a huge bag, it’s a pity… Though one cannot manage in life without humor… Sometimes I feel especially proud of our Kemerovo State Medical Institute. Just think how many wonderful people and specialists it has launched into life… I am glad for you… write and be happy!
11 August, 2011 Aleksey Krasnov
“Oleg! Thank you for the balm, which cures soul.”
19 August, 2011 Yakov Kirsh
“Dear Oleg! Everything turned out nice and interesting. I was reading as if I was mesmerized by a scientific fiction novel, could not stop reading, though it is 03.00 in the morning already, and the Sun is rising above Berlin. Everything is depicted true to life and succinctly especially in a scene at a canteen, I even saw the student canteen. Why were we constantly hungry in our young days? I observe the well fed life of Western students and it is impossible to compare. The layout is just super, and design is great, everything is punctual, step-by-step and neat.
Thank you, Oleg!
27 August, 2011 Sergey Vladimirovitch Cherno
“Dear Oleg Petrovitch, this is Sergey Vladimirovitch Cherno writing, a head of the Scientific Research Center of Kemerovo Medical Academy (1997 Therapy Department graduate). For about 10 years I worked at the publishing house of Kemerovo State Medical Academy (KemSMA), and after I handed the responsibilities over to a professional (Kseniya Mikhailovna Anosova), I took the publishing house under my unofficial patronage concerning various arrangements. At KemSMA there is an old tradition to publish in a certain form memoirs /works of literature of its graduates/, employees as well as other materials about history of the school. After I read your “Essays” I can state that your sketches will occupy a well deserved place in the chronicle of the Alma mater. I took a liberty to place a small reference to the complete text of the “Humorous Essays” on the Therapy Department’s page, and also sent a letter to the editor of “Kuzbass Medic” Olga Petrovna Tarasova.
Sincerely, S.V.Cherno.”

4 September, 2011 Oleg Sanin
“Oleg, I visited your site. Please, accept my compliments and sincere gratitude for what you have been doing. I read very little, though that was quite enough to immerse there, in that time. I can vividly picture a Georgian skiing and skating, and a piece of wire in a scull opening…”

I am very pleased that my essays are read not only by my student mates, who are, of course, familiar with the characters and situations, about which I am writing, but the graduates of other years as well; and Anton Kazantsev being twenty years old is still a student, though of a Kemerovo Medical Academy.
I am also pleased that the essays evoke a lot of positive associations in my readers.
I offered you only the every tenth response out of one hundred and fifteen I currently have; and with absolute confidence I make a conclusion for myself: readers like my essays. And if to consider the site’s statistics and the one of the “Humorous Essays” in particular, it becomes obvious that more than two and a half thousand people visited it only during August. And how is it presented in Google?
Now I can with every reason answer the third question: “What am I doing this for?” I am writing essays on the motifs of student memoirs in order to make people’s lives easier, to help them better cope with difficulties and to hold those who are gone in remembrance. One of the readers named me a Historiographer of 1972 graduates. I do not mind, though I realize that I am writing history of just a tiny segment of that life. And I enjoy writing! For the eleventh graduation!! For Everybody!!!
 4 September, 2011.


Essay 56. Satanic Grin.

Children, and students are like children, if choose someone as an object of their jokes, then the chosen is in a desperate situation. Because nobody even think, whether this or that joke is harmful or rude, humiliating or even disparaging. They make jokes and laugh, and there are several guys who make jokes, but everybody, who saw or heard the joke laughs. Well, and if the object of a joke was played a practical joke on before, then after the news of a new practical joke spreads around, and it is disseminated by an incomprehensible way very quickly, the joke becomes a protracted one. Though, nothing can be done about it, this is the way student group psychology is. And if to take into consideration that the group is in military uniform, then one does not even think about jokes’ elegance or their intellectual depth.

So I again return to the topic of the assembly at the end of the fifth year. Well, the topic can be brought up here, as the assembly really took place, and all its episodes and situations were with those characters, who appear in the essay.
Vadik Pochekutov had a bad luck to become a standing joke from his very first days at the assembly. And anyone who would take the trouble mocked at him. I wrote earlier in the essay “#2 Product” how Badri Lipartiya gave those products to play a practical joke on Vadik and after that demanded them (the #2 Products) from him, but Vadik did not give them back. So, insidious Badri conceived “dreadful revenge”. And what else could one expect from him, a child of mountains, who was a Georgian, a Mingrelian to be more exact; and the Mingrelians are extremely ferocious about revenge. Insidious Badri lived in a tent nearby, one day he came into Vadik’s tent before the lights-out time and donated one more #2 Product to the sacred matter of revenge; he filled it with water, tied it up and placed under Vadik’s sheet; then he left, but hung around close by to be the first to see the results of the revenge. Yes, I forgot to tell you that the #2 Product contained a bucket of water. And that was not all about it.

That seemed to be not enough to Badri, and he brought a five kilo dumb-bell and put it a little lower than the filled with water Product, in order that when Vadik lay down, the product would appear under his back and the dumb-bell under his butt. Insidious Badri had already known that Vadik had a habit of falling down on his bed, and had planned everything. Well, and then everything happened the way it had to be. And you, my dear readers, have already imagined Vadik falling down on his bed without undoing it; and how the Product bursts under the weight of Vadik’s back, and a bucket of water spreads on his bed, and Vadik’s butt hits against the dumb-bell. There was a shriek from Vadik’s tent. And the whole camp quickly came running to learn what had happened? Of course, Badri Lipartiya was the first one who rushed into Vadik’s tent.
There was a satanic grin on his lips, he was happy; he avenged himself and never demanded from Vadik to give him his #2 Products back anymore. His revenge really went like clockwork!

5 September, 2011.

Essay 57. 21 Gurgles

I have told you that the topic of the assembly is inexhaustible, and you did not believe me. It is like a good well; the more water you take from it, the more rise.
Not only former school leavers, like me, entered the institute, there were also the guys who had already served their time in the army. They were allowed to keep their shoulder straps they had received earlier. And they not only kept their badges of rank, but were appointed squad leaders. Felix An and Sasha Stus were appointed company master sergeant and platoon master sergeant. And when the counting was done it turned out that one squad was left without a commander.
Our fathers-commanders contemplated for a long time about who had to be dropped a “snivel on a shoulder strap”, that was how awarding of a military rank and correspondingly putting new badges of rank on shoulder straps was called in soldiers’ slang; and they chose Tolik Lopatin. The choice was favorable both for the commanding officers, as they thought of Tolik as of a very responsible person, and for the students, he was just a nice guy among us. A whole week was spent on bureaucratic details, and finally in official setting at the parade ground an order of awarding A.G.Lopatin with a military rank of a junior sergeant was read and new shoulder straps with the very “snivels” (badges of rank) on them were presented. Of course, Tolik had been explained beforehand, what badges of rank, as they were cold among soldiers, meant and how they had to be drunk. And they had to be celebrated without fail, in order to become badges of rank, and without the drink they will stay just “snivels”.
I had told you that Tolik Lopatin was a great guy; he, in spite of the fact that there had recently been another incident in the unit, and two statutory service soldiers had been run in the guardroom, and everybody had been searched at the control – post, he addressed your most humble servant. And he did that in front of the support group of Felix An, Sasha Stus and Volodya Kardashov, in order I was filled with a sense of necessity.  To put it short, I was asked to bring vodka from the village. And there was search at the control-post! Of course, I agreed without a moment’s thought. Well, I am an adventurer by nature; Tolik was my friend, and the guys asked for him.

To begin with I demanded two soldier flasks from the warehouse. I did not say why. I received the flasks and attached them empty to my belt from both sides and several times went through the control-post to the department head colonel Fedorov. I was searched a couple of times, to be more exact, they checked, if there was anything in my flasks, and they were empty. And the guards became convinced that the student orderly was a funny guy, as he was carrying two empty flasks.
For the third time I filled the flasks with “Stolichnaya” vodka and the same way went through the control-post. The guards rather habitually asked me what was in the flasks. I answered: “Stolichnaya”. They laughed and ordered me not to be stupid and pass though. That stage of the task was completed. The guys were happy.

At night, after the lights-out time the participants of the “celebration of the badges of rank” gathered in Felix’ tent: Felix, Sasha, Volodya, Tolik and I.  And there we had another dilemma of how to share? At the unit there were only aluminum mugs, and one could not see through a flask how much had been poured, and a mug was a new container for us. And all that was in semidarkness; there was no light in tents. Once I heard that there was hydraulic impact sound against a bottom of a bottle when pouring out into glasses or other containers, the sound was heard as “gurgle”, and there were exactly twenty one of them. I immediately shared my knowledge with the rest. Everybody agreed except Kardash. The latter started blaming me in fooling the people. He was asked not to blow his top. Though, he insisted. The majority was “for” and we started pouring vodka from the flask into the mugs counting the gurgles. The badges of rank were celebrated. Since that moment nobody could call them “snivel”. Everyone was happy, but Kardash was grumbling at me till the very end of the assembly. Why? I don’t know.

5 September, 2011.

Essay 58. Triplets

One studies and lives among a certain group of people and often does not know about their real attitude to him. Well, of course, I do not consider the incidents of conflicts between some guys. In that case everything is clear, and exclusively in chronic conflicts. Hot conflicts between the young and hot-tempered, and not burdened by worldly wisdom, break out and calm down.
For instance, once in order to irritate Vagram I blurted out something about the Turkish-Armenian slaughter of 1915, and Vagram threw himself to fight with me. It was good that there were no witnesses of that, and I understood that I had committed an intolerable thing against my friend; I had offended his national feelings about that terrible tragedy. I immediately not only apologized, but sincerely asked Vagram for forgiveness. You know, it was the first time I saw tears in the eyes of that big and strong guy. He forgave me and asked never to mention the subject. I promised, and can state that I have been on friendly terms with Vagram for more than forty years. Of course, we do not meet every week or every year, but I dare say that nevertheless we have feelings of friendship to each other; at least regarding me this is the case.
My attention was drawn away from the subject; I’d intended to write about our group.  So, our group was though mixed, but we were good friends with each other. Common decisions were made and implemented as a rule unanimously. I said “as a rule” only because it was me, who just did not want to make one single decision about a group’s extra class. Well, I simply did not want to waste time on extra classes, if I knew the material. Because of that I had frequent conflicts with Volodya Kardashov. His final argument was: “Look, even Timoshka agrees, and you are against”. Timoshka is Valya Timoshenko, the only student of our group, who was ready to answer during any class and give good even excellent answers. You see, how it was. Nevertheless, I always thought that the group liked me.

Disease never asks whether one wants to be ill or not. So it also did not ask me, if I wanted to be sick or not at the beginning of winter 1970.

Starting from autumn I had started feeling discomfort in the tail bone area, though the location of the discomfort did not let me have a good look of the cause, like in an old joke: “… Neither you can see it yourself nor show to the other…”.  Well, and my couldn’t-care-less attitude to my own health resulted in that that in November, somewhat in a month after the beginning of the disease, I could not comfortably sit on a chair and perched myself on one of my buttocks. My postures of such kind was noticed by everyone around and by my group mates. Zhenya Romashov and Vagram Agadzhanyan started demanding that I showed the cause of my trouble to specialists.  I myself was already tired of all of that and consented to present my shameful part to doctors to be examined. At that time we had classes in a regional hospital. I already do not remember what we studied then, but Yevgeniy and Vagram went to a surgical department and told its head about my problem, and arranged my hospitalization. I was brought to the department for the examination practically under escort; on the way I was explained that there was nothing to be afraid of, and, perhaps, surgery would not be needed.

At an operating room

That was how they were trying to calm me down. During the examination a surgeon diagnosed me with a suppurated tail bone cyst and suggested immediate hospitalization to me, the guys made me be admitted to the department.

To cut it short, I had surgery the next day. The surgery and postsurgical period went fine, and fifteen days later I was discharged. Though let’s get back to the attitude the guys from my group had to me. I will tell you honestly, I could not even imagine that. After lunch there was not a minute left that I stayed alone without any visitors; and sometimes some of them did not leave yet, and the other already came.

Valya Timoshenko (Timoshka, as we used to call her) visited me every day and told me everything that was said during the classes and lectures I missed.

Tatiana Yanchilina had known that I liked pea soup with a smoked pork brisket; and just think about it, she made the soup and brought it to me in a one liter glass jar every day. I started eating it right away. Tatiana was sincerely happy to see my appetite. Though, when on the forth or fifth day I howled because of my favorite soup, she burst into loud laughter for the whole department to hear, saying how stupid she had been.

The rest of the days Tatiana brought me in the same one liter jar dumplings, which were delicious, you would lick your fingers.
If Timoshka and Tatiana when visiting me sat by my bed, then when the guys from my group came, and they came as a rule like a gang, on the initiative of the Zhenka Romashov, in order not to disturb the rest of the patients in the ward, I was moved from my bed to a gurney, and all of us drove into a remote corner, where a real camp was laid out.

It was the most real camp: the guys brought vodka and food, and drank to my good health and ate. It was fun; there were endless jokes, old and very old ones and just “bla-bla”. Though, the most pleasant thing was the following. After the surgery, of course, I did not drink, but one day the biggest liquor fan in our group Volodya Kardashov, after the guys had one or two drinks to my health, Kardash demonstratively took a bottle of “White Rymnikskoje” wine out from a bag and a kilo of “Minskaya” sausage and announced that that was a gift for me.

Everyone, who knew or knows Kardash can image the scale of the sacrifice. I liked the wine and the sausage “Minskaya”, at that time it was produced with addition of horse meat and was delicious and very expensive. I also appreciated the moment when the guys ran out of liquor and I offered the bottle to them, Kardash flatly refused to take it.
We drank the “Rymnikskoje” when I was discharged.




To sum it up, I can say that for the two weeks in the hospital I was visited by all of my friends and acquaintances, which made me extremely happy. Only Arkadiy Blyakher never paid me a visit. Though, then I did not think much of that and continued considering him my friend till the recent time. This year, thirty nine years after the graduation from the institute, I learned from my friends, that Arkadiy believed that he had had a conflict with me. Well, let God be his judge, and I still consider him to be my friend.

Have you noticed that during the narration I focused my attention on food? Yes, I have a weakness for food; I loved before and still love to eat well. After the surgery on my tail bone I was prescribed with opium to slow down the movement of my bowls, and my diet was light.

I was fed with broths with dried crust and cereals in such small portions that I was constantly hungry after the hospital food.

Both soups and dumplings of Tanyushka Yanchilina and sausage of Volodya Kardashov saved me from “starvation death”, but prepared a surprise for me before my discharge. And how happy I was when Dimka Mkheidze visited me! He came accompanied by Badri and Imzar Lipartiya. They brought as a treat the freshest khachapuri  and shish kebab which was still hot.  Where did they get it? Yes, they also brought wine and a drinking horn. We made so much noise when proclaiming toasts that were caught in the act by a nurse, who threatened to report us to a doctor in charge. So I had a good sleep and good food and everything got healed on me, like on a dog. According to my doctor’s plan, my bowls had to move for the fist time the next day after the stitches would be taken out, on the eleventh day.

However that happened on the tenth day. As usually, the guys came to visit me after their classes. I was already well and vigorously hobbled along the surgical department by myself, without anybody’s help. Though when the guys came they still took the gurney, put me on it and drove me away. The other patients in the ward laughed at us, when they saw the students frolicking, but did not report us, though that time they knew where our camp was.



That time we arranged our camp in a room where patients were given an enema before surgeries. The room was big. There was a bed covered by red oil cloth, an old table with equipment, well and all the rest; the guys brought everything needed to visit a patient. And in the very middle of the visiting, when nobody paid any attention at me, and everyone was talking simultaneously; like a bolt from the blue I felt “I want to do it”. And I not only wanted, but wanted immediately. It was very hard for me to explain my situation to the visitors. I had already mentioned, where our bivouac was located, there was a toilet there under a cover of the same red oil cloth. Something unimaginable started then. On my own back I experienced what women feel during delivery. They said that my shrieks were heard at the maternity hospital of the number three clinic of Kemerovo. And there the women who had recently had babies were saying that someone was giving birth to no less than triplets.

Well and at the surgical department they heard the shrieks as well. The nurses and doctors came running. But what could they do? The process was in its full swing. Later the guys told me that everything had lasted for not more than five or ten minutes. To me it seemed to be eternity. Yes, gluttony is for a good reason considered one of the deadly sins of man.

At the surgical department they brought me to a dressing room for an examination. Everything was fine, and my doctor took out the stitches a day earlier. The guys had not left yet, and all together they went to ask the head of the department to discharge me from the department. The doctor was kind of reluctant. He agreed on one condition that the guys would bring me for bandaging to the department for two or three days more.
Though for some reason it seems to me that they gladly discharged me from the department; I was too restless for a patient, they were constantly looking for me to be present during a professor’s round, or for bandaging, or other students could not find me to obtain the case history, as it was the clinical hospital.

And I also remembered that case so well, that it played its part in my change of specialization and transfer from surgery to psychiatry. Though, as someone Kanevskiy says, this is an absolutely different story.

20 September, 2011.


Essay 59. Pilau on Issyk Kul

Issyk-Kul – is a pearl not only of Kirgizia, but at old days of the whole Soviet Union, and Cholpon – Ata is the capital of the Nothern coast of the wonderful mountain lake. During my student years I had an occasion to spend three or four weeks on the lake every summer.

My parents arranged for me rest and rehabilitation after another academic year there. My friends happened to go there as well; my parents helped them to have vacations on Issyk Kul. Marik Golubkov, Sasha Salmayer and Petya Kozlov came there.

Now I want to remember the unforgettable three weeks we spent on Issyk Kul together with Peotr in summer 1971.  I just came to Frunze after the army camp. And Peotr finished his fifth year at a Tomsk Military Medicine Department and had his internship at a tank unit in Atbashakh, which was fifty kilometers away from Frunze.
 He on purpose chose to have his internship there, in order to meet with me and go to Issyk Kul right after the internship.

Aleksandra Mikhaylovna (my mother) arranged 21-day vouchers to a vacation hotel of Cholpon-Ata for us. Time was flying during the vacation. We were swimming, sunbathing, fishing for Issyk Kul dace. This is a small fish of ten or fifteen centimeters and very delicious when dried. And it takes it just a couple of days to dry. Every day we fished a bucket of dace each, buried it under salt for a night, and in the morning washed it and hung on a fishing line at the balcony to dry. Fish was hung all around our balcony.

It was getting dark early on Issyk Kul, the nights were long, and we went to dancing parties and got acquainted with girls… The vacation hotel at which we stayed was located on a side of the bay, and on its other side there was some other beautiful hotel. It was buried in verdure, and buildings were fundamental there made of brick and very beautiful. Petka and I were driven like by a magnet to get there. We also were intrigued by the fact that there was a great beach there, but it was empty all the time.

We did not want to bother to walk all the way around to its gates, so approximately on the tenth day we decided to swim across the bay and have a look at that beautiful hotel of Cholpon-Ata I had not visited yet. Yes, I have to tell you that at that time I had new Japanese nylon swimming trunks, the very tight ones, shaped like shorts, dark-blue with a wide white belt and a small pocket on a zip; everybody envied me, and I showed off in them.  In the pocket I kept five or six one ruble coins I had deliberately brought. We swam. Without any problem we crossed the bay and went ashore. There was nobody around.

We walked along a beautiful alley for about fifty meters; there were especially beautiful roses around, and saw a small store. We came in and grew dumb with astonishment; Petka and I had never seen such assortment in Soviet stores before. And we bought… So what did we buy? What do you think? Six packs of American cigarettes “Philip Morris”. They were in a ribbed brown plastic pack. The clerk was very surprised then: “Where are you from, guys?”. We honestly told her that we swam from the other side and would swim back now to take money, well, and when we would return and buy everything… And we asked her to give us something to tie the cigarettes we had bought to the tops of our heads.

She gave to each of us a wide bandage. Oh, we had some funny mugs, when we swam back with the packs of cigarettes bandaged to the tops of our heads. We equally shared the cigarettes, three packs per person. Petka was a sly guy; he hid his packs without opening saying that he would show off at his department. And I, a smarty-pants and a boaster, treated girls to "Philip Morris" cigarettes at dancing parties and Petka as well, though every time I reproached him for that, but Petka was a guy without any complexes, he listened to my reproaches, but took the cigarettes and smoke them without any problems.

All that was later, but on the day when we swam there for the first time, we took all the money we had and swam again. What for? What did we want to buy? I did not think and did not know that. The second time the very moment we reached the beach, three hulks approached us and offered to follow them. They offered that in such a way that we could not resist.

Petka and I got scared, we felt that we had got into something, but we did not understand into what exactly yet. We were brought into a building and led into separate rooms; and they were talking to us, as one can put it this way, there. It was rather a very gentle examination. Without entering into details I would say that that lasted for more than two hours, and finally Petka and I were told that we were lucky that we were saying everything alike, and the main reason was that there were nobody staying at the hotel that year, and nobody was expected to arrive. We were told that that was a vacation resort of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kirgizia, and we were released.

Peter and I were given our IDs (How did they happen to be in their hands? We had left the documents at our hotel when checking in). And by car we were brought back to our hotel. On that day Petka and I did not go to a dancing party; we were discussing what had happened and came to a conclusion that we would not suffer any consequences. At least that was what we wanted to hope for. Also after long deductive contemplations we concluded that it was the store clerk who had reported us; we called her “the Informer”.

And the next day Peter and I were in the center of attention. Our acquaintances and strangers approached us and asked about our adventure of the other day. How did they know? We could not understand that at the beginning, but later we found out that the other night, when Petka and I stayed in our room and discussed what had happened, the administration of the hotel arranged a meeting for the guests and told them, that it was not good to do what Peter and I had done, that one was not allowed to swim to a controlled-access facility. And they did not explain to the guests what kind of facility that was, which caused agitated curiosity about the vacation resort on the other side of the bay. Petka and I were not from the administration, we gladly and with lots of details, some of which were true and some of which were made up, told about how we had swum there, and what we had seen there. Though we kept silence about our second swim there, we told nobody about that. And American cigarettes I treated someone with were the proof of credibility of our story. Generally speaking, we were guaranteed unprecedented popularity both among the guests and the staff of the hotel.

Peter and I did not fail to use it. Three or four days before our departure we decided to make a pilau on the coast of Issyk-Kul.  We were inspired with the pilau idea by a Tajik Ergash from a next door room. He boasted to us that he had brought a set of spices for a pilau together with ajowan caraway and barberries; he even had a small beg of “Devzera” rice.

He offered his help in making the pilau, and specified what we would need for the pilau.
 To buy mutton we together with Ergash went to a market place at Cholpon-Ata; and Ergash picked a wonderful piece of mutton and also got a sheep’s fat tail. The rest we hoped to receive at the hotel’s kitchen; we could use the fruit of our popularity. And we took from the kitchen a cauldron, kumgan, white onions,  carrots, salt, a wooden spoon and other kitchen utensils. The process of making pilau with mutton takes about two hours, so at about five o’clock we started arranging our bivouac on the lake next to the beech. Ergash and I chopped the onions and carrots, and Petya was bringing firewood from the backyard and was preparing it for the fire. From some place in the back yard he brought four slag stones, and we used them to make a hearth. Audience started gathering around us. There were too curious characters among them, and they bothered us.  We had to drive them back almost applying force; we drew a circle around us, which our volunteer - assistants did not allow anyone to cross. The process was going on its way: the audience was giving us pieces of advice, and we were telling them to get lost together with their pieces of advice…

Everything was fun and neat.
I cannot resist it and will describe the whole process of making pilau to you, as it is like a poem. So we kindled the fire, poured water into the cauldron and started boiling it out by doing that we were heating the cauldron to the necessary temperature. Water boiled in the cauldron, we splashed it out by the wooden spoon and let the rest of it evaporate; the diced up sheep’s fat tail was the first to go to the cauldron. It was sizzling loudly, crackling, and yellowish mutton fat was melting. The fat was getting hot and started producing whitish smoke, at that moment Ergash threw a peeled, but not chopped onion into the fat, and explained to us that it would take a bitter taste, if it appeared when fat was heated. The onion even bounced in sizzling fat and turned black on the top. Ergash removed it out of the cauldron; and there came the turn of the chopped onion, all of it was put out in the fat, and we started frying it stirring continually with a wooden spoon. And there it was crucial not to miss the moment; the onion should not get burned, it had to become glassy. When that was achieved, the cut in circles carrots were added into the cauldron. The carrots had to be fried till their color would turn into golden-yellow and they also had to be continually stirred.
And there came the turn of the mutton. It was cut in big pieces obligatorily with a bone and was also put into the sizzling fat. Everything smelled deliciously around. The audience was growing, and as one of comics said, it was raving. People in the audience started forming a line to receive some pilau when it was ready. We were not even asked for our consent.  Several guys quickly went to a store and in half and hour brought a box of “Violet Muscat” (at that time that was a wonderful wine in Kirgizia; it had 16 per cent of alcohol and extremely nice taste characteristics). The mutton became white in the fat, which meant that proteins of the upper layer coagulated; and one could be sure that the meat would be juicy and tasty. Fire was lowered under the cauldron up to the minimum; at that time water was carefully poured in order not to splash, salt was added (pilau is salted two times: first when zirval is boiled (that was what we were doing) and the second when water is poured to cover rice) and after that we added a mixture of pilau spices. Then zirvak was slowly boiling and gradually was steaming away, and becoming thicker and thicker. And smells around were growing richer and more concentrated. Part of the audience could not stand the torture by flavors and left cursing us up hill and down dale. The tougher part stayed and was finishing a half of the box of Muscat, they were having a good time already. And then a moment came to put rice into the cauldron; and for all that time the rice had been soaked in generously salted water.
It should be separately said about rice: rice should as little as possible be touched by hands in order not to damage its surface film and lose gluten. So, zirvak was ready, on its top we put a layer of rice and poured water to cover it about two centimeters above it. Everything was salted for the second time. Big fire was made under the cauldron to start vigorous boiling, and with a wooden spoon rice was continuously removed from the cauldron’s sides into its center.

Water quickly steamed away. Then by the sound of splashing with the wooden spoon on the rice one determined the time to cover the rice. The sound of splashing should not be squelching. Then the vigorous fire was removed from under the cauldron, and only live coals were left. The rice was pricked several times with a specially prepared willow twig in order to form canals for steam to go away; then rice was sprinkled with ajowan caraway and barberries and several garlic heads not divided into cloves were pressed into the rice; and in autumn when there is quince, it is pressed into rice together with garlic. And rice was covered with a dish, and the cauldron was covered with a lid for half an hour.
When we announced that, a couple of women ran into there room and brought a heap of grapes and a bottle of cognac; and we started making green tea #95 in kumgan.
Tension among the audience increased up to the extreme point, and in order to prevent a riot we suggested the following order: we, like the main participants, made big bowls of the pilau for ourselves, the rest of the pilau we put on a tray and treated our audience. The proposal was accepted with applause. And when Ergash took meat out of rice, cut all of it into small pieces and mixed it with the pilau,

made for the three of us a big bowl of the pilau each, and the rest of the pilau put in a shape of a nice heap on a kitchen tray, decorated it with the garlic baked in the pilau, and with an artistic oriental bow put it in front of the audience, thunderous “hurraaaaay!” was heard far away along the coast.
Someone brought a camera, and they started taking photos with the dish. They forgot about us for a while; and we enjoyed the wonderfully delicious pilau with green tea. Finally the audience remembered what the pilau was made for and started eating. There were only three spoons, and they were in our hands, but that did not become a problem; they started eating with their hands and so fast, that in fifteen minutes only memories were left from the pilau. And there the cognac and Muscat were remembered about. The women, who had brought the cognac, demanded that it had to be given to us to drink it later in our room, and for that moment everyone could have Muscat with grapes. Fun was becoming to flair up, and everybody went to the pier to swim, though it was forbidden to swim at night, and a poster at the pier warned about that.

In several days when we were leaving, my passport and Peter’s military ID were given to us by the hotel’s director personally, who was an old man. He wished us good luck and said that he would have a rest from us. And what did we do wrong to him?

20 September, 2011.

Essay 60. Is Speculation Business Or Not?

Some of my acquaintances are surprised that I made up my mind to quit my medical practice and start business. Volodya Fainzilberg says that they do not leave psychiatry; that psychiatry is a diagnosis and it’s for a lifetime. Well, but I gave up psychiatry for entrepreneurship, for business. And the business was quite specific. Polygraphy or printing art is what I started my business from after I had left medicine; it is undoubtedly a peculiar business. That was at the “intrepid nineties”, and if to remember more exactly, it turns out that I started doing business even earlier, during my student years. Of course, the word “business” was not used then, and any commercial undertakings of Soviet citizens were called unpretentiously - speculation.  In the Criminal Code of the USSR there was a corresponding Article with many paragraphs and subparagraphs, where it was stated in all details for what and for how long. It was my good luck that I was not noticed by the omnipresent Big Brother and a bit less, but omnipresent as well Department of Struggle against Misappropriation of Socialist Property.

Yes, I was engaged in speculation! And will tell you honestly I am not at all ashamed of it, and quite the contrary. I wanted to live a bit better; I did not want to count coins at the end of a month or before a stipend. At that time I already realized that money gave the freedom of choice. Well, and when I got involved in commerce or speculation, by Soviet terminology, I saw that it was hard work as well. Now I will tell you about my commercial initiatives, and you judge for yourself and make a conclusion whether it is easy or not.
Once I flew to Frunze via Alma-Ata on vacation and overheard a conversation of two people at Alma-Ata airport about that one of them was bringing to Karaganda a bucket of cherries he had bought only for three rubles, and in Karaganda cherries cost five rubles for one kilo.

I was right away struck by the cherries’ price difference in the two cities. And when I came to my parents to Frunze and went to a Frunze open air market, then I saw that cherries were even cheaper there, than in Alma-Ata. The best cherries cost two rubles and fifty kopeks a bucket. A decision was made immediately.  There was one more complicated question for me: how much were cherries actually in Karaganda. I even did not suspect then that I was working on marketing tasks. Luckily at Frunze airport there was a flight to Karaganda; and I came to an arriving flight to talk to the arriving. To by cherries in one city and sell it in another one was qualified by the Soviet power in one word – “speculation”. And I, who had just finished his third year at the medical institute, could not even dream of how many different things were meant by the short word. Nevertheless I made up my mind to go along that path till its very end. And I did that. I had to pay bribes to everybody I contacted with: taxi drivers, cashiers at air ticket offices, loaders at airports, and at that and that place, at a market place for a trading spot, to a police officer in Karaganda (even then cops were covering-up, and they accepted bribes both of money and cherries).

At those days Karaganda was a miners’ town; and one hundred buckets of cherries were sold at the market place for one trading day. It was very difficult to organize everything and connect and control, but that was also profitable; the profit not only compensated all the significant expenses, but also brought good gain.  Cherries ripening season is not very long, so I managed to make only two or three trips during a season. However even that was more than enough for me. So I told you without concealing anything how I fought with the government’s sluggishness in supplying miners with fruit. It was exactly that way in real life.

And I also was trying to struggle against sluggishness of the Soviet power in providing female students of Kemerovo with fashionable at that time clips designed in a shape of camomiles, cornflowers, or small roses.  Now I even do not remember the kind they were  of. I clearly remember that in Frunze I bought one hundred for fifty kopeks a piece and one hundred for seventy kopeks a piece. What was the difference between them I do not remember, too. Ilgam Gasanov bought everything from me by wholesale and paid me for those which were fifty kopeks - one ruble and fifty kopeks, and for those which were seventy kopeks – two rubles, and for a briefcase I got a twenty-five ruble note, I had bought it for twelve rubles in Frunze. Yes, I’ve almost forgot, after vacations I brought with me a couple of men and women mohair scarves.

And I regularly met with Sasha Krakovskiy at a flea market, which was behind Iskitimka. For some reason, he “specialized” in fur hats. Well, I remember he had one made of a seal, a chic one, but one should not buy from acquaintances.
Just what the Soviet State Supply Department was thinking about when distributing goods, and how it was distributing them, if nobody bought mohair scarves in Middle Asia, and in Siberia they paid up to two hundred of full-weight Soviet rubles for a women’s scarf? It just thought of nothing; and so it finds itself together with the Soviet power and their Criminal Code there, where they are.

So, what was that: speculation or business? And what do you think?

20 September, 2011.


Essay 61. Bitter Sugar

"As the call, so the echo" or in another way: "The voice you sing in at the beginning will be identified with you." This is popular wisdom, and it was crystallizing out for years, even centuries, however some people use it; and other have never heard about that. Or maybe they did heard, but believe that it was not about them or for them. So as a result, there are various collisions, and not very pleasant ones are just for them.

I will revert to Vadik Pochekutov and the assembly after the fifth year at the institute. Generally speaking, in regular life Vadik had always been somewhat amorphous. However when he was in his group at the institute his amorphism did not attract any special attention of small groups of people or invoke in them desire to play a trick with it. When Vadik was brought to the assembly, he found himself surrounded by more than a hundred angry guys; they were angry not explicitly, but implicitly, as their freedom was taken away from them, they were made to wear military uniform and were settled at the area enclosed by a fence; Vadik became even more amorphous and to some extend weak-willed. He completely surrendered to the situation and the aggressive male surrounding and was following the flow according to the principle: "go where it will carry you out".  Well, and the aggressive surrounding I had mentioned was on the spot and started having fun and amusing itself the way it could. Here is an example for your attention: according to the assembly’s schedule, fathers-commanders had planned a night quick march for five or ten kilometers.

I do not remember exactly now, as I did not participate in it myself, but among a few I had known about it and warned those I wanted to warn. Well, and who would warn Vadik? Sure enough, nobody had shared a word with him. However at night, after he had fallen asleep, his towel was exchanged places with a puttee. It was done by one of representatives of the aggressive surrounding, who had known about the coming night quick march. Well, and who pays attention at things during turmoil? One acts literally automatically, as one’s soul is still asleep. So did Vadik, after a rouse signal he automatically wound a towel around his foot, and threw a puttee over his heck and ran to a washstand half-asleep. And it should be said that Vadik’s puttees exhaled "aroma" absolutely opposite to Channel #5 or GIO. Vadik noticed or felt nothing; he was washing up. A crowd gathered around, guys did not leave, even those who had already washed up waited for the finale; the bush telegraph had worked very well. Everybody had known that there would be a practical joke with Vadik. And the fun started: Vadik finished washing up and was wiping his face with the puttee. It looked like he felt the specific smell of feet sweat and started examining the thing he had just wiped his face with. The burst of laughter was so loud that dogs started barking at Plotnokovo village, and the officers rushed to the washstand to find out about the reason, as there was night time. Vadik was a sorry sight. He stood offended and only said: "Skunks".
Practical jokes were also played on Badri Lipartiya for his hotheadedness. However his impulsiveness was respected at the same time, and it was unlikely that someone would have played a similar joke on him.
There was also another type of reaction to the fact of being at the assembly; and a dining hall was a place where it was revealed. There were petty showdowns, when there was "not enough" soup poured into a bowl, or a piece of meat in the soup was small or instead of meat there was the so called lint (that is a cows’ tendon, which goes along a backbone). I will say honestly that at my table I asked a corporal on duty (the one who was pouring the first course, dividing meat and dividing the second course) to put no meat at all into my fist course, or just put the lint into it, which everybody refused to have. So at our table arguments of that kind stopped. Do not assume that I am a vegetarian; it was just disgusting for me to hear whining and yelping of a "deprived" one. And it was significant that the whiner took a piece of meat I had given up. Perhaps I will not give his last name; that situation did not become known in the company, it was cut off within the limits of our table as well.
Well and here is a case of a scandal because of a lump of sugar.
There was a conflict, and it almost resulted in a complaint to the Department head colonel Feodorov. The process of the students’ feeding was organized in the following way: those who were in charge of the kitchen put on a squad’s table for ten people a pot with the first course, and pot with the second course, a kettle with tea and thirty lumps of sugar in a bowl, three lumps per person.

On that ill-fated day everything was going on in a regular order: the first course was eaten, the second course was put into bowls, and some guys were washing down the second course with sweet tea; they poured tea into their mugs right away, took their three lumps of sugar and dropped them into the mugs. And there measured clattering of spoons and slurping were interrupted by boringly-pitiful and one could even say whining voice of Filkov: "Nu, they can’t do this often enough! Let it be once or twice, but they steal sugar every day. I had enough of that, I am going to complain to Feodorov". Then Felix An, a big, serious and handsome Korean looking guy from Tashkent got up. On a regular basis Felix was a calm guy, but at that moment he took his three lumps of sugar, approached Filkov and threw the sugar at him: "I hope you choke on it. Just stop whining and moaning and groaning in front of the company". And again, I am directing your attention to the following: Filkov picked up the sugar and put it into his mug, as if that was Felix who had stolen his sugar and then unexpectedly gave it back to him. After that incident nobody took another’s sugar as well.

Of course, it is not customary to finish an essay with a depressed note, but I have to express my opinion. For five years before that we had attended lectures together, with someone we went to restaurants, with others were good buddies, but it had never occurred to us that some of us loudly and disgustingly chumped, someone started whining and nagging because of a piece of meat size in his soup (it was a symbolical one there anyway), and someone could start howling because of a lump of sugar.

And of course, we could not believe that there was someone among us who was able to take another’s lump of sugar, swallow it without choking on it and after that had no courage to admit that. Among criminal prisoners this kind of behavior is figuratively called "rats’ business", and the one caught in that is inescapably abused. The principle is cruel and pitiless, though it worked; the rats’ business was nonsense there.

I will honestly tell you that I could have taken someone’s sugar and hide it in order to give it back later; well, for instance I could have taken it from Arkashka Blyakher or Marik Golubkov, most  likely from Marik, as he always understood humor and enjoyed playing jokes himself. However I had neither opportunity nor right to do so after the incident with meat; in addition to that I have never had tea with sugar. During the assembly the guys shared my sugar by turns.

The stories for the essay were kindly provided by A.G.Lopatin.

21 September, 2011.

Essay 62. Feinzilberg’s Mistake

We even do not realize, what role a chance can play in our lives. In my case, a chance was a reason of a switch of my medical profession and my transfer from surgery to psychiatry.

After graduation from the institute I was placed on a job at Kurganskiy region. I wanted and was prepared to go not to Kurgan, but to Kirgizia, to Frunze. My batya, Peter Andreyevitch Syedyshev, a WWII veteran did a lot to make it happen; he had involved all his friends into that. To a placement commission I brought a motion from the Healthcare Ministry of Kirgizskaya SSR and a letter from the chief surgeon of Kirgizia with a guarantee that I would be placed on a job of a surgeon.

However the placement commission did not consider those documents, and I was cynically asked "how much I had paid for the papers". I immediately wanted to ask them, how much it would cost me to make the commission consider the documents, but I resisted the temptation; as I had made up my mind to leave Kurganskiy region without any placement procedure for wherever I feel necessary as soon as I got sick and tired of it. And I did so later on. But at the very first days of October, 1972  I, dressed like a fop, in a coffee-colored suite and matching it suede shoes arrived in Kurgan, where it was rainy and chilly.

No wonder, as I came from the capital of sun-lit Kyrgyzstan, where it was warm and good. In Kurganskiy Regional Healthcare Department they had given up on me and were very happy to see me. I was placed on a job of a surgeon at Chashinskiy district hospital. In January, 1973, I was assigned to primary specialized surgery training to Kurganskiy regional hospital, which was supervised by professor Yakov Davidovitch Vitebskiy. By the way, I should mention that at the specialized training I met my former group mates Valya Timoshenko and Arkasha Blyakher. We were very glad because of that and stuck together for the four months of the training, and I even shared an apartment with Arkashka in addition to that. I do not remember exactly, though it seems to me that in February, at its end, when assigning patients during the training Vitebskiy said that there had come an interesting patient with a suppurative coccygeal cyst and asked who would like to be assigned to him and supervise him from the very beginning till he was discharged from the hospital.

And there Arkasha together with Timoshka announced that Syedyshev was an expert in coccygeal cysts. Some parasites! They were kidding, but Vitebskiy assigned me to the patient. Though I have to mention that when an institute’s student I had a similar surgery. And while I was at a hospital, it was Timoshka who according to my request had brought to me everything she had managed to find on those cysts at the institute’s library. So if I were not an expert, then I knew the subject as they say from A to Z. As soon as I had been assigned as a doctor in charge to the patient, I went to get acquainted with him and to obtain the case history and all the jazz. The patient’s name was Vitya Loytsker, he was a psychiatrist from Kurganskiy regional mental institution. He had graduated from Sverdlovsk Medical Institute and had also been placed on a job of a children’s surgeon at Dolmatovskiy district hospital of Kurganskiy region; and the mental institution was also located in the Dolmatovskiy district, and its chief doctor and a Kurganskiy region chief psychiatrist was Boris Zakharovitch Khaikin. To cut the story short, Victor and I got acquainted, and I told him the story of my coccygeal cyst, and with all details, which I had described in the essay "Triplets". Victor laughed loudly at my "delivery" and agreed to the surgery after he had promised me not to repeat my mistakes. Man proposes, God disposes. A car used to arrive from the mental institution to Kurgan almost every day.

That was Khaikin, who came to Regional Healthcare Department, or some of the mental institution’s doctors were invited to give a consultation.
And all of them came to visit Vitya Loytsker. And they also brought things to drink and eat with themselves. Generally speaking, my story was being repeated. There only were no yells during the first stools after the surgery.

Well, Loytsker and I made friends. When I had a spare moment, I used to come to Vitya to have a chat. At his bed I met Boris Zakharovitch Khaikin. Victor was praising his profession. He was not persuading me directly, but constantly offered arguments of advantages of psychiatry over surgery, he had left. "Constant dripping wears away the stone". It was much later when Khaikin himself told me that it had been him, who had asked Victor to persuade me to shift to psychiatry. So in a year I worked as a doctor-psychiatrist at a Kurganskiy region mental hospital.

I had worked as a psychiatrist for twenty five years until I left medicine for entrepreneurship. Volodya Feinzilbeg’s statement that "psychiatrist" is a diagnosis, and it is for a lifetime" turned to be wrong.

21 September, 2011


Essay 63. Cream Of Wheat


I cannot help, but share with you, my dear readers, one more reminiscence of my student life.
I will make it short.
Pharmacology is a serious science; it is inadmissible for a doctor not to know it. At the Pharmacology Department there was a rule, if a student got a bad grade during a class, he or she had to work it off, i.e. answer the topic at out-of-classes time. Once Zhenka Romashov and I managed to get bad grades. I do not even remember the topic now, well, generally speaking,  we are talking not about it. Yevgeniy and I were sitting in a library at the main building diligently studying. We had known that during the working off professors asked what had been studied before as well; so we were studying single and twenty-four-hour dosages.

And there Zhora Chernobay, Zhenka’s and my friend and buddy, came into the library. "Well, poor students, are you studying?" – he asked, after he had heard Zhenka’s and my argument. I was trying to prove to Yevgeniy that top single dose could not be more that a twenty-four-hour one; as it was a single one, and the other one was for twenty-four-hours!
Zhenka was angry at me and threatened to "haul me over the coals" and in general he was sorry that he had got involved with me and the work off. Zhora was a nice guy, he had been an authority for Zhenya.  Zhora said:  "break" and asked us to lower our voices, or we would be asked to leave the reading room. He explained to Zhenka that I was right, that the top single dose could be equal to the top twenty-four-hour one, but never more that it. Yevgeniy agreed with Zhora as for the doses, though he was categorically against the statement that I had been right. Zhenya was Zhenya!

When Zhora learned that on that day the working off was conducted by Sapozhkov, he informed us, that we had a chance to pass the working off not even answering the subject. It turned out that before starting a working off Sapozhkov offered to all students, who came to him, to tell him a joke. If a joke was new to him, the one who told it got a passed. That never happened during tests or examinations; he collected jokes only when conducting working off. However, God forbids, if a joke was an old one for sapozhnikov. Zhenya and I liked the idea, and we started feverishly remembering jokes and telling them. A crowd of about ten guys gathered around us, and a lady in charge of the reading room even reprimanded us for loud laughter. We were selecting jokes to go to the working off with. With all our big company we decided that two jokes would be worth-while. I will tell them to you now, but, please, do not judge strictly, as they were new more than forty years ago.
So, the first one:
In  a kindergarten Vanya asks Masha, if she was a hot woman? "I am hot", - Masha  replies. "And how do you know?" – " I used my   potty and it was steaming", - Masha answers.
And the second joke:
A man in a restaurant places orders to a waiter: "One hundred grams of vodka and cream of wheat". The waiter got surprised and brought the order. The man drank,  ate and asked to repeat the same. His order was repeated. And when the man for the third time asked to repeat his order, the waiter lost his patience and said: "I’ve never seen before that someone had vodka with cream of wheat".  The man reasonably said to that: "And does it matter with what to puke!?"
I offered Zhenka to choose a joke. he refused to choose and suggested to cast lots.  The crowd around us approved of the idea, and Zhora made lots for us. Zhenya got the joke about a potty, and I got one about cream of wheat.
The time of the working off was close, so we left with wishes "break a leg".
During the working off everything was like Zhenya had told us. In a room there were three of us, poor students: Zhenya and I and a nice guy, our institute’s dancer Mukha (I am sorry, I do not remember his name). Sapozhkov  asked if anyone would tell a joke, and suggested us to think well, as he would "torture" an unlucky one.

Zhenka and I volunteered. I was the first one with my joke. All of us were laughing loudly; we, the poor students, and Sapozhkov, who praised me and offered Yevgeniy to have his chance.
And again everybody had a good laugh, but scum Sapozhkov spoiled all the joy. He said that Zhenka was two hours late with his joke, that he had been already told that joke. "Who?" – Zhenka asked, and his face expression made it obvious that the one who had told the story would have to pay for that; and the least he would have the potty put on his head. Sapozhkov turned to have a heart of stone; he did not give the name of the one, who had told him the joke. He was in high spirits and circled a bad grade in front of Zhenka’s name in the grade report; and in front of Mukha’s name as well, which made him very happy, and he thanked us for the help. We did not object when Mukha treated us to beer at an institute’s canteen. After that we went to look for Zhora Chernobay to treat him to beer for good news about an opportunity to pass the working off.

21 September, 2011



Essay 64. Feeling Of Pride
A trolleybus route was opened in Kemerovo. The first trolleybus started from Sovetov Square on 25 August, 1970.  The whole city was happy. Vagram and I were glad as well. And we had a reason, that way we would have fewer problems at least with public transportation. And there were oceans of them in Kemerovo. However, if to be honest, on those days we did not focus on that kind of things; we did not think about them at all. Study and student everyday life were the scope of our worries.  And the main student problem is money. One could not say that Vagram and I were in an acute need, nevertheless there is never too much money. So I went to make a reconnaissance. As they say now – to conduct monitoring.  I found out the following: trolleybus garage was located at the outskirts of Kemerovo, however its administration was placed at a tram depot near “Karbolit”, and the administration’s name was “Electric Transport Administration”. And the main thing I had learned was that washmen were needed at the garage. They offered piecework payment, depending on a number of washed trolleybuses. And the cost of manual washing was quite high. Our working day could be from 6pm to 1.30am. At 1.30am a shift trolleybus took drivers and all the maintenance staff to their homes. At the HR Department I was told that for ten or fifteen working shifts a month one could receive up to two hundred rubles in cash.

I shared the results of my reconnaissance with Vagram. There was no need for a long discussion. We decided to give it a try, and then see what would happen. When we came to get the job, there was one more surprise waiting for us, which we had not expected. When I was performing my reconnaissance and visited the HR Department, I was told that one had to bring three photographs.

So, one of the photos was for an ID of a staff member of Kemerovo tram and trolleybus depot, which gave us the right to go by tram or trolleybus for free. We were already happy because of the cost savings, the ID provided us with, and also because of moral satisfaction, we received, when we got on a tram or a trolleybus together with our group mates and announced to a conductor: “Staff ID”. Well and when we were asked to show our IDs, we imposingly took them out of our pockets and similar to cops opened our IDs demonstrating them to the conductor or a control person. Only one thing was a bit disappointing, the IDs’ covers were not red, but dark-grey, now this color if on cars is called “wet asphalt”. And if the covers were red… I am even not sure, if we would do the washing of trolleybuses or would be content to have just the IDs.

Yeah, I’ve almost forgotten, we were also given a sack with working closes each: rubber high boots, cotton overalls, tarpaulin overalls, rubberized aprons, tarpaulin gauntlets, mops and ten meters of sack cloth. And we were told beforehand that only sack cloth was written off while we were working, and the rest we had to return when quitting the job.
My grandmother lived in Yagunovka in a house, and as soon as sack cloth was written off before we quitted, I brought to her Vagram’s and my shares of it. Oh, how much she praised me and Vagram! She was saying that it was more convenient to wash floors with sack cloth than with anything else. She even gave us a three liter jar of homemade brew, but we did not drink all of it right away. We stretched it out for six times; we poured it into half a liter jars and took one at work at the garage and were drinking it when having a snack. It should be said that our snacks were served according to VIP standards. First of all, for our snacks we had found in one of hangars a tall movable tower five-six meters high; that was where on the very top we served generous snacks for ourselves. We had a smart tablecloth (in a department of the regional hospital we had solicited some gauze), on which we put everything we had brought and did our best to lay the table. The biggest hassle was with folding glasses; we could drink the brew from them, but our tea smelled plastic. So after the third or the forth time the plastic became deformed, and liquid was dripping out of them, so we replaced the glasses by enameled mugs. There was no fixed time for snack at work. We ourselves chose the time: when there was a space of time in returning of the trolleybuses from their routs, we arranged a break in the washing. Usually that was at about ten or eleven at night.




Though, let’s get back to the work itself. On the first day we came at work an hour earlier. We had to know, how much time it would take us to get to the garage. We were supposed to receive boxes to put our clothes in when changing; each of us was given two of them: for working clothes and our clothes. Well, as soon as we came earlier, a foreman conducted an excursion around the garage for us on a garage trolleybus. She’d better never did that.  Vagram and I were standing behind her, watching how to drive a trolleybus, and then at night time we arranged races around the garage, and were reprimanded by foremen on a regular bases. However all foremen, for some reason, were women of age, so they treated us like children, they  reproved us, tried to look strict, scared us with the administration, but nothing more than that, well, and we were playing mischievous tricks.

On the first day together with Vagram we washed only ten vehicles. That was not enough, as the foreman told us, when signing our work order, a document, in which we enlisted numbers of the trolleybuses we had washed and put date, time and our last names for bookkeeping. That was not enough for the foreman, but Vagram and I were exhausted, as it had turned out a trolleybus had a huge outside area for washing, and we also had at least to sweep inside it. And as for cleaning inside a trolleybus, we liked it.  Practically every day we found something. There was change dropped under seats and one ruble or three rubles notes, and once we found a purse with more than one hundred rubles. We even found a folder with some papers and a passport. We brought it to a police station on the next day. And, just imagine, that daydreamer came to thank Vagram and me to the garage. He brought cognac, as Vagram said: “Unfortunatelly it’s Georgian, but still”.  Here is the centuries-old rivalry between the Armenians and the Georgians.

However it was not in vain that the foreman had arranged and excursion for us and taught us to drive a trolleybus. When at home, after we had slept and rested, we remembered, that the foreman had shown us an automatic trolleybus washing shop. She had been very proud of it and even said that it had been absolutely ready, but they had not been able to use it, as a labor protection commission had not approved it yet. During the first month we had shifts every other day; there were not enough washers.  Again we decided to come earlier and check the unapproved automatic trolleybus wash. So we did. The foreman started praising us, when we came at work earlier; she thought that we were driven by the feeling of responsibility and came to wash more trolleybuses. However she thought that we wanted to wash the trolleybuses manually; and we were looking for an opportunity to wash more, but work less. The foreman was right, when during the excursion she had said, that the trolleybus wash was absolutely ready. That was super: you drove a trolleybus into the wash, it went through huge brushes, which cleaned simultaneously its front, both sides and the back wall. Though on the back wall there were missed spots, but it was not difficult to get read of them. During that shift we washed twenty one trolleybuses.  That was what Vagram told the foreman to answer her question of how many: “Point”. Poor foreman did not understand, and we had to explain to her, that “point” meant twenty one, and that was what we had written in the work order.
However before signing our work order, the foreman checked quality of the washing (she had not done any checking at the previous shift); she was confused by the double increase of the washed vehicles. She was satisfied with the inspection and praised us. Well, we were in “tails up” mood, and announced  her our increased obligations, saying that with time we would wash half a hundred trolleybuses during a shift. The foreman chuckled and challenged us, and we became really enthusiastic. After that we were not as much tired as at the first time, and an average number of the trolleybuses we washed for a shift during the first month was twenty five, so we earned decent money, and each of us received two hundred and fifty rubles in cash. We were content. We already had an algorithm of what we were doing. If at the beginning we tried to wash a trolleybus completely and only after that moved to another one, then later we changed our tactics.  We realized that sooner or later we would be caught, and they would understand that we were using the automatic wash. And we used the following tactics: as soon as several trolleybuses returned from the rout, we quickly ran them through the automatic wash and then brought them to the manual wash shop, and after that cleaned everything inside and washed the spots, which had been missed on the back wall. We received more free time during a shift, and there we started arranging races around the garage territory; it was huge, there were several routs there, along which Vagram and I drove first slowly, and then started racing. That was a miracle that we broke none of the vehicles. Well, for the second month we totally earned three hundred and fifty rubles in cash each; and for the third one almost four hundred. Believe it or not, we were paid that money.

However, when there was time to receive salary for the forth month, and we expected to receive about five hundred rubles per person, as we washed forty vehicles in average during a shift, but we received only two hundred and fifty. Sure enough, we protested, and we were directed to the Labor and Salary Department, where we were clearly explained, that it was physically impossible to wash that many vehicles manually. We were shown guides of the Ministry and told some workloads, and finally it was announced that we were using the automatic wash, and there job prices were absolutely different, and we received our salary according to them. Vagram and I felt robbed and quitted the job, but when we were signing our clearance chits and returning the work clothes, it was found out that there had been lost Vagram’s rubberized apron and my tarpaulin gauntlets, and we had to reimburse their cost when receiving the final payment. We felt offended again and decided not to return our IDs, which allowed us free trips. We said that we had lost them. We did not have to pay reimbursement for them, we were just asked to state a loss in a written form.

Vagram and I continued to study to become doctors with the feeling of pride that two of us approved the automatic wash at the trolleybus garage of the city of Kemerovo, and it became much easier for those, who came after us, to wash trolleybuses; and they, the trolleybuses, pleased by their cleanliness the people of Kemerovo as well as its guests.
 

21 September, 2011



Essay 65. Was It Love?
All students know that during examinations one must not step on lids of sewer manholes, absolutely must not. Kostya Romashov knew about that as well, when his elder brother was leading him to his first entrance chemistry examination. He really was leading him. Zhenya had already finished his first year at Kemerovo Medical Institute; he was already experienced, and he was thirteen years and five days older than Kostya; so Kostya had to take that into consideration. The matter was that when Kostya arrived from sunlit Kirgizstan, Kemerovo greeted him with rain and cold; and in Kemerovo water had been chlorinated so much that even soup smelled chorine. Kostya, who had grown up on water coming from glaciers, was just disgusted by all that. So in secret Kostya had made up his mind that he would fail the entrance examinations in Kemerovo, return home to his dear Kant, serve in the Army and after that enter a medical institute, but the one in Frunze. Kostya never said that aloud, however Zhenya had penetrating mind. He without any questions locked Kostya in a rented house for him to study for the examinations, and he almost by the hand lead his brother to the first examination. That was a chemistry examination. From Hertsen street to the City Entertainment Center we went by tram and walked to the institute. Kostya tried to protest, saying that we could go one more stop by tram, nevertheless Zhenya said so, and it was useless to argue. On the way to the institute Zhenya himself checked Kostya’s knowledge by asking him various tricky questions like a chemical formula of water or nitrogenous acid. They were walking along 40 Let Octyabrya alley, and about fifteen meters ahead of them there was an old lady doddering with big bags.

The brothers were walking and chattering, and suddenly they noticed that the old lady disappeared. She was there and in a moment vanished. The guys together rushed ahead.

"That’s what I thought, the sewer manhole lid is open" – Zhenka started scolding Kostya for some reason; as if it was him, who had left the lid open, the lid was near the sewer manhole. Perhaps workers opened the lid and went to a store at Sevastopolskaya street, which was nearby. Zhenka was telling all that to Kostya. And the old lady from the well was crying: "Heeelp… Heeelp…".  Zhenya was strong and husky nevertheless he and Kostya had to apply efforts before they dragged the granny out from the well. And then Kostya had to climb down into the well to bring up the food, which had fallen out of the bags. It was amazing that the old lady was safe and sound. She was just croaking: "How could this happen? What’s this?" And the guys hurried to the exam. Kostya got and excellent grade; and Zhenya did not miss a chance to tell him, that it was a good sign to help someone before an exam.

And why am I telling about Kostya and Zhenka? I myself had an experience…

Like I have written before, I finished secondary comprehensive school at Kedrovskiy opencast mine. A situation I want to tell you about took place at the beginning of summer 1966. We were finishing our tenth grade. Our mood was great, because we would finally leave the so much hated, as it seemed to us then, school; escape from boring teachers. We were already adults. Final examinations were very close. And it happened so that I fell in love with my classmate Tanya Chubarova. It was necessary to study for the examinations, but I felt itching in certain part of me, and my legs lead me away from home to Tatiana. She too had to study, but also with pleasure escaped from home. In the center of the town, right in front of our school and between a stadium and houses there was a huge clearing of several hectares with a grove.

That was where we liked to walk; we were in the center, and at the same time kind of in a grove, hidden from curious looks. Every evening for several hours in a row we walked kilometers around or were sitting on logs in quiet places. On the day of the Last Day at school Tatiana and I had also a date; and we had agreed that we would have a walk around the clearing. It is hard for me to say, what we were talking about for hours then. We did not keep silence, we were talking nonstop, quite often argued, tried to persuade each other in something. Yes, our communication was enthusiastic and, perhaps, interesting for both of us, as soon as both of us were striving to it.

At the hour agreed I was already impatiently waiting at the water tower, next to which Tanya lived. She was never late to a date and never came earlier; it was me who was a fidget, and came thirty minutes before the time. At those days there were no cellular phones, or I would have annoyed Tatiana with my calls during those thirty minutes. There were no cell phones, but Lesha Borichev, also my classmate, lived next to the water tower. So I used to come to him and ask for a permission to make a telephone call. Tatiana reprimanded me, that I interfere with her getting ready and myself keep her long, but never hung up on me. Finally Tatiana came out of her house and we went along our favorite rout. I was telling Tanya something very interesting. I was talking loudly, gesticulated, and she was walking by my side saying yes to me. And suddenly I realized that for quite a long time I did not here from Tatiana her "Yes" or "It’s unbelievable". There was silence. I turned around; there was nobody nearby at all. I started calling Tanya. There was silence. I walked back and in twenty or thirty meters saw the following scene: on a path literally from under the ground Tatiana was seen up to her bust. She stepped on an open sewer manhole lid and fell into the well, but opened her arms and was holding that way.

The sewer manhole’s lid was in a vertical position in the middle of the hole, Tatiana was leaning against it. Luckily the well turned to be not deep; Tanya was standing on some huge valve. However she could not get out by herself. The lid did not allow her to do that, and her feet slipped down from the valve. She was not saying a word. She did not cry, just was silent. I ran up to her grabbed her by arms and started pulling her up, and there suddenly Tanya shouted at me: "Rascal, you left me alone…" and she made a move to slap me. She’d better not. I was holding her by her arms and her arms were apart, I had almost pulled her up. And there she decided to start a fight; she raised her right hand to hit me and slid down into the well. I burst into laughter.  I asked her, why she had been silent, had not called for me immediately, and she was scolding me nonstop. I made a try to pull her up, but because of the laughter my hands became weak, and I again let her go down into the well.  Poor Tatiana, she thought I was playing a mean trick on her. Finally, I somehow managed to free her out of the well, and she after calling me a scum once again rushed back home. Probably because of the stress she was running so fast that I could not run her down. I was crying to her: "Tanya, I am sorry; it was not my fault…" That was useless, she was running only faster because of my words. She did not answer my telephone calls; she picked up the receiver, but after she heard my voice hung it up. I tried to wait for her at the water tower, but as soon as she noticed me, she turned around and hurried back home.

Together with Lesha Borichev we were figuring out what I had to do, but could think of nothing. Because of despair we smashed all windows at our history teacher’s apartment. A young single woman was hysterical because of her loneliness and lost her temper during classes. We hated her with our whole class. So we waited till it was midnight or even one in the morning, and together with Lesha using sticks we smashed windows at her place, in the kitchen and her room. Idiots we were. The woman lived in a one-room apartment on the first floor. Yes, love does wonders, it gives wings to someone, and someone becomes stupid. I do not mean Lesha Borichev. Then there were final exams, and after them Tatiana had a date with Vadik Smolenko; and I was kind of indifferent to that. So was it love?

22 September, 2011.


Essay 66. Paris, Paris...
Natasha offered to celebrate my birthday in Paris this year. Of course, I agreed. Well first of all, we had not been to Paris for quite a long time, and the second, my wife's word is a law to me. We chose a Mariott hotel, which is at the Avenue des Champs-;lys;es (Elysian Fields).
It turned out that there are four Mariott hotels in Paris; and we stayed at that one at the Elysian Fields, when we were in Paris last time. We liked the hotel; rooms were excellent, service wonderful, restaurant meals super, we decided that the best is the enemy of the good. We did what we had said, and on 23 September we landed in Paris.

Hello, Paris!  Yes, for the twelve years since our first visit to that city, changes had taken place and not for better. No, I am not going to scare you and write boo things, but admit that there are noticeably more people in Paris, and they are far from being of French origin. And loved by Natasha and me Monmartre or "Mon-Mon", as a character of a famous film called it, was difficult to recognize. When we came to Paris for the first time in 1999, we stayed at a hotel at Monmartre. How charming it was! Those narrow, twisting and clean streets and small stores were attracting and tempting up to the degree that once we got lost together with Natasha.

And what about the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris? Do you remember the film A Window to Paris? Its famous stairs, where young people in love loved and still love to sit, are covered with garbage by midday. And the whole Monmartre started looking in a damn it way. One can more often hear Salam than "Bonjour". And how many beggars there are on the streets of Paris! If before they, too, were there, they were French nevertheless. I remember during our first visit Natasha and I laughed, when we saw at the corner of the Elysian Fields and Boutie street a begger, with a half emptied bottle of champagne, and he was loudly singing something.

Now there are more beggers, and they are often gypsies. And gypsies make a living in the streets like gypsies do, meaning, fool people, or try to fool them. Every time when in Paris we come to the Opera Square.

We were there that time as well. And behind the theatre there is a famous Paris store "The Galleries Lafayette". How could Natasha miss shopping there?
So we were walking around the Opera from the left side, and a gypsy woman was approaching us. Suddenly she bended and as if picked something up, something from the asphalt and then held her hand out towards us, and there was a yellow ring in it, and in English, consider that, not in French, asked us: This is gold, isn't it?  Together with Natasha we burst into laughter, and the gypsy woman said again in English: Slut, which in Russian means a bitch and something else indistinctly. We laughed because just a couple of minutes before that I told Natasha that we looked not like dupes any more, as that was our second day in Paris and nobody tried to fool us. And there it happened. And in a day, we were coming from the right side of the Opera, there was the same gypsy woman and with the same ring. We laughed again. Yeah, life had burned down the poor gypsy, she had lost her scent and her memory had become very bad. Well, enough about sad stuff.

On 25 September Natasha and I had a busy cultural program planned. We wanted to walk on foot along the Elysian Fields, have a walk at the Tuileries Garden, then visit the Louvre and finish by visiting  Notre Dam de Paris and having a water tour along the Seine.
Just tell me, why for the whole day we were haunted by that vulgar dialogue

between Avdotya Nikitichna and Veronika Mavrikievna from a joke about whether they swim in the Seine or are occupied with something else there. We played around it in most different ways during the day!

We left the hotel at eight thirty in the morning. The city was empty. There was nobody in the streets except for street cleaners. The weather was great, the sun was shining brightly. We were strolling along the Elysian Fields, and suddenly from direction of the Arc de Triomphe there came roar of engines and several Ferrari and Peugeot convertibles flew past us and then more and more of them. And at safety zones in the middle of the Elysian Fields paparazzi were crowding and taking pictures of those cars. It was later, when we came to Place de la Concorde, we learned that those races were arranged regularly every weekend in Paris. That way with impressions we reached the Tuileries. I've almost forgotten, on the way we met a police patrol of two women. One was black and another Caucasian. The black one was pretty and the Caucasian looked like an American because of her colonic bulb like figure. They looked so cute and funny together that I wanted to take a picture of them. But Natasha started making me to ask for their permission; for some reason she believed that in France agents (policemen) could easily shoot anyone, they did not like. Of course, I was afraid and with gestures asked for their permission to take a photo. The colonic bulb like one made a face and prepared to pose, and the pretty Afro-French also with a gesture showed categorical "No!" and turned away, and we resumed our walk.

The Tuileries Garden is beautiful. And at the end of September there is such a riot of color there! We were taking pictures, walking with our mouths open, admiring flowers, trees and sculptures. And suddenly I felt a need to use a toilet. Don't worry, not to do my number two, but my number one. There was a small caf; nearby. It was not open yet, but there was already motion inside it. It was amazing, at 9.20 a.m. the streets were empty, and the park was empty, just once in a while there would run joggers running away from a heart attack.

There was nobody around to address a question to. Nevertheless I found a soul alive in the caf;; that was a woman who was arranging tables and chairs outdoors. Not caring about tact I started asking her, using gestures and an international word toilet, where the latter was? And she pointed for me that it was at the entrance to the park. I remembered that yes, at the park entrance there were signs with figures of man and woman. I left Natalka to admire a crow and rushed to the park entrance. All those runners could not match me; one should have a very reasonable motivation for records. Perhaps, I broke a record in running, however at the finish there was another blow awaiting for me. There was a toilet there, but it would be open only at 10a.m. Poor French! How many swearwords they did not deserve came out of my mouth! I am not going to repeat them to you as well, as I was not original, when using dirty language to express my indignation. I was not running when returning to Natalka, continuing scolding the careless French, and to my horror realizing that, generally speaking, I had nothing to swear at them for. That was something unimaginable; I felt extreme need up to the point of gnashing my teeth, and suddenly I no longer wanted anything. Nevertheless, I did not give up and found a toilet, thought not in the Tuileries Garden, but in the Louvre. Now I have an absolute right to ask anyone: And you, did you use a toilet in the Louvre?  Of course, all this is very stupid, however that was a real life situation, and it really took place. I am not going to describe our impressions of visiting the Louvre. My vocabulary is not that rich to accurately describe our feelings of delight and even some timidity, because of the beauty what we had seen there. Tired we went to the pier, which was near the Louvre to have a ride on a river bus and rest from the impressions and physical fatigue. Because except of walking from one exhibit to another, from a picture to a picture, I also was running around the Tuileries Garden, as you remember.

On the way to the pier, we could not miss visiting the Bridge of Sweethearts. All the more so I had planned that beforehand and brought with me a lock, though not a big one. We fixed the lock and locked it as it had to be. We kissed with Natalka and went to the pier.

Believe it or not, but after that ritual procedure all traces of our tiredness had vanished as if by magic. So we enthusiastically boarded, went up to the top deck and enjoyed an hour on a steam boat chatting and discussing who finally was right Avdotya Nikitichna or Veronika Mavrikievna in their views on the Siena.
The day was almost over, and at the Notre Dame Cathedral there was a huge crowd of tourists. The Japanese were taking photos. No, this is not my phrase; it was said by uncle Misha Zadornov. It was said so accurately, that I cannot help, but repeating it.

Nevertheless fatigue and too many impressions had their influence on us, and when leaving the Cathedral, Natasha and I decided that, if God wished and we would come to Paris once again, then we would for sure visit Notre Dame, but in the morning, not overloaded with previous impressions.

Yes, the day before my birthday was a success. What was left was to go to a restaurant, where we planned to have our special dinner on the twenty sixth, and to have a general rehearsal the night before, simply speaking, we were going to eat. We had appetite and it was reminding us about its presence very loudly. Just tell me, why on Earth I put on a chic suite, which I had prepared for the next day for the rehearsal? Natalek was gently grumbling at me, she was not strict, or I would have never put it on.
Natalek had already learned a bitter lesson. About three or four years ago we were going to fly to Hong Kong, and in Kiev during another flight connection, when our luggage had already been registered, I dropped a croissant into my cup of coffee in a caf;. It was unbelievable how that much water could splash out of such a small cup, and what kind of water: I added three helpings of cream into my coffee! Just imagine, we had to fly for sixteen hours via Amsterdam, and there were big greasy stains on me from my shoulder down to my hip, as if I had been shot from a machinegun.

Yeah, there was a situation! Poor Natasha, she was very angry at me then and threatened that she would never go with such a sloven and a blockhead anywhere anymore. Everything went well that time. Everybody understood our situation and sympathized with us. I especially liked sympathy of flight attendants; though we were flying in business class, where level of attention to passengers was high, and to me it was exceptional, as I enjoyed even more care if compared to the general caring attitude.

That time in the restaurant salmon tartare was delicious, and we ate it in a moment, but when we were served Argentinean beef with some kind of unbelievably delicious sauce, something that had been predestinated happened. Before Natalka and a waiter's very eyes I dropped a piece of beef from my fork in the sauce. Of course, the sauce splash was smaller than tsunami in Fukushima, but it was strong enough to absolutely spoil my jacket and trousers. Ouch! Natasha and the waiter said simultaneously and rushed to me with napkins. There I had to be given a credit for stopping them with a gesture and explaining to them that good manners rules taught us not to pay attention, when someone next to us spilt sauce over himself. I sprinkled all the stains with salt. Just imagine, I with salt all over me continued eating the beef.

Yes, the meat "vagu" was magnificent. Natalek was silent, but I had a feeling that when in a hotel room there was a good scolding waiting for me, so I was prolonging the dinner by all means. The waiter realized that it had not been his fault and gaily served our meals and changed tableware. The dinner was successfully finished. We calmly arm in arm walked across the hall to elevators. And in the room Natalek announced to me that, if it had not been for my birthday, she would have told me everything she was thinking about me. That way the incident was resolved. And the next day I had dinner in my casual, but nevertheless nice suite, and spent the whole day of my birthday without any adventures.

On the twenty seventh of September at seven in the morning we were on the way to the airport, we had with us one more chestnut we had found at the Elysian Fields.
We observed our tradition to bring a chestnut after each trip to Paris. Good bye, Paris, see you again!
29 September, 2011
Essay 67. Examination Paper #13


It has always surprised me how Arkashka, our Komsomol group leader, managed to get out of any kind of scrape. He had never had any problems at the institute. Or if he had them, he concealed them so well, that nobody knew about them, which was also cool. For instance, Kostya Romashov was a Komsomol leader of his group at the Dentistry Department, however he managed to get into a pretty mess. It was just a miracle that he extricated himself from it, and not just got out of it, but almost without any consequences. There could be consequences at that time, though not like in 1937, yet they could be not sweet as well.
Here is what happened.
What they could do really well in the CPSU was to keep one hooked. Maybe they could not work and even did not want to, though when it came to humiliating, hauling somebody inferior over the coals – they were the best at that. Well, perhaps, that was what they called their work. And what kinds of most tricky things were designed for that! To put it more exactly, had been designed for that, as those communists used experience of their predecessors, and the latter had done their best and left abundant experience. That was squealing and informing on colleagues and friends at work and among the party members, and various conferences and reports at different levels. That was obligatory. It was necessary not only to haul over the coals and humiliate somebody inferior, but also to give him the same opportunity, that he acted in the same way with his associates. Komsomol leaders of student groups could be belittled by Komsomol leaders of student groups united according to a year of entering the institute and by Komsomol leaders of departments, in addition to all those party committees, that also wanted to have fun and arranged meetings during which they listened to reports about achievements in Komsomol activity of poor Komsomol group leaders. And what could they do; what kind of activity to conduct? So Konstantin Romashov got also caught. That was his first report and he was timid. No wonder, there came professors, heads of departments and other party brethren. Kostya started glibly as it was required by the time limit then: “At the last CPSU congress the General Secretary Brezhnev said…”, and there was heard a loud exclamation: “Stop!” It sounded rather threateningly.  Everybody was silent, and from his seat got up an institute politburo member, Orthopedic Dentistry Department head Marsel Zakeyevitch Mirgazizov. That was an opportunity to lick, even though indirectly via minutes of the meeting, and the minutes were checked by the superior, so how he could miss the opportunity and he did not miss it. “For all of us, comrades, this is the greatest person of the present, three times (at that moment) hero of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the CPSU Leonid Illyich Brezhnev. And for this snotnose he is just Brezhnev. Didn’t you say Brezhnev?” – he addressed Kostya. And Kostya fell into a stupor. He was standing silent, and in his head there was an idiotic joke about how a Chukchi was accepted into the CPSU. A Chikchi was shown a portrait of L.I.Brezhnev and asked: “Who is he?” The Chikchi said: “A chief, however”. The party bureau asked: “What kind of chief?” The Chukchi: “A camp chief, however”. The party bureau: “What kind of camp?” The Chikchi: “The socialist one, however”. And with the thoughts about the camp chief and the Chukchi poor Kostya listened about what kind of booby he was and Mirgazizov’s doubts if he (Kostya) would be able to work as a doctor in general. That was some turn the situation took.

And M.Z.Mirgazizov was at his best, he decided to kick a secretary of the party committee of the institute and offered to vote for his proposal to consider that awkward situation, and according to M.Z.Mirgazizov’s definition an extremely scandalous one, as a personal fault of the secretary of the party committee of the institute.

And they did vote for that.  However that happened after they had sent Kostya out of the room. And at that time the secretary of the party committee was a true party member, not noticed in any discrediting contacts, of working-peasants class origin, Philosophy and Scientific Communism Department head associate professor K.S.Glebov.
Generally speaking, he was not a bad person, and the students if did not love him, then treated him as an unavoidable evil. Nevertheless M.Z.Mirgazizov had a heart of stone; by the way, later he transferred to a medical institute of Kazan.

The incident took place in spring, but it received continuation in summer, during the examination session to be more exact. Everything was fine, and there was the last exam for Kostya to take, it was the CPSU History exam. The examination was conducted by the associate professor E.S.Shalneva.
She was loved by all students and famous by the name “Old Lena” or “Mom”. Sure enough, Kostya’s examination paper was number thirteen; well, the number was his bad luck. However examination questions were easy, Kostya knew the answers. In his mind he pictured Kirgizia and his mom’s treats he would taste very soon.  Though, they have a reason to mark the number thirteen out. It played its role that time as well. Kostya was on his way to Old Lena’s table, when the door opened and the department deputy head Glebov came in: “Well, what’s going on here? Group 41”. And he saw Kostya standing at the table. “Ah, comrade Komsomol group leader, let’s listen to you. Are you ready to answer? Please, sit down”. Kostya immediately did not like Glebov’s kindness, but there was nothing he could do. Glebov took Kostya’s examination paper and said that for those questions he scored one point even without answering them. “Let’s talk about the simplest thing, without which a soviet doctor cannot be considered a real doctor” – and he approached a wall where behind a curtain there was a stand with the CPSU Central Committee iconostasis.
Just imagine; all names and positions under the photos of the Central Committee members were hidden under glued slips of paper. Jesuits! Glebov opened the curtain: “Who is this?”, and poked his pointer into Eduard Amvrosievich Shevornadze. That was it, the effect of the examination paper number thirteen; in Kostya’s head there was again a stupid joke about a Chukchi and about “a chief, however…”; and being aware that he was saying something stupid, but against his will Kostya uttered: “A Chief…”. Glebov’s eyes from small ones grew big.

Glebov asked him to stand up and pointed at Kosygin’s photo: ”And who is this?”. That time Tolik fell into a stupor. All in all they had to be re-examined in three days. “By me personally”, Glebov added. Kostya could kiss Kirgizia goodbye, and Tolik his Krasnodar. On that day the guys drank “three seven” (brandy) and were sunbathing on the Tom’s bank for the two following days. On the night before the re-examination Kostya and Tolik took double dose of caffeine, obtained through Tolik’s sister, who worked at a drugstore, and crammed the Central Committee members in order and taken at random. They seemed to make no mistakes. Though Glebov, the parasite, started asking them about authority of each of them! And as a result there were three days more to prepare for another re-examination, and then in case “if”, to be re-examined in fall or even to be expelled. Sunbathing was forgotten. The situation was serious. Again through Tolik’s sister they got caffeine and Benzedrine, and in that trance condition were cramming and cursing and cramming again. They already hated all members of the Central Committee, and were ready to tear into pieces in a perverted way Glebov and Mirgazizov.

Yet in their heads instead of the members’ names there sounded: “caffeinum, caffeini is three methil xanthine, it improves CNS and increases diuresis”.

The students had a reason to call Shalneva Old Lena or Mom; when she saw that those two cool guys being subconscious  came to take an exam she started lamenting, literally “cackling” over them, she took their student record books and signed them with satisfactory grades. And those two sniffers even could not say thank you or express their happiness. They slept for two days in a row, even did not wake up to use a bathroom. Well many years passed. Kostya and Tolik tell me that they still remember the joke about a Chukchi, and have never learned names of the politburo members. Nevertheless they are good doctors. Mirgazizov was wrong.

The plot of the essay was kindly given by K.D.Romashov.

1 October, 2011.


Essay 68. The Devil of Adventurism

A student is so much eager to excel, to stand out, to demonstrate that he is not worse, but maybe in some aspect is better than other students. This is a normal feeling. If it was not for it, would anyone have red diplomas (diplomas with red covers are given to top students for excellent achievements)? It seems to me nobody would. Students of all higher educational institutions dared, dare and will dare. For instance, Tatiana Krylova was a calm, reserved and reasonable student. However she, perhaps, did not know herself, that there was the adventurism devil in her. So, once the devil manifested its nature. Generally speaking, the situation did not look menacing; and how could anything bad happen at a physiology class, and with such a wonderful assistant professor as Nina Alekseyevna Barbarash?

It did not matter that at that time Nina Alekseyevna was just an assistant professor, the students loved her. She was also loved by Tanya Krylova and her devil of adventurism. Or how else would one explain that when during a class with two groups # 5 and #6 Barbarash asked the students, who of them was afraid of electric shock, the devil gave Tatiana a push, and she against her will admitted that she was very much afraid. She was sent out of the classroom, for her not to know the main point of the experiment, and to the rest of the students Nina Alekseyevna explained, what they would do and what results they should expect.

Though they did not consider that it was not Tatiana, who had decided to participate in the experiment, but the devil, who instigated her to do that. So while they were discussing “what and how”, Tanya started shivering; what could she do – the devil had incited her to that and disappeared, and she was left alone with her fear. When she was invited back into the classroom, she was already crying, quietly, helplessly. Well, and when they started giving her electric shock, her crying grew louder. Tanya could not help it, her sobbing grew louder and louder. Nobody was giving her any electric rush anymore, but she was still wailing. Tears and sniffles were streaming down her face, as if she was a baby. The experiment was ignored; everyone rushed to calm Tatiana down. And she turned not to have even a proper handkerchief with her, so she was wiping herself with a piece of gauze, and because of that she felt even more hurt, and she was howling really loud. Tatiana was dismissed and sent home.

Those who remained in the class knew the conditions of the experiment and could not participate in it; so the class was practically ruined. That was what the students loved Nina Alekseyevna Barbarash for; she did not make the groups #5 and #6 work the class off. And Tatiana, when she came home, promised herself never again yield to any devils as well as stand out of a crowd.

The experiment turned to be good for her.

The plot for the essay was kindly provided by T.M.Nesterov.

1 October, 2011

Essay 69. Sketching Characters

I would like to share with you, my dear friends, my reminiscences about our professors. Of course, if one digs deep enough in memory reserves, many things can be remembered about those who were teaching us. However, I am doing this without any efforts, off the cuff, as they say.

The first character that crops up is, of course, Timofey Fadeyevitch Ryzhkov (Faradey). Faradey was an impressive personality. His perfect knowledge of his subject was striking. Though his students learned or became aware about that only later, and somebody remained ignorant of that.  Well, and I describe him in the following way: a big, strong man in an amazingly white and horribly long doctor's smock, as they said surgical coat with strings on its back, which also reflected the owners character and always stuck out in different directions; and as it seemed to me,

the surgical coat's strings were also ferocious, as well as its owner.

Now I understand that he was a great showman, I am sorry for the word; however how deeply he impressed the students during his first lectures, when he squeezed a backbone in his hand and it turned into sand. Or when he took a rib and knotted it! That astonished any imagination. The backbone and the rib were not anatomic preparations, they were bones of animals. The backbone was baked in a laboratory muffle furnace, and the rib was soaked in acid. And what he was saying about the anatomic preparations! I did not pay much attention to that then; only now I understand the real meaning of what he was saying: "The preparations we use are the remains of people who lived once, they continue serving people.

Do not abuse them!

Treat them with care and awe!" That was followed by "rykkkk" and continued: "You do not understand? Go to a circus, to play Hamlet!" If someone's doctor's smock was messy or too short or made of nylon, he roared: "to a beer stand, to sell pies…" Yeah, and remember his scary eyebrows, wisps of hair sticking out of his nose and his aquiline nose itself.

And if, God forbids, some of the students from the groups he supervised got into trouble, he would smash an offenders' head, but would help the offended.

Our first Chancellor, the namesake of my friend Zhenya Romashov; he most actively participated in enrolling Zhenya into the institute. Yevgeniy Dmitrievitch Logachev. He was always an elegantly dressed, impeccably polite and good-natured handsome man. The way he treated students could not be more democratic, but only a complete fool or a boor could step over the line.
And what praises he sang of a flesh fly!
"Flesh flies (Calliphoridae) are the dipterous insects family. Flesh flies as a rule have bright coloration or green or blue tones, which is shot with metallic. Monuments should be erected to this species of insects! At the time of the First World war an unexpected property of their maggots, which colonize in festering wounds, was discovered. It was found out that the maggots of green and blue flies feeding on decomposing tissues of wounds, not only remove that tissue together with small fractions of bones, but with their waste prevent reproduction of pathogenous bacteria. In addition to that they secrete the substance which stimulates healing of wounds. How many wounded they saved during the war! The war is the most vulgar prose: lacerated, infected wounds, crumbled bones, lack or outage of water, reusable bandages, pediculosis... And the fly is on purpose let close to festering wounds and does magic!

It performs semination in them, then worms appear, which especially in case of shortage or lack of hydrogen peroxide, without any antibiotics clean the wounds with great pleasure, with breathtaking appetite they are eating up decomposing tissues, which are purulent and disengaging, however ignoring alive, emerging tissue". After that for some reason he loudly blew his nose into a huge perfectly fresh and snow-white handkerchief. It looked as if he had dozens of them always at hand. When I was listening to all that at Y.D.Logachev's lectures and vividly pictured everything he was talking about, it sent shivers down my spine.

Faina Samsonovna Golubkova. She was teaching a course of roentgenology in our group in our fifth year. That was a two weeks course right before the holiday of the seventh of November. So I, after I had heard what a wonderful woman Faina Samsonovna was, dared to approach her at the Department before the beginning of the course and asked for her permission to skip seminars; I had a cheek to say that I was ready to answer any of her questions without attending the course. I had prepared for that, I had Zhora Chernobay's notes of her course. So I immediately demonstrated to her my knowledge and retold a quotation from the notes: "Roentgenologists are chroniclers. They are the readers of human shadows of Roentgen's X-rays. By what is imprinted in an X-ray photograph a good roentgenologist can determine a person's age and find pathology even of the endocrine system". It was later, when Zhora told me that he had written that from her words. Generally speaking, Golubkova hemmed after my citation and asked about a reason of the supposed missing of the classes. I honestly told her that I wanted to fly home to Frunze. And Faina Samsonovna allowed me to do that, though she warned me that she would sign my student records book only after my return to the institute. That was the way everything happened then.

Klavdia Tikhonovna Somova. She taught therapeutic dentistry. She did not work at our Therapeutic Department, so I am writing this from the words of the graduates of the Dentistry Department. For instance, Kostya Romashov, he more then simply did not like her, he hated her, even for her tricks of tossing up preparations of teeth. And Klavdia Tikhonovna also made a student close his eyes and put into his hand a preparation of a real tooth. She asked to tell her: what kind of tooth that was, from what jaw, whether it was the left or the right one. And she made students "study, study and study again". She did not allow come close to a patient those who did not without any thinking gave a tooth's first and last names. So now after the years and years of professional and life experience Konstantin Dmitrievitch sends his gratitude to Klavdia Tikhonovna Somova for teaching him a lesson.

Boris Fedorovitch Golubev. Well, how can I pass over this impressive and unique character? He was loved and given a nickname of "belch", because he used to complain of a belch during his lectures. And he was belching in front the audience. That was long before our graduation that they had started calling him by that name, and, it seemed that he knew about the nickname, however, it absolutely did not bother him. And the story with a carafe became a tradition and was repeated many times. Guys from the group #7 went even further.

Restless and always ready to play a joke Vitya Kubasov and Shura Popovitch were going to conduct a referendum, or at least a plebiscite with the only one question in the agenda: "Do you agree that after the example of the Departments of Anatomy and Pathological Anatomy and Physiology and Pathological Physiology rename the Philosophy Department into the Department of Pathological Philosophy, while Boris Fedorovitch Glebov works there?" And there were three variants of an answer: "Agree – Yes!", "Agree – No!" and "What if?!"

2 October, 2011

Essay 70. An Excursion

We were in our sixth year at the institute. All guys were already confident in their skills and that everything will be all right with them. Everyone knew exactly what he would specialize in. And many guys even knew where they would work after the graduation. So the last months of study every group spent up to its liking.

In our #14 group there was no problem of how to spend our free time at all.  On the contrary there was a permanent problem of the lack of time for various entertainments. And there was a reason for that, practically everybody worked part-time at places they managed to get a job at. For instance, Marik Golubkov worked at a regional oncological clinic. Marik lived at Dzerzhinskiy street, at "Shveyka", near a confectionary producing plant.

At that time the confectionary producing plant of Kemerovo was famous. Candies were the most delicious. They were "Mishka Na Severe" and "Ananasnye" with waffle filling. And how tasty the candies called "Ptichie Moloko" or "Mishka Kosolapyi" were! With our entire group we used to visit Marik quite often in order to arrange a stag party or because of some other important and urgent business. So once because of another important and urgent business we gathered at Marik's place practically with all our group; except girls there was Zhenya Romashov, Vagram Agadzhanyan, Sasha Salmayer, Yura Slogub, Arkadiy Blyakher, your most humble servant and of course, Marik Golubkov, as he was the owner of the apartment. We laid the table. Wine was typical for that time – port "777", but we had forgotten about snacks, so we sent Arkashka

Blyakher to a store at Shveyka. That was literally across the street in a slanting direction from Marik's place. In about ten minutes Arkashka came back and brought two loafs of bread, which were even hot, and perhaps a kilo of "Dun'ka's Joy". To those who do not know I will explain, they are bonbons without a wrapper, very cheep.

Well, what could be done with him? Should we kill him or what? We discussed different ways of reprisal against Arkashka. Zhenya's attitude was the most ferocious. He undisputedly demanded to beat Arkashka up and suggested to assign him, Zhenya, to be the executor of the sentence. Generally speaking, all of us reprimanded Arkashka, it was unheard of to drink the "777" wine with bread and bonbons "Dun'ka's Joy".  However, taking into considerations that he had bought hot bread with mouthwatering aroma and crunchy crust, we decided to feel sorry for him and not to give him to Zhenka for the execution. And there it occurred to us. Why did not we have an excursion around the confectionary producing plant? The idea was good. So in order not to waste the time, Arkasha and I headed to the confectionary plant to learn the details and make arrangements.

To our surprise, we were welcomed at the control post, when we said that we were doctors to be and loved Kemerovo candies, and that soon we were leaving for different cities, so we wanted to have an excursion at the confectionary plant to have something to remember. We were amazed, but after a telephone call of a front-door security, who repeated everything into the receiver, a director's secretary came down to pick us up and take us to the administration. The plant's director, the kindest woman ever, sincerely laughed at our story, but issued a  "permission", on condition that we bring from the institute a motion with a request to arrange the excursion and a list of last names of everyone, who was supposed to participate in it. Arkasha and I swore that we would bring the paper the next day, and a day after would come with the whole group.
We returned to Marik's place and appreciated heroism of those who stayed at the apartment; all wine was untouched. Arkashka's and my story was listened to enthusiastically. Without any preliminary agreement we were lying about how difficult it had been for us and how much efforts we put into talking the director into that. I was singing the praises of Arkashka's skillfulness in persuading everybody in our sincere curiosity. Generally speaking, Arkashka was forgiven by everybody and even by Yevgeniy. Sure enough, we drank to friendship. It was collectively decided to send Yevgeniy Romashov to the Dean's office to ask for the motion, because nobody else could charm those who worked in the office. I was sent to accompany Zhenya as his support and cover just in case. It turned out that that was a wise decision. We came to the Dean's office in the morning, instead of attending a lecture, and the first question asked to Zhenya was: "And why are you not at the lecture?". After yesterday's "The sevens" and such a barefaced question, Zhenya fell into a stupor, perhaps, because of indignation with idle curiosity of the office ladies. Without beating about the bush, I intervened, and bluntly announced that we had got a permission to leave from Mr.Krakovskiy, as we regularly assisted him during surgeries and were often on duty at the surgery department of a city hospital number three.  My energy satisfied those at the office, and they started asking questions about the excursion and why it was arranged, who had been the initiator, and whether we would fail the institute, as there had never been any excursions of the kind before; and we produced an impression of smart guys, so we could do something wrong. The very last argument brought Yevgeniy out of the stupor and he started explaining to what degree we were decent, and even if we steal a chocolate bar, we would bring it to the Dean's office then. The ladies liked the statement; one of them typed on a typing machine "Moscow", there used to be one at the Therapeutics Department's office, the motion and gave last names of all the members of our group. There was a signature and a stamp as it had to be. We came to our group like heroes. We not just returned, but brought the paper.

We were getting ready for the excursion. Maybe someone thinks that it is easy and simple to go on an excursion. So that person is wrong. We were going to the excursion as if it was a top security task. I will tell you how I got equipped, the rest of us were getting ready in the same way, well, maybe with minor deviations. So I put on a tight turtleneck and a well-worn shirt, which could be soiled without any regret. And I put on the shirt over the turtleneck in such a way that it was baggy around me. It was planned to put on a doctor's coat over all that. When making the arrangements at the confectionary plant we had said that we would come in our own white coats. So I chose the biggest coat. The next day after classes at the #3 city clinic, we came to the "shveyka" by tram. Vagram and I instigated the group to go by tram, as we had special IDs, which gave us a right to use electric public transportation in the city of Kemerovo for free.  Vagram and I had withheld those IDs after our discharge from the tram garage where we washed trolleybuses.
They were already waiting for at the plant. Arkashka had called from the hospital that the motion had been issued as it had been asked at the plant. In a separate room we changed into doctor's coats in a presence of a person charged to accompany us, under her stern look. It was impossible to look at our group without laughter. Olya Ptitsina was in an elegant white coat, and the male half of the group all like one were wearing coats, which were five or six sizes bigger. We were like clowns, but not medical institute students. The confectionary plant's employees had prepared for the excursion very well. The rout had been thought over in all details. We were allowed to eat as much as we could of the production, but were earnestly requested not to take anything out of the shops. Well, there was no question of that! The first shop we were brought into produced waffles.

That time, I remember, they were of lemon flavor.  So, how much do you think an average Soviet student could eat? Even if he was about to graduate? He could eat a lot and stuff even more in his bosom. That was why I, like other guys, had put on a baggy shirt. I do not remember how many packs of waffles I hid in my bosom, a lot is for sure. Then we came to another shop, and there custard cakes were moving along the production line there, but we had already been stuffed with waffles. Nobody had had lunch before the excursion. We did not make things hum and upheld the honor of our dear institute; I believe each of us swallowed about five cakes. Though, one could not put a custard cake in his bosom. In the next shop we were brought to they produced caramel and of the biggest variety of flavors ever! There were fruit drops, sugar candies and a great variety of some other there.
All together we took out the waffles, which we had too much and could not bare even to look at them. Then there were toffees "Zolotoy Kluchik", and after that chocolate candies wrapped separately and also packed in boxes. And at every producing line we took out what we had stuffed before and got loaded with new production. It seemed to us that we were doing everything without being noticed, but everything was clearly visible. And heaps of the production we kind of secretly took out from our bosoms were a silent reproach for our irrepressible desire to sneak something. The last but one was a store room with nuts and huge bars of unprocessed chocolate, a kilo each or even more. I admit I lifted one of those bars from the store room.

I looked around, and it seemed that nobody else took that chocolate, and the guys were getting loaded with peanuts, pistachios and hazelnuts. However later, when we came to Marik's place, it turned out that Arkashka and Zhenka sneaked a bar of that chocolate as well. And at the plant we finally came to a shop, where they produced chocolate bars and pressed chocolate medals. We took them as well. We not only could not eat, we hated candies; we felt sick because of them. However one detail was left. Yevgeniy and I had promised at the Dean's office to bring chocolate. So we addressed our accompanying person, and asked for her permission to take a chocolate bar for ladies at the Dean's office.

And the accompanying person herself offered us a huge box of assorted chocolates. We asked her to make a call to the control post and tell them to let us leave with the box of candies. The next day they were very happy at the Dean's office and thanked us for the very well organized excursion.
And after the excursion on the way to Marik's apartment we bought a battery of port "777" and were with excitement discussing results of the excursion. All together we decided to divide everything we had in our bosoms equally among all of us. Because, for instance, Olya Ptitsyna and Galya Vinnik were distracting the accompanying person with different questions and did not participate in the misappropriation of socialist property.
Instead of a conclusion I will say that after that excursion I could not eat candies for a long time.

10 October, 2011


Essay 71. Winter examinations

An unusual thing happened, and it was the Kemerovo State (there was no any other kind then) Medical Institute where it occurred. Well, such a thing had never happened at any other place, but it did happen in Kemerovo. There were two professors, whose last names were Golubev; nobody would ever notice that on the institute’s scale and would not pay any attention. Well, no big deal that there was Boris Feodorovitch Golubev at the Philosophy Department and Irog Viktorovitch Golubev at the Histology Department. However there was a peculiar detail, both Golubevs were elbow-benders.
Boris Feodorovitch has retired long time ago, but Igor Viktorovitch still works at the Histology Department. How the experience of Boris Feodorovitch of using a carafe filled with vodka at examinations was passed on to Igor Viktorovitch remained a secret. If the idea was thrown in to the senior Golubev, the philosopher, by us, the Therapeutic Department graduates of 1972, then Golubev-histologist took up the initiative from the weakened hands of the philosopher and carried it on and on. They say that he carried it adequately. And that is said by the graduates of different years and of different departments.
Wikipedia says that histology is a part of biology, which studies structure of tissues of living organisms. Usually this is achieved by dissecting tissues into thing layers and with the help of a microtome. Unlike anatomy, histology studies organism’s structure on a tissue level.
Lena Sokhareva studied at a Pediatric Department, and was already in her third year. So there came time of winter examinations, which consisted ridiculous as it was of only one exam. If one passed it then had no worries for two weeks of winter vacations. Lena studied not bad, to tell the truth, she studied well. She had great memory; all subjects came easily to her, without any hard work. Though those were theoretical subjects, and during the study of histology professors made students to draw sections of tissues of different human organs. Some people have aptitude for drawing and some don’t. So what does the second group have to do? Should they really quit their study at their favorite institute only because of that? And how can one throw into the scales aspiration for curing people and ability to draw? Though students are super inventive people; and the horrible questions of one’s inability to draw was solved in various ways, and it was solved. Some guys asked their friends to draw for them, others copied. Lena did not ask anyone, she drew herself as good as she could. And she could very poorly. One had to look through a microscope and then draw what he had seen. That was exactly what she absolutely could not do. Everything seemed to her to be violet in the microscope, and she could not tell a cell’s nucleus from protoplasm. What should she have done? Things happen. Maybe that was not worthy of so much worry, but an album with the drawings signed by a professor, who had taught a histology course, had to be submitted at the examination.
In Lena’s group histology was taught by a young if not to say very young assistant professor Tamara Grigorievna Pavlova. Generally speaking she was a not bad instructor, but for some reason she did not like Lena. She refused to sign Lena’s album no matter what. Lena guessed of most different reasons; and the one that Pavlova wanted to demonstrate what a good instructor she was at the department, and that the album was really bad and she absolutely honestly did not sign it.
Lena’s husband to be unambiguously said: “Look at yourself in a mirror and look at her! She simply envies you!”. It is quite possible that there was the homespun and also hempen truth in that! Either way, the exam was supposed to be the next day, and the album was not signed; so Lena made up her mind to undertake a desperate move. She did not completely understand the depth of an abyss she could easily fall into then. To her good luck it was her only act of that kind. She fabricated Tamara Grigorievna Pavlova’s signature in the album. It came out indistinguishable. So she went to take the histology exam with calm confidence.
Lena’s group was examined by the associate professor Igor Viktorovitch Golubev. Everything was as usual: the carafe was on the desk, and it was already started. So Golubev’s mood correspondingly was great. More to that, Elena got an easy examination paper; it is always so that when one knows the subject, an examination paper is easy, so this is a strange pattern to traverse. Lena was answering not just well, but beautifully. One could tell that by Golubev’s face expression, he was even smiling. Yeah, it’s a great thing when an examining professor has a carafe. Igor Viktorovitch did not interrupt Lena even once during her answerer; he thanked Lena and signed with “Excellent” her student’s record book. And then something suddenly struck him; he asked Lena to give him her album. Lena had never understood the expression: “His heart sank into his boots”, and there she experienced the state herself. There was some unpleasant weakness in all her body. With her shaking hands Lena gave the album to Golubev and intently stared at him. He opened the album smiling, obviously deep in his thought, and then Lena with horror noticed that Golubev started growing sober right in front of her eyes. Or maybe it just seemed to Lena because of fear. Looking attentively through her album Golubev announced: “I am taking your album from you. I do not understand how that could be signed. Well, I will have to teach young assistant professors some good sense”.  Her feet almost gave way under her, she left the examination room. The students surrounded her with the traditional: “What did you get?” Everybody was extremely surprised, when she replied that she got an excellent. She had such a look as if she was given not more than a bad with two minuses.
For all the students the vacations were fun, and Lena was trembling and waiting for two weeks, whether she would be called to the Dean’s office for the reprisal or not. Though, time went on. The vacations were over, and the spring semester started. Nobody called Lena anywhere, and her album was lost at the Histology Department. It is now, many years later, that it has occurred to her: “How stupid I was!”; and she herself cannot understand, why stupid: because she forged the signature, or because she was scared in vain.

The plot was kindly given by Elena Zhuk.
13 October, 2011.

Essay 71. Stierlitz* is no match for them.

*Max Otto von Stierlits - a character of a novel by a Soviet writer Yulian Semenov. Stierlitz was a Soviet secret agent; he served under disguise in the Nazi Army and spied in favor of the USSR. In 1966 the novel was filmed, and Stierlitz became very famous around the whole country.

After entering an institute a student faces an issue of where to live? Of course, in our case, that did not concern the students who were residents of Kemerovo. Indeed, let’s take Tatyana Yanchilina for instance. She lived in the center next to the final stop of a number 3 tram, which was going to Kirovskiy district. And she lived in a spacious stalinka apartment (an architectural style developed when Stalin was in power (1941 - 1953); in housing construction its main characteristic was high-ceilinged spacious apartments). Tanya had a wonderful family. Her parents understood us very well and quite often allowed the apartment for our group’s parties. Though, it was mentioned just by the way. Or for example, Valera Kaygorodov lived in a splendid also stalinka four room apartment in Kirovskiy district, in a building where there was a hairdresser’s, which was in 40 Let Oktyabrya street. I happened to be in the apartment only once; it was a dream! Valera was an outgoing guy, but his parents did not approve of parties and most importantly were against alcohol. Only once they invited us to have a tea party, but the invitation had no success in the group. So we turned down the invitation on a plausible pretext. As for me, I had a place to stay in a dorm, but preferred to rent apartments.  It should be mentioned that it was easy to receive a place in a dorm at that time, and practically all of those who wanted to live in a dorm, lived there. Well, about my good self, for some reason since my early years

I did not like to stay in one and the same apartment for a long time. Subconsciously I was afraid that too friendly relations with a landlord would make my life more complicated. So almost every year I moved to a new apartment.

Though, I was not always lucky to stay at the same apartment for a whole year. Here is a situation when for the first time, and it was also the last one, Vagram and I decided to rent an apartment together. We found a huge room of 30 square meters at Potemkina street, that was where the Russian baths were, next to the former main building of the institute.

We moved into the apartment at the beginning of October. We liked it a lot. And we lived there for less than a week. The landlord, who seemed to be a complaisant woman, had four sons-rascals. Each of them was similar to mamochka from Shkid Republic (a famous film made in 1966 about a F.M.Dostoyevskiy School-Commune for Problem Teenagers, which was founded in 1918 in St. Petersburg ). Sure enough, my parents when packing me off to go from Frunze to study, loaded me with fruit, Oriental sweets and smoked foods. Vagram brought white cheese and oceans of Caucasian delicatessen.

And there arrived Dimka Mkheidze. He did not have a place to stay, so we invited him to our place for the time before he would rent an apartment for himself. Of course, we had the landlord’s agreement.  There was a huge spare bad in our room after all. Dimka came also loaded with tasty things; he brought a wineskin of homemade wine as well.
Dimka was a generous soul, so he poured a three liter jar of wine, took Caucasian sweets and spices and brought all of that to the landlord as a gift. Vagram and I were thrifty guys; we did not treat the landlord to anything, so she did not know what we had. In the morning Dimka brought all the gifts to the landlord; we locked the room and went to the institute and to look for an apartment for Dimka. On that day we did not find an apartment, though had some ideas for the next day. In the evening we were wearily walking home, on the way we bought greens and bread at Rudnik open air market.
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We were looking forward to having a dinner with wine; Dimka had brought a one liter drinking horn, and white cheese with the greens, and Oriental sweets and apples of Alma-Atinskaya Grushovka breed, I had brought, for dessert. Though when we entered the apartment we were surprised right away that the little devils were not seen anywhere; and it was quiet in the apartment. And when we opened our room, we grew numb; all the boxes, where the food was, were in the middle of the room open and empty. The wineskin, which contained about fifteen liters of wine, was also on the floor its sides sank in. Dimka was a hot-tempered guy, he rushed to the landlord to talk, but the landlord locked herself in her room and did not answer our knocking on the door. We decided to spend the night in the room and leave the apartment in the morning for any place, even a dark corner. We checked our things, everything was in order. It was good that we had not paid for the apartment. In the morning all three of us left the apartment, the landlord again did not show up. In a week all of us rented different apartments.

Though, that what happened to us was just peanuts. Here is what Nadya Nagornova and Natasha Androkhanova had to go through right before winter examinations in their first year. It was before their very first examinations at the institute in general.

Nadya and Natasha both came from Prokopievsk to enter the institute; they entered the institute together, and together rented an apartment. They were good friends. Their apartment was a good one, and the rent was affordable, so they comfortably lived all their first semester there. However right before the New Year a horrible thing happened.

Their landlord turned to be a dipsomaniac with all the disgusting consequences; once he got drunk and started a wild drunken brawl at home. There was pogrom, obscenities and uncontrollability; for the girls who had grown up in decent families and were not used to that kind of prose of life, it became impossible to stay at the place any longer. However that was later, but at that moment the girls got dressed and demonstratively left the place late at night. They could not and did not want to stay there. Upset and depressed they went to

Raya Shabalina, who rented a room in an apartment in Kirovskit district. The girls in spite of their delicacy turned to be good fighters, I mean fighters with difficulties. Well, first of all they took their belongings from the apartment. The landlord was apologizing and asking them to stay, but they turned to have hearts of stone. Their vigorous activity aimed at looking for a new place to stay brought its fruit. You would never guess where they found shelter before the end of the examinations.  Yes, it is difficult to believe in such a thing, but it is a fact. A superintendent of the Morphology building offered them a refuge. She let them stay in her crib.

During a day the girls were sitting in a reading hall studying for the exams and in the evening they came into the crib. Winter was cold that year. The Morphology building practically was not heated. So the girls spent cold nights being aware that behind a wall, in containers, in formalin, very close to them there were…, yes, of course, those were specimen for training. However for the girls they were still corpses. It cannot be said that Nadya and Natasha were scared, but they were uncomfortable because of the neighborhood, and constant smell of formalin was haunting them.

Nevertheless most of all the girls were afraid not of the educational specimen (read corpses), but of rats.  It’s difficult to imagine, but at an institute’s building, where there was a Sanitary-Hygiene Department, rats were the masters of the situation at night. Those terrible creatures with ugly tails feared nothing and walked everywhere they wanted. Once one of them ran inside the girls’ crib and got into a wastepaper basket. It was not clear what it was doing there, but paper rustled horribly at night, and there were thin little screeching. Sure enough the girls woke up and started arguing who of them was braver. Long argument did not scare the rat at the wastepaper basket at all, it continued rustling with paper and screeching. During the wrangle between the girls, it became clear that Nadezhda was the bigger coward of them, though Natasha denied all reasonable arguments and insisted on the opposite. And there Nadya with a yell: You only die once quickly jumped out of bed, grabbed some superintendent’s rag, threw it over the basket and threw the basket out in the hall.
Nadya was exhausted when she returned, her legs did not bend and her heart was sinking.

Natasha greeted Nadya like a hero; she kissed her heartily, and then both of them burst into hysterical laughter. They were laughing excitedly for a long time. It’s true, when they say, that laughter relieves stress. Anyway both girls experienced that personally.

That first winter examinations were not long. There were only two examinations and a test in anatomy, which the girls passed easily. Nobody except their families knew that they lived in the institute’s building, though there was such secrecy, that Stierlitz was not match for them. After the examinations were excellently passed, the happy girls left for Prokopievsk, they went home to relax after the two weeks of horror.
 
The plot was kindly given by Nadezhda Sveshnikova.

15 October, 2011

*Max Otto von Stierlits – a character of a novel by a Soviet writer Yulian Semenov. Stierlitz was a Soviet secret agent; he served under disguise in the Nazi Army and spied in favor of the USSR. In 1966 the novel was filmed, and Stierlitz became very famous around the whole country.

Essay 73. Inhale through your mouth, please

For two years the students are trained before they meet patients. For two years they study different subjects. And there the third year comes. By that time all the students become owners of stethoscopes and tonometers. And when we were students there was a fashion to replace producer’s rubber pipes on stethoscopes by the pipes of a kidney machine or at least of a disposable dropper. At that time those were extremely hard to get things. Somehow it happened so that those pipes were found somewhere, and many of us had them. Anyway all the students of my group had them.

So to the subjects we studied there was added propaedeutics of internal diseases. Professors did their best to teach us palpation, percussion and auscultation to examine patients. Theory goes first. We were taking into our heads that (the following is according to Wikipedia) palpation (from Latin palpatio -stroking) is one of the main methods of clinical examination, based on sensing by an examiner of various textures of a patient’s tissue and organs when palpating them, and on assessing of the patient’s feelings during the examination. The method allows to determine location of some organs and pathological formations, to assess some physical parameters of the examined tissues and organs: firmness, elasticity, character of natural motion, temperature, as well as to determine painful areas, identify location and type of trauma.
Everyone was familiar with that method even before the study. When you strike against something, you involuntarily rub and feel the spot.

The next method (from Medical Encyclopedia) of percussion consists of tipping on some areas of a body and analyzing internal sounds, caused by this. By the type and characteristics of the sound a doctor determines topography of internal organs, their physical condition and to some extend their function. That method was more complicated. One had to know the technique of tapping of different organs and tones of tissues’ sounds and tones when percussion is performed, for instance, in case of pneumonia.

And the last one (from Wikipedia) is auscultation (from Latin auscultatio); this is a method of physical diagnostics in therapy, phthisiology, cardiology, obstetrics, pulmonology, and more seldom in surgery; it consists of  listening to the sounds, which are formed in man’s parenchymatous and hollow organs.  Auscultation can be direct – when an ear is pressed against the organ to be examined, and indirect – with the help of special devices (stethoscope, phonendoscope).
Like I have already said, every student had a stethoscope. When we had seminars or lectures, practically all of us had stethoscopes hanging on our necks. We were extremely proud of ourselves and considered ourselves to be real doctors. So at the very beginning of a fall semester, after another seminar, during which Lena Sokhareva’s group studied heart sounds and types of lung respiration, the students were finally trusted to supervise patients. The students were divided into groups of two and sent to the patients, but the medical reports were hidden in order not to let the students read them and copy everything from them.

Lena and her friend got a good patient. He was eagerly talking, describing his complaints and telling the anamnesis. Lena’s friend was leading the conversation, and Lena was diligently writing everything. They came to the point when the patient had to be examined. Lena’s friend in a bright white starched doctor’s smock, a stethoscope clipped on her neck according to the third year students’ fashion, approached the patient, took the stethoscope and pressed it to the patient’s chest and loudly and confidently started describing what she was hearing during the auscultation: Breath sounds are amphoric, and there is the second tone’s accent, and Lena, like in Shifrin’s sketch (Yefim Shifrin is a popular comic actor) was writing and writing.
And there the patient spoke to them looking down. He spoke somewhat quietly, but the whole group heard: Miss, when I had been examined before, those little things (he pointed at the stethoscope’s branches) had been put into ears.  The group was laughing till the end of the training playing up the situation in different ways. That was how the first supervision went in Lena Sokhareva’s group.  I will repeat myself, the first supervision.

And the trick my friend Zhenya Romashov played at a propaedeutics examination is also worthy of your attention. Poor associate professor Georgiy L’vovitch Khasis almost had a stroke, when Yevgeny explained to him that during percussion he put his finger on a patient’s chest not parallel to a rib into intercostal space, but perpendicular to the rib, because it was more convenient that way to perform the percussion of a patient.
And a bit later when performing auscultation of a patient he asked him politely: Inhale through your mouth, please. It is still a secret how Zhenya managed to extricate himself out of that situation and get a satisfactory.

The plot was kindly given by Elena Zhuk.

15 October, 2011


Essay 74. Hitler kaputt!

All girls are beautiful in their youth. Well, except for those who do not care the way they look like and ignore make up as it is. There are few of them, and why should we talk about them? Guys are different even in their youth. Some of them remain like kids for many years, others are mature men. One can see that they are young, but mature. They can be easily told from the first ones by their deeds, thoughts and opinions.
Different young men enter an institute; both the first, who are like kids, and the second, who are mature men. Yakov Kirsh, our native Russian German, a Siberian, grew up in a family of quite strict rules. He studied well at school. He was good practically at all subjects. And he was fluent in German. Genes are still horrible power. He purposefully came to the medical institute with a clear goal to help sick people. Generally speaking, Yakov had and now, twenty five years later, also has an intensified sense of social responsibility. Perhaps, that was also why he had become a wonderful doctor-psychiatrist. Even though he is a doctor now, but during his student years he studied with diligence to be envied. And he started to study diligently even in his very first year without dividing the subjects into useful and useless. There is no use to be insincere and conceal that many students right after their enrollment into the institute or maybe some time later, identify some subjects as necessary to them in their opinion and focus mostly on their study, not paying much attention at other subjects.
I will not discover America, if say that all subjects are interconnected in medicine. Well, how, for instance, one can know well physiology without knowing biology, or pathological physiology, without knowledge of normal physiology. And it goes without saying that there is connection between such subjects as anatomy, pathological anatomy, topographic anatomy and operative surgery. I even want to express a thought, which modern student will consider seditious: So maybe Yevgeniy Nikolayevitch Sherstennikov, or Sherst according to students’ terminology, was right, when he said that there should be only two grades to estimate knowledge in medicine Excellent and Bad.  However I will not express the thought, or I will be blamed as an instigator.  Well, enough about that. Especially if to consider a fact that it has nothing to do with Yakov Kirsh. You just ask his group mates, who wrote the best notes of the lectures among all the students? And any of them will tell you that that was Yakov. And he was regularly addressed with requests to give his notes to prepare for seminars, tests or examinations. Yasha was not a greedy guy. He always sympathized with those who were asking and gave his notes to them. It was a different thing that not anyone could use the notes, there was a bummer. 

When entering the institute, Yakov already knew the German language two or maybe three times better than for an excellent grade. And the proof to that was his systematic participation and winning in various foreign languages contests among universities of Kuzbass. Nobody knew about his future plans, and Yasha did not talk about them.  Some of the students panned to stay at a department and teach at the institute, some of them wanted to become surgeons, some made up their minds to get married successfully. And Yakov Kirsh planned to immigrate to Germany. And it was in his third year, when Yasha finally and determinedly made up his mind to do so. However Yakov realized that he would be able to settle comfortably in Germany only on the condition that he had brilliant knowledge of medicine and, of course, that his German should be impeccable.
So, cunning Yasha found a way to train his memory and his knowledge of German. He started making notes in German.

For instance, he was listening to a lecture of Aleksandr Yakovlevitch Yevtushenko on pathological physiology and was making notes in German. And now tell me, please, how could I use those notes written in the German language, if I know only two words in German: "Hitler kaputt!"? The answer is obvious: there was no way I could!!! Instead of a conclusion I will say that Yakov Kirsh was a good student, goal oriented, who knew how to achieve his goal. By the way, he is as before vigorous and confident in his skills doctor and a German citizen now.

Nevertheless… You have to agree with me, that all of you, who are reading this, also want to say: But, am I right? At that time Yasha absolutely did not care about the good of his neighbor, I mean, of the students, who wanted to use his notes, but could not. Even if they knew a bit more than I did in German, for example: "Verdammt Jacob", they had no chance to master A.Y. Yevtishnko’s lectures in German.

20 October, 2011.



Essay 75.  A second-year student

Students are filled to the brim with joy after they enter an institute. And they enter it themselves, without anyone patronizing them or paying bribes in cash. In that case the emotional state is different. In that case one feels satisfaction; and in the first case emotional palette is broader and richer. There is joy and pride and dreams... dreams...
Transformation of a former secondary school student into a real student is hard. And then the first (winter) examinations are over, and the second (spring) examinations are passed, and the students start immediately saying that they are second year students, sophomores. And why should one feel shy?  So we were not shy. I am talking about Vagram Agadzhanyan and me. A day before we passed the last exam of the spring examinations session. I, the second-year student, had my stuff packed to go home to Kedrovskiy opencast mine; and in a week my parents and I were supposed to fly to the capital of Kirgizia, Frunze, to see the places my parents had been offered to work and live at. And for sure, we wanted to see a three-room apartment in Frunze my parents had been proposed. Even though in Kedrovka my parents lived in a wonderful two-room stalinka apartment, (an architectural style developed when Stalin was in power (1941 – 1953); in housing construction its main characteristic was high-ceilinged spacious apartments), the perspective to move to a city in the South was very tempting. I did my best to stimulate my parents to moving. Though it looked like they themselves were for that then, but decided to go there first and see everything themselves. For me that was a wonderful perspective to spend my vacations in the South and stay for a week at the Issyk Kul lake. The inviting side had promised such a program. So, I do not remember what for, I, already the second-year student, went out of my place in Kirovskiy district. It seemed that I was hanging around Kirovskiy district without any particular goal and met also a second-year student and my group mate Vagram Agadzhanyan in Sevastopolskaya street. He shared an apartment with Tolik Lopatin in Sevastopolskaya st., right above a grocery. Vagram, like me, went out to loaf about the city because of idleness. He was sincerely happy to see me. Well, and it could not be any other way, when a second-year student met another one, and they had not seen each other since the previous night, when they were celebrating passing of the last examination and missed  each other a lot.

We gave each other a hug and a hearty kiss. I do not know myself how, but our legs brought us to a canteen called Lutch in Kosmonavta Leonova street, at its very beginning. The canteen was famous for its wonderful buffet and even a better choice of alcoholic drinks. After a brief argument about the amount, we agreed to be more modest in what we do than in what we want to do and chose from the variety White Rymnikskoye; we bought a bottle, which we immediately decided to taste. The Rymnikskoye was terrific.
The whine color harmonized with a sunny warm day, and the bouquet harmony was so impeccable that those two elements completely satisfied us and intensified our feelings so much, that we wondered what would happen, if from the broad choice of the buffet we would buy three bottles more. We knew that the second year students never hesitated, and if they made up their mind about something, they did that for sure. To be logical we also bought a Zolotoy Yakor chocolate bar and went to the bank of the river Tom’ in order to have a swim. At that time we did not think much about whether that was healthy or not and wore swimming trunks practically all the time. We had a nice chat. Vagram was convincing me that none of Issyk Kul could be compared to the lake Sevan, and I argued that that was all according. For instance, for me the lake Issyk Kul was much better, because I was going to see it and have my own opinion about it in a couple of weeks, and it was none so sure when I would come to the lake Sevan or if I would ever touch Sevan water at all. Vagram was angry and insisted that I was wrong, very much wrong. In order not to worsen the situation and reach a compromise we made a stop at one of benches in a
birch grove, along which we were walking to the Tom’, and we sat on it and finished another bottle of Rymnikskoye. And I was proposing toasts to Sevan, and Vagram – to Issyk Kul. With that we restored the second-year students’ friendliness to each other and resumed our trip to the riverside. By the water, somewhere not far from the Morphology building we met a group of girls and asked for their permission to join them in order to take sun and air bathes together with them. If we were not the second-year students, we could put it in a simpler way to sunbathe together, but as real sophomores we just could not say that. We were in high spirits, and we sincerely believed that Sevan and Issyk Kul were the best lakes in the world, and we offered to the girls to have a drink because of that.

The girls supported the idea, and four of us sip after sip accompanied by jokes and funny stories gradually, but persistently finished the other bottles of Rymnikskoye we had left, and a chocolate bar turned to be useful. From time to time we dipped into water and splashed by the bank. It is not clear why, but my attention was attracted to a river bus, which went along the Tom’, and at that moment it was still, as if tied up to one place. And there Rymnikskoye told me: And what if you dive from that river bus into the Tom’; can you do a thing like that?

And I decided that I can do a thing like that. The girls and Vagram were doing everything possible to reason me out of that idea, yet I swam. I do not remember now how, but I climbed on the river bus, waved to my fans and jumped from the rail into the water. The height was not big, about two meters to the water, but the depth was also somewhat about one meter. The river bus ran aground. I remember I managed to jerk my head backwards, and that was why I did not hit the bottom straight down, but tangentially.

When I stood up in the water I felt neither pain nor anything, something just was blocking my view. I washed that down with water thinking that that was sand from the bottom. I did not realize then, that that was blood. From the bank Vagram was half running, half-swimming towards me. I remember the rest of the events fragmentarily. I remember our new acquaintances were howling when looking at me. Vagram put two handkerchiefs on me, one on my head and another on my nose; then he collected our stuff and dragged me upward. Then I remember I was lying on a sofa in the Morphology building.  I was trying to get up, but was not allowed to stand up; then I remember Zhenka Romashov was X-raying me. Then I remember how I was put the stitches in at the surgery of the clinic #9 of Kirovskiy district, and how the surgeon was telling me that, if that was not for Rymnikskoje, I would have felt much worse. Then I was sleeping, but heard a whistle and woke up. I was already in a ward, and Vagram and Ilgam Gasanov were peeping into it and asking how I was. If to be honest, I felt weak and slightly nauseous, but as a second-year student I could not admit that to my friends; even more to that I suddenly remembered that I had to be at home, in Kedrovka, on that day, and if I did not come, my parents would be worried. I told the guys about all that and also that I did not want to stay at the clinic. And there my group mates told me that I had a big wound on my head, on the upper part of my forehead, there were seven stitches put in there, that my nose bones were broken and there was an avulsed wound on the bridge of my nose and there were stitches put in it as well and in addition to that I had brain concussion.

Nevertheless, I told the guys that, if they did not take me out of there, I would run away anyway. The guys left. The found Yevgeniy Romashov and told him everything; Zhenya was on duty that day at the X-ray lab of the #9 clinic; so he had everything settled with a doctor on duty, and even arranged that I was driven to my place. However the guys strongly objected that I was left at my place alone, so Vagram insisted that I was taken to his apartment; anyway Tolik Lopatin was away participating in some competitions. And Ilgam lived in that apartment too, he rented a four meters room (a storage room with a window turned into a room). So at that point the whole story could be finished, but one more event took place on that day. A bus to Kedrovskiy opencast mine was leaving from a market place in Rudnichniy district, and half-way to Kedrovka a highway was crossed by a railway bed. There was no bar there.

There were posts on both sides with signal light and retroreflectors crosswise. A train went along the railway once or twice a year, the branch was obviously abandoned. Though it happened so that on one of the last days of June, 1967, exactly on the day I had to arrive to Kedrovka and approximately at the same time a train ran into a bus, which ignored the blinking of the signal light. The accident was horrible; about twenty people died right at the accident scene, and about as many people were driven to hospitals.

At night everybody, including my parents, learned about the accident in Kedrovka. While my mother was dashing around the apartment, my batya (father) went to Kirovskiy district to look for me. It was not for nothing that my batya was a KGB officer in his early years. At about twelve o’clock he came to the apartment in Sevastopolskaya street. Vagram and Ilgam were tending me. They made chicken broth and were feeding me with it. I was already full, but because of their zeal, they made me drink one more cup. My batya saw his son in bandages and cheered up that Thanks God, he was alive. Vagram honestly told everything, though among the second-year students it was allowed to slightly deviate from truth, about what had happened to him. Surprisingly batya reacted to all that adequately. He asked Vagram and Ilgam to keep an eye on me and left, but promised to be back in half an hour. Yes, to his credit, in half and hour he came back with a bottle of cognac, and while he was away Zhenya Romashov came to check on me. Batya thanked the guys for helping me and said that during the war they had never abandoned their comrades. He opened the bottle and all of them drank cognac to my good health. I also was given about thirty grams of cognac to drink, because while batya was absent he took a taxi, went to the apartment I rented, paid the landlord and collected my stuff. And after that he came to Sevastopolskaya street to pick me up. After the cognac and batya’s praise the guys were ready to carry me to the taxi, but there I revolted, as the cognac had its effect on me as well, so I went downstairs and got into the taxi by myself. Then that was a car made Volga GAZ-21. That was how I finished my first year and became a full-fledged second-ear student. I went to Frunze already without bandages, but with plasters on my head and nose.

20 October, 2011

Essay 76. Mistakes should be paid for!

They say: The poor are keen inventors…. Though, I would confidently paraphrase the saying: Students are keen inventors. Especially when inventiveness concerns an opportunity to skip such subject as physical training (PT). In my previous essays I wrote how we had done that in our days. We got enrolled into various sports groups and that way received passed in PT.  But not to attend PT at all! That never occurred to us. I did sambo, took part in the Institute’s competitions and was proud of the fact that I was allowed not to attend PT. Tolik Lopatin went to different competitions among medical universities and won prizes there. Though the students, who studied much later after us were more advanced than us and managed to absolutely avoid the so much disliked by all of us physical training classes.

In the 1990’s Roman Zhuk studied at the Pediatric Department of Kemerovo Medical Institute, and lived in Kirovskiy district. Roman studied well. He was not a goldbricker and was practically always ready to answer during his classes. Of course, he gave enough of his time to other fields of student interests, but did his best that they would not interfere with his study, and he succeeded in that. And he had a good example to follow; his mother also had studied at that institute and told him a lot about its traditions and rules.

She told him about the professors and their personalities and peculiarities as well.  That helped Roman a great deal. He was doing fine, except for one thing, he grudged spending that much time on trips to physical training classes, full stop.  In those years the main institute’s building was already moved to Leninskiy district of Kemerovo, and to its part, which was the most remote from the city center. In order to get from Kirovskiy district to the main building, where the Physical Training Department was, and the classes were held, one had to spend not less than two hours. And that was the time spent on the trip one way, but one had to go back after the classes. Totally it took four-five hours. To go by bus was costly for a student’s budget. He was nothing if not able to count money and time, and he has always done that. He managed to persuade other guys that it would be cheaper for them to club together and buy a gift for the department at the end of the semester,

than to travel to PT classes several times a week. That was the financial benefit, and the advantage concerning time was of such kind, that his friends agreed with Roma without any hesitations. That was one more of special characteristics of the student Roman Zhuk - to talked persuasively, with confidence and elements of rational psychotherapy in his voice and wording, so his interlocutors practically always accepted his proposals. Well, if sometimes they did not accept them completely, then as the basis for sure.

All the company of absentees happily welcomed the idea of buying gifts and goofed the PT classes off, they even boasted about that to their peers, though as the time of tests came closer, they started having insidious thoughts: What if?.. They approached Roma with their hesitations, but Roma stood firm and did not give a chance to those who had doubts to let them grow. However if to be completely honest, Roman, too, from time to time had similar mean little thoughts: What if?.. So there came the time of tests, and everything went smoothly. The guys bought paint for some brief repair work and flowerpots, and the whole company had their student’s record books signed with passed for the PT course.

So that lasted for three semesters. The guys were happy, they did not attend PT classes, and that was why they did not know the department’s news. A mother of one of them called them loafers. The department’s news had to do with them directly. A new instructor came to the department, and he turned to be a man of principle. So when the loafers, mentioned above, came to get another test, unpleasant news was waiting for them:
the skipped classes had to be worked off, every hour of them, either way they had to participate in a skiing competition.

That was a fall semester. Yeah, that was some problem! Roma became depressed a bit. I have always said that student parties, if you are invited, should not be missed. Roman also was hesitant not for a long time, when he was invited.  So at one of the parties he met a guy form a polytechnic institute, supposedly.

The guy kind of did not stand out among the other guys, but he turned to have significant achievements in skiing. Roma told him about the new PT scum-instructor, who had such a sadistic way with the students-absentees.

The party was in a full swing, everybody was in high spirits; so Semen, that was the name of the skier-guy offered Roman that he would participate in the ski competition instead of him for a bottle of brandy. Sure enough, Roma agreed. It was done as it was said. In the morning Roman brought his record book to Semen and in the evening received it back signed, and presented the bottle of brandy, like it had been agreed.

Roman was very glad, but again he made a mistake and did not ask Semen about how the competition had gone. And he should have done that for sure. That was a mistake, but as it is known, mistakes should be paid for! Several days passed, and Roman was called to the Dean’s office and he was heartily greeted with a record of the institute he set during that ski competition! Well, of course, it was announced, that he would participate in a competition between all universities to uphold the honor of the medical institute. Poor Roma, he, the champion, was a sorry sight. He did not know where to look for Semen, and how to look for him. There were no cellular phones then yet. All in all, Roman had to uphold the honor of the Kemerovo State Medical Academy at the all universities ski racing competition, no matter he liked that or not. And Roma ran, and did that with all his strength, but that was what he did not have much, the strength. Roman ran the race and won the honored seventeen’s place out of thirty, at least it was not the thirtieth. The bad thing was that at his won university his optimism was not shared. What was more his scheme with Semen was discovered. Roman still cannot understand how he managed to get out of the scrape without any damages. But, he together with his friends-loafers had to regularly attend physical training classes after that.

The plot was given by Elena Zhuk.

23 October, 2011.


Essay 77. Four letters

All, practically all former students describe their student years as the best time of their lives. You bet! Former secondary school students tore away from their parents’ control and became their own masters! And it is well known that 80 per cent, if not more,  of students are former secondary school students. And even most notorious school hooligans are not capable of the tricks, gibing and stunts students do. And they are doing… Though, all their tricks result not from their meanness or filth, however they are quite often exactly that way, but from the fact that they are overcome with emotions and bubbling energy. A troublemaker and everybody around are having a good laugh at the numbers he does, well, and the one, who happened to be the troublemaker’s target does not feel like laughing at all. So quite often a lot of problems have to be resolved in order to mitigate an innocent trick and minimize its consequences. It is a very big problem, if a student becomes an object of practical jokes.

Vasiliy (he asked me not to mention his last name) was not among those who were constantly made fun of or played tricks on, or made a fool of. He was a serious guy. He came into medicine because he had a calling. In his first year he already worked part-time as an orderly at an emergency room.

When he had a spare moment, when there were no calls and nurses were resting, Vasiliy did not waste his time and was studying for his classes at the institute.  He liked to repeat that even if he learned a page, he would know it. To cut it short, they liked Vasiliy at the ER, and treated him to cutlets or Doctor sausage. That was at the ER, where he was loved. However at his group he also stood out. Vasya was not exactly a top student, but he studied diligently and well. It happened so that a talent for drawing was discovered in him.

As it is known, students study biology in their first year. I failed to understand, during my study, what for during a biology course we were made, it is even better to say obliged, to draw roaches, bugs and mites in albums, as well as various cells with a nucleus and protoplasm. Well, why I should tell you about that, you yourself remember. I will say honestly that I did not have any problems with that. I could draw and professors praised me. Even more, in the first year I shared an apartment with Ilgam Gasanov in Kirosvkiy district near a police station. We were lucky; two of us rented a one-room apartment. So Ilgam and I had our chores divided. Ilgam studied at the Sanitary and Hygiene Department. And I was drawing roaches and bugs for myself and Ilgam, and he to return the favor was frying potatoes or cleaning the apartment instead of me, when there was my turn. So Vasilyok also did not have any problem with drawing. Cells were just perfect, of course, that was not The Highest Wave by Ayvazovskiy, yet it was drawn nicely. And what was the most important – whole-heartedly.  So Vasiliy got himself into a trouble.  He shared an apartment with Mikhail, a nice guy, but an incredible troublemaker.

At the institute he was on a regular basis playing tricks on someone, or was hiding from someone after his another stunt, but did not quit his activity. He always told Vasiliy about how and who he made a fool of. He laughed heartily even when he was telling like he had been beaten up for a trick, which had not been appreciated. Mikhail never touched Vasiliy. And so that happened. Vasiliy was about to finish putting his album in order before the next day test, but when he stepped out of a room to use a bathroom, Mikhail could not resist the temptation; they are right, when they say: Can the leopard change his spots?.

So the very moment Vasiliy left the room, Mishka grabbed a notebook, tore a page out of it and in big letters wrote a short four letters obscene word of the page size, and quickly put it inside Vasiliy’s album. In the morning Vasya calmly got ready, though he almost left the ill-fated album in the room, and headed to the institute to Tatiana Kuzminichna Solovieva.
Everything was perfectly fine before Solovieva started turning over the album’s pages. This is how it usually happens, right before Vasiliy his group mate was taking the test, so Tatiana Kuzminichna looked through three or four pages of his album and signed his student’s record book. In Vasiliy’s case she was steadily turning page after page, as if she was looking for something. And it is well known: the one, who is looking for something, will always find it.

So somewhere in the middle of the album Solovieva suddenly blushed, her cheeks turned flush red. Vasya even thought that with blush Tatiana Kuzminichna was even more beautiful. However Solovieva did not read Vaska’s thoughts, she abruptly closed the album, offered it to Vasiliy and cut short: Re-draw everything and tomorrow morning bring it to me. She did not react to Vaska’s what, how and why? If Vasiliy was walking enthusiastically to take the test in the morning, then he was barely moving his feet on his way back. He just could not understand, what had happened to Solovieva? She had always been favorable disposed to him; at least it had seemed to him that way. At home Vasiliy looked through his album again and found the page with those four letters. This is son of a bitch Mishka – Vasiliy thought and decided to whack him in the face, but there was a disappointment awaiting for him. Mishka had left to his night duty much earlier than he had to, as he supposed that Vasiliy would have a desire to grab hold of his shirt front.

Vasiliy was re-drawing the album all night long and in the morning he came to T.K. Solovieva. He found her at the office and gave her the album. When he just entered, he noticed that all instructors were intently looking at him. Tatiana Kuzminichna looked through the whole album and then innocently asked: Vasya, and where is the loose leaf? Have you lost it? That time Vasiliy turned red as a lobster, and everybody who was in the office were loudly laughing. Vasiliy came to his senses only when Tatiana Kuzminichna asked for his record book to sign it.

The plot of the story was kindly given by Natalia Biserova.
26 October, 2011.

Essay 78. Prince of Imereti

They say to know somebody really well one should eat a pood of salt with the person; this is full-weight sixteen kilograms. By that time I already knew that man in regular circumstances and, if he is himself an average one, consumes about five kilos of salt. Nevertheless there are some unique examples. For instance, let’s take Mikhail Mikhailovitch, my aunt’s husband; he alone ate perhaps the very pood during a year. He came home for lunch; a plate with the first course was placed in front of him, and he even without tasting the dish, took a salt shaker and zealously shook it over his soup. Then he took a pepper shaker and also was shaking it till the food color turned black and then enjoyed the meal. It should be pointed out that he did all of that without looking, because he was reading a newspaper at the very same time.

He did the same with the second course. And if asked later: "How was your lunch?", he would say: "Delicious". And there is another category of people, who consume regular amount of salt, but their understanding of friendship will never allow them to say that a dish is put too much salt in, if everybody around praises the very same salted dish. This is exactly the way Dima Mkheidze was like in his youth. Now I want to repent, though we should have repented together

with Ilgam Gasanov. The matter is that sometimes we played mean tricks and organized mischief; I cannot put it any other way. Having known this peculiarity, or to put it right, a streak of Dimka’s character, we sometimes put spoonfuls of salt into Dimka’s soup or his second course, when three of us had lunch at some canteen or even at a restaurant, sure enough we did that so that he did not see, and started eating. We were eating and praising the food, eating and praising. So Ditto was assenting to what we were saying. Of course, we played those mean tricks not all the time, well, maybe once a week, for sure. Ilgam and I had a tradition; once a month, on the day we received our stipend we went for lunch to the "Siberia" restaurant, and we went their by taxi, both ways. That cost one ruble to go one way from the Kirovskiy district entertainment center to the drama theatre. So, once Dimitriy joined us. Ilgam and I objected, as our tradition, in which everything was determined once and forever, was broken. Once a month two of us and the order was every time the same as well: beetroot salad with herring, mixed meat solyanka (a spicy soup of vegetables and meat or fish) and Siberian specialty with mashed potatoes, a misted over bottle of "Stolitchnaya" vodka and a bottle of  mineral water "Borzhomi".  Even though Dimka was our friend, but the tradition was broken. Dimka insisted, so Ilgam and I consented, but between two of us decided, that we would come as usual the next day. Well, we decided not to change the tradition, at least its part that concerned the menu, as solyanka was really delicious only in "Siberia", and Siberian specialty was terrific. We loved the restaurant with its plush curtains with tassels, cabins and atmosphere of old times.

Just imagine, there was a palm tree and a rubber plant there. Well, we arrived to the restaurant excited by the meal we were going to have. When appetizers were served, beetroot salad with Picton herring, we did not become alerted when Ditto suddenly started suggesting us going to a bathroom to have our hands washed, even though vodka was already poured into jiggers.  So we went to wash our hands, and it happened so, we just could not understand how, that we returned later than Dimka, and Dimka was even reproaching us, saying why it took us that long. The plates with solyanka were already on the table. We agreed to start, like professor Preobrazhenskiy advised, with solyanka. After "Stolichnaya" we did not taste right away that solyanka was pure salt. We put our spoons down, and Ilgam said: "We were right that we refused to break our tradition", and asked me, if that would be better to beat him right away or after the meal, though who could eat that! And Ditto was laughing loudly; there were even tears in his eyes. He was laughing and was not at all afraid of us. He only asked us to remember that he had never showed to us that there had been too much salt in his food, so he on purpose arranged the revenge on the day, which was important to us. I have always said that Dimka was a true prince. It turned out that he had had an agreement with a waiter beforehand, and when he completely enjoyed his revenge, he called the waiter and asked him to bring different solyanka for us to

enjoy the meal and the lunch. We drank to friendship and swore to help each other and be together on good and bad days. That time the tradition was broken. Usually we came to the restaurant at two o’clock

and left it at four after having a good meal; on that day we left when it was closing. Ilgam and I were not discussing our plans of beating, and were repenting and confessing to Dimka that we had been such scums.

Dimka was satisfied. He even paid the bill for the whole evening at the restaurant. In a word, he was a prince of Imereti.


20 October, 2011.


Essay 79. There are too few workers and too many idlers

It is amazing how many things depend on who one shares a room in a dorm with! I have said more than once already, that first year students experience stress with two poles: positive – joy, as they got rid of their parents’ control and decide by themselves what, where, how and many other ones; and a negative pole – they got into absolutely different surrounding, which is rather often aggressive. Living in a dorm is a very aggressive surrounding. Someone feels, like fish in water; and for someone that just does not do. For instance, I, your most humble servant, after my first experience of life in a dorm, about which I wrote in the essay “A mini-dorm”, could not live there anymore and was renting apartments during the years of my study, more often alone, rather seldom I shared it with someone.

Generally speaking, there were not many cases, when I shared an apartment with someone: with Ilgam Gasanov in my first year, with Dimka Mkheidze – in my second year, and with Petka Kozlov we stayed for about three month in a building, where there was a canteen in Vesennyaya street. We liked it there, but Zhenka Romashov played a mean trick on Peter and me. He used to visit us quite

often and agreed with the landlord about an exchange of that wonderful “stalinka” apartment to his wife’s apartment in Prokopievsk. Petka and I almost killed him for that, as we had to leave the place. When I shared an apartment with Peter, he practically never ate at home. We lived in the center of the city, there were lots of places to eat at around, and most importantly, in our building there was a so much loved by students canteen, about which I had already written in the essay “Murder will out”. And I loved to fry potatoes on lard and with crumb ham, brisket, bacon or any other smoked food added to the potatoes; at worst sausages would do, if chopped into small wheels. It came out wonderfully delicious, especially if to have on the top of all that sweet tea with lemon. Yes, I almost forgot, as a side dish to potatoes Bulgarian canned bell pepper was good; and it had to be Bulgarian and not Hungarian. At that time both kinds were available, but Bulgarian bell peppers were big and pulpy, cut lengthwise and covered with rich tomato sauce.

Bulgarian canned bell pepper was sold in metal cans, and the Hungarian ones in seven hundred grams glass jars. So, Peter went to the canteen downstairs for dinner and usually brought a couple of meat pies when coming back, as they were wonderful there. However, as soon as I started frying potatoes with grilled meat according to my favorite recipe, Petka, even though he was full, started wheedling me, he offered me various things in exchange of an opportunity to join the dinner, for instance, the very meat pies, or he would bring a bottle of wine he was keeping in a safe place. Of course, I gave my agreement, but not right away. I lingered for appearance’s sake and in order to boost my ego in my own eyes, because it was a useless thing to demonstrate my ego in front of Petka, as he had known me inside out. To cut it short, we strictly observed the ritual: he was praising me and my culinary talents; he was saying that I could mix ingredients in such a special way, that when they were cooked one’s head was spinning. Deep in my mind I was delighted, but did not show that and was saying that he was such a loafer, and pointed out his wastefulness. I gave him mathematical computations of the calculation of the cost of the meals I made and the cost of Petka’s lunches and dinners at the canteen. All in all that was the same song with a refrain, and it was repeated every time.

Soon all conventions were observed, the fried potatoes was ready, and we laid the table in our room, though the landlord allowed us to use the kitchen and the dishes. So Peter arranged the plates and demonstratively wiped the goblets and forks. We had a swell dinner, even though without fruit.

We were sipping the wine, prolonging the pleasure. We were saying mellifluous toasts, in which we were praising one another, and that was also a part of the very song with the refrain. After dinner Petka took the dishes to the kitchen and started whining that I was a lazybones and that I was shirking the work of washing the dishes, and I was talking back.  Everything was fine and always the same, nevertheless it was rich with emotions and different phrases, which were in unprintable language and very sophisticated. Those evenings were rare, but both of us enjoyed them. However Petka did not react on my saury fish soups. I still cannot get it why. Generally speaking in our case the saying: “There are too few workers and too many idlers” is not appropriate, unlike the case of Sergey Zakharov.

Right after entering the institute Sergey received a bed in a dorm and was very happy about that. Sergey’s room mates turned to be nice guys. They were sociable, and comfortable to share a room with, which is really very important. They lived comfortably till December. Parties, preparations to classes, everything was done together and in mutual agreement. Though, Sergey remembered one December night. Frankly speaking there were also other nights in November and October; he noticed that his room mates were not eager to cook in the room.  That time he was short on cash and decided to cut down expenses and to eat at home for a couple of days before his stipend. And heavy frost outdoors did not inspire to go to a canteen. All the guys were in the room, and Sergey started asking each of them individually. And he explained why he was conducting the plebiscite. The first happened to be Igor Shipilov to be asked: “Igor, are you going to eat?” – “No, I will go to the ulcer”. Ulcer was the students’ name for a canteen. Then Sergey addressed Misha Kalinin with the same direct question, which was put point-blank: “Misha, and you, are you going to eat?”. Mishka’s sister studied in her forth year at the Therapy Department, and she fed up her brother and looked after him in general, so Misha also said: “No, I will go to my sister and eat there”. Only Aleksandr Mishenko was left unasked. Sergey knew already the answer Sergey would give, but that was the character Sergey had, he just could not finish the plebiscite without asking even the last one person; and what if he wanted to eat in the room and would help Sergey a little bit with making dinner.

However Sergey’s hopes were not justified and his most unwelcome premonitions came true, to Sergey’s question: “Sasha, and would you like to eat?”, Sasha also said: “No, I will go to my brother”. Everybody knew Sasha’s brother, who had only hungry and angry roaches in his base unit at another dorm. There was even a joke that he on purpose multiplied them. So everybody burst into laughter when heard Sasha’s answer. Well, there was nothing else to be done.

After having a good laugh Sergey started peeling potatoes. He was peeling very carefully. Potato peels were coming off in fine serpentine, Sergey was economical. Sergey, like me, loved saury fish soup. He put the potatoes to boil on a stove, and when the water boiled he put bay leaves into the saucepan. He knew that a sauri fish soup without bay leaves was like a wedding without music. Black pepper was a must. Then there was salt and a can of saury fish. Sergey poured some water from the saucepan into the empty can, washed it from inside, and poured the water back into the saucepan in order that even a tiny gram of the can would not be wasted. And unthinkable fragrance was filling the room in. Sergey’s mouth was watering, that much hungry he was. And suddenly all the participants of the plebiscite all together announced that they were not leaving and were demanding more than a poor man in Khodzha Nasreddin’s parable, who was smelling a shish kebab’s smell.

Igor, Sasha and Misha were demanding in addition to the wonderful saury fish soup smell the soup itself. In half and hour the saucepan was empty, and a loaf of bread was eaten.

And Sergey’s wallet was virtually also empty. There were so many situations like that for the six years of study! There were more of them than you could count...

The plot of the story was given by Sergey Zakharkov.
2 November, 2011.


Essay 80. A pood* of salt

*pood – a unit of weight used in Russia, equal to 36.1 ponds or 16.39 kilograms (Collins).
When one says good bye to a good friend, it is quite natural to miss him. When after finishing his forth year Peter Kozlov together with some other students left to continue his study at Tomsk Medical Institute at the Military Medicine Department, I as if lost a part of my soul. It looked like Peter also missed Kemerovo, our group and me. Letters from him came regularly, even more often than regularly, and sure enough I answered him. I will tell you honestly, we were writing each other all kinds of nonsense. For us it was important to know that the subscriber was alive and kicking, and in high spirits. I have already written that I used to buy special postal sets with nice colorful paper and envelopes of different shape. They were laughing at me then, saying the envelopes were girlish, but I liked them, and I ignored the jokes. Peter and I not only wrote to each other, we sent each other telegrams. I am still amazed how KGB did not let us have it. We were wiring pure nonsense, which could be easily taken for some kind of code or cipher.

For instance, I was wiring to Petka: "The number of amour-piercing shells, allowed to be stored at the headquarters has  been changed. Now one can keep three shells. They are still must not be used". On the very same day Petka answered: "The shells were counted, we did not use them; just threw away spare ones". Now I realize that God did His best to protect the two chumps. Well and how could we not use a prompt from "The Little Golden Calf". Sure enough, we used it, and there also were the cables such as: "Load oranges in barrels" and "The one who will command the parade is me".  To put it short, we had as much fun as we could. In spring, in our fifth year, Peter invited me to Tomsk. He did not let me stay in a hotel and from the train station took me directly to a "secret address". Peter, Valera Kaygorodov and a guy from Novosibirsk rented an apartment sharing the rent. They had their places to stay at quarters on the territory of the Military Department. But there was a control post, a check point and all other things characteristic to a military unit; so it was practically impossible to invite a girl for a cup of tea. The "secret address" was necessary for that very purpose; and I was settled there for two nights. Luckily there was a bed there, and bed linen was starched. Because of that Peter and Valera had ongoing argument, as Valera did not like starched sheets, and Peter just loved the linen to crackle because of starch. My visit’s program had been thought over in all details. On Friday night there was a party at a "Cedar" restaurant in the downtown of Tomsk.  In those old years, and that was in 1971, the restaurant was famous for serving game meals. So, Petka remembered how I had treated him to fried potatoes and smoked meat, and canned Bulgarian bell pepper, and from the menu ordered bear meat cooked according to a special recipe.

First they soak the bear meat in vinegar marinade with various spices, onions and black pepper for four days. Broth is made from bones. Carrots, parsley, celery and an onion are browned. After that bear tenderloin and browned vegetables are added into the broth and marinade, in which the meat was kept, and stewed for five-six hours. Then everything is cooled off, and before serving the meat is cut into one centimeter and a half thick pieces, rolled as usual into flour, eggs and dried breadcrumbs, and fried from both sides in a frying pan in sizzling fat. It comes out incredibly delicious. Even now, so many years after that, I still remember the specific taste of the meat. However that was not all of it. Peter and Valera decided to surprise me completely, and they themselves were quite willing to regale themselves on Siberian white salmon.

This is the most delicious fish ever. For the first time I tried it in the "Cedar" restaurant, and then when I lived in Novosibirsk and was in a position to have it, it was brought for me from the Lower Ob’. So at the party the Siberian white salmon was served baked in sour cream with white mushrooms. This is the kind of dish about which one can say that it melts in one’s mouth. To cut it short, the party was a success.
---
We stayed at the restaurant till its closing hour. After that the guys decided to see me off to the apartment, and then they had to get to the barracks and settle the issue of their so long delay. And it happened so that right one hundred meters away from the apartment we stumbled on a patrol. Petka and Valerka were wearing their uniform, they were in their greatcoats. Nevertheless we were running much faster that the patrol after us. In a block we turned round the corner and came into a yard. That was a yard with a through passage, and the guys who were already experienced, knew all the yards with through passages in the area and used them in similar situations. Generally speaking, even if there was any alcohol in our heads, after running across the yards it was blown away, though it had played its part; we desperately did not want to give up and we did ran away. In five minutes we were at the "secret address", and the guys immediately started to the barracks, and they did that on time.

The patrol chief noticed that Petka and Valera were cadets and they had medical service badges; so he called the Medical Department officer on duty. Luckily there were no mobile phones at that time, and he could make a telephone call only when he reached a pay phone booth. What a scum, he even did not spare two kopeks to report good people. Alas, he was late; Petka and Valera were already at the barracks. Here is the reverse side of military service. I learned about all of that on the next day, when the guys came to pick me up to go to a ball dance contest. I will tell you honestly, not the contest itself was our goal, but a party with some of its girls-participants after it.  On that day we did without a restaurant and had the planned party at the "secret address", as the guys called the apartment.  The party was a swell. Though, Valerka had to run to the barracks at night, and Petya had his leave pass till lunch time on Sunday, exactly the time when my train was leaving for Kemerovo. Long partings mean a lot of tears. We knew that friendship was not a pitiful little flame to die out during our life apart, as Schiller had said. Of course, Peter and I were a bit sad, but a bottle of wine we had to our parting at a bar smoothed over our sadness. And the main thing was that we knew that the parting would not be a long one. We agreed that Peter would apply for his internship at a tank unit at Otbashakh, which was near Frunze, and in summer two of us would go to the Issyk Kul lake, and then I would be the receiving party. I had described that episode in the essay "Pilau at the Issyk Kul Lake".

In fall of 1971 I received an invitation from Peter to his wedding. The wedding was to be held in Belovo, where Peter and his fianc;e, a daughter of a zinc factory director in Belovo, had come from. I did not give it a long thought about what to give as Peter’s wedding present. The more so because I could not do better than his father-in-law; as his father-in-law presented keys of a Volga Gaz-21 car at the wedding. That was why I took from my grandmother Praskoviya Mikhailovna a potatoes sack, washed it, of course, and sewed on flaps, like patches, and on a white patch I wrote "16 kg – a pood of salt". I bought 16 kilograms of grained salt in a store.

And I carried the present. When I was on a bus I kept thinking: "Why am I so stupid?" I could have bought salt in Belovo and not carry it from Kemerovo". About all of that I said at the wedding as my toast when presenting the gift. I said about the father-in-law’s gift, which could not be surpassed, and about what a blockhead I was, that I had carried the salt from Kemerovo, and that I wished to the newlyweds to eat the pood of salt together. Interesting enough, Peter’s father-in-law, a big shot, stood up, gave me a hug and thanked for the special gift. And he sent me back to Kemerovo in his company car, the Volga one. And during the wedding I enjoyed special attention, so that Valera Kaygorodov, who also was at the wedding, became jealous. However Valera and I were shouting: "Now a kiss!"  together and louder than anyone else.

*pood – a unit of weight used in Russia, equal to 36.1 ponds or 16.39 kilograms (Collins).

4 November, 2011.

Essay 81. A Prankster

"And years, like birds, are flying away,
But we are too busy to look back at the bygone day…",
- a song sings.

It's a good song, a sincere one! I liked most of all when it was sung by Mark Bernes (1911-1969, a Soviet actor and singer, who performed some of the most touching songs about the World war II). Of course, it is great that life does not give us a chance to return into the past, or some of us would move in a circle for ever. However just to look back … It is necessary to look back; we should look back by all means. At least in order to see what you did for the bygone years, to asses and make an attempt to avoid something in the future. For instance, just tell me, how I, a seventeen-year-old loafer then, could guess, that a young assistant instructor of the General Anatomy Department would become a mature head of the very Department. I did not think about that at all then. Yes, everything described in the essay "Anatomy" really happened, however how I could look into the future and see in that skinny, even a bit adynamic young assistant instructor an anatomy expert Mikhail Ivanovitch turned into. I am not the Messing (Wolf Messing, 1899-1974, was an alleged psychic and telepathist whose predictions were taken seriously by both Hitler and Stalin during the World war II). And he really became a pro. He deserves praise and respect for that! These days, as well as in all times, students love their professors, when an exam is passed and a grade is given. Well, but before that… Mikhail Ivanovitch Zolotukhin graduated from a Dentistry Department of the medical institute.

Sure enough, he was aware of the importance of knowledge of teeth anatomy for a dentist. Students of the Dentistry Department, though felt offended by him, when he was hard on them with teeth modelling in their first year, forgave him anyway. And they had a good reason to take offence. A teeth modelling test meant the following: one modelled, submitted and forgot about that, but Mikhail Ivanovitch used to find not one or five, but fifty mistakes, and as a result one had to do modelling again. Students modelled, submitted, well, what else he needed? They were really trying hard, as much as they could, but that parasite, and that was the name he was called in that situation, again found not one or six, but forty eight mistakes! How could the students like that! Well, he was just mocking at people! And the same routine was repeated five or six times, and some record breakers reached the score of ten times. There was some teeth structure test! Today from a position of a dentistry trade experts' patient, I am not only applauding to Mikhail Ivanovitch, but acclaiming, and my acclamation looks like turning into a standing ovation, as it used to be in the good days of old at party congresses. Nevertheless my mouth would not dare to call M.I.Zolotukhin "a prankster". He was "a terror of the anatomy department", yeah, even now I would have tied something to his coat's half-belt for his tricks. And what else could it be? A group passed a test, and everybody was sitting satisfied for the last minutes, saying good byes to a professor, making plans of where to celebrate the event of passing the anatomy test: at "Sovremennik" or the group monitor's apartment. And there a class room door opened and a student almost shouted: "Zolotikhin is making the round" and immediately disappeared.

Literally in a minute M.I.Zolotukhin entered the room. When Mikhail Ivanovitch was a Kemerovo State Medical Institute student, the Anatomy Department was headed by an outstanding Faradey, or according to his passport Timofey Fadeyevitch Ryzhkov, who mercilessly made a student leave a class for not having a surgeon's cap on his or her head, and if someone's doctor's coat was not ironed he used to shout at male students: "To the mine!!!...", and at females: "To a beer stand, to sell beer…" Though that was the horrible Faradey and that suited him. In Odessa they have a reason to say that "a joke repeated twice is not a joke anymore".
So in a moment after the herald Mikhail Ivanovitch entered the room and first of all dismissed those who were without surgeon's caps. There were not many of them, though someone was always caught. If he got satisfied only with that, but he went further, he decided to conduct another test and check the group's knowledge. Only five passed the test!? That was a real nightmare!!! So if for his stunts with teeth' modelling there were ovations, then after his double check of the results of the test there had to be clearly heard stamping as a sign of protest.
What? Too much? Maybe. I am just stating the moment when the events were taking place.

And now looking back, I will say that there were Faradeys and "the Pranksters" like Mikhail Ivanovitch Zolotukhin who made students form a habit of being careful and even elegant doctors, the graduates of Kemerovo Medical Institute. And you see by yourself how smart they are, when watching a TV show "Live Healthy", all of its participants are the Kemerovo Medical Institute graduates.

The plot of the story was kindly suggested by Irina Cherkas (Tykvina).
10 November, 2011.

Essay 82. Let's Man The Barricades!

There is a category of people, who one can feel offended by, or can be angry at, but one cannot help loving them. It is not a representative of the XXth century, it's likely the nineteenth century. A XX century man psychologically likes to be on the winners' side. For him it is important to become a successful and advanced person, or a hero, the winner of history. Perhaps, your most humble servant, is of that kind. Zhora Chernobay is absolutely unlike me. He is physically and spiritually strong, but not aggressive; he is kind, and sometimes even too much. And the people around him shamelessly abused his kindness. For instance, if you remember the essay "Mini Dorm", where I write about how five of us together with Zhora Chernobay shared a rented apartment. So we took turns to cook then, and when a day of Zhora's turn was coming, we, the rest four of us, agreed beforehand what to order for Zhora to make. More often there were pancakes or pies stuffed with pluck. Zhora was extremely good at making those two culinary items. He was doing his best. Zhora never made simply pancakes. Though, what am I talking about? He made so many pancakes that we ate them for a couple of following days. Just imagine what it was like to make pancakes from an enameled pail (12 liters) of pancake dough.

And he stuffed them with cottage cheese and cream cheese and minced meat and pluck sausage minced with onions, garlic and bay leaves. It came out incredibly delicious. He had the same attitude to making pies. In that case he added mashed potatoes as stuffing. None of us, except Zhora had enough patience to cook that long. And he reveled in our praise so much. He literally was enjoying it. Once Zhora Romashov called: "Let's chair Zhora".

We, after we had gobbled his pies up, eagerly rushed to him. Poor, Zhora, 150 kilograms of alive weight; we dropped him on the floor with such a crash, that we thought he might break something. Luckily, he turned to be in one piece. Generally speaking Zhora was a hard nut to crack. I can't help writing about two other episodes of that life. I am not going to point at anybody specially, let it be our group mockery at Zhora. On a regular basis a ten kilogram weight was put on his bed under a sheet. And Zhora with the same masochist regularity used to fall on it with his full weight, or sit on it with all his might. Luckily we borrowed our beds from a dorm, so all of them were with wire netting, which cushioned the contacts with the weight.

Nevertheless Zhora had huge permanent bruises on his lower back and sides. After I had moved out of the apartment, the guys who stayed quitted the corporal punishment of Zhora, so he connected it with me. Well, Zhora, Zhora, you were wrong then. And there was another terrible situation. Zhora and Zhenya Romashov argued about whether a man could drink two and a half liters of vodka. And it is neither more nor less than five half a liter bottles. So Zhora was insisting that that was possible, and Zhenka was stating the opposite. There was even a phrase that that was a deadly dose for a human being said. We used everything to talk Zhora out of doing that. Kolya Kozlov, Vadik Severin and I were begging him not to risk his life.

Zhenka was a notorious parasite. He maliciously laughed at Zhora asking if he was scared. So the event was scheduled on a day off. And Zhora won! That fruitcake poured all five bottles of vodka into a huge landlord's dipper and drank all vodka at one stroke without stopping and spilling a drop. We dropped our jaws watching him. Zhora was quickly becoming drunk though he managed to put two fingers into his throat and some amount of vodka came outside. Zhenka tried to argue, but all of us stood up staunchly for Zhora. We in a very simple and easy way proved to Zhenka that the argument was about whether one could or could not drink, and nothing was said about any other actions. Zhora was sleeping for about thirty hours in a row.
He woke up our hero. Kolya Kozlov had known Zhora since they were five, he knew that Zhora loved milk and prepared for him a three liter jar to take a drink "the morning after". And Zhenka and I rushed to a market place and brought also a three liter jar but of cucumber pickle. After Zhora's waking up we offered him both, and to Zhenka's and my joy he started drinking the pickle first. Yeah, on that day Zhora was like a Persian shah. Any wish we read in his eyes was fulfilled. I will say honestly, we got scared that Zhora could die, because he did not wake up for quite a long time.

And the Zhora turned into Georgiy Nikolayevitch Chernobay, a Pathologic Anatomy Department professor. However even in that role Zhora remained Zhora. Who else could invent the following joke except Zhora? In the Morphology building at Kirovskiy district of Kemerovo, on the forth floor there was a computer class, which was also used to read lectures for the Dentistry Department students at. In the class there were armchairs as study films or horror movies, as students called them, were also watched there. Returning to Zhora; the Chernobay devised to charge the department's laboratory assistant with putting a table covered with snow white table cloth right in front of the entrance door at the beginning of a lecture and a chair in a passageway, and put a glass with water on the table. Now hearts of those who read all my essays missed a bit, they thought that there was vodka in the glass instead of water, like in case with our professors Golubevs. No, Zhora, I'm sorry, Georgiy Nikolayevitch is not from that company.

Well, have you imagined the barricade, constructed by Zhora via the laboratory assistant's efforts, it was more striking than the one of Gavroche (a fiction character from the novel Les Miserabl; by Victor Hugo). Poor students, they are always in a hurry and are late anyway. In all countries scientists are racking their brains over the question of why it happens so, but they cannot solve the theorem.  They have no chance, as they are not Perelmans (Grigori Perelman, 1966, is a Russian mathematician who has made landmark contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric topology) anyway, and this is not a Poincar; theorem (posed in 1904 and before its solution was viewed as one of the most important and difficult open problems in topology).

This is not even a theorem, it's an axiom: no matter how much a student is in a hurry, he or she is late for a lecture anyway.

So the students who came from the main building at Khimikov avenue, rushed dripping with sweat into the Morphology building and tried to slip by the obstacles unnoticed. However none of them succeeded. So Zhora with his photographic look noticed everyone who had been late and gibed at them till the end of the lecture making comments about relations between guys and girls.

Oh, dear! What happened to Zhora? Students became afraid of the kindest Georgiy Nokolayevitch. What time does to people, my goodness!

The last story was provided by Irina Cherkas (Tykvina).

11 November, 2011.
Essay 83. Now A Kiss!

I've always said and will keep saying in the future that an operative surgery and topographic anatomy examination, or the operative exam, as it is called by students-medics, is similar to a strength of materials examination engineering students take, they even say: "After you passed a strength of materials exam, you can get married!" It happened so that the curriculum and administration of Kemerovo Medical Institute had arranged so that the operative anatomy examination was taken by Pediatric Department and Therapy Department students on the same day during their winter examinations. Elena Sokhareva was confident that she would pass the borderline between single and married life examination, which was scheduled on 4 January.

She was eager to change her last name of Sokhareva for Zhuk; so without any hesitation she set her wedding on 24 January. Well, of course, it was not exactly she and, of course, not exactly fixed the day, though she did not object to the date for sure. Lena started studying for the operative exam as early as in September. She answered practically at every class and passed a test according to the curriculum. It happened so that on 28 December, literally a week before the exam, only two people in the group passed the test: the group monitor and Elena Sokhareva. A helping hand had to be held out to the group. We did not give it a long thought, so Lena together with the group monitor came to A.M.Shklovskiy to the Operative Surgery Department. It was he, who supervised Elena's group. One couldn't say that they fell to their knees before him, though very sorrowfully they informed Ariel Mendeleyevitch that Elena's wedding was set on 31 December, but the group did not want to be present at it, because none of them had passed the test. Lena got carried away and so much got into her role that tears came into her eyes. Well, who did not know Ariel Mendeleyevitch? He was a man of the kindest soul ever. He sincerely loved students. He was aware that they quite often lied to him, however he pretended to believe their stories and always, I would like to stress, always met their wishes,

and for that he rather often was reprimanded by Y.N.Sherstennikov. However in Elena's case Shklovskiy even did not hesitate. He had known her as a diligent and competent student; and there was such an event – a wedding! Ariel Mendeleyevitch told them to bring quickly student record books of the group. Should that be repeated twice? They were back in a flash, as it is said. In a couple of hours Lena and the group monitor were back at the department and together in order to speed the process up were handing Shklovskiy open on the needed page student record books, and he only signed them, because everything had been written there beforehand. Well, what was next? Only the one, who had never been a student, would have doubts about what was next. Of course, there was a party.
 
After a cafe "Sovremennik" had been open in Kemerovo, which was near a city park, the caf; became a favorite place of students-medics. Well, sure enough, the party to celebrate the group's test results was arranged there. We tried to chair Elena and the group monitor, and only their active resistance stopped us from doing that. Then the group made Elena promise that on 4 January she would come to the exam with a wedding ring on her finger. Well, Lena not only promised, but did so. She came to take the exam and unintentionally her finger with the ring was in such a position that anyone could notice it. It is true, when they say that love gives wings. At the exam Elena almost started answering without any preparation, but luckily changed her mind, as that was the operative exam and it was not to be sneezed at. Elena knew theoretical questions and gave answers to Sherstennikov, who was sitting at the head of the table, and received an excellent grade. After that it was necessary to demonstrate answers on a corpse. That part of the exam was conducted by Ariel Mendeleyevitch. Sherstennikov from his seat asked Elena to show the upper mesenteric artery.  There was the devil knew what in Lena's head, but not the operative surgery for sure. So she pointed a pincers somewhere. Shklovskiy's kind eyes became sad. He turned to the examination commission and said: "Correct". However Sherstennikov's inquisitiveness was well known; so he asked to show the lower mesenteric artery then. Elena with the pincers turned over a cluster of organs and pointed at the very same artery she pointed the first time.

She was aware that she was demonstrating the wrong organ, but feigned a clever face. Shklovskiy's eyes became not only sad, but grew bigger. It was funny to watch him at that moment. He knew very well that Lena was a good student and knew everything she was asked about at the examination. So he again announced to Sherstennikov that Lena demonstrated everything correctly. She was given an excellent grade. Shklovskiy took Lena's arm and led her to the door accompanied by Sherstennikov's applause, and whispered into her ear: "Sokhareva, your marriage obviously did not do any good to you. Your honey moon took all your wonderful knowledge away, nevertheless accept my congratulations".

At the wedding the group, like at the party to celebrate the results of the test, was partying at its full strength and happily and enthusiastically shouting: "Now a kiss!".
 
The plot of the story is courtesy of Elena Zhuk.

13 November, 2011.




Essay 84. Briefs

People tend to see as good luck or bad luck something they cannot find clear explanation for.  For example: "I do not see what kind of my intentions and acts led to that my group was assigned to an associate professor Larisa Andreyevna Nikolayeva to take an anatomy course, that is why I believe that to be my good luck". Or: "I do not see what kind of my intentions and acts led to that I was asked a question on the topic "Structure of a Testicle" during an anatomy class, that is why I believe that to be my bad luck". In other words, Galina Yurovskaya, and back then Veldyanskaya, had an attitude of that kind to her life experience,

but she had never thought about why she acted in a certain way, but not in the other one. "This is my fate…" - Galya thought.

When before the beginning of the anatomy course their group had learned that it would be read by an associate professor Larisa Andreyevna Nikolayeva, they became happy and scared at the same time. The group was collecting information about her and then announced the obtained facts during their get-together. However that did not bring peace to their restless souls. The facts were the following:
Smart, well, thanks, God;
Obsessed, that was dangerous;
Cool, that was good;
Sharp tongue, we'll deal with that.

What was a bit scary and confusing was that she was also called "The gal of the old training" and "Old stager". After interpreting that in various ways the group concluded that she was as people say: "A gal with balls", this is how women are called for their tough characters.

The following events confirmed that all information the group had collected outside and the conclusions they made themselves were one hundred per cent correct. Larisa Andreyevna's favorite saying was quite pretentious: "The Lord knows anatomy for an excellent grade, I know anatomy for a good with a minus, and you, students, know it for a bad grade, and I will prove that to you", neither more nor less. And she did prove that on a regular basis. Re-examinations were falling like from a horn of plenty. That was a real nightmare; the group quitted arranging parties. That was unheard of that parties were put off. They studied anatomy. And together with that they were improving their Latin, as Nikolayeva was talking to the group exceptionally in Latin.

Yeah, that was some situation, no one would envy. The one who was called to answer was walking to a basin with preparations as if to be shot, as if he was doomed, and because of that forgot even what he remembered like a multiplication table during a break. Nevertheless, life went on, re-examinations were given and passed. And once… A class had just started, Galya Veldyaskina was absolutely calm; she answered at the previous class and even managed not to receive a re-examination. It was known from experience that, if one was asked at a previous class, he or she would not be asked at the present one.
And suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, she heard: "Veldyaskina, well…". And that was said in Russian, to be more precise, demanded for an answer. The answer on the topic: "Structure of a Testicle".

Like a lightning a thought flashed in her mind: "A gal with balls, people know how to call them". Unluckily she could not share the thought with anyone; she had to share her knowledge. Galya came up to a basin with prepared male genitals both internal and external,

and it's a whole collection. That was not for nothing that she set with a textbook for the whole evening the day before; she studied and knew all seven membranes of a testicle, she knew why there were so many of them and glibly started naming them in the following order: starting with skin and then further inside:

 1. Skin,
 2. Tunica dartos,
 3. Fascia spermatica externa,
 4. Fascia cremasterica,
 5. Musculus cremaster,
 6. Fascia spermatica interna,
 7. Tunica vaginalis testis.

Galya was already anticipating a good grade; she could not even dream about an excellent one, though it seemed to her that she had a good in her pocket, and the second one in a row; and then something unbelievable happened. The associate professor Larisa Andreyevna Nikolayeva asked her to name the eighth membrane of a testicle! Galya remembered absolutely well that in the textbook it was written about seven membranes, and she had already given their names without any mistakes.  Good Lord, wasn't it she about who Arkadiy Raykin (1911 - 1987, a popular Soviet stand-up comedian) had said that the associate professor was stupid? And when Larisa Nikolayevna gave Galina a bad grade, "That was about her, for sure, about her", Galya was thinking when returning to her seat. And there the situation started developing in the most unrealistic way. Nikolayeva was asking everyone, reprimanding and giving bad grades to everyone. She was also scaring and threatening them.

The group crowded around the basin, everybody was moving the poor testicles back and forth in it looking for the eighth membrane. By the end of the second hour of the class everyone, even the most slow-witted students could clearly name the seven membranes of a testicle in Latin. And the group monitor with hysterical giggles was asking everybody: "What bird has black eggs?" and was laughing himself and answering himself: "Paul Robson!!!". There were about five minutes left before the end of the class, and then Larisa Andreyevna pronounced: "Briefs, yes, yes, briefs!". And she said that with such artistic skill and emotion! If Doronina (Tatiana Doronina, 1933 - 1981, a popular Soviet actress; she is regarded as one of the most talented actresses of her generation) was present in the class room at that moment, she would have quitted serving Melpomene and got secluded in a nunnery.

For the time left before the end of the class the group was sitting first with faces contorted with tortures of the search, then countenance changed for surprise, and then, like in a kaleidoscope, for amazement, and then there was burst of  laughter. You won't believe it, but Nikolayeva was laughing together with the students. She eliminated all bad grades she had given during the class, and she was loved by everyone at that moment! Even by those who did not like her!! She was the Teacher!!!

The plot of the story is courtesy of Galina Yurovskaya (Veldyaskina).

13 November, 2011
Essay 85. A Miracle!

Exercise Therapy (ET) is a method of treatment which consists of combining physical exercises and natural factors in order to achieve recovery of a patient; it is also used as preventive measures. The core of the method is employment of the main biological function of a body, which is movement. The method consists of precisely graduated exercises combined with maintaining of correct breathing.

The term Exercise Therapy (or ET) is used to define the most different notions. It can be breathing gymnastics after a complicated surgery, and rehabilitation of walking ability after an injury, and exercise of a joint after removing of a plaster cast. It is also a name of a room in a polyclinic, and of a department at a physical culture institute, and of a department at a medical institute. The term Exercise Therapy is used in most different aspects, meaning a treatment method and a medical and pedagogical profession, and a part of medicine or physical training and a Healthcare subdivision as well.

Stop, what am I doing? I've found a definition in Wikipedia and that'll do. Nevertheless, my associations turned on right away.  And how can I avoid them, if literally five months ago I myself had a heart surgery at Kiev Heart Center (coronary artery bypass grafting-5)? The surgery was performed by Boris Mikhaylovitch Todurov, so I, as it is said, have felt the exercise therapy effect on a post-surgical patient on my own back. I should say that without any exaggerations exercise therapy is the foundation of cardiologic rehabilitation.

Of course, at Kemerovo Medical Institute exercise therapy was given proper attention. However, at the Dentistry Department an Exercise Therapy course was brief, only five classes. And in spite

of the fact that the course was short, students called it very tricky. They could have called it in a different way, but inborn refinement of everyone, who studied, as well as of those who taught at Kemerovo Medical Institute did not allow them to do that. To call the course very tricky, yes, that was appropriate. Well, and what else the course could be called tactfully enough, if after only its five classes, as many as every tenth student passed a test. If to be completely honest, students also did not think much of the course. They did not take it seriously as an educational course at all, especially the dentists to be. So those who taught the Exercise Therapy course paid the Dentistry Department students back in their own coin.

Sergey Zakharov's group came to their first class already burdened with information that after the course practically each of them would have two, three, four and even five re-examinations. That was inconceivable. And after they came to the class they learned that it would be taught by the course head personally Oleg Gennadyevitch Shumilov.

Sergey then said to his group: "That's it… Sure enough, something has to be done, but what? That's the question". Quietly they took seats in the back rows and started waiting for a miracle, but that was not the case. Oleg Gennadyevitch came in sullen, tired, looking unkindly, at least that seemed so to everybody then. Perhaps he was after his duty; professors quite often worked part-time at city hospitals. So O.G.Shumilov was as dark as a thundercloud, nevertheless he did the introduction part; practically my essay's beginning, briefly, clearly and succinctly. And then as usual: "Is everything clear? Any questions?".

And there Zhenya Zinchenko raised his hand: "Yes, I've got one". Zhenya was the so called engine of the group. He could not stand seeing his group sinking into depression and put up with that. He wanted to do something, and a credit should be given to him, he did that. Before the beginning of the course he had found out some information, but in order to keep it a secret, did not say anything before the moment, when Oleg Gennadyevitch himself helped him with his question: "Are there any questions?". What a smart guy Yevgeniy was. How well he had schemed that. That was fun to listen to: "These days they talk a lot about manual therapy, they say about a miraculous effect it has on patients, but nobody can clearly explain what it, the manual therapy, is. Maybe you have heard anything about it? Please, tell us about it." - Zhenya asked Shumilov.

And he knew for a fact that Oleg Gennadyevitch was one of the first in Kemerovo who started applying manual therapy in treating various forms of musculoskeletal system diseases. The group was waiting for a miracle, when came for the class, and it really happened. Everybody was amazed how Shumilov's face changed. It became kind, and his eyes started radiating some bright light. If at the beginning of the class his speech was curt, that time words were gently flowing from his lips.

That was what love did to a man! In that very case that was love of the profession. For all five days the group studied manual therapy. There was no even a single one re-examination! And at the last class everybody passed the test, and all their student record books were signed!!! That was just a miracle!!!


 The plot of the story is courtesy of Sergey Zakharov.

13 November, 2011.

Essay 86. A mouse!.. in a hairdo? How very unusual!!!

How much professors differ from each other! I am not going to use as a criterion knowledge they gave to students. This time I want to talk purely about professors' appearances. If not taking into consideration the number of bad grades Yevgeniy Nikonalyevitch Sherstennikov gave to his students, it was a pleasure to look at him. He was always carefully dressed, even a bit dandyish. They were rather afraid of him, and definitely respected him. He did not have to shout or threaten his students. He could look in a certain way, and students started having goose bumps. Well, and to say more about the women professors. When a woman professor came into a class looking well-attended, calm, with a neat hairdo, properly dressed, refined, and if in addition to that she radiated assertiveness, confidence in her self-sufficiency, then one was eager to listen to such a professor with his mouth wide open. Usually that happened so.

A Microbiology Department professor Valentina Alekseyevna Gromova completely matched the description I have given above. I believe, it should be mentioned that her gestures were always soft and smooth. Students not only respected her, but also loved her. I will tell you more, they were looking forward to her classes. Everybody was curious what she would wear that time and how she would style her hair. Generally speaking, Valentina Alekseyevna enjoyed authority over both male and female students.

The incident I want to talk about took place during a class. That was a regular microbiology class. Those who were on duty had brought a dozen of grey mice from a vivarium beforehand. The mice were running and jumping around the cage, being very active and enjoying life. And why should not they be happy? They were fed at the vivarium, unlike students who had to find food by themselves, and they were not called to answer during classes and, sure enough, were not given any bad grades. Well, as to the fact that they were used for experiments, the mice did not know about that and were having a good time at that moment.

Gromova came to the class as usually elegant and with characteristic of her composure made a steady move and took a mouse out of the cage in order to tell us what we would be doing for two hours during the class. Galina Veldyaskina's group was ready to listen attentively.

Suddenly something improbable happened: the mouse which a moment before was calm and resigned in Valentina Alekseyevna's hand, jerked, jumped and found herself on Gromova's head. And it was rushing about in the hairdo and got more and more entangled in hair.

The female students scattered screaming in all directions, some of the guys shouted: "Strike ground!.." Everybody was dumbfounded. The students felt very sorry for Gromova, though at the same time the situation was so funny, that it was impossible not to laugh. Everybody was afraid to offend Valentina Alekseyevna and literally were choking, trying to swallow attacks of laughter. The situation or as the students called it afterwards, the circus, lasted for a few of minutes. Gromova would not be Gromova

if she with the characteristic of her self-control and, let's give her a credit, tenacity would not pull out or to be more precise tore out from her hairdo the fugitive mouse.  Though, that was not all of that. Apparently Valentina Alekseyevna held the mouse awkwardly in her hand, so it jerked once again and got on the floor.

The mouse started rushing around the room like crazy. Female part of the group was producing: "A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a…" of the forth octave. Their screaming was heard at all floors of the building. Gromova stepped to the door opened it wide and let the mouse run away. For the great backcombing it won a deserved prize of freedom.

The plot of the story is courtesy of Galina Veldyaskina.

13  November, 2011.

Essay 87. A Born Obstetrician

At 6.20 in the morning of 26 September, 1949 in the city of Kemerovo, at a maternity hospital of a #3 clinic, which is near the city park, an event took place, which attracted attention neither of the national public nor of the city itself. And why should it attract anyone's attention? What happened on that day and at that hour at the maternity hospital? Did water flush from a radiator? No, luckily everything was fine at the maternity hospital; there was no even a slight fire. Everything was in a standard mode,

as they say in astronautics now. At that time simply some Aleksandra Mikhailovna Syedysheva had a boy of 51cm and 3,800kg at the maternity hospital. And in the very same standard mode the baby boy cried right away.

Of course, the event was very much expected in a certain group of people at Yagunovka mine, where the Syedyshevs family lived. After a discharge from the hospital Peter Andreyevitch Syedyshev did his best and arranged transportation of his wife and his son on a horse set in a two-wheeled cart. Where he had managed to find the two-wheeled cart remained a secret,

though back then when there were certain problems with taxies, that way of bringing a wife and a son home from a maternity hospital was significant. Batya, as his son used to call him afterwards, liked, as it's called, to show off even then.

It's difficult to understand now, why a baby born in the city of Kemerovo, was registered in a council of a village of Komissarovo, which was located between Kemerovo and Yagunovka mine, though closer to Yagunovka. Let's not take guesses; I'll just explain what is special about all that. So there is something special, and a significant one. The baby boy, who was born in Kemerovo at the maternity hospital of the #3 clinic and in such a chic way brought to his ancestral home, was named Yura. Yura was doted on; he was fed and rocked to sleep at night, when he instead of sleeping, like all good people,

was wailing at the top of his voice. For a whole month Yura lived without any problems as well as proper documents; that was not approved of in the Soviet Union. For that month a namesake of a famous Agafia Tikhonovna from "The Twelve Chairs" (a classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, released in 1928) came to Yagunovka from a village of Dovolnoye of Novosibirsk region. Peter Andreyevitch's mother was also Agafia Tikhonovna, and she came to spend some time with her grandson and help the young family for a start. So a month passed, and finally Peter Andreyevitch found time to go to Komissarovo to register the fact of his son's birth and issue a birth certificate. When he returned Aleksandra Mikhailovna immediately asked him to show her son's document. I will honestly admit that I cannot say how much bewildered was the Yura's mother and grandmother Agafia, when they learned that Yura's name was not Yura, but Oleg!!! Yes, in the certificate it was written: "Syedyshev Oleg Petrovitch". So that was me!!! That was some trick; Copperfield is nothing compared to that. Well, please, accept my apologies; I do not remember that period of my life, it got erased from my memory, like a drunken feast from an alcoholic's mind in the morning; that's the case. I do not know the reason why. I am writing about the events, including what I've written above, at second hand. What wife Shura was saying to her husband Petya, and what mother Agafia was saying to her son Petya? I do not remember for the life of me, just do not remember. Of course, it would be interesting to learn, what preceded the metamorphosis, what thoughts were boring Peter Andreyevitch's madcap on his way to Komissarovo. Nevertheless the fact is that since that moment your most humble servant has been not Yuriy Petrovitch Syedyshev, but Oleg Petrovitch Syedyshev. To be honest, personally I believe that the name Oleg does for me better, than Yuriy. And I am used to it anyway. Though all this is kind of a warming up.
It's funny enough, but after five and a half years of study I neither had assisted in childbirth, nor seen the process of labor. Well, obviously, I knew the technique of assisting during a delivery, though only purely theoretically. So once I happened to be on duty at the very maternity hospital of the #3 clinic, which was near the city park.  We were on duty together with Vagram. Some readers and they are at the same time my former fellow students tell me, that I write too much about Vagram Agadzhanyan. It is their mistake.  I write about situations from student life. If Vagram was present in any of the situations, I am just writing about it.
So we happened to be in the very delivery room, where on the last bed from the left I had been born. Sure enough, I did not miss a chance to tell Vagram about that. And Vagram did not waste an opportunity to grab my hand and take me around the maternity hospital and tell everybody: doctors on duty, and midwives, and even nurses that I was born in that maternity hospital twenty two years (at that moment) and several months ago; that at the beginning I was named Yura, and then in some miraculous way I became Oleg. After his story he demonstrated me as a material evidence of the story. Everybody liked the story, everybody was moved that I had been born there and was having my practical training in the very same delivery room.  Everything was fine before we ran into Ekaterina Titova, our Tatiana Yanchilina's own aunt and an associate professor of the Obstetrics Department.

She knew Vagram and me inside out, so she bluntly said: "Stop chatting and distracting the staff. Go to the delivery room; two women are about to start delivering". She promised to come herself and watch how well we participated in assistance. There was no choice, so Vagram and I dragged to the delivery room, though we had already agreed with a doctor on duty beforehand that he would record our presence. Two women were really in labor in the delivery room. One of them was young, I do not remember now how old she was; she was about twenty. She was cursing nonstop. And her cursing was so sophisticated that Vagram's and my ears even turned red, and a midwife reassured us not to pay attention at that, cursing was something like a painkiller for her, it was easier for her to give a childbirth that way. That was easy to say, and it was an absolutely different thing to hear that some Senya would have his something torn away, without which there would be no that, and that he would never ever be allowed within a shooting range. Sure enough, that inconsequence was not clear: first that would be torn away, and after that why not let him close? It would not be dangerous after that. Right before that I had red a novel "Didi Mouravi" by Anna Antonovskaya; there were the following words there: "A woman is suffering, when giving a childbirth, she is in labor pains. She is tormented and is angry at a man, because he does not experience the same. Though when everything is over, a woman forgets about everything amazingly quickly and is ready to repeat the foolishness".

I, a notorious booby, told the quotation to the young woman in labor. The situation was an interesting one. She fell silent and was attentively listening to me, however when I finished the story with the phrase about repeating the foolishness, she again burst into the choicest swearwords and told me to go to hell in such a peculiar way, that I even had a problem imagining how that could be accomplished by a man. Even those, who were on duty at the delivery room, burst out laughing. At that very moment Titova entered the room. She heard the end of my conversation with that young woman. She reprimanded us again that we had our surgeons' masks on not in a proper way and sent us to the second woman in labor.  She was a woman in her forties, and that was her third childbirth. She was calm. She asked us not to worry. How she only knew that we were worried, and we really were very worried. She said that everything would be fine and asked us to help her just a little bit. A midwife nodded her agreement and let us help the woman. Vagram and I knew the theory. First I tried to embrace the woman's belly with my arm, though the belly was huge and I could not do that properly. Then Vagram got down to work. He embraced the woman's belly with his right arm, clutched his hand at the edge of the table and pressed, though it looked like he overdid. He pressed a bit harder than it was necessary. Luckily the midwife and I were at the right place. The fetus' head was very low, so it almost like a bullet swiftly was brought into the world. At least I saw it that way. I remember the midwife shouted at Vagram, the woman howled, and everything was over. I was amazed to see that the midwife spanked

the newborn at his tiny butt, and he started crying in a low voice in reply. When all necessary procedures were done, it turned out that there was born a big baby of 53 cm of height and 4kg and 350gr of weight; the birth went without any ruptures and injuries.

The happy mother thanked us. Titova also thanked us and dismissed from the duty in order that we would not do anything else, however she registered our being on duty. We were leaving the delivery room proud, with lots of impressions, accompanied by cursing of the young woman in labor, who still could not start. Later we did our best when telling how Vagram was helping the woman in labor, and how I "practically alone" assisted in the delivery of a big baby, and how the associate professor Titova herself thanked us for good participation and let us leave when it was still evening time. Generally speaking, we were recklessly lying and doing PR of ourselves.

As we learned afterwards, Vagram and I were not the only ones who had been in such situation; Kostya Romashov also had a similar experience. Unlike Vagram and I, who were at the maternity hospital of the #3 city clinic, Kostya happened to be at the maternity hospital of the #9 clinic of Kirovskiy district, where, by the way, his older brother and my friend Yevgeniy worked. Like the two of us, Kostya also was not alone. Kostya was assisting in the first in his life childbirth together with Lena Dubrovina and a group monitor of the forty first group Lyudmila Nefedchenko, who tagged after them. Sure enough, Kostya performed everything excellently. He stood from the left side of a woman in labor, embraced her belly by his left arm, gripped the edge of the table and gradually, I stress, very gradually was increasing his pressure on her belly, and by his right hand he was controlling her expulsive pains around her belly button.  The woman in labor was a very young, just seventeen years old, girl, but she was behaving in a heroic way, and during breaks between the labors she was getting acquainted with Kostya and even promised that if she would have a son, she would call him Kostya. There was no ultrasonic scanning back then, and it became known who would be born only during a delivery.

The childbirth went without any emergencies, let alone that the girls accompanying Kostya both fainted with a crash, when the head went out.
And an old lady-midwife praised Kostya very much and even said that he was a born obstetrician. And the born obstetrician could not look at girls for about two weeks without a feeling that they were like aliens.

The last story is courtesy of Kostya Romashov.

17 November, 2011



Essay 88. International Children's Day

In an American action film there was a line: "Tony is Tony". Well, forget about it, the American Tony, a phrase: "Women are women" will sound much more globally. Just imagine the following scene: in remote and cold November, 1949, a group of women decided to have a meeting in order to socialize, talk "about life" as usual, some of them wanted to show off with a new dress, and some with new earrings. And one of them decided to walk back and forth in silence, sure enough, if she managed to, as she was determined to walk back and forth only on condition that she would be asked a question: "And why are you actually walking back and forth in silence?". And then she would have brought up everything she could not hold herself in… Well and where do you think the ladies decided to meet? Of course, in Paris. And they had chosen a solid reason for their get together, they decided, as soon as we gathered in Paris and not anywhere else, let's initiate an "International Children's Day".

Sure enough, they wanted to stay in Paris as long as possible and do more shopping, so they named their get together a Congress of a Women's Democratic Federation and even established the International Children's Day. They pronounced only one day off, as there was no much time for discussion, a lot of time was taken by boutiques and other stores. It was agreed to celebrate  the International Children's Day in summer, and in order not to go through the hassle, on the very first summer day, the first of June, and start celebrating it since the next year after the congress, since 1950.

Though, the one, who was walking back and forth in silence miscalculated her attempt and nobody asked her: "And why are you actually walking back and forth in silence?". And there was nobody to ask, as everybody was rushing shopping. So she insidiously made up her mind to speak at the Congress herself, and as soon as nobody had asked her, to make a speech of her own. And she made a speech, and she won over all of them. She expressed her indignation saying that they were having a meeting, meaning hanging around in November, 1949, and would celebrate only on the first of June, 1950, which was not good; she suggested: "Today is 20 November, let's perpetuate it and proclaim it The International Children's Day. Everybody felt guilty towards her; and generally speaking, she was a nice lady; so it was decided unanimously by the Congress to agree with her even in such a minor thing, and the day was established. However they had thought about something absolutely different in their minds.

And what did you expect? This is the way a group of women is. The women-democrats returned to their homes with their suitcases full with purchases and all kinds of "Chanell ¹ 5" and declared: "We will celebrate in summer, when it is warm, and not in November." There is no denying it; winter is in its full swing in November in Russia. So members of the Women's Democratic Federation revenged themselves upon their own democrat peer, and in addition to that called her "the silent walker" for her walking back and forth in silence.

Sure enough, Galina Veldyaskina could not know about everything above mentioned, when she was running from the institute's main building to the dorm. There was warmth and joy in her heart. All passers-by seemed to her to be unusually attractive. There was a smile "from ear to ear" in Galya's face, like in faces of all children around.

She was rushing to the dorm in order to…, though we'll talk about that a bit later.

One can endlessly keep saying that pharmacology is one of pillars of medicine, as well as that the Pharmacology Department professors are not popular among the students.  And how could they be sincerely loved, if they constantly gave re-examinations and those re-examinations were passed after the tenth try, and they failed students during exams. Students did not care that many-many years later most of them would be grateful to such "parasites" as Gennadiy Semenovitch Sazykin. That associate professor of the department had a nickname of "the associate professor". Oh, he was hated so much! And what should the students love him for? That was the associate professor Sazykin who never allowed, as far as students could remember, to pass the re-examination he had given from the first try, and it was also nonsense to pass it from the second one. Only when a poor thing-student came to him for eight or nine times, only then he changed his attitude. Once Galya called him a maniac at a students' party and was persuading everybody that during the re-examinations he took her brain out of her head, chopped it in dice and after that put it back into her head, but did not consider her re-examination passed. Galya could not explain why she had that kind of an association, she just felt that way.

Generally speaking she was not particularly asked about that, wine could cause even more weird associations than that one. How could G.S. Sazykin not be called a maniac, if he liked to gather all his "debtors", and everybody in the group was his "debtor", so he used to gather the whole group at the department's hall, around a billiard table (I wonder, if that table is still there?)

The students barely managed to overhang around the table and were waiting for their poor fate. Perhaps, everybody who had to be re-examined by him, remembers the touch of the green cloth of the table. "The Maniac" Sazykin called the students one by one and scoffed at them with sarcasm, irony and twisting of every word said by a poor "debtor".  There was much more in "the associate professor's" arsenal. If Lenin was just saying: "To study, study and study again…", then Sazykin made his students: "Study, study and study again…".

He trained them to write in a prescription's "Signa" in such a way that patients would never be confused about how to use a tablet of Validol (a heart drug) and a rectal suppository. And they never put the suppository under their tongues.

It is now when Galya Veldyaskina, sorry, Galina Yurovskaya now, says about G.S. Sazykin: "A man of sense! I am so grateful to him!" However back then, in the early morning of the first of June, when walking to the department to take another re-examination she was full-heartedly cursing the associate professor. Galia had remembered antiarrhythmic and antihypertensive remedies for all her life. Luckily Galya is an optimist by nature, so that morning she was walking to the department being absolutely sure that she would pass the re-examination that time and would be given a permission to take examinations. She had studied all night long before that, she knew by heart mechanisms of effect of medicines, that was a real pleasure to listen to her. So with mixed thoughts about the parasite Sazykin and the mechanisms of medicines' effects, Galina came to the department, and stopped confused…; there was deathly silence, all offices were locked, including the one of Sazykin. She almost cried because of disappointment; she had learned everything so well, and gee whiz. He himself appointed the re-examination on the morning of the first of June. And there Galya saw an announcement stuck to the office door: "Today is the International Children's Day; that is why I accept two re-examinations of everybody as passed. Put a slip of paper with your last name, your group number and a topic into the envelope (see below the announcement). Come tomorrow at 10 o'clock in the morning for your student record books to be signed"; there was an envelope under the announcement. How could one not grow dumb with astonishment because of such generosity and kindness?

She jetted down her details and the re-examination's topic: "Antiarrhythmic and Antihypertensive Remedies" in a flash and rushed to the dorm to tell everybody, who got scared to be executed by "the maniac" Gennadiy Semenovitch Sazykin on that day, about the way he celebrated the International Children's Day.

That was some sprint, mass and enthusiastic; a good half of all the students was racing with one another to the main building to the cherished envelope.
And on the second of June Galya Veldyaskina had a permission to take examinations, and since then she started celebrating the day. And "the silent walker" from the first part of the essay was never invited to women's conferences again. Democracy is fine, though it is not good to show off and walk back and forth in silence when everybody went shopping around in Paris.

The story is courtesy of Galina Yurovskaya (Veldyaskina).

28 November, 2011

Essay 89. Guriev Porridge (or conversations in the kitchen)

"The judgment I deliver is to show the measure of my own sight,
and not of the things I express my opinion about."
 (Epigraph)

For some reason it seems to me that it is not only me, but also my former fellow students and peers are familiar with the feeling of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Maybe very subjectively, but everybody has reminiscences like: "And back then there used to be…". Somebody remembers that he had a sufficient income to meet his basic needs, and if he is in medicine, then he also enjoyed decent respect, and it must be admitted gifts, offerings as well as banal bribes (there was no private practice back then). Frankly speaking, it hurts me for the Sate! And not for the Soviet Union, but for Russia. Forgive me my pomposity, but it is really so. When on the eve of celebration of the twentieth anniversary of supposedly democratic development, and actually breakdown of everything Russia had been putting together by fragments for centuries, there is talk of a union, let it be economic one at the beginning, of the former constituents of the former strong and powerful Russia, I am happy.

I am ready to forgive Putin all his wrongdoings, though, generally speaking, I do not see any. I respect that he talks in a tough Russian-like way with the Yankees; when the others are lining up to give them a lick. And at the same time his KGB background makes him a diplomat. He made others respect him, and, if you please, be afraid of him. And how else will you explain the fact that literally in a couple of days after the announcement that V.V.Putin was going to be the President of Russia again, a Free Trade Zone Agreement was signed in the most of the former republics of the deceased Union.

Of course, creation of a Eurasian Economic Zone has a political component as well. It is clear to everybody that after V.V. Putin wrote about a Eurasian Union in "Izvestiya" and later gave his agreement to run for the presidency, he will strive for it by hook or by crook.

And the tempo with which the matter moved from the first words to the first practical steps concerning the formation of the Union demonstrates to what extent of seriousness his words are taken in abroad. Sure enough, this has to do not only with the near abroad, for which Russia is useful, and which is useful for Russia, but with the U.S. as well, which is famous for its feeling not well, when someone feels good. So they immediately command: "tally-ho!" to their Russian lackeys, who for some unknown reason are called democratic public.

So the public start in every way asking questions about Moldavian builders and about Tajik street cleaners, and about the Kirghiz, who, though do not come to Russia in that mass numbers, as the first ones, but also do not mind having a good life at Russia’s expense. And the most amazing thing is that the "educated democratic public" calls all the abovementioned nationalities "non-whites", without who Russia would do much better.
However, they do not explain who would benefit without them; none of the representatives of that public has stated that a Tajik occupied a position of a street cleaner he has been waiting for for several months. That public does not care about, to put it mildly, a hopeless situation in Tajikistan. I have first-hand knowledge of that, I used to live in Tajikistan before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I know that even then Tajik families survived on pita bread with dried apricots and tea.
Luckily apricots grow in abundance there. Back then the state gave at least some pennies of benefits to families with many children, and now?.. Guest workers from Western Ukraine and Baltic States flooded their beloved Europe, where they are already fed up with their numbers. And where should guest workers from Central Asia go? Europe is far away, and positions of street cleaners are already occupied by the Balts and Western Ukrainians there. So they are going and will go to Russia by fair means or foul. There is no other place to earn for them. Though, after the statement of the "progressive public" some citizens of Russia have a desire to stay away from all adherents of a different faith.

With no intention to offend Russian manufacturers, only stating facts, I dare say that goods manufactured in Russia will be hardly bought in the West. However in the CIS countries, I believe, they will. People are used to that quality of manufactured goods for the decades if not to say centuries of living together. The market is shared, it should be solid and mutual. This will give a stimulus to science and industry.

Then any crises won’t be dangerous. If all together are united, market demand will at the minimum double or even triple. This is the most powerful stimulus for manufacturing. Science and art will follow. As for the brains, the Russians are not without it.
Just remember how many industrial enterprises were built in Kighizia or Uzbekistan, and they are abandoned now. All this will return to life. Russian money will gladly flow to Central Asia, and this means jobs and reduction of the number of the "non-whites", who work as street cleaners in Russia. In sum, may God give Putin energy to bring together everything that communists in person of Yeltsin (and he remained a communist till his very last day) so uselessly plundered. And there will be a new union in the world, the Eurasian one, and Putin will be pronounced a New Gatherer of the Russian Lands.

These are the thoughts I share with my Natalka during our sincere conversations in the kitchen, after she gives me an authentic Russian meal for lunch. Her last Guriev Porridge was a success, that was why I grew weak to write the stated above.

No wonder; the porridge was invented not by just an earl Dmitriy Guriev, but a Minister of Finance, a member of the State Council of Russia. So the thought were evoked.

5 December, 2011

Essay 90. Betwixt and Between…

Mikhail Zadornov, and I prefer to call him uncle Misha, not because of familiarity, but because of respect of his wisdom dressed in vestments of humor; and he himself likes to be called that way; so when he is asked about what he writes or reads from the stage, he answers: "Essays!". He calls his works "essays", because nobody knows, what an "essay" is.

That's the case, Mikhail Nikolayevitch, sorry, uncle Misha. He can permit himself to write and say such things about himself. And what can I say, the one, who started writing less than half a year ago, and who qualified his writing as "essays", and who ventured to write a report on the work done for the six-months?
 
Without further ado, I will honestly admit that all my essays are like puppies produced by a mongrel she-dog after mating with a pack of rubble mutts like it. However a careful reader will undoubtedly find some elements of philosophy in my torrent of words, at least attempts at it, I mean philosophy. And there are my diary-like revelations and unexpected even for me confessions, they are like in a joke about a female student, who came to confession, but did not want to tell the truth. Though, she was mumbling incoherently that she was guilty. Well, nobody reasonable will have a thought that I am writing something like a short story. Though there is a bit of b;lles-l;ttres in my essays anyway.  Of course, I want to tell you, my dear readers, honestly, and it is necessary to speak honestly also because such a significant date as six-months of creative work does not presuppose anything else. So, I like what I am writing. Obviously, I like something more and something less.

I enjoy writing essays. I like that I can be unusually flexible when developing a story. And if to be absolutely honest, the following happened repeatedly: I had a story ready not on paper, but still in my mind. I was thinking it over, smoothing and leveling it off, and I liked it, I was satisfied. Though as soon as I sat at my computer to fix my thoughts in words and started writing, I realized that I was driven away from the story I had developed somewhere in an absolutely different direction. Nevertheless, the most amazing thing is that I also like the story I end up with. Those who were at a pet market, where dogs are sold, for sure saw cute puppies, active, cheerful, stoutish, and later it was found out that they were " the nobles". So those faked nobles or plebeians are better and easier get adjusted to circumstances in real life, than the real nobles without quotation marks. I see my essays that way. For some reason I think that my current readers, and I've noticed that majority of them are not my former student fellows, who've known me earlier and who are mentioned in the essays, forgive me a great deal of literary transgressions. "What can be expected from him? He is writing not short stories or stories…", - maybe this is the way they think. Generally speaking, it is difficult to say, what my readers think, though in the guest book the overwhelming majority of comments are kind and positive ones. I do not overestimate myself, not at all; however I dare hope that in an essay I've found the optimal proportion in combining true to life realism, which originates from writing a diary, and reflective generalization, which has its roots in my philosophy, I say "my" meaning the way I understand it, and distinctness and plasticity of images, which surely come from literature.

I won't discover America, if I admit my creative and most probably intellectual weakness; what a reasonable and intellectually strong person would all of a sudden start writing, and not just writing, but writing essays!!! I will tell you without concealing anything that I also lack basic philosophical as well as artistic talent, about my absolute inability to write something expressive, complete and generally useful, some kind of a novel, a narrative, or at least a story.
I like the following quotation from Michel Montaigne, because it relates to me by its spirit and essence: "… whoever shall catch me tripping ignorance, will not in any sort get the better of me; for I should be very unwilling to become responsible to another for my writings, who am I not so to myself, nor satisfied with them. …and if I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retention…. I borrow… either for want of language or want of sense, I cannot myself so well express." (essay Of Books).
These are the words of the founder of an essay genre Michel Montaige. Of course, it is scary to say things of such kind about dear self, though I believe that the judgment I deliver is to show the measure of my own sight, and not of the things I express my opinion about.

To sum up my report about six-months of my creative activity, I will openly say: there is room for improvement. Let them blame me for the statement to be the daring one, I will humbly and reverently accept all the blames placed on me and will continue writing, and maybe God helps me to create something genuinely good… because so far what I am writing is betwixt and between!

5 December, 2011

Essay 91. Here is the one for you, fascist!

Oh, how wonderful and careless time of student days is! We call it careless looking back from present time. Though, sure enough everybody had problems back then. The problems were quite different. Students had their kind of problems, and professors’ problems were of different origin. Students did not bother to make long-term prospects. They were concerned about the coming examinations, tests and exams. Professors, perhaps, had another kind of problems. I do not know for sure, but I can guess that they were worried about a curriculum, their vacations, disagreements in their families, if they had them. Professors of a medical institute could have diverse, most various things to take care of. However it looked like, concerns of Lyudmila Vasilievna Krasheninnikova from the Physical Training Department were significantly different from the ones of the general body of professors.
In one of my essays, to be precise in the essay "Briefs" I, when describing an associate professor of a General Anatomy department Larissa Andreyevna Nikolayeva, used such expressions as "The gal of the old training" and "the Old stager", and I also commented that about that kind of women people said: "A gal with balls". Many of my readers wrote to me saying that the expression matched more not L.A.Nikolayeva, but the very Lyudmila Vasilievna Krasheninnikova. And her concerns were in keeping with the characteristic.

Lyudmila Vasilievna was concerned about the country’s defence in general and participation in it, in the defence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics then, of the students of the Kemerovo State Medical Institute. And they were expected to participate in it not as military doctors or at least nurses, but like defenders of their Motherland with the last highly-explosive shell in a hand.  She kept tirelessly saying that to all groups of students who happened to get into her unwomanly strong hands. "When being killed in a battle, take one or better two or three enemies with you". That was the task Krasheninnikova set for young male and female students, neither more nor less.

She saw no difference between men and women. The Motherland’s defender was neutral, at least in her mind.

Galina Veldyaskina’s group was the one that got into Lyudmila Vasilievna’s hands.  Once in their second year the students happened to take a test of throwing a highly-explosive shell. While writing the essay, I am thinking: "How lucky I was that I attended a sports group and did not have to attend PT classes!" Well, back to Galina’s group. Generally speaking the group passed the test not just fine, but even very well. The guys all together threw the highly-explosive shell further than the qualifying standard. Galina also did her best and flung, yes, I did not make a mistake; she flung the highly-explosive shell without any training further than the qualifying standard. When the explosive flew up high from her hand and started staggering up in the air, nobody believed it would fall behind the mark. However, Galina’s bosom friend Yulia did not get lucky.  After all her attempts the highly-explosive shell staggered with the most unbelievable amplitude, but landed two or three meters away from Yulia.

All three tries she was allowed were used. Yulia was almost crying, the group was literally begging to allow her at least one more try, but there was no way, Krashennikova definitely opposed that. She not only turned the students’ request down, but started harping on her favorite tune: "… what if it’s a war tomorrow…". One could tell that that was Lyudmila Vasilievna’s favorite topic. With what relish and intonation she was lecturing Yulia: "What if a war starts tomorrow, if you throw a highly-explosive shell at the enemy like that, all shell splinters will hit you, and the enemy will stay alive, but you must at least wound him".  And all that was said monotonously with stress on the words "war" and "enemy". "You must throw the shell here to stay alive during the battle!"  And again the accent was on the word "battle".  While saying all that she was approaching the qualifying standard mark. "You will practice hard and then come to take the test again". At that moment Yulishna, as she was called in the group,  being enraged that she would have to practice and seeing a real enemy of students in the person of that disgusting old bag in front of her threw the shell with all her might while crying "A-aaaaaaaa, I am sick of all that!" It seemed to the group that she was shouting: "A-aaaaaa, here is the one for you, fascist…".  They were arguing for quite a long time about what she was really crying after that. It was amazing, but Yulishna herself could not say, what she exactly was screaming. Though, that was really cool. The shell wheezed a centimeter above Krasheninnikova’s head and landed three meters further than the mark. "Hurraaaaaaaay!!!! She’s passed it!!!! The world record!!!! It’s a victory!!!!", - the group was shouting, and Galina was shouting louder than all of them. Yulka was also capering and clapping her hands, as that was her victory.

Krasheninnikova froze because of fear, and she had a good reason for that, her head was almost blown away by the shell. The group was triumphant. It was funny to look at Krasheninnikova: she was embarrassed, wilted, scared; she had not expected that the shell from Yulia’s hands would reach her, that was why she was walking to and fro making unwomanly big steps at the other side of the stadium, brainwashing her on the topic: "What if it’s a war tomorrow, if there’s a march tomorrow…". The students were laughing themselves sick. That was what could result from disbelief in one’s students and in one’s own ability if not to teach a student than to make him or her very angry. Nevertheless a credit should be given to Lyudmila Vasilievna, she pulled herself together; a grin appeared in her face: "No! She hasn’t passed it! It was her forth try!", - she said and closed the group register.

I think, there is no need for me to say how much she was hated by the group at that moment. Everybody was shouting, demanding to give a credit for the throw. Only Yulia was in absolute euphoria, the euphoria of her victory. The victory over herself, the victory over enemy, the real enemy. It was good that the shell was a training one.

And Krasheninnikova, let’s put it delicately, a mean person, did not give a credit for the "world record", which almost resulted in a craniocerebral injury for her, and made Yulishna write a paper on "Conditioning to the Cold".

The plot of the story is courtesy of Galina Yurovskaya (Veldyaskina).

13 December, 2011.



Essay 92. Those who are drowning are to be saved by themselves!


So I’ve reached the point when I am requested to write an essay. No, this is not a work made to order. This essay is written to the readers’ request to tell them how I was coping with difficulties. Of course, I had them as well, especially when I moved from Uzbekistan to Ukraine. When in Uzbekistan I had generous bonuses to my salary: I worked in a system of the Third Main Agency of the Healthcare Ministry of the USSR, which was serving uranium mines and uranium processing enterprises.
So I was the head of the only psychiatric department of the Chief Directory in Central Asia. And correspondingly I was paid more than well.

And then Gorbachev signed a Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement with Americans, and together with reduction of armaments, there were closed the mines where uranium was mined, as well as serving them clinics and medical units. So the clinic in Cherkesar, where I worked had to be closed. There were several ways for me to go. The first one was to keep my position and continue working after the clinic was given to the republican administration, to the Healthcare Ministry of the Uzbek SSR. The second one was to be transferred to a clinic, which would be suggested to me by the Central Directory. I was offered a choice of moving to Severodvinsk or to Eastern Siberia, to a city of Krasnokamensk of Irkutsk region on the border with Mongolia. And the third way was to be dismissed on grounds of redundancy, receive the tripled rate of my salary with all bonuses and find a new job independently. I had chosen the third way long before the official proposal and sent my resumes to three organizations on each level, which were by the Black Sea.

The three organizations were a Regional Healthcare Agency, a Regional Bureau of the Interior, a Regional Social Security Department. All three of them had psychiatric service. To our surprise, my wife and I received many job offers. We chose Donetsk region, the city of Mariupol, which was also by the sea, though the Sea of Azov. We settled at Mariupol suburbs at Mangush. The chief physician, as I remember, told me then that if I "impress him", he would give me an extra half of wages rate. And I started from a single wage rate of a district psychiatrist. I will honestly say that that salary was not enough to provide for two of us. However I did not want to apply for extra working hours, as I was concerned about owing a favor to the chief physician. I went another way. I bought three hundred chickens, which laid a full bucket of eggs for our family every day. And I was also a fisherman. I got the hand of fishing bullheads. It’s small, but delicious fish. First we fried it, but soon had enough of it and started sun drying it.

My fishing technique was improving, and I started bringing home three or four buckets of bullheads. So one day Natasha told me: "Oleg, we have more than a thousand eggs and three sacks of sun dried bullheads piled up. All this can get rotten. Something has to be done".  So we decided to sell excess produce at a marketplace. It took us a long time to get ready for the first trip, as Natasha absolutely did not want to sell at the market. I had to apply remarkable effort to persuade her, that there was nothing to be ashamed of in selling extra produce of your own farm. And she finally consented.

There was no hassle with the eggs, but we had to do some tiring work about the bullheads. We sorted the fish by size and then strung by tens. In Ukraine farm markets under the Soviet rule as well as now start working very early, at daybreak. Well, sure enough, we did not go there that early, but by seven in the morning we arrived to the central market of Mariupol. That was an anthill. Even though we had been there before bringing the eggs and fish and found out what had been where sold, we got confused a bit, and Natalek was ready to go back home without even starting to trade.

I had to help her out. I brought the eggs from our car, and there were several boxes of them, and the three sacks of bullheads to a counter. Then I bought a coupon for a trading spot and started shouting at the top of my voice: "Bullheads, sun dried bullheads, excellent bullheads!" and "Eggs, chicken eggs, fresh, huge eggs!". It should be noted that nobody cried like that and advertised goods at Mariupol market. Natashka and I were the first. I bawled for five or ten minutes, and people started crowding around Natalka, they even stood in a line. Well, and I went at work, after I had promised to pick Natasha up by 1.30 pm, after receiving my patients, and if there would be a need to finish selling what would be left. I left for the hospital, though I felt uneasy. I was worried about my Natalek, what if someone would abuse her. I knew the quantity of the bullheads and eggs, and the market prices I also knew, but I could not believe that that amount of money could be made by selling, that so many eggs and bullheads would be bought. To my extreme surprise and worry, when I came to pick Natasha up, I did not find her where I had left her. However the old ladies who were selling greens next to her reassured me that she had sold everything and left long ago: "There are her boxes and buckets and sacks under the counter. She was so happy that left everything and ran away. And we collected everything". Here are the babushkas, a real treasure, but the old ladies.  I wanted to thank them and offered them money for collecting and keeping the boxes, but they did not take the money; so I bought some of their greens, and they were very glad and promised me to look after Natalka, if we come to trade again. And, by the way, everything was exactly that way afterwards. So while I was having a chat with the babushkas and bringing the empty tare to the car, Natasha showed up. She was excited, bubbly, and had a bunch of packages in her hands. It cost me a lot of efforts to make her sit in the car and go home, that much she wanted to tell me about the trade. On the way home she started demonstrating me her purchases. She was very happy and praised every item, as if she intended to sell it to me. And when she told me how much she had paid for that, I dropped my lower jaw and had my upper jaw tilted. That was the sum, which several times exceeded my salary. And when we were at home Natasha told me that in spite of spending that much, what she had spent was significantly less than the amount she brought home. After recalculation of what was left after the shopping, we concluded that to trade at the market was profitable, and we would sell there for some time. And we also decided to go to the market more often in order Natasha did not have that big sum of money on her, as that was dangerous. And Natasha asked me, whether that was possible to sell everything wholesale.

On the first day she was approached by several people, who offered to buy everything wholesale, everything she had, but with a small discount. The discount was really quite acceptable, only 15-20 per cent of the total sum we had calculated. So we decided to sell everything to dealers and save us the trouble to stand at the market. I was enthusiastically fishing and sun drying fish, the chickens were laying eggs with high efficiency, though the number of eggs was deteriorating, as we would behead one or another chicken, when wanted to treat us to chicken broth. We were trading like that till autumn, when I arranged a room for performing hypnosis at our place and started receiving patients at home. That was the period, when Gorbachev made it possible for cooperative and entrepreneurial activity. I resumed my medical practice, which I actually had not stopped, though I spent a lot of time on fishing and processing the fish. That way Natasha and I resolved the financial problem in our family.

I will honestly say that it jars on my nerves, when they complain about life or their neighbors or government or whatever… Just tell me, when the authorities ever cared about people? Well, never. In the past, let’s say under the communists, they did not give a damn about people, to say nothing about the time after that. There are wonderful signs around all beaches saying: "Those who are drowning are to be saved by themselves!"

13 December, 2011
Essay 93. People, be happy

In my life I enjoy doing charity. Though, I do not like to donate “in general”, I prefer to make specific donations. I remember, about twenty years ago, when there was shortage of disposable syringes, I managed to get and buy one hundred thousand of the disposable syringes and donated them to a children’s department of Mangush district hospital, which is near Mariupol. 
The head of the department, who had worked for all her life at the hospital, a very good doctor, constantly experienced shortage of most necessary things, not to mention disposable syringes; she was crying when accepting the syringes and signing a formal note of receiving the donation. She just could not understand what all those papers were for and laughed when I explained to her that the syringes could be taken from her, and even God would not know, what would happen to them. By the way, that was exactly what happened later. As I was afterwards informed, a chief physician of the district someone named Tokhtomysh G.G. made an attempt to take the syringes from the department as if for the district’s reserve, and when he failed, he was very angry and did not thank me, but cursed with “very bad words”. You won’t believe it, but I was very pleased.
First, I’ve always strongly hated bureaucrats. Why was the chief
physician scolding me? Because the donation was done without him being in charge, and he could not control anything. Knowing the habits of chief physicians, to witness the process of the donation I had invited a chief editor of a local newspaper, and the event was made public in the district. Second, I was happy for the doctors of the department, who came to my office to thank me and told me about everything the notorious Tokhtomysh had been up to.  Third, I was happy for myself that I could afford to do such things. I want to make a stress on the words: “I can afford”, because charity and as a result donations are performed only when a person has a desire and a possibility. And the amount of donation is not relevant.
By the same principle I am making donations on construction of a Russian Orthodox Church in Kiev region and for needy people in Mariupol. I am not bragging about that, though I do not feel shy to talk about it.  So when I made up my mind to publish the essays, it occurred to me that somebody would like to participate in publishing of the “Humorous Essays”.
Of course, I did not arrange a referendum to discuss the question, but I talked the matter over with three of my closest former fellow students, and got absolute encouragement from them. The matter is that I decided to put on the front cover that the book is published on donations of such and such, though without specifying the amounts donated, as that could become the most sensitive issue. So as soon as I made an announcement about the welcomed donations, I was contacted right away with a question about how to transfer the money by Leosha Krasnov, Kostya Romashov, Sveta Titova, Marina Emikh, Lyubov Kovaleova and Yakov Kirsh.

They are the graduates of Kemerovo Medical Institute.  Though, when I started receiving money from total strangers, that was both very surprisingly and pleasant. It means people like my essays. And those, who are doing that, are not only kind, but are also wise; however, unfortunately, those who donate are significantly outnumbered by those, who don’t. I will act against my conscience, if I say that everybody was “for” and everybody liked everything. A frog differs from a toad by its croaking. A toad does not croak, it suffocates, i.e. people cannot part with certain amount of money. It had to suffocate really hard one of my former fellow students, as he in spite of Confucius’ statement that “it’s difficult to look for a black cat in a dark room, especially if it’s not there”, has found a cat! So having remembered an arithmetic school course, arithmetic was not taught at the institute, started calculating how many spokes my bicycle wheels have.  I should say that the publishing process goes on independently of arithmetic exercises of the “accountant Votruba”. Proofreading and editing have already been finished. Paper is being selected. Generally speaking, as they say in the East: “Dogs are barking, but a caravan is moving”.
In June 2012 it will be forty years since very many nice guys and I graduated from the Kemerovo Medical Institute, and after that became wonderful doctors. Life scattered them around the world; I know that my former fellow students live and work in Canada, Belarus, Germany, Israel, Ukraine, USA. Well, and around unbounded Russia. As years pass, we become more sentimental and are looking for communication. We feel like hugging our old friends, asking for their forgiveness, if they were possibly offended, and remembering the past. As for me, I want to use the author’s right with a personal desire and tell everybody: “Please, forgive me, everybody who was offended by me intentionally or unintentionally. I love you!!! Be happy!!!”.
I believe, you, my dear readers, will forgive me, if I continue doing charity myself by making donations and inviting others to do what they can to become involved in charity. And I will also continue writing essays following an order of Yavar Gasan-ogly Abdulayev, which is expressed in a quite specific way:

While breathing air of a breaking day,
You created a miracle with your magic pen.

You’ve found beautiful words about the past
And reached the perfection of your skill.
Poems are also created by you,
And they should become my brothers.

They are the creation of your spirit.
Create, write revealing your art.
Your tale about love full of sweetness and pain
is needed by people, like salt for food.

Thought is a spit, and words are shish kebab,
If you string them, you will write a book of books.
You should rotate the spit over the fire
In order to delight them with food after that.

21 December, 2011.




Essay 94. A sight for sore eyes

It happened somehow so that an idea to publish my essays as a book occurred practically as soon as I started writing the essays. Tough I wanted to make sure, whether they would be interesting to readers. My first readers were, of course, my former fellow students, and their responses inspired me; they were like a sight for sore eyes. It was better than any pills I was taking after the cardiologic surgery I had less than a month before. I want, my dear readers, to cite the first three comments on my literary exercises.
Here is what Vitya Kubasov wrote in his first comment:

"Listen, with what pleasure I read all that!! As if my student years were back… Write more, please!!!"
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

Svetlana Titova is a bit more verbose, though I also like her response very much:
"I’ve read it with great pleasure, and most importantly was imagining everything in pictures, had a good laugh; it’s been a long time since I had that much fun. You are writing in quite a literary style; I do not understand, why they gave you a satisfactory grade for your composition at the entrance exams. Hope, the second series of your stories is coming soon. I’ve received a huge supply of positive emotions. Can’t wait for the continuation!".
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

And the third response is from Tolik Lopatin. Tolik is a very kind guy, he was teaching at the institute for some time, even though that did not last long, he has remained an instructor deep inside for his lifetime. One cannot skip a line in a song, so in order not to ruin the beauty of the original, I will cite his response in full:
Hello, buddy! I’ve read it; SUPER!!!! But! You are not on good terms with commas. Do not repeat one and the same word in two successive sentences. Ilgam RIZA ogly, not RZA. Otar – REFIKOVITCH. And we went to pick up grapes for three days. For 2 or three days we stole a backpack of "Ladyfingers" grapes each. And we did not sell what we could not eat, but gave out to our friends (to Tamara in particular), as that was autumn of our second year. And we made wine out of the rest of it and drank it at a New Year party. And tell that Slava Sizikov was killed by his drunk neighbor, who stabbed him at his heart. And Arkashka is an orthopedist at one of the best clinics in the world. Other than that everything is OK. I enjoyed reading it. I, like you, passed the entrance exams with two 5 and 3 for a composition. And V.V.Kopytin greeted both of us with the enrollment ahead of time. And during our skiing, Ilgam, who was barely moving, fell down; he was lying and Otar was very slowly going past him. It was then when Ilgam told him the catchphrase: "Wait a moment, why are you flying, like wind, let’s go together!" Everything is FINE!!!!!!! And there is one more thing. Zhenya Romashov’s life was taken by TB (or lungs cancer?). At the end of the chapter you started telling who had become what. Maybe it is worthy telling according to the same pattern about Otar and Ilgam? Are you offended by my critic?".
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

The first three comments are the most pleasant ones; and the most important thing is that they were the first.
And here is the first mention of publishing of the memoirs. Marina Gadzik (Emikh):

"I read your stories with great interest. Good job! All characters are painfully familiar, young, attractive, happy! I do not agree with Tolik, when he specifies certain events. The author has a right to embellish events and people. The only drawback is that there are not many stories, I feel like reading more. You should write a book and invite everybody (the characters and the fellow students) to its presentation. I wish you success!".
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

And I like the next comment, because it was written by a young man, a student of now Kemerovo Medical Academy, Anton Kazantsev:
"Oleg Petrovitch! What wonderful and funny stories! I am reading them with pleasure and laughing! It is obvious you need to write a book!!! I am thrilled!".
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

What Anton wrote especially moves me. He is a young guy, brought up on computer skills; nevertheless he has very finely caught the general positive mood of my memoirs. This is what I am saying now, six-months after the first ten essays were written. Back then, in June-July, I did not give it a lot of thought, but was just writing what my soul was asking for. And now, when rereading my essays, I see that subconsciously I was putting kindness in them from the very beginning.  Yes, the episodes, described in the essays are the most different, some are stupid, some are cruel, and some are with criminal touch, though they took place. And they reflect not a negative side of student life, but a positive one.
Here is how Vitya Belkov had found my essays; we studied together at a secondary school in Kuzbass for then year. For all then years we were playing mischievous tricks and behaving like hooligans, to put it short, we were friends. I was very happy when he turned up. And his first response cannot better explain the style of my essays:

"We have not seen each other for 40 years, I feel sorry about that. However I’ve read your stories and pictured alive you being a mischievous, smart and troublemaking boy. I did not happen to know all characters of your stories, though while reading your stories imagined them vividly, like in real life. In spite of the fact that all of you were from different corners of our unbounded USSR, I have an impression, that all of you are brothers. I explain it by the fact that no matter, who you write about, sincere respect and love to the character run through your story, and that is worth of a lot. And as for the drawbacks, nobody is perfect. I am sure, you see them yourself. And with time you will eliminate most of them. As you are a creative, thinking and quickly self-learning person. I sincerely wish you success and satisfaction in your hard writer’s work. Continue writing. And we, those, who cannot write, will read with pleasure."
 (spelling and stylistics are of the author)

Why am I writing about this in so many details? These are the stages of my inner conviction that I should continue writing essays and the essays should be published. Please, do not assume that I overestimated or overestimate my abilities in writing. I’ve written before about my total inability to compose something expressive, complete and of general utility some poor novel, but a novel, a narrative or at least a story. I just want to leave my mark in life. Where to print the essays is not a problem: I own a printing house with decent German equipment. As I continue writing essays, I’ve legalized my authorship at "Ukrpatent". And I’ve also set up and legalized a publishing company. Forgive me, but I’ve just remained to this day, the boaster I were in my young age, so this is how I named my publishing company: "Publishing company of Syedyshev Oleg Petrovitch". Well, I just could not name it "Horns and Hoofs", though I like Ostap Ibragimovitch very much (Ostap Bender is a fictional con man and antihero who first appeared in the novel The Twelve Chairs written by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov and released in January 1928).
On the other hand…, why not?... Though, it’s too late now. I’ve already received a certificate.

And the following turns in my essays’ life cheer me up a lot. Just read, what Natalya Gertfelder is writing:

"Hello, Oleg! So, thanks a lot for the given opportunity to immerse in memories about so distant and so dear student years. Back then I bloated with pride because I was a student of Kemerovo Medical Institute and I am still quite proud as well… Your stories are simple, but very true to life, you describe situations which are so familiar, that I started having doubts: "And where I was then??".  However my student years were in a different time period. And the most important thing is that I told a lot of what I had read to my husband, and he is a "local" German, I mean native, not from our immigrants. So at the end of my efforts to translate "close to the original", he asked me in a plaintive voice, but persistently to make KURNIK (a chicken meat pie)!!! I had to make dough, and tonight we are going to try it and estimate the new dish from my Russian cuisine menu. I will continue reading experiencing pleasure and nostalgia. And on a day off I will try to make potatoes fried on lard according to you recipe.. (just kidding). I am not saying good bye forever, hope to write one more comment. Wish you success and good health!! My best regards to your beautiful wife. THERE WAS ONLY ONE PROBLEM WITH THE KURNIK, SORRY FOR MY LANGUAGE, BUT IT CANNOT BE SAID IN ANY OTHER WAY, THOUGH IT SOUNDS ALMOST RUDE:  WE PIGGED OUT ON IT…IT’S EXTREMELY DELICIOUS. GOD GIVE YOU ALL THE BEST!!! And the story with dues is also very familiar to me. Though in my case it was 2 kopeks, but I ended up with embezzlement, the right case for Kolyma (an exile place for criminals).., though my group mates helped me out, as I also had been doing that not for myself!!!".
It’s not an essay now, but a real culinary book. As I remember, my mother used to have "A Book about Tasty and Healthy Food".
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

It’s not all of it. There is one more facet of essays. Here is for you to read, what our Chancellor’s, A.D.Tkachev’s, daughter, Yekaterina Tatianina-Tkacheva, is writing:
"Dear Oleg Petrovich! It was quite interesting to look through your series of "Humorous Essays"! In spite of the fact that I was born two years after you had graduated from the institute, I can conclude that student life has not changed a lot! When reading the essays, I had brisk images in my mind of my student years; memories came flooding back to me. Thank you very much for the pleasure I had! For me, a daughter of the former Chancellor, A.D. Tkachev, everything that has to do with life or history of our higher educational institution is very interesting.".
 (spelling and stylistics are of the author)

Or a son of Miron Lvovitch Livshits, Sergey Tikhonov is writing:
"Hi, Oleg Petrovitch, I know many of them personally, heard about some of them, anyway, everything is done with talent, you made youth come back, my father would have liked it a lot (Miron Lvovitch, if you remember), but 4 years ago we buried him in St. Pete’s at Smolenskoye cemetery. Thank you.".
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

To revive children’s memories about their parents, and in a good way; this is in conclusion, or as they say here: "One for the road!", comment of Sophiya (unfortunately, there is no photo):

"Hello! I read mention of my father professor Aleutskiy Nikolay Nikolayevitch with his young photo – how pleasant! He died in Arkhangelsk in 2001. It’s a pity that he cannot read this. I remember Kemerovo; I was born there and used to come often to my parents departments. Everything remained vivid in memory.".
(spelling and stylistics are of the author)

I have no doubts – there will be a book. At least, like Vysotskiy (Vladimir Vysotskiy, 25 January, 1938 – 25 July, 1980, was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet and actor, whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture) said: "…I will finish what I’ve undertaken to do…", we shall see when the time comes.

21 December, 2011.



Essay 95. Milan is a Lucrative City

Milan is a wonderful city. Natasha and I visited it to celebrate our silver wedding on 22 February. We were fascinated by charm and temperament of the Italians,

their spontaneity and loud voices.  They can accompany a most trivial phrase with such unrestrained gestures, that sometimes one feels ill at ease. So full of that kind of impressions about Milan, Natasha invited Cathie and me to celebrate her birthday in Milan. I chose not to be difficult and make Natalka cajole me and agreed right away. Cathie was also for that, however she had to make arrangements with her academic adviser. He also did not mind that and did not allow begging him, but gave her three free days with the following working off. So the question of the trip was decided. Though we did not want to go without preliminary planning and started studying a repertoire of La Scala  in the internet.

Unfortunately, the repertoire as well as the performers for the three days we planned to be in Milan did not evoke our interest. However in December they were displaying world masterpieces of a XVI century artist Georges de La Tour at an exhibition hall right across from La Scala. "Damned Italian imperialists" paid to make the exposition available for free for the viewers, and groups of schoolchildren

accompanied by a teacher were let inside without waiting in a queue. On Saturday the queue was not very long, about fifty meters; it even did not reach a monument to Michelangelo.

We were standing in the queue compliantly waiting for our opportunity to have an access to the beautiful. But no such luck. When there were only two people left in front of us on the way to the entrance, a charming couple in their eighties; she was in a mink fur coat, and he – in a light brown coat with bright mustard-yellow scarf around the collar. The couple was so sweet, so fragile that one felt like rushing somewhere to find and bring chairs for them to sit and wait on; and there, when it was the couple’s turn to go inside and after them ours, like simoom in a desert got up, there came three groups of schoolchildren. I’ve mentioned already that schoolchildren were allowed skipping the queue. So a policeman, who was keeping order and simultaneously carrying out duties of a ticket collector, offered those "frail old people" to go ahead of the three singing and moving restlessly groups, but the "frail cuties" in no way wanted any privileges  and stubbornly refused to walk inside before them. Finally there was the "frail cuties’ " turn as well as ours. Five people were let inside at a time. I was impressed by reverential silence in the hall. The loud Italian students, who were dancing break dance at the entrance, were quietly sitting on the floor in corners of the big hall behind separating ropes and attentively listening to guides’ lectures, who were also sitting on the floor. It was a surprise to see such metamorphosis and also pleasure. I am not going to describe the following paintings.


You can see them in the internet, though I will insist that emotions which overwhelmed us were very strong. Everybody felt some spiritual elevation when leaving the exhibition hall. I was struck by the talent of depicting light of a candle. An impression is created that it is reflected even in sweat drops on the forehead of St Joseph. We regretted a lot that we did not understand the Italian language. A guide was speaking so emotionally, gesticulating and pointing with his hand at the painting and for some reason he was addressing Natasha all the time. We think he had a feeling that there was her birthday the next day. And the next day after visiting the exposition of works of Georges de La Tour

we started walking around Milan looking for Santa Maria delle Grazie church (Holy Mary of Grace), where there was the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci. Why not? If to enjoy true art then in full measure!

Especially as because in February Natasha and I were collecting information about what sights were located where. The church happened to be so far from the hotel! We were walking for more than an hour. We wanted to see so much what is so well described in the Gospel according to Matthew: "Now when the evening was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom (Matth.26:20-29).
And we were enjoying the walk as well. We were twisting our heads around, admiring architecture, Natalek was window shopping, and I was looking for a caf; or a restaurant to go out to. We were very tired, but were rewarded for. We came to the church right at the beginning of a Sunday service, and with interest and pleasure listened to the service till its end, though we did not understand anything, but the general atmosphere of goodness and decency induced us too. Then we enjoyed listening to an organ music concert. In order not to fool you, I will say right away that we were not favored to contemplate the Last Supper.  I cut the riot in the family off by promising to bring them to Milan once again and take them to see it with the tickets booked beforehand via the internet. Yeah, life of curious tourists is tough. Santa Maria delle Grazia church is quite far away from the Galileo hotel, where we were staying. Nevertheless we walked back as well, but along a different route as we fairly assumed that all roads in Milan led to Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square), and our hotel was 100 meters away from it. Don’t laugh, but we really walked to the Cathedral square. We were in a hurry and became very tired. And we were in a hurry because we were very hungry. So I invited my family to celebrate Natalka’s birthday to a "Gallery" restaurant, which was at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.

The restaurant was wonderful, Natalka and I had liked it, when we visited Milan to celebrate our silver wedding.

And a day before that we had lunch there; I was told that fresh truffles were expected to be delivered on that day. We decided to go to the restaurant without even changing at the hotel. I am not going to describe the dinner, will just say that it was absolutely delicious.

Cathie and I ordered tagliatelle with truffles and our heroine of the occasion had potato cream with quail eggs and truffles, and for dessert all of us had the most delicious strawberry cake.

Well, I will say the following about how the main course is served. It is served without truffles, and truffles right in front of guests’ eyes are weighed on electronic scales,

then sliced with the help of a special device and weighed again.

Grams and milligrams are counted. And it is finger-licking good! No matter how many times Natalek and I had truffles, we still cannot get used to it. All in all the dinner was a success. After dinner we headed to look for a street artist, as we wanted him, but not a photographer to imprint our satisfied with life happy faces.

Actually there was no need to look for anybody, street artists are based near the Duomo, where there are crowds of tourists. However we wanted to find the one, whose mischievous hand had painted Natalek and me

right after dinner to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of our marriage, meaning our silver wedding.  And we did found him. It’s up to you to decide what he has done this time.

Well, everybody was happy with the trip to Milan, and we are looking forward to a new visit to it. The more so that I promised this to my family.

12 December, 2011.
Essay 96. REAR

It’s always easy to write about Zhenya Romashov. No matter what sphere of student life I start recollecting, he was for sure a participant or at least a witness of the event. He just could not be a passive participant or a passive witness. His exuberant disposition did not allow him to be that way. He liked to be the leader or at least the most active participant. So the events I want to tell you about now absolutely could not happen without him. The following took place. Approximately in our third year an enigmatic society was formed in our group. Its members were not everybody who was interested.

One had to prove that he deserved to be a member of the society. We were different from other groups of the Therapeutic Department in a way that there were mainly guys in our group, and not just guys, but handsome men!

Well, who would argue that Arkashka Blyakher was not a handsome man? His nickname was: "a red-haired womanizer". And if to consider that he was very comfortable in communication and knew a whole lot of jokes, one can easily see that he was a notable person in any crowd. And what about Vagram Agadzhanyan? He was tall, solidly built, distinguished-looking and also was skillfully using his Caucasian accent. He used to bring specific flavor to any party. Well, and what about Zhenya, Sasha Salmayer! Generally speaking, our guys enjoyed deserved attention of those groups where majority were girls and there was shortage of guys. So those girls’ groups used to invite our guys at all kinds of parties arranged on any occasions: birthdays, passing of exams and tests, etc. As a rule interesting and funny situations and episodes happened at those parties. We made an agreement between us to tell each other about those episodes, and not just tell, but describe them in writing. Nobody wanted to simply write reports. So Zhenya had an idea to form an enigmatic society in our group and name it "REAR", which was deciphered as "Really Enigmatic Alcoholic Rangers". We did not know the whole meaningfulness of the word "alcoholic" back then, but we liked it and tried it on without any second thought. However there was controversy concerning the name of the society from the time it was started to the moment of its breakup.

Vagram and I believed that it was better or at least more impressive to say not "Really Enigmatic Alcoholic Rangers", but "Alcoholics’ Secret Society", as we were good for nothing alcoholic rangers in those days.

And the abbreviation sounded much more expressive, than REAR. Unfortunately Vagram and I were in minority, other members of the society: Zhenya Romashov, Arkasha Blyakher and Olya Ptitsyna (yes, there was a girl among us) expressed an opposite opinion.  They did not like Vagram’s and my proposal.

There were so many general meetings of the society dedicated to the very issue, which we conducted at the "Kuzbass" restaurant or later at the "Sovremennik" caf;; there were so many weighty arguments expressed and listened to in the form of toasts from both sides! Nevertheless the consensus was not reached. Vagram and I even decided to play a trick. Back then, when communist ideology was paying lip service to the democratic ideals, we unconditionally conformed to the majority. However democracy presupposes a right to express one’s own opinion and uphold it using any legal means.

So Vagram and I developed an insidious plan; we started inviting to our general meetings at a restaurant or any other place non-members of the society and offered them to express their opinion on the issue of its name.  It was significant that all the invited liked the name of "Alcoholics’ Secret Society" and its abbreviation much more.
Nevertheless, the parasite Zhenka, who absolutely did not mind inviting non-members, though as the author of the first name of "Really Enigmatic Alcoholic Rangers", was absolutely against the re-naming and did not approve of informing outsiders about internal problems of the society. He was a stubborn one, but Vagram and I wanted that everybody knew about our REAR at the Therapeutic Department. We even were handing in our written reports about parties we had attended not at seminars, but during lectures, in order to make the message go through many hands and be read before it reached one of the members. And we intentionally chose the one who sat further away from us.  For some reason I am sure that the readers are curious about our notes. I do not remember all one hundred per cent of the reports, only the most dramatic. I cannot tell about what we were writing each other in those reports. This is personal. Sure enough, we fibbed in order to bring one’s status a bit higher than a baseboard.

Anyway, I will honestly say about myself, I fibbed. No, I did not lie, but fibbed. Well, it was like spice for food, one could eat it without spice, but it was much tastier with the spice. Vagram also fibbed, and Zhenka never did so.

He always sharply rebuked me every time he caught me. Forget about him, it is because of him that the society of "Really Enigmatic Alcoholic Rangers" (REAR) broke up in 1972, after our students graduated from the institute, and never became the "Alcoholics’ Secret Society" (ASS). Just imagine, if the abbreviation of the society’s name was changed, how much impressive would be the title of the essay then!


07 January, 2012.



Essay 97. And you are a gambler, Paramosha!

In a film "Running" an actor Ulianov, playing a part of a general Chernota, says to an actor Yevstigneyev, who performed a part of Paramon Korzukhin, when playing cards: "And you are a gambler, Paramosha… This is what ruins you". The phrase was abridged to: "And you are a gambler, Paramosha!’ and became a catch phrase. Though when our company was affected by a virus of gambling and craving for cards, the film was not yet released. We started gambling long before 1971.

Well, and a year or two prior to it, in 1971 we already quitted that pastime. How the infection affected us, and what the reason was, that we started gambling like crazy, I still cannot understand. Yes, we were affected by gambling – the emotion, vividly expressed, related to anticipation, absolutely inadequate to the objective reality of success in a card game. And a group of gamblers was a fixed one. Its regular members were: your most humble servant, Zhenya Romashov, Kolya Kozlov, Slavka Sizikov, Valera Kaygorodov and Zhora Chernobay played very rarely, more often than Zhora, there came to us to play Volodya Kravtchenko, my Sambo (a type of marshal arts) coach and our friend. Volodya worked at a plant "Progress", and there discipline

was strict, so Volodya did not have a frequent opportunity to tickle our and his own nerves. He was way too emotional when playing. He would jump up from his seat and start swearing at all the players together and each of them individually, if, for instance, someone used a wrong card, not the one he needed. Zhenka and I had known Volodya better, than Slavka or Kolya Kozlov, and did not bother to answer him, but Kolya and Slavka every time were trying to explain to Volodya, that they were playing for their own sake and not to make Volodya win. However, there was never a case that Volodya won. We gambled for kopeks, at least the initial stakes were a kopek from each player.

And we played Azi. That was the game’s name. Its main point was that one suit was completely discarded. And the rest twenty seven cards were dealt one at a time, four cards in a hand. The last card was put face up by the dealer and revealed to show what suit would be the trump one. Then everybody discarded one card each, and in order to win one had to have two tricks. The situation when three players took a trick each was called "azi"; those who played, but did not have a chance to take a trick, in order to continue playing could purchase their play for half of an amount of the round. Those who did not play could also trade for them to join the game paying the total amount on the round. So the amount on the round was growing correspondingly to the trading of the players. And each of them could raise the stakes only once, if the suggested amount was approved; and if the sum was overridden, then one could offer a new amount again. And the player, who was the last to offer the amount, started the game and played his hand first. The game was interesting, risky, the azi I’d described could take place several times in a row, and if other players paid for their participation and joined in, then a trifle amount grew very quickly. And here I can say that the winner was the one who was less reckless, who had excellent memory, who was cool and could determine at least approximately by other players’ faces, emotions and behavior, what cards they had in hand, the one who could bluff in a cool way. Well, sure enough one had to be very well familiar with a deck of cards and know how to shuffle cards to make so that the last one was an ace when it was revealed to mark a trump suit. I will not say that about the other with one hundred per cent confidence, and will quite modestly hint about myself that maybe not perfectly, but I could do everything of the above mentioned. I could reveal an ace, if there was a decent amount on the round and I was the dealer. I did not do that often, as I was closely watched, but, to be quite frank, I did or to put it more precisely, played such kind of tricks. I also liked to take my wallet out of my pocket in a showy way and slowly, taking my time, take a one hundred note out of it and offer it as the stakes. Wow, what would start after that! I should say that to have a wallet was in itself an achievement back then.
 


My wallet was given to me by my Batya (father) for my birthday with a wish that it would be never empty. According to a tradition, one must not give an empty purse or a wallet, so Batya put a new crispy one hundred note in it for me. The crocodile leather wallet was terribly expensive. Batya had bought it secretly from his wife, my dear mother, at a defense ministry retail shop in Frunze; he worked there and bought it only because things of that kind were not available in regular trade. The one hundred banknote was beautiful, though quite rare in circulation, as a price of bread was twenty kopeks and of sausage two and fifty per a kilo.
So situation at the game table became tense, and if Zhenya and Volodya happened to be at it together, they started arguing with each other, swearing, insisting that I was bluffing. What was quite amazing was that both of them were stating that I was bluffing, but also both blamed each other for playing into my hand. Volodya was making a lot of noise insisting that Zhenka and I had been in collusion, because we were best friends, and Zhenka was blaming Volodya for the very same thing. Zhenka usually would give the clincher: what kind of friend I was, if by that moment he had lost more than twenty five rubles to me? That was practically never the case. And Volodya used to give the very same argument: what kind of friend I was, if last year he lost three hundred and sixty rubles to my benefit? The money was not his, Volodya’s, it was Komsomol dues (Volodya was a Komsomol leader of his shop at the "Progress"), so I refused to give the money back to Volodya, for him not to lose a bigger sum next time. Yes, that really happened. The lesson did good to him. After that Volodya never lost more than ten rubles. He would simply get up and leave. However he remembered about that case every time we played. Fortunately that was only during game time and only when having an argument with Yevgeniy, and our friendship was not in the least influenced by that. So the scenario was well known to everyone: Volodya and Zhenya after having an argument, and promising to tear my head off, if I did bluff, revealed their cards. Then they demanded me to show them my hand. So I with pleasure did that, because that was also a part of the scenario; if I had a good hand, Zhenya and Volodya would hug and call each other wise and me - a lucky schmuck, and if I bluffed, what would start then! They forgot about me and called each other cowards and wimps. The game was stopped for five or ten minutes until the wranglers chilled out. I should say, my dear readers, that the game also had one more point: we played only on weekends. The gain was never appropriated by the winner; it was spent on purchasing of port "777" and "Doctor’s" sausage. And, like in the case with my winning of three hundred and sixty rubles, it was difficult to spend the total amount on wine and sausage at once, so the players, knowing the prices, had a clear idea of how much the winner had left. There was also one more nuance, nobody of the players, as a rule, never went to a store. Yevgeniy had and still has a younger brother Kostya. We called him "the Kid". So Zhenka would immediately call the Kid and send him for purchases. Poor Kostya, he even did not try to say no. Neither a test he was supposed to have the next day, nor an exam he would have to take in two days, had absolutely no effect on Yevgeniy. He instructed Kostya about what to buy, offered to the winner to give Kostya the necessary sum, and always added on unanticipated needs and a taxi. So the latter went to a store and we continued playing.

We got cured of the contagion also at once. Everybody was very annoyed that I could reveal an ace, but they failed to find out how I did that. So once I was invited by Zhenka, Slavka Sizikov and Valera Kaygorodov to play a game. I was surprised then that it was not Saturday, and they decided to play. The second time I was surprised when they demonstratively started opening a new deck. I noticed all of that, but did not make any conclusions. So the cards were dealt. I had a queen and an ace, both of trumps, and my chances to lose were less than one per cent. I could lose only in one case, if I was not the first to play my hand, and my opponents had their cards in certain sequence. So when the stakes were raised, I had a feeling that they did not want to let me play my hand, and everything was predetermined, I gave up and lost one hundred rubles in the very first dealing. I was offended; I got up and started collecting my things. They were persuading me to stay, saying that everything would be spent on all of us anyway. I calmly explained to them that, if I was able to reveal an ace, that was my own merit and my risk, and I had always promised to give the well known to everyone one hundred note from my wallet, if I was caught on cheating. And they acted in collusion. I was offered to have the one hundred note back, but I refused to take it and stated that that would be a lesson to me. So I left. However I could not be angry for a long time, so the next day we were friends with Zhenka, Slavka and Valerka as if nothing had happened. I want to say that since 1971 I’ve never gambled, remembering how I was framed that time.

Since then we somehow shifted to passing the hat, when we made up our minds to buy the "777" and "Doctor’s" sausage. Only one thing remained unchanged; Yevgeniy, as he had done before, sent to a store the Kid.

 7 January, 2012.


Essay 98. An Ode to Pilav.

I've never thought about this question before, and now something made me think about the following: "What is the difference between an "instructor: and a "teacher" not taking into consideration their gender?" I am afraid to bring upon myself a lot of criticism, however I explained to myself the difference by the emotional intensity I mean under the notion. To me "the teacher" is many levels higher than the "instructor". It happened so that right before the New Year I received an e-mail from Gaforkhon Nuridinov with greetings and best regards from his parents from remote Uzbekistan. I met him when I worked as a psychiatric department head in the system of the III Main Agency of the Healthcare Ministry of the USSR. For those who do not know what it is, I will explain. The Agency served uranium mines, the so called mining-chemical industry complexes, where purification and concentration of uranium was conducted, well and the enterprises which were making the very same "atomic bomb". Generally speaking, it was serving all enterprises of the so called Ministry of Medium Engineering, and speaking Russian – the defense industry complex. The psychiatric service was represented in the III Agency by two mental institutions: one in Kaliningrad, which was near Moscow, and another in Novosibirsk with a psychiatric department in a town of Charkesar at the Fergana valley, where I had an honor to work. No, no, I did not know any state secrets, even though I had a "go-anywhere" pass. So Goforkhon's mother worked as a hospital nurse at my department, and his father Ergash was a drugstore manager in Cherkesar.

So Ergash is my Teacher in making pilav. He is my Teacher in terms of the meaning I've tried to formulate at the very beginning of the essay. For instance, Ergash personally washed the sheep he was going to make a pilav of for his family, and then brushed them. I laughed, but Ergash was wise and ignored my laughter, he explained to me that a sheep's skin should breathe for meat to be tastier. And how could it breathe if there were mats and what not in its hair? I must assure you that Ergash's pilav was the most delicious. So after I received greetings from the Nuridinovs, I consulted with Natalek and decided to put a huge dish of Uzbek pilav on the New Year table. We had brought a splendid dish in Tunisia and were saving it, used it only when I was making pilav for the family. Well, sure enough I could not have any guarantees that a sheep's neck and a ham were of the sheep, which was washed and brushed in summer, but they knew me at the market and guaranteed that the mutton was the freshest one. Yes, it was obvious that it was exactly like that. And I also bought a beef bone, a knee joint, which I asked to cut lengthwise. Now the Uzbeks sell goods from Uzbekistan at Mariupol market, so I found where they were selling spices. I got cumin, barberries for the pilav and in addition a pilav mix.  The pilav mix already includes barberries and cumin, however my family like that there is a lot of barberries and cumin. The same Uzbek sold me a couple of kilos of devzera rice from the Fergana valley. This is the best rice to make pilav; it expands three or four times when it is cooked. There, at the market, I also bought carrots and onions, white and blue. Ergash taught me to make pilav on fat of sheep's tail, however he allowed, in case if there were no fat-tailed sheep, to use cottonseed, sesame or corn oil. Sesame oil is very expensive; I did not find cottonseed oil and decided to cook on the corn one, all the more so that my family like it to be cooked on the corn oil, but not on the sesame one. At the market I also found pomegranates, pink and purple, as well as dried apricots and a couple of quince-apples. Yes, I've almost forgotten, I was looking for a big bulb of garlic with big cloves. So all purchases were made, and after that it was a purely technical matter. It was agreed to make the pilav on 31 December, and at night of the 30th I generously sprinkled the meat with cumin and the pilav mix. When I am making pilav, I take big pieces of meat to keep it juicy while it is cooked. All in all the total process of making pilav including preparing of the hearth and firewood takes me for 5 – 6 hours. On 31 December I went to my office, greeted my employees, gave them New Year envelopes and dismissed them; then I hurried home myself to continue preparations for the beginning of the cooking process. I diced the dried apricots in dices of approximately one centimeter size. I carefully cut each of the quince-apples into eight segments. The bulb of garlic was carefully wiped without being peeled; I cut long tendrils without cutting the rootlet: the bulb of garlic must not fall into cloves. I cut the carrots into 2 millimeters thick round segments. Somehow it happened so that our family like carrots to be practically dissolved in zirvak; I will explain later, what "zirvak" is. I chop a lot of onions. I can chop it the way that rings keep their shape being chopped in the finest way possible. I remember, when Vagram Agadzhanyan was visiting me and I was chopping onion, he came up to me and asked to teach him do the same. Trust me, it's a song, it's music, when a massive knife rhythmically taps on a hardboard moving through an onion or a carrot. The secret is in the way you fix your fingers and at what angle you hold a knife in order not to cut your fingers. I chop onion for the pilav and to be used on the side with it. For the pilav I shred blue onions, and for the side dish white ones. I cover the chopped onion with ice cold water mixed with apple vinegar and put it in a refrigerator for two or three hours. Natalek takes it from there. She pours out water from the onions and squeezes juice of a pomegranate with dark red seeds on them, the onion rings gain very impressive color; she adds generous quantity of pink seeds, which are sweeter, and mixes them with onion rings. I put aside about ten small onion rings and soak them in water as well. Then I am sorting the rice out. One has to be very careful when doing this in order to touch rice grains as little as possible. Little rocks and pieces of husk should be taken out of it. I should point out that Uzbek rice, which is bought at a market, always looks more littered, but it is not at all a sign that it is of lower quality. I'd rather say quite the contrary. They are just on formal terms with rice in Uzbekistan and do not subject it to multistage mechanical processing. This is done with the only goal not to ruin capsule of rice grains and keep gluten inside them when boiled. So after I have removed litter out of the rice, I pour practically boiling generously salted water over it and leave it this way to wait for its turn to get into a cauldron. As soon as we've remembered about the cauldron, I will say right away that one cannot make pilav in a pot. If it's just boiled rice – no problem, but never pilav.

I purchased an authentic cauldron in Kokand, from local craftsmen, in those days, when I lived in Central Asia. Well, and after that the process of pilav making is moved outdoors. When our house was under construction, we planned to have a yard equipped according to our needs, so there came an idea to have a fireplace in it. First of all it would decorate the yard, second, Natalek suggested right away burning fallen leaves, twigs, to cut it short, everything that can be burned there. And I offered to provide all necessary equipment for us not to have any problems with barbecue and pilav making.

So our fireplace has already been performing these duties with honor for many years. After I set the cauldron, I kindle the firewood under it, and pour a little bit of water into the cauldron; one must not warm an empty cauldron up. The cauldron warms up, becomes hot and water starts boiling away in it, and then boiling really hard. With a special forged ladle, by the way, also bought in Kokand from the local craftsmen, I scoop the water out of the cauldron, and pour about 700-750 ml of corn oil into it and start overheating it. The oil becomes heated, starts crackling first, and after that a kind of grayish mist rises over it; this is a sign for me to put a small peeled onion into the boiling oil. A micro-explosion takes place in the cauldron, the onion starts moving as if alive in the oil with active boiling around it, and the onion itself starts turning black. The onion has fulfilled its task, and I take it out of the cauldron with a skimmer, but do not throw it away; I give it to my dogs, who know the algorithm of making pilav very well, and lie close by waiting for goodies. They eat the onion as well, however never both of them rush at it at the same time, one of them comes up to it, noses it and lies near it and waits for it to cool down, and only then eats it. That time it was a terrier Chaka, and Abas was watching him from distance. However, I am returning to the pilav, as the dogs are not characters of my story.

After the onion is taken out of the cauldron, chopped onion goes into the oil.

It seems that onion takes more than a half of the cauldron, and there is no room to add carrots and meat, and rice. However the cooking proceeds; the onion is being saut;ed in oil and becomes soft and decreased in volume. While saut;ing the onion I constantly stir it with the skimmer for it not to burn. I am not sure how to define all signs of the onion to be done and the beginning of saut;ing of carrots, but I believe that if the onion is not quite done, it will become done together with carrots. So the carrots are in the cauldron. I continue stirring non-stop, the oil is sizzling, appetizing, mouth-watering aroma spreads around the yard. Once, my neighbors told me that I was a sadist, because I tortured them with aroma of a cooking pilav.

The carrots change their color; first they grows yellow and later acquire golden tint. So there comes the time for meat to be added into the cauldron. I should say that from the very beginning of the cooking and to this moment fire under the cauldron has to be strong.  So the meat is in the cauldron, in the sizzling oil. It is necessary to turn pieces of meat to make them grow white, i.e. make protein turn. Meat will be tastier this way. Well, as soon as the meat goes through the thermal processing, water is added into the cauldron. I use cold water. After that it's time to salt the pilav. The pilav is salted twice during the cooking. So the first time is right when water is poured. The broth is called "zirvak" in the Uzbek language. Yes, and I add a couple of tea spoons of the pilav mix of spices. When zirvak starts boiling I reduce the heat under the cauldron to minimum to make it simmer.  So I keep the cauldron on the simmer until practically all water evaporates. When water starts vaporizing from the zirvak I already practically lose my sense of smell because of the rich aroma of the cooking pilav, however I can tell that the smells are getting more concentrated by my dogs' behavior. They are on their guard and try to lie as close as possible to the fire. They know that soon they will be given a big bone each from the zirvak. So many thanks to the dogs, they reminded me that I've forgotten to tell you, that when zirvak starts boiling, I put the beef knee joint cut lengthways, which I bought in good time. In forty-forty five minutes I take both halves of the bone out of the zirvak; they've done their part and given beef bone fat to the zirvak. The dogs are happy, after they have waited for the bones to cool down, they take them and leave to opposite corners of the yard. The zirvak looks like there are ten-fifteen minutes left for it to boil on the simmer, so I start rinsing rice, in which, if you remember, I poured boiling salted water long ago. Again, there is the rule "hands off the rice". I am rinsing it with running tap water, carefully pour turbid water out and slightly shake the bowl with rice. So, excess water has evaporated from the zirvak. The onion and carrots turned into homogenous paste. I carefully put the rice on the top of everything that is already in the cauldron. With the skimmer I smooth out to get rid of any lumps of rice. I pour water again two aflat fingers up the rice and add salt once again. I've already written that pilav is salted twice. So this is the time for it to be salted for the second time. And I immediately make the fire intensive. For that I have a lot of kindlings I have prepared beforehand. While pilav is cooking the intensity of fire under a cauldron should be changed four times.  At the very beginning the fire is intensive, when the cauldron is heated and oil is burned. Onion and carrots are fried on the intensive fire too, as well as frying of meat. And when zirvak is boiling, the fire is reduced down to simmer as soon as it starts boiling, to make it boil slowly, mildly and gradually. The time for the third change of the fire intensity is when water is poured over rice. Water is boiling hard. It is necessary to gradually remove rice with a skimmer from the cauldron's sides into the center.

It is not recommended to stir everything inside the cauldron. At least my teacher did not advise me to do that; and I, as an obedient and diligent student, do exactly so. One should just press the heap, which is formed as a result of moving of the rice, not hard and intensively, but gently, and under the skimmer rice will move from the center to the sides. This is the way stirring is performed.  The water is boiling hard and evaporating. The rice is being stirred. Do not be lazy, at this moment the process must not be interrupted, because the rice can be burnt to the sides of the cauldron. Now there is no water above the rice, but you should continue the process. In order to determine that water is completely evaporated, you should slightly tap with a skimmer on the rice. If the sound is squelchy, continue, and if the sound becomes muffled, then this stage of the cooking is coming to its end. I should say that the "expertise" with tapping is very delicate and requires some skill, though it is quickly developed, after you undercook rice once or it gets burnt, or you untimely stop evaporating water. Though on 31 December I did everything on the right time; as I've been making pilav for twenty years already, I've got the hand of doing it. So I tap with the skimmer on the rice, the sound is muffled, which means the rice is cooked through at this point, rice grains have become noticeably larger. The final stage starts, the very important one. I reduce the heat under the cauldron for the last, forth time. For the last time I move the rice with the skimmer from the cauldron's sides to its center to form a heap without stirring the contents of the cauldron. I bury the whole bulb of garlic I've prepared beforehand in the top of the heap and the quince segments around it. Once again sprinkle everything with cumin and barberries, and put preliminary cut dried apricots on the top of everything; later it will be mixed with rice. After that with a special wooden stick, which is half a centimeter thick, not more, and long enough to reach the cauldron's bottom I pierce the rice and everything inside the cauldron to its very bottom five-six-seven times. It is very important; this way we form the canals, along which steam will raise from the bottom to the lid, where it will condense into hot water and drop back on the rice and so on. Well, and there is a special topic about the reviving hydrologic cycle. And now I am covering rice with the first lid. I use a special bowl for this; it is something in between of a dinner plate and a soup plate. It took us time to select it to fit the cauldron, it is good, because it fits the circle of the cauldron two centimeters deep from the brim. The space between the lid and the cauldron I cover with a linen kitchen towel, which Natalek gives me for this purpose, and put one more lid on the top. At this point there should be no fire at all under the cauldron only coals; or the contents could slightly burn. It is the final half an hour of the process. I spend it having tea. In summer I, of course, drink green tea, and in winter - strong black. I do not go too far from the hearth, in order not to miss the moment when the coals under the cauldron will suddenly start burning, and this always happens, when you leave the hearth unattended. Though while I am having my tea and contemplating about the eternal and beautiful, about family, time unnoticeably flies. I have a special basket ready, it is made of wire and has a flat bottom with a ring of a sufficient diameter and height; it is necessary to put the cauldron on it in such a way that it does not overturn, as the cauldron has a shape of a hemisphere. These are minor details, which have to be taken care of beforehand, in order not to rush around solving these problems when you get hit with hard times. Generally speaking, only for God's sake, do not take this as lecturing, as these are sincere pieces of advice; there are no trifles in making pilav!

The pilav is ready, and there are two ways to follow: the first one – to simply put it on a dish and have it.  However I make pilav not very often lately, so I want it to be a special occasion. The New Year is a holiday by itself, though I am doing my best to make every my pilav making a holiday in my family. And everything should be beautiful on a holiday. So let's do everything in a nice way. I am bringing the cauldron into the house. It's amazing, but no matter what my family were occupied with and in what nooks of the house they were, as soon as the lids are taken off from the cauldron, they come almost running to the kitchen. They always tell me that at that moment it starts smelling so nicely around the house, that it is impossible for them to control themselves. At that point I've already lost a possibility to enjoy the aroma; while I am cooking my sense of smell deadens. So after the cauldron has been open, Natalek and Cathy run flying to the cauldron with spoons ready in their hands to try the pilav; I do not allow them to do this; they are persuading me, throwing a scare into me, threatening and blackmailing me. They are so sincerely asking me to let them try just a little bit that I give up. I will tell you honestly, I am very pleased to here: "wonderful…", "finger-licking good…" and such kind of things. When I have enough of the glorification, I send them out of the kitchen and start the magic.

First I carefully take the bulb of garlic and segments of the quince out of the pilav and after that - pieces of mutton.  I cut the meat into one centimeter thick dices and take all bones out of it. I mix the rice with the dried apricots, which were on its top under the lid, and set certain amount of the rice aside on a medium size dish.  The matter is that Natalek has not eaten meat for fifteen years already, that is why for her pilav is without meat, but believe me, it will not become less delicious because of that. I put the meat into the cauldron and stir once again. I would like to stress that stirring should be gentle, calm, with slight shaking of the skimmer. It is done to make grains of the rice separate from each other; the pilav becomes more friable, its volume increases. And the one who has made the pilav sees that the rice grains have become longer and thicker, they have significantly grown in size. I also carefully transfer the pilav to the big Tunisian serving dish forming a hill in its center. On its top I put the bulb of garlic. I'll digress from the topic a bit; after being in the hot rice during the cooking, the garlic gives all its volatile production into the rice, so its bitter taste goes away, it becomes very soft, tender and tasty, though being kept in its husk, it does not lose its shape. The quince, which is usually very hard when raw, also becomes soft, very aromatic and incredibly tasty.

So I place the quince along the dish sides, and to finish it I take the onion rings I set aside before I gave the onion to Natalek to make a salad. So I take the onion rings and place them around the rice hill and place the pomegranate seeds inside the rings. A very impressive design comes out. I do exactly the same in the dish without meet. I bet that reading of all of this have made mouths of most of you water. No wonder, as you've been reading not a regular recipe, but an Ode to Pilav! Enjoy your meal and be happy!


14 January, 2012.


Essay 99. Always hungry

After I started writing essays, events of the long bygone times come into my mind; sometimes because of these recollections my hair stands on end on my clean-shaven head. I am saying this not in order to laugh. Now it is just hard to believe how we could do such foolish things in those days. God protected us, absolute atheists back then, from criminal prosecution and punishment from individuals, I should say, the reasonable one. Just tell me, what would you do, if you caught a thief in your cellar?

As for killing him, you would not do that, but you would for sure let him have it. It would serve him right. Though as fate willed there were a great number of cellars digged by the residents of the nearby and remote new-built housing in the neighborhood of the regional hospital of Kemerovo in the 60s and 70s. People did not store any especially valuable food there, but potatoes were always in there. And there were not just potatoes, but tonnes of potatoes. The Siberians are thrifty people; they filled their cellars with so many potatoes, that their families would not eat them for two or three years.

In spring the cellars were inspected. Vegetables that began to rot were thrown out, and then it was estimated, how many potatoes had to be left to be planted in summer, how many should be kept before young potatoes would come, the rest of potatoes were given out to friends and acquaintances or sold, if the owners had a commercial talent, though there were not more than one or two of them. Well, as soon as the cellars were near a medical students’ dorm, part of students without any complexes obnoxiously put themselves on the list of friends of the cellars’ owners and did not wait before they would start handing excess potatoes out.

During hard times of their student life, which with surprising regularity started every month before receiving stipends, when every kopeck was treasured, and those kopecks were scares as hen’s teeth, and the students were tortured by the question: "How to survive on a stipend?", without any complexes student brotherhood visited the cellars and carefully opened them. After they opened the cellars they took potatoes in all containers they’d brought with them. In the dorm they guys were heroes. Nobody blamed them. I should say that among the students-medics there was a rule: "do not play mean tricks";  they never took too much, and did their best to lock the cellars "they way it was". Yes, among those who lived in the dorm, it was not a rare thing to do that. No wonder, those who could pay their apartment rent, as a rule had money for the so called "rainy day". They did not have motivation to step on a slippery path of secret stealing of somebody else’s property via breaking into their cellars. So in my favorite room in the dorm, where I also had a bed, but slept on it once a month maximum, there was also a person in charge of "inspecting of the cellars". Kostya Romashov, a younger brother of Yevgeniy Romashov was a real ace at that undertaking. He was not only an ace, but a gentleman as well. Kostya never broke locks of the cellars. He had a creative approach to the matter; he simply fitted keys to several locks and carefully opened a lock, filled his backpack with potatoes and carefully locked the lock. And in winter he also covered the cellar with snow. So Kostya would bring potatoes and hand on the baton to Yevgeniy and Kolya Kozlov.  Those cool guys were good at "fishing".

With a hook they’d made from thick wire or as it was also called "a horse" and a hunk of clothesline they got a hand of "fishing" bags, which were hanging outside windows in winter, as there were no refrigerators in the dorm. And they were doing that not only under their window on the fifth floor, but on the vertical rows of windows on the right and left sides. I should say that that was not easy; the bags’ owners were aware of the "fishing" and put all kinds of obstacles to it. However a credit should be given to Kolya and Zhenya, they knew their business and never came back without a catch. Well, what students could keep outside their windows in the cold? Usually it was lard or meat, which family members of those daydreamers had brought to them from a village.

Generally speaking, the food variety was super. Well, after that the baton was picked up by Zhora Chernobay.  Nobody else could fry potatoes on salted lard the way Zhora did.

Ah, how appetizingly he added onion fried separately into fried potatoes! That was ecstasy! They have a reason saying that a talented person is talented in everything. Ah, and how he stewed potatoes with meat!

He could easily conduct seminars on the topic: "Potato dishes", and the house would be full.

Half of the dorm gathered attracted by the aroma and under various pretexts invited themselves to dinner. As a rule, it was done not spontaneously, but was planned beforehand,

and those who enjoyed special trust were not only informed about it, but were also invited. I am proud to say,

that I was among the most trusted ones and I did not blame them for those pranks, but also gladly became an accomplice, as I played a good knife and fork at the dishes made from the secretly stolen food and praised Kostya and Kolya, and Zhenka and Zhora. I should say that when invited I used to bring a bottle of "Promontor" or "777"; that was an unwritten rule for the invited to bring alcohol. Some also used to bring pickled cucumbers or milk mushrooms, or Siberian agaric honeys.

The funniest thing was when the owners of the bags came to the dinner. They also ate with pleasure and also brought a bottle, and also praised Zhora.

There were all kinds of topics and plans during those meals!  And the way we joked and dreamed! I am asking you very much not to condemn us for that. Yes, we were young, stupid, but not greedy or always hungry. Why? I cannot understand even now.

22 January, 2012.

Essay 100. Dudes

Just tell me, please, what incited us, the students in their sixth year, to have an adventure with criminal flavor? And here is what happened. It was the beginning of our sixth year, autumn. And it was not just autumn, but Indian Summer. We, the sixth year students, were sent to a collective farm to dig up potatoes after a combine. First we were about to make a rumpus: “It was unheard of that the sixth year students were digging up potatoes!”.  Luckily there were sober minded people in our group: Olya Ptitsyna and Zhenka Romashov. Of course, I understand that nobody will argue as for Olya Ptitsyna, but Zhenya Romashov can evoke doubts in this case. So, let me assure you that it was Zhenya who could avoid conflict situations and doing stupid things, he could persuade the others to act likewise. We respected him, and so obeyed him. Olya and Zhenka offered not to protest, but use the day for a picnic. So we provided ourselves with everything necessary. I should say that there was a significant mess in various organizational issues during the days of the Soviet administration, as well as in modern Russia. On the appointed day we diligently gathered by eight in the morning in a fright yard of a Kemerovo regional hospital. No wonder, as we were going not to dig up potatoes, but to have a picnic after all that. And it was not accustomed among us to be late for parties as well as picnics.

Time flew unnoticed for the first hour of waiting, because we were very much involved in an exciting discussion about why young women have smooth face skin and wrinkled skirts, though older women have everything in the opposite? The discussion was emotional and lively, but we failed to reach a consensus, though we were close to that. And there came timid at first and persisting later questions: “And what's actually going on?” and “What are we actually waiting for?”. As soon as they were Zhenka and Olya, who had proposed and persuaded us to go to dig up potatoes, we sent them to find out about the bus we had been told about. And we lay down on grass to wait for them while telling jokes. Suddenly we noticed two rams. Nobody knew, how it had come that they were on the territory of the regional hospital, but there were two of them. They were great with very impressive horns, quite big and imposing. We liked them a lot. No, we did not intend to make shish kebab or beshbarmak out of them. Sorry, but a lyrical digression cries out to be done here: we were waiting  for a departure to potato fields, though for some incomprehensible reason there was a delay, so we somehow unnoticeably started sending around a bottle with our favorite “777”.  Luckily we had a sufficient reserve, as we were going to have nothing less, but a picnic. It is difficult to say now, how many of those bottles had already been sent round before we noticed those rams, this is not important anyway; for sure there were more than one or two bottles.   Think for yourself, could you have an idea to arrange ram-fight after some miserable two bottles of “777”? No way. It's funny even to think about it, not just say it out loud.

Galya Vinnik was the first one who noticed the rams: “What cute little sheep!”. Everybody started trying to catch sight of the little sheep, and found two decent rams. Sasha Salmayer and Yura Sologub started arguing whether they butt or not. So I just for fun blurted out that they were fighting rams and that I had seen rams of that kind in Kirgizia. I lied, of course, but my words caused significant interest. Vagram even broke down and went to have a closer look at the rams. Everybody started pestering me with questions of how they, the rams, could be incited to start fighting? What could I answer them? Continue lying? I started confessing that it was my joke and so on, and so forth. However, amazingly enough nobody believed me that I had made it up about the rams. Well, then I blurted again that they needed to be enraged. We hardly managed to discuss how we could enrage the rams, as our messengers, Olya and Zhenya, returned from the regional hospital's administration. They were in high spirits, laughing; it turned out that we were supposed to dig up potatoes for the regional hospital. The collective farm had offered its field for free to the hospital for it to make a reserve for winter. So not only us, the sixth year students, had been sent to dig up potatoes, but interns and assistant professors from departments, which were based at the regional hospital. And the departure had been scheduled for seven in the morning! Who told us that the meeting time was at eight we failed to find out. Though we were late, a logistics manager of the hospital was very glad that more additional hands had come anyway. Eh, if he only knew that those were more mischievous than working hands. Nevertheless he promised us to think of something and asked us not to leave. Olya and Zhenya informed us about all of that. And while Olya was talking, Zhenka was suspiciously examining us. And what was the point in examining us? We had nothing to hide; we were happy, our eyes were shining with excitement. We were preparing for the ram-fight and even started betting. And our currency was a sip from a bottle; we planned a loser to be denied one, and the winner to be praised with one. To calm down Zhenya's anger we gave him an opportunity to catch up with us in the number of sips. However even in that case there sprang up a conflict, as Yura Sologub, being toasted after the number of sips he had had, offered Zhenka to have twice more sips. But no, the guys gave Yurka a kick and threatened to deny him the right to have his sips under the circumstances. Generally speaking, Zhenka did not get Yurka's second helping, but he was happy even without it, as it turned out, we had hit the bottle rather many times. Olya also did not turn down the offer, she said: “There will be less left for you”. We were vying with each other in telling Zhenya and Olya about the rams and the fight, and the bets, and about who had already betted and who with. And Zhenka got excited. He was craving for the fight and inquiring how we had been enraging the sheep. When we told him that he was a ram himself, because we had just explained to him that we were only figuring out how to enrage them; he got furious and promised to break our own horns off, if we keep calling him a ram. We all together gave our word not to, and Zhenka started acting. He offered to oil the rams' anuses with oil of turpentine. “You will see how much enraged they will become” – that was the way Zhenya summarized the debates.  He went to a hospital garage, smartly expecting that as soon as there were carts there, there should be the turpentine there as well. Zhenka was a smart guy. And he really brought a jar of turpentine. The rams were peacefully grazing actually paying no attention at us. They even did not fancy what kind of danger was impending over them. At that moment an UAZ, an all-terrain vehicle, from the logistics manager's equipment, arrived; if the logistics manager himself was not sitting at the steering wheel, the rams would have had the turpentine in their certain parts. Poor Zhenka, he was almost crying because of disappointment; such a great plan was ruined. And the plan was really good. We were talking about it when sitting on milk cans in the vehicle. It was not a along drive, and at about eleven a.m. we in style arrived upon a potato field.

Believe it or not, but we were greeted with applause, not even applause, but ovation. All the diggers with pleasure dropped their buckets and came up to us to shake hands and find out, why we were so late. The Soviet people did not like working on a farm, and medics were not an exception, though everybody knew Vysotskiy's song “…It seems that all of us like potatoes if to chow down on them with salt…”.   We were eagerly telling how we had been bursting to help them, but ill fate had been on the way, and how we had almost oiled the rams with turpentine. And in conclusion we blamed the logistics manager for everything, that he had not sent us to the field for so long. All the present agreed that he was a pest and suggested starting lunch right away at eleven in the morning.
However the one, who was called a pest, heard everything and kept silence, but the very moment he heard that the guys were going to have lunch, he started shouting at the top of his voice. He was asking to start lunch at one o'clock. The logistics manager was an experienced one; he knew that after lunch nobody would work anymore. He used a foul blow, something similar to a kick below the belt. He said that if we work till one o'clock and only then have lunch, he would give for all of us a three liter jar of medical spirits.  If to consider it, then for everyone to have it that would make a couple of drops, but the magic word said together with an attribute “medical” had its effect, and the guys dragged their feet back to the field. It was amazing, but everybody approved of the initiative that came up by itself: those three who finished digging up a row of potatoes were leaving for lunch. And that was about one hundred meters. Communists' slogans such as: “a record-setter, a counter plan, heightened undertaking” and suchlike were solidly hammered in our heads. And the hospital logistics manager remained the pest he had been before.

He was walking along the rows after the diggers and checked them; if he found a potato, he started wailing demonstratively carrying the potato in his hand held high up. However it should be mentioned that nobody paid any attention at his d;marches. So our group was working hard digging up potatoes.

We managed to dig up at least a bucket, as Sasha Salmayer and I were sent to make a fire and were given the bucket of potatoes.  Sasha and I found a place near a stump, overturned the bucket the way the potatoes did not fall out. We started making a fire around the bucket and the stump. Why am I telling you the common truth about such things as surviving of students when sent to dig up potatoes? Everybody did the same. The fire we made was so big, that the pest logistics manager came running and started lecturing Sasha and me; he was reading fire safety rules to us. He was diligently lecturing us, but the fire continued burning violently as before, proving the saying about a caravan and a dog to be true. And when there were lots of coals in the fire, we added two more buckets of potatoes and covered them with coals. At half past twelve hungry “record setters in potatoes digging up productivity” started gathering and got actively involved in the process of making preparations for lunch. They quickly came to us from the field to give us bags with food; and when the first girls who had completed their duties arrived, the clearing started looking differently.

Newspapers were spread for a table, there we put boiled eggs, green cucumbers, freshly-salted cucumbers, pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, salted lard, boiled sausage: “Doktorskaya”, “Lyubitelskaya”, “Molochnaya”, somebody even had brought smoked-sausage “Moscovskaya”. We cut it into such thing pieces, that one could read what was written in the newspaper, however as it was found out later, everybody got a piece of the sausage, even the pest logistics manager. You won't believe, but he also joined the party, though let's give him a credit: in addition to the three liter jar of alcohol, he gave three boiled chickens. Everybody unanimously thought that he had stolen them from the hospital kitchen, nevertheless the chickens were eaten. You just cannot imagine how delicious everything was! How appetizingly the cucumbers were crunching, how nice were to us the soiled all over with coals faces of those sitting in front of us! With what appetite the potatoes Sashka and I had baked were eaten! The potatoes were peeled and eaten with lard, onions and pickled cucumbers. That was the culinary abracadabra we had, however it was extremely tasty that time. And with what care the brought by somebody smoked sausage was shared. And what toasts were proposed! At the same time, how scolded Yura Sologub was, in whose hands a plastic folding glass suddenly folded; they were popular back then. Unlucky Yura, was almost beaten for the second time then. Zhenka's hands were itching too much to give him a clip on the back of his head for the spilt alcohol. The pest logistics manager was forgiven by everybody. He turned to be a cool guy, he was elegantly attending young female students and telling funny jokes. He in general proved to be a well of jokes. All in all, the lunch was going on till four o'clock. And when it was over, because there was no more anything that was sent round and all food was eaten, it turned out that more than half of the workers had already left to the city. How could they do that? How could they leave such fun? It appeared that while we were eating, there came a bus, but we did not notice it. The pest logistics manager made an order to take to the city those, who slipped away from the lunch, and come back for the rest, meaning us. Later the pest logistics manager was ready to leave in his run-down UAZ-car, and those, who agreed to go with him sitting on containers, also left.

Our group and about fifteen other guys stayed waiting for the bus. All fun faded away, and there again came offence at the pest logistics manager and those who had already left and at everybody in general. And this dysphoric mood for some reason was prevailing in our number 614 group. We were joined by Slava Sizikov and Tanya Yanchilina, who even though had transferred from us to the groups of gynecologists and obstetricians, but their hearts stayed with us. We could not keep still. We were expressing our indignation that the bus, which was supposed to collect us, was not coming for so long, and there Yevgeniy offered to walk to Kemerovo. He said he knew the area, and that distance was just three-four kilometers, and that we would wait for the bus, which for sure was broken, for more time, than we walk along small woods in the fresh air.
Generally speaking, he was talking and persuading us so impressively, that I, Sasha Salmayer, Slavka Sizikov, Vagram Agadzhanyan, Olya Ptitsyna and Galka Vinnik agreed to have the walk. Well, and why not, as that was only three-four kilometers? That meant 30-40 minutes of walking. That was what Yevgeniy persuaded us in, anyway. Maybe he was right, if we would have walked directly to Kemerovo, but we were led by Susanin (Ivan Susanin was a Russian folk hero and martyr of the 17th century.). Yes, that was how we started calling Zhenka after an hour of walking, but there was no sign of the city. That was some situation. At that point all of us were angry at Zhenka. We were saying that he was the biggest windbag in the whole wide world, there were many things we were saying, and we were using bad language as well. Interestingly enough, Yevgeniy even did not talk back. He himself realized that he got lost and was keeping dead silence. And we were cursing him really loud. Then we approached a pond, not a big one. And on the pond's bank there was a construction, kind of a hut or a hayloft. We set down to rest, and Zhenka went to look around. In about five minutes he came back and brought ten chicken eggs in his hands. He treated us to the raw chicken eggs and told us about what he saw and found out. It turned out that that was a hen house, and there were about forty chickens roosting there. Strangely enough, the hen house was there, but it was not clear who it belonged to? Where were the chickens' owners? That was the question. Well, and what do you think we decided to do? Tried to find the hen house's owners and ask them to show us the way to the city? You've made a big mistake, you see. In our corrupted by socialism heads there were quite different ideas. They were simple, like a blank piece of paper.

Catch about five chickens, tear their heads off, and boil or fry the chickens. Well, wasn't that incredible? Just a couple of hours ago we were overeaten at the picnic and at that moment we were making plans about having something to eat again.

And the main thing was that none of us had even a thought, that the chickens were somebody else's, and that if we were caught the consequences could be the most unpredictable. I am telling you honestly, we were not thinking about any of such things at all.

We were concerned about how to catch the chickens. And we did catch them and turned their heads off. Luckily nobody saw us or caught us stealing. And we relaxed a bit during the adventure, and somehow came to the road and almost right away stopped a truck, which brought us in no time to the city. Well, and when we got off at the train station, Zhenka unexpectedly invited all of us to pay a visit, not to him, but to an acquaintance of his. Yes, Svetlana became his wife later, but at that time he had just told us: “an acquaintance”. Perhaps, I was the only one, who had known then that Svetlana was more than an acquaintance for Zhenka. Generally speaking, Zhenka praised her culinary talents, promised us that we would lick our fingers,

and all together we went to a dorm of a pedagogical institute, where Sveta lived. Poor Svetlana, one had to see her astonished face, when she opened the door of her room and our company led by Yevgeniy barged inside.

Zhenya was fussing around, asking what to cook for us of the chickens, whether to fry or boil them. Everybody was tired and agreed to have just chicken broth. It should be said that the broth turned out very thick, as it was made of two chickens. We ate though without the appetite and excitement we had had and left. That was the end of the full of events and adventures day. 


1 February, 2012.
Essay 101. With a sickle at the balls

It’s been known for a long time that meat of gelded piglets tastes better than of not gelded ones. There is a hot polemics in the European Union now: whether to geld or not to geld. And they inclined to the idea that it was better not to geld. A law which forbids gelding piglets to turn them into boars comes into action since 2018.

And in those remote 60s of the last century there were not any “the green” yet, and nobody fought against gelding as it was. People knew that gelded piglets (bores) had tender and tasty meat, and meat of not gelded piglets (bucks) was hard and stinky.

In those days I did not care about anything of that; I simply did not know the taste of meat of the bucks. However the fact that such an event as group gelding was undertaken and without me, plunged me into shock. I was asking Zhenka: “How could you only do that?” and: “Why did not you tell me that you were going to do that?” Yevgeniy did his best to get out of a scrape saying that it had not been planned and happened by chance. It did not console or sooth me. By my sighs he realized that something had to be done and quickly. Zhenka Romashov would not be Zhenka Romashov, if he did not find a simple resolution of the situation; he offered to arrange a gelding action once again. He was consoling me saying that last time the weather had been bad, it had been wet, and next weekend it should be warm and sunny. And what was the point of consoling me? It was not necessary to comfort me; the most important thing was that we would do that. During the week I went to Kedrovka and let my parents know beforehand that I would not visit them on the weekend, as I had to study hard. Now I do not even remember what tales I told them. For some reason I did not want then to know the real reason of my not coming to visit them. I do not know why.

We scheduled the action on Sunday. Zhenya was absolutely calm, and I was for some reason nervous, as if we were going to do something forbidden. Kolya Kozlov was also going with us, and Zhora went to his training for the whole day on that day; he was doing heavy weight lifting and was especially good at jerk. We never missed a chance to ask Zhora a question of: “Well, how is it going with a good jerk?” Is everything all right?” or: “Well, and has your jerk failed you today?” We were having a good laugh, and Zhora kindheartedly ignored our jokes: “Dorks…”. At about ten o’clock we left the house at 22 Hertsen street, which was in the Third Special Kirovskiy district of Kemerovo and followed Zhenka. We had divided responsibilities beforehand: Kolya was in charge of holding a piglet, Zhenya of cutting, and my task was to carry a plastic bag with balls and collect money, as last time Zhenya’s hands had been in blood and iodine, and Kolya’s hands had been also dirty. Piglets had had no desire to lose their balls just for nothing. All in all we were walking and listening to Zheka, and he was uttering words of wisdom. And why we implicitly obeyed him? Just because it even did not occur to me that the time of the action had to be specially chosen. Yevgeniy was explaining to Kolya and me that last time he had made a mistake and had come after lunch, but at that time people had already been tired and wanted to relax for the rest of their day off, and there were they offering to geld piglets. That was why there had been total refuses. And today, Zhenka was inspiring us, we would see that he was right. And he really turned to be right. Yevgeniy would’ve made an excellent businessman, if he lived till these days. Though let’s not be sad. Zhenka turned to be right about everything.

He was right that last time people had not responded to the offer, and later, after they had learned that their neighbor’s piglet, the one Zhenka had worked on last time, was alive, and healthy and full of energy, remembered that they needed their piglets to be gelded as well. And back then they kept piglets practically in every household in the Third Special in Kemerovo.

It happened so that the first was the house, which owner had jokingly asked to castrate her husband last time. There were three piglets in the yard, small ones. I felt sincerely sorry for them. The woman knew the prices, but asked us to do everything not for fifteen, but for ten rubles. Zhenya did the right thing; he did not start saying no, but agreed. And why to refuse, that was a five minutes’ business; and the first client is sacred. The woman called her husband to help us.

The one, of who his wife had asked us last time to cut something off, without which that was not possible, was a mean and stinking drunk little guy. The first thing he did, he grabbed hold of Kolya’s shirt front and demanded certificates. And he was a bit taller than Kolya’s waist. However the woman snapped at him in such a way that he rushed to a pen and came out with two screeching piglets in his hands.

And while Zhenka using only a scalpel and iodine simply “tore off” the piglets’ balls and turned those two poor things into eunucks with the help of Kolya, who was holding the victims during the execution, the man brought out the third one. In my ten times washed plastic bag there appeared first six small trophies. And when the woman brought out of the house and gave us tchervonets (ten-ruble banknote), the little guy howled and grabbed hold of Kolya’s shirt front again.

It was funny to look at the picture. And the woman kind of without any laughter again asked us to castrate the little guy-scum of the earth, saying that she was sick and tired of him. Yevgeniy addressed me with a question: “Do we have enough iodine?” I patted on my pocket and said that we had enough.

The man let Kolya go and in some strange way happened to be outside the gate and shouted at the top of his voice: “Help! Killers!” Neighbors started coming out to the street, it looked like they had known freaks of that Heracles, and started asking the woman about what was going on. She informed them that the medical assistants were gelding piglets. That was some advertising for us! There was a line to invite us, we were lead from a household to a household, and in a coupe of hours we were already on our way home with a plastic bag full of testicles and a bundle of money, which Zhenya counted while walking. The sum was astounding – seventy five rubles. Kolya and I were really happy, but Yevgeniy offered to put thirty rubles into the fond of our mini-dorm on food expenses for all of us, then he divided forty five rubles between three of us and gave Nikolay and me fifteen rubles each.

In the evening when Zhora came after his training, we had a swell dinner: piglets’ testicles fried with onions and black pepper and accompanied with vodka “Osobo Moskovskaya”.

I started eating the first piece very carefully, I was afraid of something, and it was not clear what of. Though my curiosity prevailed and I agreed with Zhenya that that was finger-licking good.

23 March, 2012




Essay 102. A Look and Something

"In journals you can though find
 An excerpt from him - A Look and Something.
What is the Something about, now - about everything."
words of Repetilov from "The Woes of Wit"

* The Woes of Wit is Alexander Griboyedov's comedy (written in 1823) in verse, it is a satire on society of post-Napoleonic Moscow.


Just tell me in what words I should describe my feelings before meeting a friend, who I have not seen for more than forty years? It looks like you are confused. Yes, and so am I. What I expect from the meeting? It is even difficult to say. One of my bosom friends-fellow students said that it was necessary to meet in order to communicate, communicate and communicate again. "And communicate about what?" - I asked him. About everything. However even during that brief conversation about topics for communication I got bored; my fellow student was gnawed by the only one topic of "how great it was back then, and how bad it is now". Perhaps he feels uncomfortable as soon as he constantly thinks and talks about that. I feel sincerely sorry for him. Though, I am thinking about another friend, to be more precise about Dimka Mkheidze.

Well, I shouldn’t say Dimka. He is a highly respected person now, the chief otolaryngologist of Imereti. For sure people around call him Dimitriy Dimitriyevitch. So, that will be the first toast, how he will react to my calling him Dimka. This is not on purpose. What does the Ribot’s law say? With age, and perhaps there is no need to boast - sixty three is, of course, is far from old age, but it is already far from youth, so during this period of life man’s memory easier recalls facts which are forty years away, than yesterday’s ones. So I will recall "Dimka", and not Dimitriy Dimitrievitch. How could he be Dimitriy Dimitrievitch for me, if in those remote days of student careless life in the morning he on a regular basis managed to take unnoticed my clean socks and Dato Nobidze’s clean well-pressed shirt? Dato and I, like two fools ("sulelo" in Georgian), every evening were preparing what we would put on to go to classes at the institute the next day. No, we were not two fools however, but to be more precise two boobies. We saw that Dimka did not want to wash his shirts and socks, but did not take any measures. However, Dimka should be given a credit for his pants were always pressed so well, one could shave using them; and if we asked him, he never refused and pressed our pants also in the best way possible. And if I came down on him too hard, he used to give me to wear his camel wool pullover. I liked it a lot, and it was very warm.

So with all those thoughts I was flying from Munich to Tbilisi. Of course, I was bringing gifts with me. Though even with that there was a certain issue; I had not seen Dimka for very many years and absolutely did not know his habits and likings, and to find a gift he would really like without that knowledge was like poking a finger in the sky. I remember in the days of stagnation Arkadiy Raikin (Arkady Raikin, 1911 - 1987 was a Soviet stand-up comedian. He led the school of Soviet humorists for about half a century.) used to say that the best thing to give as a gift was a microscope, because a gift should be expensive and useless. However I will honestly tell you that I did not want it to be like that very much. Last year in December, when I was in Milan at Vittorio Emmanuele gallery (the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is the oldest shopping mall in Italy), I saw a big photo of Bill Clinton, who a week before that when in Milan had come to the store and bought a tie.

I asked a sales clerk what kind of tie Clinton had bought? The Italians would not be Italians, and that sales clerk was a typical representative of the South of Italy - tall, slim, dark-haired and with dashing moustache, also jet-black. So he put out on a counter a huge heap of ties, I dropped my jaw, and he informed me that he had brought the very heap for Clinton as well and started demonstrating how he was offering a tie after a tie to poor Clinton, and how he rejected one after another. I was standing there absolutely shocked by force of his words and swinging gesticulation, and I was surprised that he did not overturn anything or flapped anything off the counter. And the sales clerk was going on telling how Clinton was laughing, and how he stopped him, when he became exhausted. And there the sales clerk snapped up all the ties somewhere underneath the counter stating that they were not worthy of any attention, and put a chic tie on the counter; dark green with such an elegant dark-red stripe. "Here is what Bill Clinton bought" - he announced to me. The tie’s price was impressive, but I bought it as a gift for Dimka without a moment’s thought; let Dimka have a tie, like the one of Clinton. With one gift the issue was resolved. I knew that Dito’s son together with his wife and children lives at his place. One of the main characters of  "The Diamond Arm" (it is a Soviet comedy film released in1968. The Diamond Arm has become… a Russian cult film and is considered by many Russian contemporaries to be one of the finest comedies of its time.)  said, that one should give ice-cream to kids and flowers to a dame. So I decided not to make things more complicated and bought French perfume of the newest collection for the women, and to a crowd of Dimka’s grandchildren also a heap of various chocolates. Only Dito junior, Dimka’s son, was left without a present. I planned to give him a wallet, but I could not find the one I really liked; for some reason I decided that if I like the wallet, then Dito-junior would for sure like it. I also wanted to put a two dollar banknote into the wallet for him. I liked very much the story of issuing of the banknote in the States. It was during the war with Vietnam. In those days a Vietnamese prostitute cost two dollars in the city of Ho-Shi-Min. So the caring American government issued a two dollar banknote. And all first issued banknotes were sent to Vietnam for American soldiers. And among the veterans of that war there was a custom and a belief that every macho man had to have the two dollar note in his wallet, as it is said, just in case. So I intended to tell this story to Dito. There was only one problem - there was no wallet. However at the Munich airport there was a store which was selling wallets; and I hoped to buy it there. I bought it, and right away, I came inside, saw it and decided that that was the one I would get.

We were flying from Munich at night. Even though I had a substantial dinner at a restaurant in Munich and on the plane food was not bad, for some reason I was dreaming about food during the whole flight. That was Georgian food. I was dreaming about satsivi and khachapuri, and Kharcho soup and, or course, …khinkali. And sure enough heaps of greens and also huge drinking horns for wine. And I was dreaming about Dimka as well, who was treating me to the delicious stuff, and was proposing toasts non stop. I had seen Dimka before the flight. We communicated via Skype, but in my dream I saw the one, who I knew forty years ago young, slim, handsome, to who girls were so much attracted. So you can imagine in what mood I woke up, when they asked to buckle seatbelts. We were landing in Tbilisi; all flight long I was looking at shish kebabs and heaps of khinkali and did not try anything, but was listening to Dimka all the time.

The landing was smooth; they who work at Lufthansa are pros.

When I was preparing for my visit to Georgia I was a bit concerned, how the Georgians would treat a Russian? Mass media was sort of scaring by arrests of the Russians right in the streets of Tbilisi. So when I was approaching a Georgian border guard, I had that kind of thoughts in my mind. However the border guard turned to be kind and curious. He only asked me about one thing: why I, a citizen of Ukraine, flew to Tbilisi from Munich? And when I replied that I had not been to Munich for a long time and missed it, he gladly said: "Cool!". The word does not convey the emotional expression of the border guard’s exclamation not to mention his grin from ear to ear. My mood got immediately improved. I forgave Dimka his proposing toasts all night long in my dream and was looking forward to pick up my luggage and go to the arrivals hall. Even though I supposed that Dimka would not come to the airport personally to meet me, because it was two hundred kilometers away from Kutaisi across a pass, and I arrived at five in the morning, yet I conceded that as possible. That was the reason why I wanted to enter the arrivals hall so much.

Like I had expected, I was met by Dito jr. and his friend Georgiy. Both had smiles from ear to ear. It is very nice to be welcomed with so much sincerity and joy, and at the same time to hear concerns and regrets that I had not brought my whole family with me. And right at the airport I was demanded to promise that next time I will come together with my wife and daughter. We immediately started for Kutaisi. And there an excursion started or, to be more precise, a mixture of an excursion and excursus into history of Georgia, which, I should admit, both Dito jr. and Georgiy knew very well. I had also prepared for the visit and re-read all six volumes of a historical novel by Anna Antonovskaya "Didi Mouravi". I had done the right thing. I was not a passive listener, but actively participated, for instance, in discussion about the battle of Surami between the Georgians and the Turks; when the Georgians defeated troops of the so much hated Ottomans, which strength was ten times bigger. It was very interesting to observe sincere joy on the faces of those mature men and their pride that even I, the one who came to Georgia for the fist time, knew about former glory of the Georgians. Generally speaking, the trip from Tbilisi to Kutaisi was though long, two hundred kilometers, neither more nor less, but with all the talking it flew by unnoticed. It was a bit bothering, I will honestly admit, to observe Georgiy’s bravery, who was sitting at the steering wheel, when we were driving down the very same Surami pass along a serpentine road. To my timid inquiry about whether he was going to beat Schumacher, Georgiy replied that only for the sake of the guest, meaning me, he was driving carefully. What could be said to that? I silently prayed and asked God to protect the so much considerate to guests Georgian Georgiy while he was driving.

We arrived in Kutaisi at daybreak. Finally the car stopped at a huge two-storied house. Looking at the brickwork one could tell that the house was built more than a hundred years ago. I had been invited to the house back then, when I was a kid, by Dito’s father, who was also Dimitriy Dimitrievitch. Much later one of our fellow students told me that she had assumed that Dimka lived in a privately owned house, but he happened to live in the one owned by the state. She was wrong. Dito explained to me that the Soviet administration had expropriated from the family of Mkheidze princes their Kutaisi mansion. The Mkeidzes were allotted three rooms, and the rest of the rooms became three other apartments and the house was turned into an apartment block. Both Dito’s grandfather and father dreamed of restoring the family home, but only Dimka managed to do that. And he did that very elegantly.  He bought apartments to all the three families dwelling in the house, and the new apartments were more spacious; and so he implemented the cherished dream of his father and grandfather. All that I was told by Dimka’s wife Manana, she was a keeper of the family home at the same time. One should see with what pride she was talking about Dimka and what he had done; it was clearly noticeable that she not only loved and respected him, but also was proud of him. I would not lie, if I say that many of our fellow students could have envied Dimka, but one should not do that, as someone else’s family is a mystery; and nobody knows how many skeletons in a cupboard every family has.

Dito started loudly knocking at the door. I had a suspicion that he was going to wake up not the Mkeidze family, but the whole neighborhood. Manana appeared first, and only after that he came, sleepy and disheveled, if one could say that about a man with a shaven head. We hugged and kissed. We sat in armchairs and were looking at each other in silence. We did not feel like talking. I do not know what Dima was thinking about, but tens of episodes of our student life flitted through my mind. And then absolutely unexpectedly Dimka asked: "Do you like khachapuri?" In response I gave him a very quick answer of my own: "Chemi trakida nachkapuni?" And there I saw that a respectable man looking like Dito Mkeidze sitting in front of me was really Dimka Mkheidze, my dear student friend. By a mischievous flash in his eyes and by his hand held towards me with a palm up, which I immediately clapped by my palm. Well, most probably we exchanged passwords. And the ones like: "Do you sell a wardrobe?", "No, we are selling a double bed, and a spy lives one more floor up." You should admit that those password answers were banal ones. Ours were on much deeper, on intuitive-emotional level. I am not going to translate what I replied to Dimka, and why he became so glad; I will only say that Manana blushed and went to the kitchen to make us breakfast.

And then everything twirled like in a kaleidoscope; I was taken sightseeing around Georgia. I am very grateful to Dimka that my guides gave preference to ancient churches and monasteries. Of course, the first was Motsametskiy monastery, where relics of Saint David and Konstantin of the Mkheidze family are kept.


I was amazed that both Dimitri’s were welcomed like family members at the monastery, and the father superior told me that David and Konstantin were direct forefathers of Dito. When Dima told the father superior that we had studied together at the institute, and had not seen each other for forty years, and I flew to visit him after so many years of life apart, the father superior gave me an Icon of Holy Martyrs David and Konstantin. And as a special favor he allowed us to kiss the relics. After my generous donations for development of the monastery he also allowed us to walk to the private part of the monastery. Generally speaking, we walked around all of it and only did not step inside monks’ cells.
Next was a monastery in Gelati, where, according to legend, there are ashes of the Georgian tsar, who had united the country David the Builder. There we not only were at the service, but also climbed to the top the bell tower of the church.

They knew Dimka there, and I was presented an icon of David the Builder and several packets of incense, which I was very happy with; Natalek once in a while walks around our house with burning incense to cleanse it of wickedness. The next day I was leaving Georgia and the Mkheizde men invited me to a restaurant to have khinkali. It was the end of February, and Lent had already started, which was observed at the Mkheidze home, but because of me Dimitriy decided to break it, even though I was protesting. However later, when we had already visited the restaurant, I thought that it was good that I was protesting not very decidedly. It is not for nothing that gluttony is considered to be a deadly sin.

And khinkali were absolutely delicious.

And the compulsory shish kebab was melting in the mouth. After we had eaten, we headed to Tbilisi. Dimitriy personally and Manana went to see me off. The car was driven by the daredevil Georgiy, it should be noted that that time he was more careful and not so quick, as he had been on our way to Kutaisi. We drove to Mtskheta, where there is the residence of a patriarch of Georgia Ilijah II. However, in that case disappointment was waiting for us; the residence had already been closed, we arrived too late. I was not very upset, as I already had too many impressions, but Dimka was really concerned that we had left Kutaisi so late. Our parting at the airport was easy and without any pathos. We hugged, kissed, shook hands and agreed that, if God permitted, we would meet again. And I sent Dimka away. I do not like long partings, which are bitter tears. Dimka understood everything, waved his hand and left.


8 April, 2012.


Essay 103. Tango “Magnolia”

“Banana-lemon Singapore…”, I heard these words when I was just a student. I never knew the lyrics of the love song. In those remote days I was just absolutely formally reciting the phrase. I just really loved the word combination: banana-lemon Singapore. I even did not think about where it was. I simply was repeating the phrase whether appropriate or not. So that was a very long time ago.  However, when I already could afford something bigger than much talked-about Antalia; which Natalek and I visited and did not like very much, though the hotel was decent; but we did not like the Turks. I am not going to write about that, everybody should independently choose a place to go on vacation to. So, in 2007 I made up my mind to celebrate Natalek’s birthday in Dubai at their famous seven-star hotel Burj al Arab. I did not say anything to Natasha; let it be a surprise for her. Though, I agreed with Cathy that she would fly from Toronto for a week to greet her mommy with her birthday. That would be the second surprise for Natalek.  However I had my heels itching; I wanted to do something so special to make Natalek’s heart sing. I was investigating, I was thinking about what exactly I was looking for, how I wanted to surprise Natashka. And there I got business in Singapore. I am not going to bother you talking about the business; why should you care? However the fact itself that it was in Singapore I took as God’s sign; that was what I would surprise Natalek with, Hurray!

It was only the end of September, but I started acting enthusiastically: I began collecting and analyzing information about hotels, laws and customs in Singapore, and about tourist attractions. I will tell you right away, most of all I wanted to visit the well-known Singapore Orchid Garden, and not the one which is on Sentoza island, but the very one in Singapore.
Though, the most important thing was to make Natalek interested in the garden. Ultimately I chose the hotel Shangri-La, and decided to fly with Emirates’ airlines. We would fly back from Singapore to Dubai anyway. So, the hotel had been booked, air tickets bought, and not just tickets, but the ones in business class, however there were two month left to wait for the trip. Oh, I was suffering so much; I wanted really bad to tell everything to Natashka, but then the well structured system of surprises would have been destroyed.  Of course, she would be happy, so I made up my mind to be firm like flint stone. I was determined to keep silence. However, because of my restless character I started advertising Singapore theme using all means at home. I could start singing imitating Vertinsky (Alexander Vertinsky, 21 March 1889 - 21 May 1957, was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing): “Banana-lemon Singapore…”, and I was singing absolutely out of tune, for that Natalek was angry at me, because I was spoiling the song. And I immediately gladly asked her: “And what goes after that?” I really wanted to make her think about Singapore. And other things like that. Or I would start talking about the economic miracle of Singapore, as if I had read about it in the Internet. So I was languishing like that till the very departure. A day before I told her that we would be flying on my business, and she would learn later where. Sure enough, Natalek made a rumpus, as she faced a problem with toilettes. I had to say that swimming suits would not be useless. This is what in addition to many other things I love Natalek for, that she does not need anything to be chewed over for her. In Borispol airport when we came up to a registration desk to Dubai and to the one of business class, Natalek’s mood improved. Though, she did not hear that I had asked to register our luggage to Singapore. When we arrived in Dubai, and I lead her not to exit to the city, but to a transfers hall, she became alert again and kept asking why we were not picking up our luggage.

And when we were registering to the flight to Singapore, Natalek told me that she realized why I had been annoying her with Singapore for the two month.

Eight hours of the flight to Singapore flew by unnoticed; there were comfortable chairs-beds, chic dinner, and the most important thing, we got the seats in the section of the plane where there were two of us and only two other people. We landed in Singapore at night.

We were very much surprised, when all the passengers of the flight received their luggage at the famous Changi, and we did not. Luckily, I had taken care beforehand that we would be met by a Russian speaking guide. So we told him about our problem, and he started dealing with the situation. Finally, Natasha and I were given two hundred Singapore dollars each to purchase first-necessity goods and were promised that our suitcases, which got lost somewhere at Dubai airport, would be delivered the next day. We were driving along night Singapore, and it was shining and glittering with illumination.

It’s useless to act against one’s conscience, we did not like the way the banana-lemon one welcomed us, even the four hundred dollars we had received for two of us did not give comfort or burn holes in our thigh pockets. Though the next day, when Natalek and I went out to the city, it turned out that, if to consider prices in Singapore, four hundred dollars was big money. So Natalek with great pleasure spent it on all kinds of stuff. And when we returned to the hotel, our suitcases together with an apology letter were already in our room, we were satisfied. Nevertheless we did not like Singapore anyway, and we still have no desire to visit it again. The hotel was super, the room was chic, the city was beautiful, a lot of green space, but climate...

It takes a lot of time to get used to it. At +30 C of heat humidity is huge; it is like in Russian baths, but you are with your clothes on. Of course, we were impressed by cleanness of the city. We left the hotel early in the morning and saw cleaners in the streets. We were very surprised that streets were vacuumed and after that washed with liquid soap. It was great. We were in admiration, it was morning and not too hot. I am not going to write about stores and shopping, I can only say that in local stores everything is obnoxiously cheep; and in cafes and small restaurants everything is not only cheep, but unthinkably delicious. As long as you are in a store or a caf; or in a taxi, there is air conditioning everywhere, and you are fine, but the very moment you step outside… it’s a nightmare. Natalek enthusiastically approved of my idea to visit the Orchid Garden.

All day long we were wandering around that man made miracle and admired what we saw. Sure enough, we on a regular basis stepped inside small cafes to cool down, and eat something at the same time. By the end of the day Natalek even suspected me of bringing her to cafes not to cool down, but because of those micro cakes, absolutely not sweet, but with unforgettable taste; I have to admit, Natasha was right, though I flatly rejected all her suspicions. Yes, I will not argue, we were happy when leaving Singapore, but we do not feel like going there again, honestly. And to sum it up, I will reproduce the text of the song for you, no, not the song, but the trademark of Alexander Vertinskiy. Now I know the lyrics.


Tango "Magnolia"

Banana-lemon Singapore is purely spurious:
 the ocean cries and sings without words,
 in dazzling azure skies the storm is furious,
 pursuing strings of birds.

Banana-lemon Singapore is purely spurious,
 the silence on your heart is like a stone,
 the frowning of your eyebrows is injurious,
 you're always sad, alone.

And tenderly reviving
 another May empyrean,
 my caresses, my words, my eyes and mouth,
 Yvetta, you are crying,
 for our song is dying,
 your heart's no longer flying
 with no flame of love.

A parrot shouts, frightening,
 you're standing still and sighing -
 a lonely wild magnolia in bloom -
 Yvetta, you are crying,
 for our song is dying,
 for somewhere summer's soughing,
 gone with dreams of doom.

Your opal-moonlight Singapore is purely spurious,
 when storms tear off bananas in your dreams.
 The tiger skin you sleep on is luxurious
 amid the monkeys' screams.

Banana-lemon Singapore is purely spurious.
 A tropical magnolia in bloom,
 you jingle with your rings and try to cure us,
 you love me still, in gloom.

* Translation source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n_7T8Oi2hQ
Poetic translation into English by Igor Gorny.

9 April, 2012

Essay 104. Despotic and wilful person

Despotic and wiful person is a person who acts by its whim and self-will, humiliating dignity of others (from Wikipedia)

Former students, when they become imposing and pompous after graduating from their institutes, forget various situations they had had in those happy, and nevertheless, not careless years. However when they are in a certain situation, for instance in a company of their fellow students, then it starts: “And you remember how…” or “Do you remember that…”. So Victor Kiss found himself in the situation when memories came flooding back after he had read my Humorous Essays. His memories were so bright and vivid that he could not resist immediately writing about them to me. And he had a lot to remember. You will laugh, but again the main character of the reminiscences about the second year at the institute is a great figure on a scale of the Kemerovo medical institute of those days. I wrote more than once about that distinguished and ambiguous person, who combined rough manners to students with thorough knowledge of his subject and incredible love of it.
Of course, this is Timofey Fadyeyevitch Ryzhkov or “Faradey” in student everyday life. He was loved and hated.  He invoked those feelings, because he was a genius of anatomy, but an incredibly despotic and wiful person. So Vitya happened to be among those who were re-taking the tests they had failed; the guys were nice in everyday life, but poor students in anatomy. Please, do not judge neither Vitya nor the other too strictly, because to be a poor student was not very unusual or something special with Faradey.  That time Vitya failed to pass the only test he had failed on, even though he thought that he had prepared one hundred per cent for it. He simply even did not have a chance to answer. It happened so that Faradey chose Volodya Kravtchenko to be the fist victim. So to speak about Volodya, he was a strongly built handsome guy; he was a couple of years older than the rest in his group. Volodya was doing his best, but received bad grades on a regular basis, and he had seven of them from Faradey. To re-take the test Vitya came looking like a real dandy, but the main thing was that he had learned everything, at least that was what he thought.

When he started answering everybody grew numb with astonishment. Volodya was giving a detailed answer with using specimen for illustration; he successfully answered five of, if not to exaggerate!!! Faradey’s questions in a row, so the latter one had nothing to do, but circle five out of his seven bad marks. That was a record. Nobody had managed to answer so many questions of Faradey during one class before. However Volodya started rejoicing and dreaming of his future without failed tests at least in anatomy too early. Yes, it was too early. On the sixth question Volodya got really confused. It was as if his mind went blank, he could not even remember the Latin name of a rib. That happens. And there was Faradey’s trademark yell;
sorry that was not a yell, but a roar “Those like you do not belong to the medical institute… You should be sent to the Army!!!” And there Volodya quite calmly went: “But I served in the Army, I am a reserve senior lieutenant…” Hair started moving in Faradey’s nostrils, and there came the roar again: “To the mine!!!...”. And Volodya replied: “And before joining the military forces I had worked in the mine…”. Yeah, that was some situation! The next was not a roar, but a howl: “You should be a yard cleaner…” What’d bitten Volodya, he himself could not understand afterwards; but he gave and answer to that question as well: “I work part time as a yard cleaner now at Sevastopolskaya…”. There was dead silence in the class room, Faradey breathed in, but could not breathe out. Everybody was in panic, what would happen next? And there, how fortunate, was the end of class.

9 April, 2012
Essay 105.  Herd instinct

Where can one find measure of human foolishness? How to measure stupidity? In what units should foolishness be denoted? Even Albert Einstein, the Wise Head, as piqu; vests used to say in Ilf and Petrov (Ilf and Petrov were two Soviet authors of the 1920s and 1930s; they did much of their writing together, and are almost always referred to as "Ilf and Petrov"), even he cannot give distinct definition, except size of stupidity. He beautifully said that: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former”.

The first year at an institute is a period of formation. This is the time when everybody considers himself or herself clever, lucky and super quick-witted. They do not need any reasons or grounds for that. The very fact of entering the institute is the proof and explanation. And it’s a disaster if these feelings do not leave students on time. Paraphrasing Remarque (Erich Maria Remarque, 1989 – 1970, one of the most famous German writers of the XX century) it can be said that a student should not be ashamed to be stupid in his first year, though it’s a shame to graduate from the institute being a fool.

Galya Veldyaskina, even though she did not know these sayings by Einstein and Remarque, got evidence that they were right. Here is what happened. The Physics department for some reason was not taken seriously by students-medics. Reckless, without any life experience, everything seemed to be easy and simple to them and fun as well. Galina’s group was lucky, an associate professor Voronina was conducting a course of physics for them. She was not doing anything special, but honestly followed the academic curriculum of the first semester for the first year students.

Together with the group she conducted lots of laboratory experiments and was waiting, when her lazybones would start getting those works up properly in their exercise books and after that passing them. No, she was not waiting passively for the laboratory works to be properly presented, but many times appealed to the students’ conscience. However the number of delayed laboratory works was growing, and the number of days before examinations was inexorably decreasing. And the reckless even did not bother; it seemed to them that everything would be resolved by itself, and Voronina would forget about everything. Nevertheless Voronina was not in a hurry to forget anything, though the reckless are the reckless even in Africa, so they were still waiting for something.

Who was the first to suggest the idea, which in the best way proves the Einstein’s point about infinity of foolishness, cannot be determined even now, many years after graduation from the institute. Nobody wants to claim authorship of the idea, which could cost to many from the group their study at the institute.

However back then everything seemed to be perfectly planned. Somehow they got the department’s telephone number. The group monitor, and it was she, who was trusted to play the main role, had to call from a pay-phone during another laboratory work, when it was possible to slip out of the class unnoticed, and call Voronina to the telephone and then keep saying hello, pretending that was a long distance call. She had to try to keep Voronina as long as possible at the telephone. Well, and the rest was a matter of skill and sleight of hand. So the group monitor went downstairs to the first floor of the building at Tretiy Osobiy to a pay phone; and what else could be done – there were not any mobile telephones back then, everybody got ready. Everything happened the way it had been planned. A laboratory assistant peeped into the class room and asked Voronina to the telephone saying that there was an urgent long distance call for her. Voronina left. Something unthinkable started in the group after that… Everybody as if they were crazy rushed all together to her desk and using her pen, snatching it out of hands of each other, started putting crosses in front of their names in her notebook as if their laboratory works had been passed. At that moment nobody even thought that those small crosses could turn into a big cross on their further study at the institute. Say whatever you like, but Einstein was right.

Galina together with her best friend Yulishna, or simply Yulia, also yielded to the herd instinct, they also rushed to the desk, and when the pen came into their hands, they put only one cross each – they could not bring themselves write more. And the people as if grew mad; some of them came up to the desk for the second time and scribbled five or six “passed” marks for themselves.

Voronina was leaving if not a virgin clean notebook on the desk, and then she returned to …Good Lord, how much na;ve one should be to believe that the professor with many years of academic experience, associate professor of the department would not notice anything? One had to see how eyes of always kind and calm Voronina grew big because of so many crosses in her notebook. She went out of the class without saying a word. She was out for a long time. Suddenly everybody began to see clearly and realized that they did too many incredibly stupid things.

Voronina returned accompanied by the Dean and the head of the department. The conversation was extremely unpleasant for everybody. The students were reprimanded and threatened with expel, and everybody was very ashamed. At the end of the conversation Voronina looked in the notebook and suddenly pointed at Galya and Yulia and said: “Here, there are only to decent and honest people in your group, they did not put any grades to themselves, so I will mark their laboratory works as passed without their presenting to me. And all the rest of you will be presenting your laboratory works to me till the very summer, you are punished by your own greed and stupidity. You should be happy that have not been expelled”.

Voronina was very kindhearted, so nobody was presenting the laboratory works till summer. Everybody apologized and was forgiven. The case was not pursued.

And Galina and her dear friend Yulishna decided not to disappoint Voronina as for themselves.  They intuitively realized that failure to mention is not a lie.

P.S. It is not a shame to be born stupid; one should be ashamed to die a fool (Erich Maria Remarque)

10 April, 2012


Essay 106. Good luck of Victor Kiss

If now to start remembering really hard, then it becomes clear that all professors of the Pharmacology department were very strict and exacting. Sure enough, there was some sympathy and some antipathy felt for them, however basically students were afraid of them and had no special liking for them. Nevertheless when Vitya Kiss learned that in his group the course would be conducted neither by Sazykin, nor Sapozhnikov or Borovskikh, but by Nikolay Nikolayevitch Aleutskiy, he liked the news.

Aleutskiy was the head of the department and students considered him a man of his word, if he promised something, then he would do that without fail. Students’ bush telegraph did not have any rumors about him being especially hard on students. That was nice. Generally speaking long before his first class, there was if not mellow, then for sure not nervous atmosphere in the group concerning pharmacology. So in such working mood the group came to the first “pharma” class.
However it turned out that Vitya relaxed too early. There was a lot of talking afterwards, but nobody could find the reason, why Nikolay Nikolayevitch had not liked the group form the very first classes. What had happened, when happened and how happened, nobody had even the smallest idea, but the fact remained, and failed tests were pouring on the group, as if from the horn of plenty. Of course, they were passed later, though the new ones appeared without any delay; all that led to the situation, when before an examination Aleutskiy announced that nobody would pass it from the first try. The group grew numb with astonishment. How come? Why? Anticipation of death is worse than death itself. “And why to study and strain ourselves, if we do not pass it anyway?”. Voices of that kind sounded louder and louder in the group. However majority of the students studied, crammed and ground away at their books.

It was not without a reason rumored among the students that Aleutskiy was a man of his word, and he should be given a credit for he was exactly that way. He did what he had promised that time as well; nobody in the group passed the exam after the first attempt. Of course, it was nice to deal with the man of his word, but the statement did not refer to the given situation. What was going on; only part of the group passed the exam after the second try? And Vitya was not one of them; he was assigned to take the pharmacology exam once again on 24 August!!! And what it meant? That meant say farewell to summer vacations. However Viktor had a wonderful trait, he even did not notice it in his character first, not to mention others. Vitya could accept misfortune, which was a significant constituent of achieving happiness.  Sure enough that that summer he did not think about those philosophical maxims; it was much later when he discovered the trait in himself, and it downed on him like enlightenment, like a bolt from the blue. Yeah, they are not born wise, but become like that, unfortunately not all. Vitya and two of his friends, who also got added evidence of striking any imagination honesty of Nikolay Nikolayevitch, had to stop at the end of their rope on 24 August, after that there was looming an expel. The guys got really concentrated and studied, studied and studied again. They studied so hard, that they even decided to leave their homes for the final two weeks to avoid temptations, and they did not feel like communicating with anyone. So, there was the re-examination. If they used a tear-off calendar in Vitya’s family, they would‘ve for sure saved the page of 24 August as a relic.

However, there was no calendar.

The last 18 students, who had been unlucky enough to fail the exam, gathered at the department. Everybody was waiting for Nikolay Nikolayevitch. He came at nine, as usually clean-shaved, and elegantly dressed. “What a dandy”, some students thought; “What a scum” – the other thought. Here is for you unity and conflict of opposites in one person, even though an attractive one, but of the head of the department. Viktor and his buddies clustered together and were trying to prompt to each other. Aleutskiy heard that and loudly announced that Vitya’s prompts were incorrect, and it seemed to him, meaning Aleutskiy, that Vitya would fail again… Poor Victor, he sweated so much that his shirt stuck to his back, and everything vanished out of his mind. He was just sitting and waiting what everything would end up with. The first heroes went to answer and received a satisfactory grade each, nevertheless they were happy and darted out of the room; so there was Vitya’s turn to go to Aleutskiy, like a rabbit to a boa. I remember about forty or fifty year ago there was a song with the following words:

“And you keep saying over again that there are no miracles in life.
Well, what can I answer? They are there.
There are so many miracles in life, that all of them cannot even be counted.”

The song was splashing ardour and enthusiasm; and a miracle happened. It appeared in person of an associate professor of the Pharmacology department Popova, who at the very moment entered the examination room with the following words:” Nikolay Nokolayevitch, I decided to help you.”

Aleutskiy: “Oh, no, you should not give yourself the trouble”.
The associate professor Popova: “No, Nikolay Nikolayevitch, I cannot tolerate that you are working so hard, when on vacation”.

Aleutskiy, a well-known ladies man, sure enough agreed; so Popova loudly asked: “Who’s next?” Everybody was silent looking at Victor and Aleutskiy, who in his turn was also looking at Vitya Kiss. Yeah, there was some situation. Viktor became dumb and was silent as well, but looking down at the floor. So Popova feeling great, as she came to help her boss, cheerfully approached the desk and picked up a random student’s record book.

Now try to guess, whose record book she took? You are smart and guessed right away that that was Victor’s. Wow, what a mixture of feelings he had at the moment – joy, delight and some enlightenment. And how well he was answering; Good Lord, how enthusiastically he was talking about single doses of medicines and ratio of intake! It was like a song, and I would even say like a serenade. Vitya’s buddies quickly estimated the situation and one after another went to answer to Nikolay Nikolayevitch, who was listening to Viktor’s answer spellbound; he gave satisfactory grades to both of them with his eyes closed. And inspired Vitya remembered even what he had never known, and it was unlikely that he would’ve remembered that in a different situation, even if a machinegun was pointed at him. Popova was satisfied, she was about to give Viktor a good grade, and announced that out loud. Poor Nikolay Nikolayevitch almost had a stroke: “He does not know anything!!!” - he yelled. Popova answered quite calmly: “His answer was excellent!!!” – “Though we have a rule to put only satisfactory grades for re-examinations”. So they agreed on that. And during the argument an agile girl got a sat from N. N. Aleutskiy and went out of the room as fast as her legs could carry her, though nobody cared about that.

12 April, 2012


Essay 107. Liquidation

If to search really well in every nook and cranny of my memory, I might find many interesting and amusing episodes. However, right now the following one has occurred to me. After I had left the mini-dorm, my place was taken by Kostya Romashov, Yevgeniy’s brother. Change of tenants did not affect the rules that had been set before. However, let’s talk about everything in order.

On that memorable day it happened so that Zhenya was going to the apartment after classes together with Kostya. Zhenya was in a bad mood. He was tired; he could not get home for two days. He had classes at the institute, after that there was a night shift at the city clinic #9 at an X-ray laboratory of an accident ward. The night happened to be difficult, there was a lot of work, and Zhenya practically had no chance to have any sleep, and in the morning he had to be at the institute again. At the institute he got a failed test in anatomy, and Slavka Sizikov drove him mad when playing Scrabble during a lecture with double “s” in a word “rassolnik” (see essay 31 “Beer at lectures”). Generally speaking there was a reason for Zhenya’s dysphoria, and it was considerably manifested, Kostya was feeling that on his own back. When on a tram on their way to Hertsen street, Kostya decided to spare money and did not buy tickets, a ticket collector got into the wagon at the very same time, so they had to urgently get off the tram, one stop before the one they needed; Kostya got the first clip on the back of his head from Zhenka.

Afterwards when they were walking along the tram road Zhenya was reprimanding Kostya for his attitude to economizing, his own brother, meaning himself, to his study and life in general…; and all that time he was threatening with two more clips on the back of his head. Kostya was compliantly keeping silence; he knew that “silence was worthy gold”, he was just nodding. In such a way having a nice conversation the Romashov brothers reached their mini-dorm.

And when they came inside...

Just tell me why is it said that gustatory sensation is formed in the mouth by taste bulbs on a human tongue?
I believe that the bulbs allow only tell the difference between bitter and sweet, and salty and sour. And the whole range of tastes a man receives via his vision and sense of smell. It is a nose, which makes it possible for a man to sense all the variety of smells; we have not even tried food, but our mouth is already watering.

There were Kostya and Zhenka’s noses which were hit by a sharp, sour and even sickening smell in their rooms. And if Kostya did not dodge a blow on time, he would’ve got one more clip on the back of his head, as if it was he, who had spoiled the air in a well known way.
Zhenka opened all doors and ventilator windows and started looking for a source of the stink. Kostya quietly withdrew outside, as if to a toilet. And Zhenka saw a big pan on the table and understood everything; somebody was having breakfast in the morning, was in a hurry and it looked like he was eating right from the pan, there was no dirty plate near it, and a spoon was right on the lid, he left everything and rushed to the institute; and it was very hot then. When Kostya came back Zhenka interrogated him demanding all details: at what time he had left, who had been at home except him in the morning. Kostya guessed that it was Vadik Severyukhin who had done that, but did not betray him, to all questions he was answering: “I was in a hurry, din’t see anything around, don’t remember anything”. As soon as there were not any other dwellers, Kostya had to carry out liquidation of borsh.
Yeah, Zhenka’s brother’s fate was a grave one. Even though Zhenka loved Kostya he was tough when it came to disciplining him; when Kostya informed Zhenka that he was going to conduct the liquidation via throwing the spoiled borsh into a cesspool of an outdoor toilet, he almost was beaten up again (just kidding – had another clip on the back of his head). Zhenka was outraged by his brother’s lack of foresight; if at such heat fermentation continued already at the cesspool with its contents; then the whole neighborhood of the Tretiy Osobyi would have nothing to breathe in. Ultimately Kostya received a simple and clear order: dig a hole in a vegetable garden, pour the borsh into it and fill up the hole.

After he had received the clear instruction as for the liquidation, Kostya took the pan and went outside to follow the instruction. It was not without reason that Kostya had been born and lived in Central Asia before entering the institute; he had learned very well that no matter how much in a hurry you were, you would always have enough time to be late, so he sat at the porch to have a cigarette before the liquidation. And why not? Where to hurry? Kostya was smoking and thinking that he was very lucky to have such a brother; as if it was not for him, the borsh would’ve ended up in the toilet for sure. And at the very moment his contemplations were interrupted by arrival of Zhora Chernobay. Zhora was in high spirits, joking, asking whether dinner was ready. Kostya told him about borsh and the coming liquidation. Zhora grew dumb with astonishment, he literally was indignant: “What kind of liquidation?”. He immediately opened the lid, smelled and rolled his eyes up as a sign of pleasure. Yeah, gourmands are people of a special category. However to like spoiled borsh? That would take not a gourmand, but a gourmet! Kostya had no time to reflect on subtlety of differences between a gourmand and a gourmet. Zhora took the pan and went downstairs right to the kitchen. How it came that Zhenya did not notice him, was not clear, though, he did not sleep for two days; however when around the well aired house there again started spreading specific aroma from the kitchen, where Zhora was already heating up the borsh, Zhenka came to his senses and overcoming attacks of nausea  went downstairs to the kitchen. Zhenya assumed that it was Kostya who disobeyed him and was up to something, so he was going to put him on the straight and narrow, but saw Zhora in the kitchen, pleased, and even not just pleased, but happy. Without saying a word Zhenya turned around and went outside to Kostya, he smoked and offered Kostya a bet: if Zhoura would have a diarrhea after having the borsh or not? Zhenka made a bet that he “would have diarrhea”, Kostya had to make his bet that “there would be no diarrhea”. However, what was the most amazing, Kostya really believed so, that it was doubtful that Zhora’s bowels would move after some two liters of bad borsh, and he did win the bet. Zhenka easily reacted to his loss, he only said: “Our daughter in law guttles anything”.

29 April, 2012

Essay 108. Resonance

Believe me, I ask you very much indeed. It’s not my fault that I again and again come back to those last names. And what I am saying, not to the last names, but to the people, to the professors.

It happens so that I’ve  written the essay “Golubev and Sasha Plokhikh”, the twelfth one about the unforgettable Boris Feodorovitch Golubev, a professor of Social Sciences department, a very clever man and boozer, and a wonderful lecturer. Yes, at his lectures we, the graduates of Kemerovo medical institute of 1972, did anything we pleased, played sea battle, ouths and crosses, and the most reckless even played cards. Golubev B.F. lived near the institute. He had four boys. His wife worked at a cloakroom at the sanitary-hygiene building, and sometimes he could be met at the cloakroom, when he was substituting for his wife, who had left on some urgent business home. We, students, usually felt shy at the meetings, and he helped us feel at ease saying, when you got married, we would see what tricks you would play.
However his lectures were interesting, he was reading them the way they were remembered. Just tell me how we, greenhorn students, could not remember the following confidence of Boris Feodorovitch he shared with us at his class. Once at his lecture he was explaining, I do not remember what exactly, something about relativity. So he gave the following example; I am telling it from his name: “Once during a break between lectures I came home really quickly, because of necessity. It was extremely hot and I was very thirsty. In the kitchen on a windowsill I noticed a bottle of beer, though not a full one. I was grateful to my wife, that she had left half a bottle for me, drank it in one gulp and hurried back to the institute. In the evening Zina asked me, whether I had seen a bottle on the windowsill. I replied that I’d seen it, and thanked her for the beer, that I had drunk it and put the bottle into a closet. And she started scolding me, as that was our son’s urine she had prepared to take for a test.”

There were the maxims he used at his lectures stating that everything was relative.

So after I posted the first essay in the internet, I started receiving e-mails from readers; and they were sending me plots of stories about Igor Victorovitch Golubev (see essay 71 “Winter Examinations”) as well.
He was a good man, an excellent specialist, but the demon drink did not spare him too. What we did at the exam conducted by Boris Feodorovitch, when we poured vodka instead of water into a carafe for him, students did more than once at examinations conducted by Igor Victorovitch. And everything was just wonderful: the students and Igor Victorovitch were satisfied. Irina Gulnyashkina’s group was aware of all that and prepared for an exam correspondingly. At the beginning of the exam, when the first students were already with their examination papers and were preparing, to be more exact, closely watching Golubev, when he would check the carafe. Well, it should be said that it did not take them long. Golubev made a couple of rounds along the class room, approached a desk and carelessly, as if unwillingly, poured about twenty-thirty grams from the carafe into a glass and took a sip. And there one had to see Igor Viktorovitch. On his face, like in kaleidoscope, there were changing various expressions from expectation to complete satisfaction, and then, as if he remembered something, he carefully closed the carafe and said to the students: “I will be back soon” and quickly went out of the room, leaving the students by themselves without any control.

So there it started, guys were literally in panic... and they poured vodka into a sink. They assumed that Golubev left to bring the administration. The room was small, and smell of vodka was hanging thick in the air.  In five minutes Golubev came back. He had something wrapped in his hands. Golubev came in and breathed in via his quivering nostrils the air. Obviously he liked the smell in the room. He slowly, obviously prolonging the pleasure opened the carafe, put the stopper, which was also faceted like the carafe, on a small plate, slowly trickling started pouring into the glass, also faceted, but without a rim, the contents of the carafe. When he poured about one hundred grams, he with no hurry put the carafe back on the small plate and put the stopper on it. The guys were watching him mesmerized. In their mind there was rushing one and the same thought: “What will happen now?” Nevertheless physics are right by having proved the resonance phenomenon. In that case resonance got manifested itself – electromagnet waves of each of them got overlaid, and the silent question: “What will happen now” was as if loudly pealing in the small room. Golubev was also influenced by the resonance. Anxiety was also reflected in his face, everybody saw that. He grabbed the glass and drank what was in it in one gulp. Again there was a kaleidoscope of feelings on his face: disappointment, offence, anger… The professor put the glass on the table with such a bang, that everybody thought it would be smashed into smithereens. Golubev was smart, he quickly estimated the situation: “You got scared, idiots, and poured it into the sink, and I went to buy meat pies”. So he started conducting the exam. Frankly speaking, it was an exaggeration to talk about his conducting of the exam; he was giving unsatisfactory grades to everybody one after another.

And it is true, in those days, in Kemerovo they were selling very tasty round fried meat pies. Those who studied or lived in Kemerovo remember, that there were many kiosks, equipped with big frying pans, where meat pies were fried. Back then they cost 19 kopeks, but their taste was worthy a whole ruble.

 29 April, 2012


Essay 109. Shock therapy

I learned what shock therapy was already after graduation from the institute, when I was majoring in psychiatry. We were told about and showed in all details varieties of the shock treatment such as electroconvulsive therapy and insulin-shock therapy. Much later I also learned about shock therapy in economics.

I will honestly admit that about the fifth kind of shock therapy I’ve learned just recently, even though I worked in medicine for more than twenty five years. It turns out that a unit of morbid anatomy of a hospital is called the fifth shock therapy.

After all I was going to write not about myself, but about a KSMI (Kemerovo State Medical Institute) graduate Victor Kiss. Those who follow my opuses already know him from the essay “Good Luck of Victor Kiss”. So if a person is lucky, he is lucky in everything. This is I am about Victor. As a curious guy and also a diligent student, Vitya never missed an opportunity to work a shift at a hospital. He worked at both a city clinic #9 at Kirovskiy district and a city hospital #3. Most of all he liked to work at a traumatology department of the city hospital. And it was there where he learned one of methods of shock therapy. It was the one neither of psychiatry nor of economics, but of traumatology. The method was quite unique and had not been described in any traumatology text books before. Vitya was keen to learn something special, that all the rest did not know. So this is what happened. Once in his fifth year Vitya was working a shift at an admission department of the city hospital #3. It should be mentioned in what company he was lucky to work. The company was the right one: legendary G.Y.Kutikhin, a chief traumatologist and a doctor O.G. Shumilov, who was also teaching at a medical college of Kemerovo and brought a group of his students to practice at the shift. All in all there was a big crowd, and it was fun till they brought a patient with a craniocerebral trauma. That was written in a referral from an “ambulance”. Well and the patient himself was heavily drunk, he was stiff drunk, hammered, you name his state the way you wish, but it was a fact that he was too drunk to make sense.

And now imagine a two meters tall goon who weighted not less than one hundred and fifty kilos. And what was the most amazing that bastard, sorry, the patient did not react when he was spoken to, but he did not shut his mouth up, belching forth so ingenious swearing, that even hard core nurses of the admission department blushed, like, forgive me for saying it, girl students. I will add that there was a wound on the head of that marvel, there was blood all over him, and he also had motor anxiety. The first victim was a nurse who with the words: “Who did that to you, poor thing…” approached him to take the bandage off his head. However the goon pushed her and she flew like a bit of fluff to the corner and almost overturned a table with medical instruments. And swears followed her. Shumilov was trying to explain and demonstrate to his students on the patient the methodology of examining of an injured patient and performing of initial care. Though the hulk swore at him in a way known in that kind of situations and raised his hand against the medical college students; and those, poor things, shrank into corners, being reasonably afraid that they would get it hot just for nothing. And there came Kutikhin. To everybody’s surprise the dork stood calmly the examination and went accompanied by the same nurse to do an X-ray test.

However in about twenty minutes they were returning with swearing again. He again tore the bandage off and was using foul language addressing everybody. Even to Kutikhin, when he had a look at a picture and said that there were no fractures, the troublemaker showed a fist and cursed him spelling every swear word. And what did Kutikhin do? He gave an order to bandage him and send home, and left for the traumatology department. And there the patient absolutely lost control; he was shouting, making a brawl and gave a kick to a nurse passing by.

Everybody who knows O.G.Shumilov, picture a nice, polite and well-mannered man.

However at that moment, after the last scurvy trick of the boot, Shumilov literally threw his doctor’s smock off, threw it away and with the words: “My doctor’s uniform did not allow me to give you a punch in the jaw”. Who could imagine that with two practically unnoticeable moves, he, let’s say delicately stopped the hooligan and sent him down the stairs out in the street. All the present at the admission department… Did you see a scene from “The Government General”? (also known as “The Inspector General, is a satirical play by a dramatist and novelist Nikolai Gogol. Originally published in 1836, the play is a comedy of errors.) The situation was exactly the same. Everybody was standing paralyzed. And then they happily rushed to greet and thank Shumilov. He only said addressing his students: “Shock therapy! Sometimes it’s very efficient”.

P.S. Afterwards it became known that the man was placed in the city hospital, but he did his best to pretend that he did not remember anything, when he met students and doctors he had been insulting.

1 May, 2012


Essay 110. Buddha is smiling

In 2006 when preparing for a trip to Hong Kong in addition to the time required for business, I planned two more days for visiting sights of Hong Kong. Of course, that was not enough. Though I reasonably assumed that that was my first and not the last trip to Hong Kong, and Natasha and I would take our time to visit all sights. Now I want to tell you about our visit to a statue of Buddha on the top of the mountain on the island Lantau.

When at the hotel we had asked about everything concerning the man-made miracle. We had been told about 268 steps leading to Buddha and how to get to the statue from the hotel “Peninsula”, where we were staying that time. We had been told that we had to go by a red taxi to the final stop of a cableway, and from there continue in a car of the cableway of by a blue taxi. In Hong Kong red taxies drive around the city, and blue ones – only in the mountains.

Blue taxies’ drivers are super pros in driving business; we got evidence of that a bit later. And at the hotel we had also been told that the best way to reach Buddha was by walking. We are not fluent in English, and for the hotel staff it was also not their native language; so perhaps we had misunderstood something. Natalek and I took a taxi from the hotel, and while looking out of windows agreed that if it was better to walk, then we would also walk. It was said was done! The taxi took us to the final point, where it was possible to drive to, and the driver was trying to explain to us how to get to Buddha from there, but we even did not let him open his mouth. We announced that we would walk from there. The driver was surprised, and left without saying anything. And we inspired and with some inexplicable enthusiasm started finding out how to get to Buddha on foot. We were looked at with suspicion. They tried to explain to us that that was very far away, and some took us for insane. Gradually our enthusiasm was vanishing, and the rain started drizzling therewith. So Natasha and I made up our minds to drive to Buddha by taxi for that time, but the next time… we would walk for sure. We were already driving in a blue taxi, when the rain poured as it is called “rain like hell”. Even the driver asked us: “Maybe we should go back?”. By the way, he explained to us that to go on foot and without any stop to Buddha one should go up the stairs. It was really good that we took a taxi, so we decided to go to the final stop and then we would see. Yes, Blue taxies’ drivers are aces.

We were not crawling, but driving pretty fast along the narrow and serpentine road in the shower wall. The very moment we drove to a Po Lin monastery, the rain stopped as if at the command. Natasha and I decided that that was a miracle, and that was God’s will that we visited the statue, as soon as we came.

We walked to Buddha two hundred and sixty eight steps up without any stops, as it was required. If somebody believes that it is not a big deal, just some two hundred and sixty eight steps, he is mistaken. It is hard, very hard, but possible. Somewhere after the first third my feet became leaden, but I continued walking up. I could not stop, Natasha was walking by my side, and as she told me later, she felt the same. Tired, but proud and happy, we walked up to Buddha. We walked around the statue along the walking area. We also came inside, bought souvenirs, donated for the temple and were about to leave downhill. However, when at the top Natasha regretted that even though the rain stopped, thick fog did not allow us to see Buddha’s face. You would not believe, I had goose bumps, when during the conversation Natasha and I were looking at Buddha, the fog as if moved apart, and we clearly saw Buddha’s face, and Buddha smiled to us. 

I was standing and staring dumb-founded. I do not know for how long that lasted, a second, a minute, or maybe longer. Then the fog moved back and hid Buddha. Natasha was faster than me with the question: “Have you seen that? “. No matter what they say, but I had worked in psychotherapy for twenty five years and I clearly remember that there are no collective hallucinations. Though, I was not thinking about that at the moment. Natasha and I concluded for ourselves, that that was the miracle for us, that we were leading godly way of life. We thanked Buddha and swore that every time we came to Hong Kong we would visit Buddha to bow and thank him for that miracle.

And that that was really the miracle we got convinced when we went down to the foot of the stairs, took a blue taxi, and then saw that the rain started pouring again. Natasha and I were both happy. We were keeping silence thinking about our own things, though later in a conversation we realized that we were thinking in a similar way.

By the way, after that, every time we are in Hong Kong, we obligatory visit Buddha. As Buddha is always happy and smiles to us. Well at least it seems that way.

6 May, 2012



Essay 111. Love and gastric ulcer

I suffer from ulcer disease, i.e. it, my gastric ulcer, has been officially diagnosed and confirmed with a roentgenological test since nineteen seventy two. Yes, that’s right, attentive and regular readers have immediately noticed, that that was the year of my graduation from the institute. Yes, I was labeled with the diagnosis at Kurgan regional hospital.

Though the diagnosis is one thing, and its manifestations are an absolutely different story! No, I am not going to bother you and expound semiotics of gastric ulcer. I will simply say that back then in 1972 – 1973 I used up about three tons of cabbage to drink a glass of freshly pressed cabbage juice three times a day. Vitamin U (from the word ulcus – ulcer), which is contained in fresh cabbage juice is a great power. So for about fifteen years I did not have practically any problems. But it happened so that after I had married Natalek, my duodenal cup ulcer started playing pranks again. That was the time of my honey moon, life was great, and I had my semiotics manifesting itself, and in such a way that it could not be ignored.

I had residential registration at Yagunovka then, but Natasha and I lived on Soviet avenue in Kemerovo. Near it there was the third city hospital. Natalek was kind and affectionate, but suddenly she firmly said: “You go to the hospital. Period.” So I went to my former fellow student Bella Friedman to complain at the “naughty thing”, not at Natalek, but the gastric ulcer. My visit to Bella was just wonderful, and when she saw results of fibrogastroscopy, she categorically announced that hospitalization was an absolute need as well as immediate beginning of treatment. I myself when carrying the FGS (fibrogastroscopy) results peeped into them and saw that in addition to my gastric ulcer I had multiple erosion of stomach mucous. So Bella did not have to put too much effort to persuade me in necessity of hospitalization. In spite of all Bella’s attempts, I refused to go to a “private ward”, but insisted to be placed on general terms. So I was placed that way. In our ward there were six men, and all ulcer patients of the first-class.
It is known long ago that ulcer patients’ character changes not for better. So imagine: five ulcer patients, almost kissing tell each other about their: “kissing ulcers”, or swear at each other when choosing a TV channel. I excluded myself from their group, so they avoided me. Nevertheless Bella called the head of Gastroenterology Department and said something to make my life easier at a regular ward. So a junior nurse had warned all of them that a doctor, a psychiatrist, was going to be placed to their ward. Basically I was glad that I was not annoyed with questions about how I was feeling after eating this or that. They did not impose their pieces of advice on me, but they acted like that between each other. I was prescribed tons of tablets and injections, and a table #1 diet. That was a nightmare; I was a hearty eater, but received blended soup or a steamed cutlet. That was terrible; the diet was killing me morally. I was constantly hungry for a couple of first days. So I persuaded Natalek that nothing would happen to me, if she brought me a real steak, and if she brought me solyanka (a spicy soup of vegetables and meat), I would be three times happier and would get better much sooner. As the main argument I promised to eat everything I was given at the hospital. And I did persuade her. Natalek came rushing home from work, made a steak for me and took it to me in a thermos together with solyanka. It was finger-licking good. I opened the thermoses and enjoyed smells coming out of them. And the smells, I should say, were wonderful. As Natalek was frying according all existing culinary rules, and spared no spices. My poor hospital ward mates, they, too, smelled the aromas.
One of them, the most sullen one, asked me: “Do you really have gastric ulcer?” He was utterly amazed, when I confirmed that. So, I will tell you all the truth about how I was treating my ulcer disease. I was brought a handful of tablets three times a day; however I have to admit that I took none of them. Remember a line from Vysotsky (Vladimir Vysotsky, 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980, was a very popular singer, songwriter, poet, and actor during the Soviet period; his songs are well known and widely quoted): “And heaps of medicaments we sent down a toilet, who was not a fool…”
The only thing I could not escape was injections. So, all my treatment was the following: I diligently followed daily routine, slept eight hours a day minimum and received the prescribed injections. Sorry, I have not mentioned the main cure – Natashka’s love! Natasha visited me every day, and two-three times a day on weekends. Her care and solicitude gave me comfort and cured my shredded by the ulcer and erosions stomach. And what do you think? When by the end of the third week I had a fibrogastroscopy test, its result was not given to me. Bella herself came to my ward. She was sincerely happy and a bit surprised, as mucous of my stomach was clean, without any erosions. I did not want to disappoint Bella in power of tablets, which I had been prescribed; maybe they really were very efficient. It should be said, my ward mates did not betray me, though had threatened to do so.
When being discharged from the hospital, I told them: “Here is the true power of love! It not only removes mountains, but cures ulcer without a trace!”

9 May, 2012.


Essay 112. We were optimists…

 “Necessity is the mother of invention” – who would argue about that?  Though, this can be said about students when raised to the tenfold power. We already had chemistry classes in our first year. We diligently studied biochemistry together with that subject. It was my favorite subject even when at my secondary school. I can boast that Raisa Vasilievna Sadovnikova, our chemistry teacher at Kedrovka secondary school, even allowed me not to attend her classes. Well, if chemistry was the last lesson in a timetable, and the weather was fine, then I skipped it with pleasure to go fishing, and quite often Vitya Belkov and Lesha Borichev were off school together with me. However that had been at the secondary school, but I was at a higher educational institution, the medical one. All in all I was an excellent student in chemistry at the institute, and gladly helped Zhenya Romashov and Dimka Mkheidze; and together with Dima we helped Yevgeniy. Poor laboratory assistants of the Chemistry Department;

after every our class they missed flasks or funnels, or trivial test tubes. Why Yevgeny needed all that, neither Dimka nor I knew or understood, but helped Zhenka to filch all those goodies from the department. Communists however selected and developed a new gene in people, a very powerful one. It was a gene of misappropriation. A Soviet person filched everything he or she saw. We were not an exception from the rule. Of course we enquired Zhenka what he needed all that for. But he gave a short answer: “It might come useful…” However when Zhenya made up his mind to steal in the Communist style a Liebig condenser from the department, Dima and I said in unison: “But this is a distiller 90%!!!”

Zhenya smiled cunningly to that and announced: “Eh, it’s a pity that this is a straight condenser. Efficiency factor will be low. We need a coiled one. I cannot say anything for Dimitriy, but I opened my eyes wide and was staring at Zhenka: “What efficiency factor?” I will honestly tell you, one should have known Zhenka to imagine his kind and somewhat attractive smile. “A lot of vapors will be wasted, and there will be little of condensate”, - Yevgeniy had unimaginable potential of worldly wisdom compared to us, greenhorns. Ultimately it took Zhenka not long to be sad. In just two or three classes the lab assistants left a Liebig coiled condenser in a class room, and we successfully laid our hands on it. Then the issue of laboratory glassware somehow died away by itself. We studied, had parties on occasions of birthdays and holidays; generally speaking everything was all right and even wonderful.  And why not? What are the students’ worries? They are how not to receive a bad grade or correct the already received one.

Once in our fourth year Yevgeniy offered to club together and make home-distilled vodka, to have at least something to celebrate holidays. Yevgeniy made an inflammatory speech about what a paying business it was. He said that from two kilos of sugar, there would come almost two liters of pure, like a tear, moonshine. He also said that he had stashed lots of filters to purify the finished product; and with a jar of Indian coffee we would turn the moonshine into excellent brandy. The speech was really inflammatory, it was liked by everybody. A hat was immediately sent around. It was decided to put enough to get five liters of the finished product per person. Timid squawks of Arkashka Blyakher and Toma Ogorodnaya that we would be poisoned were fiercely scoffed at; and they were announced that they’d better give the agreed amount voluntarily, or it would be deducted from their stipends. Generally speaking the unanimity was restored. In the same democratic way it was determined that Zhenya Romashov and Valya Timoshenko would be in charge of everything. Supervising and examining commission included Arkashka, Toma and me. It beats me how come that we overlooked that Zhenka, with the best intentions, of course,  decided to increase  quantity of the finished product, and instead of regular white beet sugar from a grocery store, got yellow Cuban cane sugar stolen from a brewery. However that was three times more by the number of kilos. Zhenka was praised for his zeal and scolded for his adventurism, as there were Department Against Misappropriation of Socialist Property (OBKhSS, the Soviet financial police) officers constantly hanging about the brewery at Kirovskiy.
However what was done was done, and it was left to find a container to make home brew, i.e. half-finished home-distilled vodka. And there invaluable help was given by Valya Timoshenko, or Timonya, as we lovingly nicknamed her. She ordered and was brought from a village the very container, and it was Timonya, who brewed the home brew in it. She turned out to have experience in the matter prior to the one she got at the institute. She had seen how the brew was made and matured. Everything comes useful in life. Don’t you agree? So on Friday Yevgeniy announced that he had sampled the brew, and it was very strong, which meant the moonshine would be strong as well.
It was decided to distill the home-made vodka on Saturday after classes, in order if it took too much time, there would be Sunday to finish. A brigade of moonshiners included Zhenya, Valera Kaygorodov and Slavka Sizikov, and Arkashka and I were supposed to come with an unexpected inspection. It was agreed beforehand that “the unexpected inspection” would be on Saturday night. Though, somehow it happened so that we managed to come with the inspection only in the morning on Sunday. My God, what we saw in the house at Tretiy Osobyi. Our moonshiners were hammered. They were unconsciously drunk. Slavka Sizikov was trying to set on fire a tablespoon of moonshine, and Valera was just holding his thumb up in silence and nodding significantly. The only person able to make contact with was Yevgeniy. He reported to us that the home-distilled vodka turned to be the first class one, and they had already significantly exceeded the expected rate, and by lunch time would finish, if they had enough energy.

He also gave us to try the moonshine they had produced. No matter how much Slavka and Valerka were asking Zhenya, they were absolutely denied sampling. Arkashka and I sampled about one hundred grams of the turbid, stinky, warm liquid, which was burning with blue flame. Oh, they made such crap. We told Zhenya exactly that. 
Later at a general meeting of our group after our report, very favorable, by the way, the group decided that that quantity of the product would be enough to last till the New Year minimum. We were such optimists!

Moonshine is a strong alcoholic drink, made by distilling brew via homemade (or industrial) distillers; the brew is made of brewing grains, potatoes, beets, fruit or other products containing sugar and converted starch substances (from Wikipedia).

12 May, 2012.



Essay 113. Prosperity of Russia

That time a “kitchen conversation” between Natasha and me started in a car. We were driving to the State Opera to watch the ballet “Don Quixote” and got in a car jam right between Russian and American embassies.

So the location and waiting in the jam made us feel like talking “about life”. Natasha categorically stated that everything, which was done by Putin and Medvedev was wrong. Things must not be done that way. For instance in America one serves for four years and if he is lucky stays for eight years, and that’s it, let another one take the position. An amazing thing is that she has nothing against Putin personally, but those around him annoy her, especially a plump phiz of the Defense Minister Serdyukov.

I mitigated Natasha’s definition of the irritating her object, she said more definitely and called the phiz “a mug”, and the definition of “plump” sounded like thick from her. You know, I agreed with her about that. Inspired Natalek abruptly changed the topic and stated that Hilary Clinton had been wrong when she announced to mass media that she had a lot of important things to do compared to make up and cosmetics, and she would spend her time on them. Natasha made a categorical conclusion: “No wonder that Bill makes passes at various Monicas Lewinskys!”

Then she abruptly changed the subject again and stated that Putin hid his wife somewhere, perhaps he also wanted to make a pass at some Russian “Monica Lewinsky”. That part of life of politicians is not interesting for me, so I tried to make Natasha return to, as it seemed to me, more important topic. Anyway it is good that Putin won, and not the goblin Mironov. I would not be against Mikhail Prokhorov, even more that we together were on vacation on Maldives in December, 2009, and our villas were near. We nodded to each other when met, and Mikhail seemed to me to be a decent man, and that he had brought about twenty broads with him was wonderful, that was for high spirits. Well as soon as Putin had one, I was telling Natasha, then, perhaps he would be able to prove the name of “the gatherer of the Russian lands” to be true for him. Look, what project of corporation around Siberia and the Far East he had started.

And why not, it makes a fine line of Ivan Kalita, Peter the First, Vladimir Putin…

Of course, it’s a long process, but if attractive conditions are offered, exactly attractive, then from the former Soviet republics there would be attracted not all, but the deprived and offended ethnical Russians, they would gladly go to the new lands. Yes, and it would be nice to offer them an extremely simplified procedure of acquiring citizenship. Well, and Zhirinovsky’s idea of offering Japan the territories for resettlement could be implemented…

And if there are significant benefits for business, it is better to grant exemption from taxes; then money will flow there like river. Natasha agrees with me, though expresses a doubt, that the benefits will reach average citizens. Officials with similarly “plump phizes” like the one of Serdyukov (she got fixed on the Serdyukov, however, it is true, the case with swear words was a sickening one) will appropriate the benefits and put them into their pockets. It is difficult to change our mentality, oh, it is tough. However in agreement with the very postulate that it is difficult to reshape our mentality, a slogan: “Altogether to Siberia!!!” might take trump cards out of the opposition’s hands and lower the tension of people’s resentment. As we, the Russians, are quick-moving, remember how many enthusiasts went to new lands or to build Baikal-Amur Railroad. Of course, these days romanticism gives way to money, however this is not worse.


I was telling Natasha all that nonsense until we reached the Opera. We liked the ballet very much. They were dancing beautifully, and on our way back we thought not about politics, but were enthusiastically discussing adagio-duets, grand-pas and divertissement of the ballet finale, well, and as for Bazile fouett;, of course, it was marvelous.

That’s why life is wonderful, we are not able to know future, and this causes lots of emotions, and to guess and assume is often a thankless task, let’s leave it to fortune tellers and predictors. Though Vanga predicted that prosperity of Russia will start under Vladimir…
 
12 May, 2012

Essay 114. The night before

In those old days, when at the end of December calendars for the new year were bought, people were carefully studying calendars in order to see on what days there would be holidays. There were lots of holidays then. Everybody without any exceptions was happy, when holidays were on working days, and especially when they were on Mondays or Fridays. Obviously that way weekends were longer. That year when Vitya Kiss was in his third year, the 8 March (International Women’s Day) turned to be on Saturday. That was a pity, but one cannot argue with a calendar. One should treat it with respect, addressing it with “You”, if you please. And on the night of 7 March the lot to be on duty at the #9 clinic fell to Vitya. He was one of the boys there; he had worked night shifts there since his second year at the institute. That time another student to be on duty happened to be Sergey, a nice guy, but absolutely indifferent to surgery. Luckily Sergey’s handwriting was good, so Victor and he agreed that Sergey would not be bothered as for the patients, but would be in charge of filling in all medical reports.

That time doctors on duty were Grigoriy Vasilievitch Shilnikov and Ivan Ilyich Gavrilko. They were cool men and great doctors. As usual, there were very few patients in the evening, to be more precise a couple of guys with injuries. When the night started, it was as if a valve was opened somewhere. To cut it short, the doctors practically did not leave the operating room. In the morning on Saturday, on 8 March, everybody was sitting in a doctors’ lounge exhausted and relaxed. And Serega was working hard, he was in turns dictated surgeries’ reports, and there were many of them during the night, so Sergey was working by the sweat of his brow. It is now that there are computers with standard forms of reports for any case possible. Though back then one had to do all the writing with his own hands. The atmosphere was calm and quiet; Sergey was writing, and the rest were sitting relaxed, sharing their plans for the current day of the holiday and waiting for the final chord – arrival of a nurse on duty, and for some reason she was late. All medical reports were already written, verified and signed. Sergey was rubbing his hands, they were numb as if in spasm.

Finally Zinaida entered the doctors’ lounge room and poured everybody coffee and traditional “a couple of drops”.  Before that Shilnikov took out of his briefcase a plastic bag with chocolate candies, greeted Zina and asked her to treat to the candies all women, who were on duty at night. Only after that everybody began drinking their coffee and “a couple of drops”.

Zinaida was not leaving, but asked a question to everybody who was on duty: “What was unusual at the night shift?” Everybody started thinking hard, but did not know how to do that properly. So they took wild guesses saying something irrelevant; Zina was laughing. “Eh, you, men, you missed the fact that that was the night before the 8 March! How could you do that? Where were your eyes? During the night you had surgeries of 12 women and none of a man. Yes, they were women; the youngest was 16, and the oldest 23 years old. You, men…”

Zina left laughing, and the ashamed men remained contemplating how they could make such a blunder. 


14 May, 2012

Essay 115. A Prescription

Yeah, my dear friends, perhaps I am a notorious insolent fellow and a self-confident person. I’ve just published my first book and now am brimming over with a desire to teach somebody, admonish and somewhat share experience. Via my web site I’ve addressed all my readers and asked them to send me their stories about their student years, which could become a basis of humorous essays, or finished essays, which I promised publish on my site with a reference to the author. Sp far only Zhora Chernobay has responded to my call and sent four of his essays. I am very grateful to him for that.

And as for those who have not sent me their essays yet, I took the liberty of teaching them “some good sense”.

First of all, I’ve already written that I not a jot pretend to be the absolute truth, but only set forth my view on the subject. As usually, before making a decision I had a conversation with my deputy of the home front in our kitchen. Frankly speaking, that time the discussion was finished very fast, as Natalek categorically stated: “Teach other people? Take the responsibility? Leave me out of it.”

Well, once again I got added evidence that a woman remained a woman. Nevertheless, knowing Natasha, I continued talking as if to myself: “What is really needed to write an essay?” – I was asking Natalek.

Please, don’t tell me that a literary talent is needed and all those innate abilities.
Sure enough, they are needed.
So why then “Les Miserables” was written by Hugo and not by someone who had the talent? For instance Zola or Chekhov (A.P.Chekov, 1860 – 1904, a Russian dramatist and writer of short stories)?
Experience, life experience and knowledge of the subject are needed, - Natalek agreed.
Here you are, Natasha, as usually, in a simple and easy way, expressed from my point of view the most important argument. From myself I can only add that of course, you should have epistolary skills and abilities.

And now as soon as I am a doctor, though a former one, here is a prescription. Hundreds of volumes are written about how one should and should not write.
My prescription is going to be not a simple one, but structured in steps. I dare hope that the one who wants will be able to learn something interesting and creatively use it.

Step number one, the main one. What are the problems? What are you afraid of? What do you doubt? Are you afraid that you will not be able to write and doubt your own abilities? Don’t be afraid or hesitate. You will do it just fine. For sure, now you’ve thought of a saying that any man can do what another man has done. Exactly, any man can do.

Step number two
not less important.
You remembered a situation from your student life, which you had told many times at parties and everybody laughed. So, what’s the problem? Take it as the basis and start remembering details. You will remember so many of them that you will grow dumb with astonishment how come you did not remember them before and did not tell them at the very parties? It would have been much funnier then!

Step number three, also an important one.
That’s it, quickly go to your computer and start turning your thoughts and reminiscences into words and phrases. Nark my words, while you are typing, you will remember more and more of new episodes. Medics, do not pull my leg, remember Ribot’s Law. It exists and works. Sure enough, at this stage you would feel like finding old photos and looking through them. And this will help you as well. It has started, so it’s time to take the next step.



Step number four
you will laugh, but is also a main one.
Reread what you’ve written. If it is funny, laugh heartily and loudly. Though you will laugh even louder, when you see that you’ve written something like: ”…a characteristic characteristic, which characterizes his character is complete lack of character…”. It might look this or any other way. So correct it quickly!

Step number five.
For me it is the key one.
It is a rare case when I do not like what I do. This happens only in case when I am made to do something against my will. Though as soon as I enjoy writing essays, then I read with pleasure what I’ve written. However opinion of other people is also important. I have Natalek. She would not be insincere and soothe me, if I wrote some crap; she would openly say: “Well, what a crap you’ve written.” And if she likes something, she will undoubtedly mention it. Find your “Natalek”, the most important think is that he or she is objective.

Step number six, the main, of course, the main one. Redo, correct and improve.

Reread again. So, are you happy now? And you were saying that you wouldn’t be able to do this…

4 June, 2012
 

Essay 116. Here’s a fine how d’ye do!

Yes, exactly one year ago, on the sixth of June, I had a surgery of coronary artery bypass grafting, five bypasses were grafted. Well, if to look into it, it’s not an occasion to celebrate, as, for instance, birthday or the New Year. However why not to consider the date as my birthday?

I did not have any complaints about my heart, and I had never even thought about it. For the last fifteen years I suffered of labored breathing, and I helped myself with “Galazolin” nose drops (xylometazoline).  It looked like I became addicted to Galazoline, to cut it short a drug addict of Galazolin; I used the nose drops up to four-five times a day, otherwise I had a headache and could not think clearly. I got used to the situation; basically it did not bother me, as I had Galazolin everywhere - at my bed table and in my car, and in my office, in short, everywhere. A year before CABG (coronary artery bypass grafting) my guardian angel went to a “Virtus” clinic in Odessa because of some of her own business. There she was told that they had a magically good doctor who did that kind of surgeries with excellent results. So the guardian angel started pestering me by repeating that we had to go there. What was there to be afraid of? Basically I was not scared; I just had no time to waste. 

Nevertheless giving up to Natalek I agreed, and went to Odessa.   

We booked a private ward with two beds, as Natasha promised to take care of me after the surgery. Well, in my humorous essays I usually depict humorous situations similar to that one. So I absolutely do not remember that, but nurses from a postoperative ward told me laughing than when they were waking me up after anesthesia, they kept approaching me with a question about how I was feeling. So after the third question of that kind I demanded to call my wife, Natalek, to the ward, because I got fed up with their curiosity and, as I stated, unhealthy interest to the way I was feeling. The nurses were women, for some reason it pleased them that the first person I wanted to see after the surgery was my wife, and not them. Literally in half an hour the whole clinic knew about that, so after I completely came to my consciousness and was lying in my ward with a nose stuffed with tampons, almost everybody of the staff of the clinic visited me with the provocative question: “How are you feeling?” I was really weak after the surgery, or I would’ve made them acquainted with the complete arsenal of curse words I knew.
In spite of my feebleness, I remembered one of the visitors. It was Leonid Fomitch Gerber. He was a very charming person, I just could not swear at him in response to his “How are you feeling?” I do not remember our conversation completely now, as it was not a dialogue, but more of a monologue of Fomitch. He got carried away. He was chatting as if he had spent a month in a one-man cell, where he had nobody to exchange a few words. He was telling jokes, and I should say, he was really good at it. He was talking about “Virtus” and the achievements of “Virtus” and then somehow switched to his own health. He told me that he had had CABG surgery in Kiev at a Heart Center, and his surgeon was an academician Boris Mikhailovitch Todurov himself.

Leonid Fomitch started taking his clothes off in order to demonstrate his scars left after the surgery; only Natasha’s presence in the ward stopped him from stripping himself completely. I was nodding, but Natasha remembered everything that had been said. Especially well she remembered the phrase that it was better to get to the Kiev clinic by himself alive and kicking, but not like he - by an ambulance-plane. I was discharged from the clinic. Thanks to “Virtus” for about two years I have not used Galazolin even once. Though, Natasha started again and again persistently talking about a check up of my heart.  I resisted, as I did not feel any problems. Only Natalek, too, could be insistent, so I gave up on a condition that both of us would have check ups and have them in the “Into-Sana” clinic in Odessa. The clinic was praised and recommended to us by the Leonid Fomitch; he also gave a name of a doctor to visit.

Well, a bicycle ergometer indicated signs of stenocardia, and a coronary ventriculography  - sclerosis of coronary vessels up to ninety two per cent of opening.

After that conclusion there was no need to persuade me. The fact that I had coronary venrticulography on 23 May, and my surgery was on 6 June was only a result of the academician B.M.Todurov being not in Ukraine, he was at a conference abroad. As soon as he returned to his Center on the second of June, my surgery was scheduled on the sixth of June. I remembered a phrase said by Boris Mikhailovitch: “You’ve made it in time…”.

And the starting point was a desire to undress himself of Leonid Fomitch, a wonderful doctor and just a good man. 
 

6 June, 2012


Essay 117. Clip on the back of the head

I’ll never stop singing the praising of women, their beauty, their incredible ability to adjust to various situations and their patience and their unique female humor. Though, let me tell about everything in order. In my essay 89 “A born obstetrician”, I touched the topic of obstetrics and childbirth. However this is an all-embracing and boundless topic, that is why I’ve returned to it again with a short story that happened with Sasha Khoroshilov’s group in their forth year. I was always proud that I studied in a group # 18 and later group # 14, where there were only three girls. In the graduation year of 1972 it was the only group of that kind; however it turned out that Alexander’s group was totally male. In our group we, for instance, considered Tatyana Yanchilina and Olya Ptitsyna “cool guys” in everyday communication, nevertheless we never forgot that they were young girls, and that kept us within the limits, though, to be honest, we were telling jokes without any hints or significant silence, but called a spade a spade, and the girls were laughing louder and in a more rollicking way than the guys. I do not know why in our group of young and single the most favorite jokes were the jokes about a mother-in-law. And the most favorite was the one in which a man was standing on a roof of a five-storied building together with an old lady trying to push her off the roof; the lady actively resisted. The crowd standing down on the ground was scolding the man for his attempts to push a human being, a woman, off the roof. However when the man on the roof announced to everybody that that was not a human being and even more, not a woman, but his mother-in-law, sympathies got dramatically changed. There were even shouts heard: “Eh, old bitch! She is even resisting”.

However I want to talk not about this. So Sasha Khoroshilov’s group consisted almost completely of former secondary school leavers; only the group monitor managed to finish a Kemerovo medical college, serve in the Army and even get married and have two twin boys.
Generally speaking, he was all around positive, because of his being so positive he was appointed to be the group monitor. So the group got into hands of an associate professor Titova, I had already written that she was our Tatiana Yanchilina’s aunt. She was an excellent professor, honestly, it was pleasant to get any telling-off from her. All students knew that if she was reprimanding someone, that meant that she considered him or her to be a good and promising student. Theoretical classes in class rooms are of no interest now. However when Titova brought the group to a labor room to train in assisting at childbirth, the guys got confused. No, they did not lose their heads, but got confused. They were in their fourth year, were majoring in their future profession; however they still felt embarrassment in certain situations.

So that time the delivery was going on without any pathologies, even though there was born a Thumberlina like girl there were insignificant ruptures. Titova was aware of the situation, nevertheless she asked: “Who is going to suture up?”  The guys hiding behind each other pushed forward the group monitor. Titova was waiting. The poor devil had no choice, he sat on a low chair, blushed with embarrassment, sweating hard with trembling because of excitement hands started suturing up the insignificant ruptures, which had resulted from the childbirth.

And the woman almost completely came to consciousness after the delivery, she saw how the guys were confused and pushed forward one of them, and how he started suturing up the ruptures, so she decided to relieve the tension. A very clever woman, she asked the group monitor to be careful and not to sew up anything extra. She said she would find him and make him restore everything the way it was before. The group burst into laughter. Sasha as if not addressing anyone commented that the guy could not do that as he was married. The group monitor gave Sasha a clip on the back of his head, and Titova approvingly said to the group monitor, though it was not clear meaning what – the results of his suturing up of the ruptures or his reaction on Sasha’s comment; she said: “Good job; that’s right!”

10 June, 2012
Essay 118. Al Qasr

You, my dear readers, perhaps thought that I would write about a famous elite hotel Al Qasr, which is in Dubai, in a resort area of Madinat Jumeirah.

Undoubtedly, the hotel is like in a fairytale. My wife and I visited it more than once, and maybe some day I will tell something interesting about it as well. Now I would like to write about events that took place forty years ago. The essay is related to the hotel only by its name, and it is translated from Arabic into Russian as steeds, not horses, but steeds.

I’ve got to tell it like it is.

There is no doubt that students missed a lot because of abolition of their labor on farms; that was a good university of life for them. For instance, Vitya Kiss, a guy who had little to do with farming, already in his first year during a farming assignment at a collective farm learned to drive a GAZ-53 truck ( a truck produced at Gorky Automobile Plant) and was very proud of that. He still remembers with a kind word a collective farm driver Victor Metsker. Of course, uncle Vitya, as everybody addressed him, let Victor do anything even independent trips to get silage. Once Vitya overdid it, loaded too much silage into a poor truck and it simply died. Only magical hands of uncle Vitya brought it back to life. All in all after the very first farming assignment a wimpy and sickly looking Vitya Kiss who had been relieved of attending physical training classes at his secondary school, felt himself to be a man, and later together with Volodya Kravtchenko organized a sambo (martial art) group.

However the story offered for your attention is about a farming assignment after the second year at the institute.

Vitya together with his fellow students Kolya Fokin, Yura Krashevskiy and Victor Savtchenko came to Kemerovo at the end of August. The guys came to the institute and met there a logistics manager of the institute, his name was Nikolay Semenovitch or Nikolay Savelievitch, I do not remember. However I clearly remember that he was in charge of maintenance of the university buildings and was responsible for a steed.

So the steed, even though it was born and grew up in Siberia, to be more precise, in Kemerovo, had a very impressive conformation. Believe me, he had something of Akhal-Teke. It was well fed, and a well fed horse has glossy sides. It was grazing all the time in front of the main building of the institute and attracted attention of all female students by its impressive genitals. The logistics manager and Vitya were fellow townsmen, so they knew each other pretty well. So during that meeting the logistics manager offered Vitya and his friends an “elite farming assignment” – laying-in of hay for the horse. Grass was cut by instructors (sun, fresh air, alcohol, payment), and the guys would have to put it into hay cocks. The trip was supposed to be for a week, and after it all of the guys would be relieved of September farming assignment. Only an idiot could turn down such an offer, as you understand, but not a Soviet student. A student from a parallel group forced his company on them; he was an utterly city boy. Ultimately they were given food to last for a week, brought to the place somewhere further than Zhuravly. Not far from a meadow there were two huts without electricity, on another bank of a small river there was an apiary. That was it… nature! The city boy was confused and asked: “And where shall we live?” We replied: “”Here is the place – in a hay cock”. One should’ve seen expression of his face. The rest three of us, who had grown up in private homes and loved walking trips, got a kick out of that.  Daily routine was the following: in the morning after the sun dried hay on the top, it was tossed, by lunch time it was raining, so everybody was resting.
In a couple of hours the hay was tossed again, raked up into a cock, and it was raining again. It was like that for five days. We were running out of bread and had run out of vodka. We borrowed bread from neighbors, there was no vodka. We were running out of food, after rain the road was impassable, a car could not make it to us. By that time Zhenya, “the city boy” started getting accustomed. He was already not afraid of a horse with a sweep, stopped stepping on rakes and started tasting vodka. And what could he do? They not without a reason say that evil communications corrupt good manners… And the group had menacing an unpleasant perspective of walking for 15 kilometers to a village to get food. Luckily the hostess of the nearby apiary came and asked to help her add hay collected in other places to the already formed cock.  The bargain was quick – a bucket of potatoes, a three liter jar of mead and four loaves of bread. The next day anticipating receiving of the payment from the apiary’s hostess we worked so hard that by the evening the new cock was ready. The whole group was also cooked, ready to be squeezed, as they say. Those who cut and cocked hay know how hard the job is. After swimming in the river the guys made themselves comfortable on a grassy plot. What a chic table they laid for themselves – hunks of home made bread, a basin, yes an enamelled basin full of honey and spring water.
After they ate, they lied down belies up and waited for sweet sweat to appear, which became visible practically in five minutes and smelled like honey. They had a quick swim in the river and ate again. As far as I know after that honey feast Vitya could not look at honey for about ten years if not more. As a bonus for the excellent work, the cock was done according to all standards, the hostess added some cereals. So they had comfortable life after that, and the mead they had in sips did its thing for two days, after that Zhenya, “the city guy” and Kolya had to go quickly to the village to get vodka, other way there would be no romanticism. Only a week later a car managed to drive to them and they were finally evacuated. The funniest thing was that that year the rest of the students were not sent on a farming assignment, and the participants of the “elite farming undertaking” were late for classes.

However their work for the benefit of the only in the whole institute beautiful steed was very appreciated by the chancellor, and the guys were not given non-attendance marks. So, that was the way how a group of decent guys had a lucky escape after another scheme.

And as for the institute’s logistics manager, Nikolay Semenovitch or Nikolay Savelievitch, every time Vitya Kiss met him, he always remembered the “elite farming assignment” and together they had a good laugh.

14 June, 2012
 



Essay 119. An autograph

Even though I’ve never been on long-term farming assignments directed by the institute, yet I believe that modern students have not benefited because of their abolition. After a month of working in fields (forget a month, sometimes even two weeks were quite enough) and dwelling in buildings of entertainment centers or other shed-like premises in anti-sanitary Spartan conditions, most various qualities were shown up in students.  That was the time when leaders showed themselves, those who could make decisions and lead others; now they would be described as cool guys.

It was there where those willing to submit clearly manifested their traits, they were nice guys, but they needed a word of command. It was the time when students made real friends, and the friendship lasted for years, even decades. First love affairs started also there with tumultuous dates in haycocks and haystacks. And what funny situations took place there, and how many there were of them, not to count. For instance, only I will not give any names, because of obvious reasons. I will only say that that happened with student groups who graduated in 1971. For those who know, the characters of my essays Zhora Chernobay and Kolya Kozlov were among those students.Here is what happened. Back in pioneers’ camps we were excelling in all kinds of mischief after the lights-out time. Usually we smeared toothpaste on those who were fast asleep, or if we were lucky to get hold of a lipstick, then we used it. There was all kind of mischief to draw moustache or just smear all face around. During our student years the objects of mischief got changed. On the very first day of the arrival Mikhail announced that his sleep was very light so he would not allow to play mischievous tricks on him. Everybody was very surprised by the announcement, especially if to take into account that Misha was about two meters tall, and his weight was about one hundred kilos. However, even if guys were not going to play any tricks, the warning of that kind made them start thinking about some mischief. They could not wait for too long, and in a couple of days, to be more precise nights everybody got convinced that as soon as Mikhail fell asleep even a gunshot would not wake him up. And in addition he was snoring very loudly, so the reason for a mischief was, as they say, obvious.

All the evening before the revenge the revenge itself was discussed, so it was decided to pour ink from a fountain pen on his manhood. To do that was very easy also because Mikhail always slept on his back and practically never used a blanket. His boxers were big enough to fit two Mikhails, no wonder that during his sleep his manhood was put forward all the time. The guys were chuckling, and girls when they came to visit were, to put it mildly, embarrassed by such ingenuousness. That day everybody could not wait for Mikhail to fall asleep. The waiting was so tense that nobody slept; everybody knew about the revenge, and everybody was excited. General excitement was transmitted to Mikhail. He was telling jokes and himself laughed at them. Finally he managed to fall asleep, as soon as Misha had bared his manhood, Sergey without wasting any moment poured all ink from a fountain pen on it. There turned to be so much of ink that not only the manhood changed its color, but half of the belly was also in ink together with a sheet, or, to be more precise, what was called a sheet. Amazingly enough, but that night Mikhail practically did not snore.

It remained a mystery, how it happened that in the morning Misha did not see or feel anything. Yeah, Misha seemed to be a sinner all right. As by the lunch time a terrible story happened.

Mikhail was sliding down on his butt from a huge hay stack and hit a pitchfork carelessly left by someone. Luckily Misha only slightly scratched his scrotum, though it was bleeding. How much a doctor of a local hospital was surprised, when Misha was delivered to him. He plainly asked him: “You what? Do you, young gentleman, also sign your name with it? Give autographs?”. It is not known what else they were talking about, except one thing, Misha persuaded the doctor to issue a medical document releasing him from the farming assignment.  On the very day he returned to Kemerovo.
It is not clear how it happened that when the witnesses of what had happened came back to the institute, the story was already widely told around a dorm and in classrooms, but everybody thought it to be a tale. However it was not a tale; that was life.

21 June, 2012


Essay 120. Hydrocele

I find it difficult to say what kind of person an actor Alexander Demianenko was in real life, perhaps a good one. Though the fact, that he was one of the most popular and loved actors of Soviet students, was an absolute truth. It was he, Demianenko, who had created a character of Shurik, a cheerful and a bit clumsy student of the 60s. We recognized in the character if not ourselves, then a neighbor-guy from a dorm.

And the scene when he was peeping into a synopsis of a female student he did not know! So I have a question: wasn’t it Valya Timoshenko’s synopsis of lectures? Yes, the Valya, who studied together with me in the same group at the institute, and later when all of us left according to our job placements, it turned out that she and I happened to be placed on a job at Kurgan region. So Valya Timoshenko (and we used to call her Timokha or Timonya, depending on the request we addressed her with) was making super great synopses. She never rewrote them, like I did, for instance. From the very first time Valya had everything written in clear and even handwriting, and as for the contents, she in some incredible way managed to grasp the most essential thing and wrote it on paper in two-three theses, which were better than hundreds of pages of a textbook. Generally speaking, everybody who prepared to examinations using her synopses as a rule got an “excellent” grade into his or her student’s record book.  Zhenya Romashov had special trusting relationship with Timokha, so it was he, who received her synopses first. Kostya Romashov, Zhenka’s younger brother was lucky as well, as Zhenka had his own methods of making his brother accustomed to medicine. You know, Yevgeniy liked to relax on a sofa in the evening and made his brother sit next to him, gave him a textbook or a synopsis, and Kostya had to read aloud for him, though Zhenya was listening while napping and sometimes even started a snoring a little. However as soon as Kortya stopped reading Zhenya menacingly told him: “Go on reading, I am listening carefully”.  And he was really listening and heard. Once Kostya examined Zhenka; asked him to repeat what he had just read, after his snoring. So Yevgeniy repeated everything he had heard word by word and warned Kostya that he would haul him over the coals, if he ever checked him again! Him, the elder brother! Though, by the way, he never executed his threat. So in that winter evening of 1970 Kostya was studying hard in a dorm for his surgery examination. It should be said, that he believed surgery to be the main direction of medicine, and wanted to get nothing less than an “excellent”. Zhenya came in as usually unexpected and with many questions: “What are you doing? Ah, you study. What are you reading? Cholecystitis, wonderful!”. Kostya understood what was wonderful about that only when Zhenka handed him Timonya’s synopsis and said that he had to learn by heart everything about cholecystitis for his therapeutics examination. Kostya was a kind guy, he read for Zhenka everything about those kinds of cholecystitis, and he himself learned everything he had read quite well.

The examination was conducted at a central district hospital of Kemerovo region. That was, if one took a #51 bus, then at Rudnik a stop had the same name of “A Hospital”. They say that everybody has his own “skeletons in a wardrobe”. In Kostya’s case that was his propensity to be late for examinations or as he said “be a little late”.
That time he did not fail to follow his rule, he was worried that he could be late and finally was late. He rushed into the hospital building when everybody had already taken the exam, to be more precise, one person was still there answering to an examiner. The examiner was not an institute’s staff instructor, but a substituting one from practicing doctors. I do not remember his last name, but it looks like his name was Nikolay Nikolayevitch, as among the students he was called Nik-Nik. He looked tired, was a bit unshaved – he seemed to be after a night shift, and had to deal with exams and latecomers. It looked like he was about to reprimand Kostya. Though the latter also was no fool, he did not allow the instructor even to open his mouth, apologized and announced that he would not keep him long, and would answer without any preparation. Without asking for permission, he took an examination card and, oh, it was a miracle! There was cholecystitis in it! 
Without a moment’s thought, like we do, when sing the song: “Jingle bells,….” Kostya started expounding classification and diagnostics, and all symptoms starting with bitter taste in a mouth up to Courvoisier symptom.
Nik-Nik was sitting with his eyes closed as if having a nap. However Kostya was not the one to be tricked by that, he had trained on Zhenka by unnoticeable for others signs see that a person was not asleep. So Kostya started recounting treatment: spasmolytics, activated carbon, antibiotics, choleretics. He was also telling the dosage – super. So what else the man could need? However he started asking additional questions:
V: - Blood picture?
O: - Leykocytosis from … to …
V: - ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate)
O: - Accelerated.
V: - Shetkin-Blumberg symptom?
O: - Can be positive.
“Everything is correct, but your treatment does not help the patient. What shall we do?” Oh, what a bore Nik-Nik turned to be. Kostya started getting out of a scrape saying: extra spasmolytics, antibiotics, got a patient eventually on a drip of glucose. And Nik-Nik was insisting that the temperature was going up anyway. Kostya got confused, as he remembered very well that there was nothing else in Timoshka’s synopsis. And that was Timonya herself, and there was some...
And Nikolay Nikolayevitch asked in tired and annoyed voice: “Well, and where are you now?” And Kostya did not think of anything better than to say: “At the examination”. Ultimately, Kostya was given a night to resolve the issue and was sent away till the next day. And on his way to the exam he had thought he would get an excellent grade. Kostya felt disgusting in his heart. He had told him everything like a poem… He went outside, stopped to light a cigarette and turned to the entrance covering it from wind. He looked up and saw a sign: “USSR Healthcare Ministry Surgery department…” Kostya understood everything, as the question was not just cholecystitis, but acute cholecystitis. And he, stubborn as a mule, was telling the surgeon...

How slowly time was crawling on that day. Kostya annoyed Zhenka with an old joke about scrotal hydrocele. “A patient comes to a surgeon, shows his problem: scrotum sticks out of suspensory, like size eight breasts out of a size three bra. The surgeon diagnoses the illness as hydrocele and concludes that a surgical treatment is needed. The patient’s got scared and rushed away from the surgeon. He has come to a therapist. The latter asked what he was frightened by? Perhaps you visited a surgeon and he told you that it had to be cut. “And what have you got? I see - hydrocele. Get on a chair and jump down from it.” The patient jumped.

“And now get on a table and jump down from it.” The patient did so. Then the therapist suggested the patient jumping down from a bookcase, and after that the scrotum fell off by itself. “You see, - the therapist said, - and surgeons cannot do anything else but cut”.

In the morning Kostya without being late, at 9am sharp, was at the hospital and right in the hall told Nik-Nik, when he was passing by: “The surgery is needed, it needs to be cut”. The instructor laughed and without any further questions signed his student’s record book with a “good” grade and wished him good luck. “And he is a decent man”, - Kostya thought and headed to boast to Zhenka that he had passed the exam.

22 June, 2012

Essay 121. Home brew

It is now I know what kind of town the one of Kara-Balta is, and that its name translates from Kirghiz as “a black axe”. No wonder, as I used to work in a system of the III Main Administration of the Healthcare Ministry of the USSR, which served residents of towns of that kind.
And for the first time I learned about Kara-Balta, when Sasha Salmayer came to visit me in Frunze on summer vacations.

So, in summer, 1970, my Batya (father) and I were sitting at home in Frunze making plans for the nearest days. I had three weeks left to stay with my parents, and my Batya was on a sick leave. He accidentally had his left hand badly burned. So we were figuring out what we would be doing for the three weeks. Well, it would take one week to go on vacation to the lake Issyk Kul, my dear mom had got special price sanatorium vouchers for us to a “Solnetchniy” holiday house in Cholpon-Ata. However the two weeks left had not been decided upon yet. My Batya and I were sitting deeply in thoughts not knowing what to think of.

In our reflections we were helped by home brew made of plums by Batya, plum brew; that was how Batya called the final product of brewing of extra fruit, heaps of which by some mysterious way got accumulated in our house.

It was impossible to eat all of it; as well as to process into jams and stewed fruit; so Batya had found as it seemed to him the most optimal way of processing. Without a gram of sugar and yeast he had in all kinds of containers gurgling brews made of cherries, plums and apples, and various kinds of fruit mixed. Those were the purest most natural kinds of wine. Batya filtered the wine, let it settle and poured into other containers.
Sure enough, every time when I came on vacation, the reserves started disappearing, like snow in spring. I do not remember who, but someone definitely from medics, had told Batya that the healthiest thing was to drink live wine before it had fermented and was filtered. In our family we called it home brew, so Batya preferred the brew and was treating others to wine, which had not settled yet, and if there was the home brew available, he treated everybody to it. I will also add that in ripe fruit, not processed with chemicals, after they wait without any processing for some time, there appear small white fruit worms. Well, in the home brew they came to the surface in white foam. So Batya and I were sitting and thinking: “Eh, that’s life”. Suddenly the doorbell rang. I dashed to the door, opened it, and there was Sasha Salmayer in person standing there.
When at the institute I had given my address to everybody and invited to visit me. Petya Kozlov, Marik Golubkov and Sasha Salmayer had promised to come. So there was he. Sasha and I hugged and kissed, and I lead him inside to meet my Batya.

Batya was sincerely happy to meet the guest, and immediately busied himself with frying lamb’s ribs, which we had had already in tomato marinade in our refrigerator, waiting for Alexandra Mikhailovna to come home from work. We laid the table in the kitchen. In those days kitchen was a universal room. It was a kitchen as it was, and a reception hall, as well as a banquet room. So we were sitting chatting, the lamb was crackling in a cauldron, but first of all Batya offered to have a drink to the meeting and getting acquainted, and brought three enameled mugs of about 350 grams each with his special not fermented “plum brew”.  It should be mentioned that Batya was not squeamish about those fruit worms and believed that other people also had to have the same attitude; he had the home brew together with the “appetizer”. I learned to deep my lips lower into the brew and drink from the depth of a mug, and what was floating on the surface was left there, and I splashed the “appetizer’ out afterwards. Though poor Sasha Salmayer, he did not know my tricks, but he saw Batya, who in a wink finished his toast “cup”, and started slowly drinking the brew. When drinking he was vigorously exhaling via his nose in order to keep off everything that was floating on the top. It was very funny to watch him. Sasha was choking, but kept drinking. The brew was actually very good and quite strong at the same time.

Sasha told us that he came from Kara-Bolta, where he was staying with his uncle, but did not tell us about the town, it looked like his uncle had strictly ordered him not to, but we did not ask any questions, we did not bother to be interested in all those secrets. So we were sitting and having a chat. After the third mug Sasha stopped breathing out into his mug and was drinking in a Russian style – in big gulps, and was praising the plum brew, he insisted on not calling it a home brew. Batya liked Sasha so much, that as soon as he learned that Sasha also had some free time left, at the same time as our trip to Issyk-Kul, that he gave him his voucher, for us to go on vacation together. We were frying lamb once again. Our appetite grew because of some mysterious reason. That night Sasha failed to return to his uncle’s place, perhaps he had too much of the fried lamb, and it was the freshest, the most delicious; ultimately, after having it Shurik could not stand on his feet for some reason, as well as Batya and I, by the way.
Briefly about what happened afterwards: in the morning we went to Sashka’s uncle to help him escape the punishment and pack his stuff for the trip to Issyk-Kul. Sasha’s uncle was a great guy; he even did not ask why Sasha had failed to make it home the other day. He only breathed in deeply and said that he had a cure for overeating of lamb and poured us a glass of cherry home brew each. The cherry brew was not worse than the plum brew, though the “appetizer” was not floating in it, it was clear like a tear and of pomegranate color.

Generally speaking, if we did not have to go to Issyk-Kul in the morning, then we would have started frying mutton again.
And how it was at Issyk-Kul is an absolutely different story, as Leonid Semenovitch Kanevskiy says.

23 June, 2012


Essay 122. A victim of essays

Thirst for knowledge is yet irresistible. It was the thirst which brought Mikhailo Lomonosov (1711 – 1765, was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science) to Moscow. This is the thirst which makes young people enter universities. Well, for instance, me and my fellow students. For sure there are people who put money in the first place. People of that kind used to be in the minority before, and these days there is a sufficient number of them.

However I am talking about another thing, I just rush from side to side. I am talking about modern times. To be more precise, about the essays I write. So I’ve worked on them for a year already. Around today 120 essays have been written, and a book “The Dudes” has been published. The bush telegraph works among my former fellow students, and more and more people learn about the essays, read them on my site and leave their comments in the guest book. Generally speaking, I am using benefits of civilization and the internet at full blast. However Olya Ptitsyna, sorry, she was Ptitsyna when was unmarried, and now she is Olga Petrovna Shilnikova.

So Olya hates computers and everything related to them. It is just like that. She knows herself and is worried that she can become an internet or computer addict.

What can be said here? Of course, there is some truth in it. For instance, for me computer is a tool for my work, and I cannot do without it. However Olya could and did fine without a computer for a while. How, from who and when she learned that I was writing essays remains a mystery. However the rumors were growing bigger and wider, she was told by someone and then by someone else about the essays, and that she was mentioned in them. And the rumors were the most contradicting. Well, Olya would not be a woman, if she did not become very curious. She started asking questions to people of what and how. And she got a reasonable answer of go to Syedyshev’s site and read yourself, and she was even given the site’s address: www.syedyshev.com.

Well, what else could she do? Did she have to stick to her principle of never touch a computer, or act to satisfy her extreme curiosity?

Olya decided to throw a coin: heads or tails; in case of heads to go, and if there were tails, forget about everything and stay at home. An American coin left after the last trip was right on the table. The coin rolled under a bed, and her husband was not at home to reach to it.
So Olya made up her mind to visit her acquaintances and read herself what kind of crap Syedyshev was writing, that everybody was so interested in it.

She was reading all day long and read everything that was on the site. It was night already, time to return home. Under the influence of what she had just read Olya came out of the building, slipped and crashed down. “And I have not touched a computer for so many years, why have I dragged myself there? These essays are the last thing I need!” – those were her first thoughts after the fall, and then there was sharp pain in her arm.
Semen Semenovitch Gorbunkov (one of the main characters of a film “The Diamond Arm”, released in 1968. This is a Russian cult film and is considered to be one of the funniest comedies of its time.), when in a similar situation said: “I slipped, fell down, fainted…closed fracture, came to myself – there was a plaster cast”.
Later Olya made jokes about herself saying that she had fallen victim to the essays!

24 June, 2012
Essay 123. Product #2 again

For some reason during the years of my study as well as many years after that, it was a shame to come to a pharmacy and ask for a condom. There was even a joke popular back then: “An intellectual man comes to a pharmacy. He is frail, shirt. He wears a hat, for sure, which is pulled over his eyes. He says to a woman-pharmacist in a whisper: “Gove me two condoms”. And the pharmacist loudly repeats the request: “Condoms?” The intellectual in a whisper: “Yes, condoms”. The pharmacist loudly: “How many condoms?” The intellectual under his breathe: “Two condoms”.

The pharmacist repeats: “Two condoms”. The intelligent loudly and shrilly to be heard by everybody in the pharmacy: “Well, who else has not understood that I am going to wh…s?” It is now condoms are sold at every corner, but in those days they could be bought only in a pharmacy and for the fixed Soviet price of two kopeks per piece. So with such public attitude to condoms, you can imagine what started in a small trans-Ural village of Chashi of Kurgan region, when a young surgeon, who had recently arrived after graduating from the institute, in an official application for emergency medicaments for the department wrote a request for ten condoms. Well, you understand that the young surgeon was me. My colleagues from the Chashi hospital kind of in a good way, but in most various ways were joking about the situation of the demand for condoms for the emergency surgery. The jokes were about a young and pretty female patient and young nurses who had recently come to the hospital according to their job placement, and all the variants of events they thought possible were concluded with the words: “though there are always condoms in the emergency medical set”. The chief physician of the Chashi hospital Volodya Shalyapin was especially eager to joke. He was a local resident, even though he worked part-time as a surgeon, he performed surgeries only when I was present at the hospital. Shalyapin got so much excited that even ratted on me because of that case to the district executive committee and district committee of the Communist Party and to Kurgan regional hospital.

However at a doctors’ short meeting at his office I gave reasons for the request, saying that a condom was, and now it is even better to say used to be at that time, the best exhaust valve in pneumothorax cases. Krakovskiy personally had told me that when at the institute and recommended to remember that in my future medical practice. However they listen, when want to hear, and that time after my explanations, he signed my request for condoms, but continued mocking at me. I have to say that the fact that he had snitched on me to the CP district executive committee of Kargopol and the CP district committee even helped me in the future. It happened so that the head of the CP district executive committee and the third secretary of the CP district committee came to the village of Chashi on some kind of their business, and when remembered Shalyapin’s words about condoms came to the surgery department of the hospital as if to learn about the current needs of the surgery. You know, it is popular now to picture all Party executive committee members as well as all secretaries of Party committees like some monsters. However those two accompanied by a chief nurse of the hospital (Shalyapin was out of his office as usual), came to the department, entered my office, Maria Semenovna introduced them to me and quickly left somewhere. I will honestly say that I grew timid at the beginning, as they were the supreme authority of the district. However they turned to be cool guys, they told me right away that they felt terribly after a party they had on some occasion a day before and asked whether I could give them “emergency medical help”? May my batya, Peotr Andreyevitch Syedyshev, rest in peace. When preparing me to go to Kurgan he among many other pieces of advice advised me to make friends at the center of the district and always have sufficient quantity of alcohol in my office for any contingency.

By the way, when I told Maria Semenovna about the alcohol, she took it absolutely normally and poured a cut-glass decanter of spirit for me, which was kept in a refrigerator in my office waiting for its time.  Yes, I’ve almost missed to mention that the decanter’s cap was in a shape of a jigger and contained fifty grams of liquid exactly.  So the contingency time had come. I offered my guests a cocktail of alcohol a quarter of which was diluted with 5% glucose chilled.  Funny enough, but those big shots had never tried anything like that before. Of course, they had had alcohol before, but never diluted with 5% glucose. They liked it so much that stayed too long at my office. For an appetizer I offered them Central Asian dried apricots.
Now I understand what kind of abracadabra it is to drink 96% alcohol diluted with glucose to 70% and drink it with dried apricots. However when Maria Semenovna came back in 10-15 minutes and brought a pie with peled (peled – is the most delicious fish in Kurgan region), for which she had rushed home, as by her experience she knew what the event would lead to.

So the pie did not have any success. Well, how to put it more clearly, the guys became much better, the way the felt got stabilized, and we parted, as they announced, good friends. By the way, every time they visited Chashi after that together of separately, they always came to my surgery department, where I had a decanter ready at the refrigerator and 5% glucose, and dried apricots. Much later, when one of doctor’s assistants Volodya Ostanin ratted on me to the Young Communist League district committee that I had burned my Komsomol ID, there were them, who hushed up the case saying that I was a nice guy, but a fool. Yes, and even though my guests were not medics, but when after another decanter’s cap I told them and then demonstrated how a valve made of a condom worked in case of pneumothorax, they understood everything just fine. In a similar way Shalyapin’s squealing to a chief surgeon of the regional hospital did not have any success. I was ordered to come to Kurgan, where I also demonstrated how everything worked in practice. I was told that I did a good job, that in Kemerovo doctors were smart people, and that I had to tell Shalyapin to go to hell next time. They’d better did not say the last thing. Literally in a month or two to my department there was delivered a patient with pneumothorax, and I used Krakovskiy’s advice in real life. The effect was tremendous. The patient’s lung restored its shape almost for a day. So I, like a real fool, and because of excitement caused by such success told Shalyapin to go to hell, like I had been toughed by Tarasov, the chief anesthesiologist of Kurgan regional hospital. The third secretary of Kargopol CPSU district committee was right, when he, even though much later, said that I was a nice guy, but a fool!

1 July, 2012

Essay 124. Sleeep!

Yes, a decision to change my medical specialization was not an easy one for me. I had graduate surgical education under supervision of great surgeons Yakov Davydovitch Vitebskiy and Gavril Abramovitch Illizarov – two luminaries in surgery of Kurgan.

I was pretty good at what I was doing. At that time I was still single, so for several days in a row I did not leave my department, where I was performing surgeries, slept in my office for two-three hours and again had appointments at a polyclinic and surgeries in a hospital. I was the only one surgeon in the hospital except of the chief physician of the very village of Chashi, who worked part-time as a surgeon; and the area we served was enormous; they were laying a gas pipeline at that time there. And hard people worked at the pipeline. Every week there were knife and gunshot wounds. To cut it short, I had the most significant practical experience there. Nevertheless I changed my specialization, and quite abruptly, for psychiatry.

In my essay #62 “Fainzilberg’s mistake” I described the events which lead to my transition to psychiatry.

And now I can openly say that a psychiatrist Viktor Markovitch Loytsker and a chief psychiatrist of Kurgan region at that time Botris Zakharovitch Khaikin gave right arguments at the right time and found the right chords of adventurism and inquisitiveness they played.

I never regretted even for a second my change of the specialization in the future. Two smartest psychiatrists Loytsker and Khaikin made a not bad pro of me. They entrusted very interesting cases to me, and in a couple of years I was already a member of a commission in lunacy of Kurgan regional mental institution. However I did not have a certificate of my specialization in psychiatrics at that time, so there could be a problem with resolutions I issued as a member of the commission in lunacy. So I was urgently directed to a famous city of Kazan to major in psychiatrics.

In those days primary specialization in psychiatry lasted for six months. So nobody came there by accident to relax and have fun while studying. Though I was going to tell not about a curriculum of the primary specialization, but how I took an optional course in psychotherapy.  Somewhere in the middle of the academic course, Maya Alexandrovna Shmakova, who was supervising our group of cadets, as doctors were called at the institution, announced that there was an optional course in psychotherapy conducted by Valeriy Alexandrovitch Ivanov.

She persistently recommended everybody to take the optional course. However the course classes were in the evening and on weekends. Ivanov was such a devotee that he often spent nights in his office when reading the course. At the beginning all of us together came to have a class. Though in a week there were two of us left: me and Mikhail from Kalmykia, do not remember his last name. I liked the classes very much, and Valeriy Alexandrovitch was very good at explaining things and he illustrated everything with examples right away. I will say honestly, that I was showing pretty good progress, and I was already in charge of five patients with different pathologies. However I still did not like and could not accept sessions of group psychotherapy. As for individual sessions, which were considered to be more complicated, I mastered them quite well.

My first open s;ance of psychotherapy (hypnosis) I conducted right at the Kazan State Institute of Advanced Training for Doctors. And that was not just at the institute, but at the Psychotherapy Department, with all my colleagues-cadets and all the staff members of the department present. The adventurer Ivanov had praised me at department gatherings. And he provoked me by saying: “Can you do a thing like that?”. That was an absolutely risky venture. Even though for the session we brought my patient with the best hypnoability, who almost without any preparation on the count three went into the third stage.  With all my colleagues, all the members of the department and the department’s head Derd Galeyevitch Yenikeyev present I could not make my patient sleep. I did and tried everything and anything. Valeriy Alexandrovitch was sitting next to Yenikeyev pail, like a bed sheet. Because of hopelessness and despair a literally shouted to the patient: “Sleeep!”, and she fell asleep. Yeah, that was something. After that I brought myself together and demonstrated all the moments Ivanov and I had planned for the cadets, such as hindered breathing, stimulated cough, singing, and as a special thrill I commanded her complete anesthesia of both hands and pricked her skin with an injection needle in the anatomical snuff box area. I left the needle in the skin and woke the patient up for several seconds. Yenikeyev asked her whether she felt any pain. The patient loudly said: “No” and fell asleep again. That was later when I learned that I in order to produce hypnosis in the patient had happened to apply rational and imperative methods, though I had not had the slightest idea about them. Because of self-respect I studied the both methods and they never failed me in my practical activity later.

1 July, 2012


Essay 125. A password is needed.

I love my relatives, and they reciprocate my feelings. And it is not only now, but always. During my student years, as soon as I managed to get examination questions for an exam, I immediately went to one of my aunts, Nina Mikhailovna or Nadezhda Mikhailovna, and they made as many copies as possible on a typing machine, and I was disseminating them in my group. My aunts were secretaries – typists. Well, as it used to be at the times of socialism, I had never had any problems with stationery. My another aunt, with who we were growing up like brother and sister, as she was only four years older than me, her name was Valentina Mikhailovna, but I lovingly called her Valka. So Valka was a radio and television engineer at a regional communications administration. The administration was in the same building as the central post office, but its entrance was from the Soviet avenue, next to a caf; “Kholodok”. I used to come quite often to visit my dear aunt to have a chat; they even knew me at the pass-through. So, once I came to Valentina, we were having a chat, and I noticed a pack of envelopes without stamps on her desk.  And in my briefcase I had about ten letters, I had written to my parents and friends. I’ve written in my previous essays that I did not waste my time during lectures and was writing letters for future use. And there were envelopes that were missing. Valentina off her master back offered me to take as many as I wanted.
So I took the whole pack, and then asked whether a stamp had to be put on them. Valentina laughed and said the envelopes even without a stamp would be delivered quicker than airmail.  And it was really so: an airmail letter was delivered to Frunze, where my parents lived, for five days, and that one arrived already in a day. My mom was so surprised that she even made a long distance phone call to ask me why I had sent a letter in an official envelope of the Ministry of Communication of the USSR. And Ilgam, my friend, who was in a camp then, next to a flee market across the Iskitimka. So he also wrote to me a letter with a question, where I had managed to get such kind of envelopes, as when he received my letter, it was not checked by the censor’s office for the first time, and he was given the letter on the second day after it had been posted.

Sure enough I went to Valka to thank her for the envelopes and get some more, if there was any luck. Valentina was pleased with my reaction and my admiration of the envelopes, as if it was her, who I was admiring. She gave me one more present, though made me promise beforehand that I would use the gift only to communicate with my parents. Why not? I gave her my word without a moment’s thought. And I want to assure you, that only now, forty years later, I am talking about this for the first time.

Now I know exactly why the Communists fooled away their power. They trivially did not appreciate the power they had, did not even try to increase it. Generally speaking they had a couldn’t-care-less attitude towards everything. For instance, chancellery of the ideology department of the regional committee of the communist party had not changed a long distance telephone communications’ password for two years. Of course, the Inspection and Revision Department had never ever checked up the CP regional committee, in other case they would find right away outside long distance phone calls in the bills. And sometimes the outside long distance calls lasted for almost an hour. But who cared? Or maybe that was customary in everyday practice of the CP regional committee? So Valentina gave me a password of the very ideology department for telephone operators. I was afraid first, when right from Valentina’s office I made a long distance phone call and said only one word “Vostok” (East) and gave a telephone number in Frunze.

My dear mom was extremely surprised to hear my voice. I called her at work. The audibility was amazing. There was no any background noise and rustle. As Valka said, the noise and rustle were caused by the tapped telephone lines. And with the password, everything was super. To cut it short, the test went just fine. The more the better, after that I was talking for an hour with my batya and my mother on weekends. Of course, they were asking me, where I got money for such long distance phone calls to talk to them. I lied that I earned the money. And what else could I do? I had given Valentina my word to keep the secret. 

 2 July, 2012


Essay 126. Mind what you say

I wonder in what age a person grows up and correspondingly becomes clever? It’s difficult to say. Some people die without becoming grown ups and correspondingly growing wiser. It’s great when they are not aware of this, they are happy, and this is the main point. I am not going to dig so deep. I would like to tell you a short story, and you are free to judge who is just stupid, and who has not become a grown up yet, and there is still a hope.

My dear mom had a brother called Anatoliy. Both, his sister, my dear mom, and my dear father, or batya, as I called him, loved my uncle Tolya, and passed on this love to me. How much welcomed he was at our place. “Tolya, please, have one more piece of goose stuffed with apples.

You just can’t have any more? I will pour cold vodka for you, and you will have it with an apple and have a goose leg together with it…” . This way, or maybe not exactly so, but quite close to it poor Tolya had always been soaked with food and drink. Tolya was a keen fisherman, and at Kedrovka we always went fishing together with him, we went to a dam to catch gudgeons, and if we were lucky, we even got a burbot. So once my uncle came to visit my parents and before dinner promised to me that we would go fishing before dawn. I was about ten years old maximum then. I was quite grown up actually. I had my fishing rods ready since evening, and I had always had worms dug out for future use, I kept them in a special bag of significant size in a mixture of soil, humus, manure and rotten wood. The bag was in a pit, and above it there was a board, and in addition to that I was regularly watering the spot once in three days. Generally speaking, I was very well prepared for fishing. In order to wake up and not to bother anybody else, I did not use an alarm clock; I tied my foot to bed and kept waking up every hour. At about five in the morning I made my uncle wake up, and we left. It was a long way to go, so we made it right by dawn, when the day was breaking.

Fish were biting like crazy. For an hour we caught almost a bucketful of gudgeons. Suddenly I saw that Tolya was vomiting. Yes, and he was so sick that even was writhing with attacks of sickness. I felt sorry for him, I ran up to him and asked what was up. And can you imagine, what the joker told me? “I have swallowed a worm.”.  Wow! I believed him.  He was giving baloney to me saying that before you put a worm on a fish hook you had to moisten it with your own saliva.

And the best thing was to put a worm in your mouth and keep it there for a while. After that fish were biting like mad, one had to be quick to catch it. So he told me that he did not notice how he swallowed a worm, that was why he was so sick. And I, a little fool, not only believed him, but started putting worms in my mouth and after that put them on a fish hook. That was a real nightmare. Much later it was explained to me that I had been an absolute fool, and only when Anatoliy Mikhailovitch personally told me that he had had too much to drink back then, and did not want to admit that in front of his beloved nephew, so he had made up that nonsense.

However this is not the end of the story, I’ve ventured to tell you. Even though I quitted putting worms into my mouth when fishing, I had crossed the threshold of fastidiousness towards worms for my life time.

So in spring before the end of my first year at the institute, my parents had not moved to Frunze yet, they asked me to come to Kedrovka to help them plant potatoes. Of course, I came.

That time my parents were given a land lot right near the water at the dam, where we usually went fishing.  So I brought my fishing rods with me. We started to plant potatoes; well, we had about ten holes filled, and I found a very big earthworm. It was not just red, but dark-red. So I said to my dear mom: “Here, if I put the worm in my mouth, will you let me go fishing?” My dear mom said: “You’ll never do this in your life, and if you do, then you are free to go fishing”. Batya tried to bring my dear mom to reason saying that the son of a bitch would do that one hundred per cent.

However who can bring a woman around to his point of view? Right, nobody can. So first I even felt sorry for my mom, she had an expression of such disgust and squeamishness on her face, when I put a worm on my tongue and closed my mouth. Well, I thought, what if I started vomiting, like Tolya. Though it turned out that even back then I knew that “one should be responsible for what he or she says”. My batya was aware of that as well, he allayed my apprehensions and sent me fishing.

5 July, 2012


Essay 127. Forty years later


Right after the beginning of the year 2012 among the graduates of Kemerovo medical institute of 1972, who I kept in touch with, it was brought up that the year was the one of an anniversary - forty years after the graduation, and that it would be nice to meet and socialize with old friends and just former fellow students. And most active were the graduates of the sanitary and hygiene (san-hyg) department. Volodya Fainzilberg got into the role of an organizer so much

that via a site of classmates started giving directions of what had to be done and by who. I, as a supporter of the meeting, also took an active part, though as an executor of Fainzilberg’s directions. At the first stage there was an opinion to arrange a mutual meeting of the graduates of both sanitary-hygiene and therapeutics departments.

There was only one drawback, the date of the meeting could not be determined for a long time. And I am used to an accurate schedule of my life and work. I like this a lot; if I always have breakfast at 6.15 and leave for work at 7.00, then this is it, it will be this way no matter what, and never the opposite. So it was supposed by the san-hyg graduates to have the meeting in June. The therapeutics department graduates woke up in May, and there was immediately determined the date of the meeting, the one easy to remember, the 22 June, and made a decision to have a meeting separately from the san-hyg graduates.  To my most sincere regret, by that time I already had had business appointments and a schedule of my business trips confirmed. I had to refuse from going to Kemerovo. It was very disappointing to me, but the “merchant’s” word I’d given obliged me. I was glad that by the time of the meeting I’d managed to publish my book of humorous essays based on reminiscences about student years, for which I’d chosen an unpretentious title of “The Guys”.

I was doing my best; I wanted very much the book to look up to the standards, and the printing quality to be high, and the paper to be of high quality. Well, and my main weak point are mistakes. There were lots of them in drafts, and only a lazy one did not write to me saying: “my dear friend, you are not too strong on putting commas”. I had to work hard that in the book all commas were there where they had to be, as well as make friends with a dash and ellipses. Well, as it seems to me all my efforts were not wasted. As a result an excellent book came out.   And this is not my opinion, but the words of those who already have the book. I was making plans for myself, as at the meeting I would present a book to all the present and ask everybody to sign my copy. That would be the memory for the life time. I am sure that with a signature everybody would have left with me a particle of his or her heart.

Well and if everybody would have signed everybody’s copy, then according to the law of transition from quantity into quality, there would be not a particle of a heart, but “the guys’” aura of mutual feelings powerful enough to move mountains. So I thought, and dreamed and imagined. Well, as soon as I did not have a chance to come to Kemerovo to take part in the meeting, I wrote a letter to all of its participants. Again there was a problem of who to ask to read it? It seems to me that I hit the right point when charged Shurik Popovitch with this important task.
 
As when back at the institute he was famous as a talented prankster. And even now who of us can boast to be able to do skydiving? And what about his worries of “how not to get drunk” at the meeting; this is an example in his favor. Only a sincere person, who is absolutely free of a burden of being worried about what impression he produces on others, could think that way. Sasha did not fail me; perhaps I would not be able to read the letter the way he did.  And how precisely he chose the moment at the meeting to read the message; neither earlier, nor later. And in what way he was listened to. How emotions of his listeners where changing from suspicion to placidity and approving laughter.

How Sasha Salmayer gave a start, when heard his last name, how Vagram and imperturbable Olya Ptitsyna became alerted, when he mentioned them. Well and how Tolik Lopatin gave a broad smile, when he heard the words addressed to him. It was so, because Shura Popovitch managed to put accents that way. Good job! Well, I am not going to intrigue you any longer, here is the letter:

“My dear Guys!
I am sorry that I call you that way now, forty years after the end of the official period of being dudes. May those who now is sitting and thinking: “But I was not the Guy” not act against their consciousness. Sasha Salmayer, are you here? Don’t even think of saying that you were not one of the Guys. Remember how you and I together with my Batya drank home made brew, which was tasty and strong; how by vigorously breathing out through our nostrils we tried to keep away small fruit worms floating on the surface of the brew. By the way, an essay about that is coming. And is academician Agadzhanyan here? Will he have the cheek to say that he was not one of the Guys? Dear sirs-comrades, and how would you take the fact that the academician-to-be Agadzhanyan together with Peter Kozlov and your most humble servant, and Mukha from the san-hyg is a witness of that, were walking with their arms around each other in an embrace around Kedrovka and were shouting at the top of our voices a famous back then song: “Do not frown, Lada, you laughter is an award”; or when in Novosibirsk, and the academician-to-be  Agadzhanyan had just presented his Candidate’s dissertation and celebrated the event very well together with your most humble servant and two other guys, how we were belting out a phrase of “and to have breakfast we will fly to Paris”. If, ladies and gentlemen, you say that he is not one of the Guys, but a dreamer, you know, I won’t agree with you. Olya Ptitsyna, it’s up to you, may any other last name is written in your passport, but forty years ago you were Ptitsyna, and do not deny that. And the fact that you were one of the Guys all right is an axiom. Well, who else of the ladies present took part in stealing of chickens? Yeah. Forget the voices that you were not one of the Guys. And what about the san-hyg department students? All of them were the Guys beyond all doubts. Once also at Kedrovka Dimka and I made Mukha, our dancer, so much drunk that he himself would not be able to describe his dance after that. As for Faiz, nothing needs to be said at all; and Lyosha Krasnov has always been one of the Guys and remained the one, even though he is a professor. He sends me so special cards, it’s a feast for an eye. He is the Guy. What can you expect from him? And Shurik Popovitch, where is he, by the way? Is he not the Guy? Ah, do not make me laugh. To do parachute jumping? What’s that? And what if one forgets to put it on?  I am not going to be cunning and deny, but will honestly admit: “Yes, I am one of the Guys! I have always been the one and remain like that till my last day. And I am proud of that”.

Believe all of us, who has kept the honorary title of the GUYS through decades, that we have what to remember and what to be proud of.

I propose to use the opportunity of the meeting and institute a title of “A Guy of Honor of 1972 Graduation Year”.  I humbly offer to take the Humorous essays instead of the statutes. And as a benefit take a double one for the road.
And in conclusion I would like to say that I love you very much. Tolik Lopatin, hello, I love you too! I would like to wish good health and happiness to all of you.
Please, do not forget me and send me funny or instructive stories, we will continue writing the book “The Guys” together.
My web site is www.syedyshev.com
Yes, you are right, those who are attentive. Guys, but the ones in Ukraine mangled the last name I’ve got from the day of my birth and wrote after “S” epsilon. No, I believe, they are not the guys anyway, we are not accepting them into our team, but as soon it is necessary to name them somehow, let them be “scums”.


 There was no reason for me to be that worried. Thanks God, everybody preserved their sense of humor. They started remembering the essays and what had not been included in them and even offered a toast and drank to the author of the Humorous essays. As it usually happens everybody reported about “What. Where. When.” Then somehow unnoticeably they got into groups of two, three, four and it started: “Do you remember?...” “And you remember?...” They stayed till midnight, and it was great that nobody remembered what happened on the day (22 June) sixty seven years ago; everybody was more interested in what took place forty year ago.

Yes, forty years later everybody was remembered. As Confucius said:
“Everybody is dead,
 except for those, who are alive
 and those, who are remembered”.

5 July, 2012

Essay 128. Red Light District

Somebody is in love with Paris, somebody loves Rome, but my family, I am not saying is in love, but we like Amsterdam a lot. Every year, we’ve already done this four times, we attend Flower Festival at Keukenhof park there.
For the last two years we try to plan our visit so that we can attend a Flower Parade. It is a marvelous event; sponsors interested in advertising finance creation of most various figures made of flowers, and then platforms with the figures travel around Holland and the parade ends in a city of Haarlem.

As a rule it is Sunday, and flower figures are set around the center of Haarlem. There are crowds of tourists, and atmosphere of general joy and delight leaves unforgettable impressions. Well, and all this is without mentioning Keukenhof park itself. And they basically use only three kinds of flowers: tulips, narcissi and hyacinths. Imagination and talent of landscape designers do wonders. We can already say that we are regular visitors of the exhibition, and we have not seen anything which was repeated even once.

It’s delight!!! This is how our feelings can be described. We are delighted in spite of being tired and that by the end of the day our feet fail to walk. This year just because of curiosity I brought a passometer with me to Amsterdam. So around the city we on the average walked eight kilometers, and in Keukenhof park the registration was of fifteen kilometers. Though, I am talking not about the tulips park or a flower figures parade now.

Now I am talking about another not less interesting place of interest. In this case you decided that I was talking about Vincent van Gogh and his Sunflowers?

You missed again. Don’t be in a hurry; you will understand what it is about soon. As I am a man loving only one woman all his life, when in Amsterdam we use one and the same hotel of “Krasnopolsky”. The hotel has a great location at the Dam Square in front of the royal palace, and there is a five minute walk from it to the central train station. And on a bank of one of canals next to the train station there is a Chinese restaurant called “Sea Palace”.

The restaurant is an exact replica of the one in Hong Kong, where Natasha and I like to go out during our visits to Hong Kong. I like Chinese cuisine very much, and there they serve shark fins soup, crabs and a chick as well as chicken feet. No, not legs, but feet, though without claws, they are cut off. I always ordered “white” feet. They are served in vinegar.

When four year ago I ordered them for the first time in Amsterdam, almost everybody of the staff of the restaurant passed by our table, and everybody was staring at me like at a weirdo. And only one elderly waiter told us that the Europeans did not order that dish and suggested ordering brown feet as well. That time he brought me a plate of “brown chicken feet” as a present “from the house”.  When he was serving it he made such a mischievous face and said: “Deliiicious!!!”; you can imagine what it looked like.

He came up to me several times after that to check whether I liked it. He was sincerely happy to see that I was tucking the feet away with good appetite, and how fast a heap of picked by me to shine bones was growing.

This year after visiting the cheese auction and having a wonderful dinner at the “Sea Palace” restaurant, Natalek, I and Cathy were trying to decide, whether to call a pedicab or walk to the hotel.  The first idea was of my two beauties, and the second proposal was mine. As an argument I offered a new rout, which we had not walked along before. I was insisting that it was short, and we might see many interesting things. I persuaded everybody, and we went on foot. Yes, sure enough, the rout was interesting.


We came to a district with very narrow and twisting streets, and on the sides there were big windows as wide as a wall and doors next to them. The windows and doors were curtained off, and we did not understand what was behind them. We were talking between ourselves making guesses; they did not look like stores, and the streets were not passable for cars.

What was it? In about fifty meters a surprise was waiting for us. The windows were not curtained off there, and in the windows there were girls sitting, standing or lying in frivolous postures. Like a bolt from the blue a thought flashed that that was the “Red Light District”!!!

Generally speaking we were actively turning our heads for the rest of the walk. I cannot say that it was really very interesting, though it was unusual and strange to see that kind of pictures for sure. Everything was spoiled at the exit of the “Minotaur’s Labyrinth”.  That was quite a not esthetic sight. Let’s say to be politically correct an afronetherlander of not less than two hundred kilos of weight fell flat on the window, and in addition was winking at everybody passing by.

“Well, we visited the street with lots of small cafes with hallucinogenic mushrooms and the one, where they openly smoked pot, and today we, even though unplanned visited the famous “Red Light District”, so we saw practically all attractions of Amsterdam. We can leave”.

I told all that to Natalek and Cathy. However, just imagine that, they doubted that everything had not been preplanned. They still had doubts, whether the accidental tour had been well planned. I was firmly insisting that it happened by accident, and that was it. Much later I was told that there were two versions of the origin of the district’s name. Here is the first one: in the old days there was a train station not far away from it, so trackmen when they had a moment used to visit the district, and in order not to be looked for, they used to hang their trackmen’s lights, which were of red color on doors.

The second version is less appealing to me. In the girls’ rooms there is always red light, because characteristic syphilitic rash girls and their clients have is not visible in red light.

9 July, 2012


Essay 129. Experimenters

My dear granny, or like I called her Old Mom, had a vegetable garden, it was even though not big, only six hundred square meters, but we had to work the land ourselves and by hand.

Only digging-up was mechanized, even back then around Yagunovka there were walking people with entrepreneurial abilities, who had a horse and a plow; they dug-up gardens quickly and with good quality. And if to remember those days the best and most stable currency was the one in glass. And my Old Mom became good at making home made brew, so when her garden was dug-up, the pay by the home made brew was accepted with pleasure. However, it was also needed to plant potatoes, and that had to be done manually.  That spring I was in my fifth year, I passed all my examination ahead of the schedule and before the annual camp dreamed of flying to Frunze to visit my parents for the whole June. But I had promised my dear Prakseyushka to plant potatoes before my departure. I started pondering on what to do and who to invite to help me though without long persuading and do everything quickly.

Maybe the way I was thinking was not exactly correct, but it was the following. Marik Golubkov since winter had been negotiating with me to make me ask my dear mother in Frunze to arrange for him and his wife discount sanatorium vouchers to Issyk-Kul.

And a discount sanatorium voucher to the famous Cholpon-Ata cost at my mom’s sanatorium seven rubles and twenty kopeks per person for twenty one days with three meals a day, which were though not exquisite, but not absolutely bad. So I made up my mind that he would be the first helper, well, I should not persuade my mom to arrange the sanatorium vouchers for my friends just for nothing anyway, when almost everybody in Kemerovo region  Kedrovka were begging her about the same.  Negotiations with Marik were surprisingly easy; Maruk even kind of expressed his indignation and even stated that he would have been offended, if I did not invite him to participate in the project. Well, I knew Marik very well. I knew that he was a kind and responsive guy. So together with him we started thinking who else to invite to join us for the agricultural work in my granny’s garden. There it occurred to Marik that at the regional hospital there was one of the first interns Victor from Gorkiy. He was a great guy, lived in a boxroom at the administrative building of the regional hospital, so we decided to invite him; in exchange Old Mom promised to supply him with potatoes and sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers. So said so done. Vitya, of course, agreed for such fee. We agreed to start the work on the nearest Saturday. By 9 in the morning we got together at my granny’s hut at Yagunovka.

And my granny, the kind heart, she simply could not let us start working without making us eat first. So in the morning she made literally a mountain of pies stuffed with onions, rise and boiled eggs. The pies were so toasted and smelled so appetizingly, that we sure enough immediately concurred. And in Prakseya’s cellar there was a container with home made brew, and Marik and I wend down to the cellar. Just think for yourself, we were about to plant potatoes on the area of six hundred square meters, so it was just blasphemy not to dive into the cellar because of such event. And as soon as we dived there, we could not come back with a small glass.

So we poured a three liter jar just in case. And the so called “case” didn’t take it too long to wait for.

With the pies, which we dipped into melted butter (my Old Mom recommended us to eat that way saying that that was much tastier then), the three liter jar was quickly emptied. So in a stately manner we swore to Prakseya that after one glass more we would start our work. Well, what can I say, of course the work went on smoothly; Marik kept telling Vitya about what a big container was down in the cellar, he intrigued Victor so much that he demanded that I take him and not Marik with me to the cellar. Our hands, or to be more precise, noses were itching. So somehow without any special agreement we started planting potatoes by a square pocket planting method.

Distance from a hole to a hole was not less than a meter. We threw into a hole not one, but two-three potatoes. The work was going on swimmingly. The area to plant on and the seed potatoes were decreasing in extent and number. However a protest was brewing in the working mass against the intensity of work without any adequate incentives. I was chosen as a mediator, and Marik joined me as a support group. Without any special preparation I told Prakseya about the mass’ protest ad lib very emotionally using such words as “till when?” and “it’s a disgrace”. What could you expect?

She was one of the common people, and it turned out that she had foreseen such progress of events, and she already had prepared a one liter decanter with the home made brew, last year’s pickles cut in circles, topped with onions and oiled with vegetable oil and three pies on a small plate. However she came forward with an urgent request of her own, that we satisfied our protest not in the house, but in the “field”. We did not start putting on airs or wasting our time. We were in a hurry to finish the planting as quickly as possible, because Marik had to return home by six. Though as they say man proposes, God disposes. With the planting method we’d developed in half an hour or an hour we were done. It should be said that Old Mom was a bit amazed at the speed of the planting and kept asking: “Have you really planted everything?”. We all together replied: “Everything!!!”. What a great banquet was waiting for us in Prakseya’s hut, it was a fairytale.

The most important thing was that there was a sea of the home made brew. Marik was still repeating that he had to be at his place by six, that he had promised so to his father. The brew was tasty and at the same time strong. Marik kept repeating his line, like a spell, when falling asleep next to Vitya in Old Mom’s hut. And Old Mom said: “Good night, my dear workers. Take counsel with your pillow”.

P.S. Old Mom was worried all summer long that she would have not enough potatoes in autumn, however our square pocket planting method produced impressive results. In autumn we dug three times more potatoes than usually. This is what it means not to be afraid of experimenting!

15 July, 2012

Essay 130. D;j; vu

For the life of me I cannot understand meaning and educational effect of the saying “A drop of nicotine kills a horse”. Why a horse? What kind of criterion is that? Is it its weight? Then an elephant or a hippopotamus are heavier. And will a drop of nicotine kill them? Stop! I believe you’ve heard many times about this, and you can have an impression of this being already heard and seeing. This is d;j; vu. This is the reason because of which I am not going to talk about how many horses went under because of the nicotine. I am not going to talk about people, who smoked and continue smoking, and in order to show off puff smoke in rings, they do not give a damn about a drop of nicotine. Your most humble servant does not smoke now, but, oh boy, how he used to smoke. It was like a song how he smoked, a fairytale about carrying on. And how nicely everything started.  In those old compared to now days there were available cigarette brands of “Drug” and “Troiyka”.
 
A pack of cigarettes was like Tretyakov’s gallery. It opened not like now, but as a cigar case, and there was golden foil there and a golden cigarette holder also made of golden foil for a cigarette not to become limp in a mouth. They were considered to be extremely expensive back then, just horribly expensive. However one could afford to show off with them. And all that accumulated to the following situation: it was winter examinations session of my third year at the institute. The internal diseases propaedeutics  examination was on the next day. That was the exam, at which an associate professor Grigoriy Lvotitch Khasis almost had a stroke, when Zhenka Romashov, when answering his examination question, explained to him that when performing percussion, he put his finger on a chest not parallel to a rib into intercostal space, but perpendicular to it, because it was more convenient to him that way to percuss a patient. That was the exam during which I explained to Khasis how to treat bad cold with pepper vodka and a bunch of green birch twigs at Russian baths without resorting to derivant and expectorative therapy. All that would be on the next day. And on that day I wanted to smoke. I could not study propaedeutics. I could not bring home why in some cases of percussion the sound was muffled and in others it was like in a box.  I could not squeeze into my head Damoiseau’s lines, or Garland’s triangle, or Traube’s half-moon-shaped space. I wanted to smoke, and there was nothing to smoke. And it was three in the morning. The exam was already not the next day, but today, but I did not sleep and could not sit studying a textbook. I felt as if a spring appeared in me in a certain place. Like a wind-up toy I was rushing around the room. Though, I was quiet, as a landlady and her kids were sleeping in other rooms. I do not remember already how my feet brought me to a restroom, but what I saw there was better than Alladin’s treasures. They are right saying that a reserve does not make one’s pocket heavier. In that very case the reserve saved the student from receiving a bad grade at the exam. And it not just saved him, but helped him to get an excellent grade in propaedeutics from Khasis. Grigoriy Lvovitch was not bad in students’ eyes, but he was not a “goody-goody” either.  Khasis loved and knew his subject and did his best that the guys like us if became not therapists then knew therapeutics anyway. So coming back to the restroom and the treasure, which as it turned out was waiting for me there. Only, please, for God’s sake, do not make association like “toilet – treasure”. During my student years I had a bad habit of smoking in a toilet. However because even then I was a save-all, I carefully put out semi-finished cigarette butts and stacked them behind a nail in the door upper plank.  The situation was a comic one; I was on a toilet, unintentionally looked up (or maybe not unintentionally) and before I realized what was going on I felt butterflies in my stomach, this is a ticklish very nice feeling, I always had as a sign of delight and comfort. I was staring at the nail and could not bring it home that behind it there were about twenty or maybe thirty “big fat cigarette butts”.

The goose bumps were not just tickling, they were rushing up and down my body. Only my extraordinary will power made me not scream because of utmost joy. Well, what are you talking about, forget the restroom. I wonder how I did not forget to put my pants on. The biggest cigarette butt I smoked right in the restroom. Then it started: my feeling of responsibility made me take the textbooks, and very soon I already knew very well what Joseph ;koda, a Czech physician had done with the percussion. I learned that Damoiseau’s line, Garland’s triangle and Traube’s half-moon-shaped space, all of them were signs of exudative pleurisy, and I also learned lots of other most different things.
It’s not my fault that I got an excellent grade, that was the way cards fell, but Zhenka and Vagram got satisfactory grades, though they were almost late for the exam anyway. Dimka Mkheidze was soothing Vagram and Zhenka saying that “Satisfactory is health”.  The academician-to-be calmed down, but Zhenka for a long time after that was making plans of how to revenge himself upon Khasis for the satisfactory grade.

6 August, 2012

 

Essay 131. Feminine logic


When after my graduation from the institute I was placed on a job of a surgeon at Chashi district hospital, it seemed to me that I got to such godforsaken place that I felt like crying “Help, I’m in panic”.  However if to have a closer look at the situation, then it turned out that to the regional center, Kurgan, there were only fifty kilometers along a decent asphalt road. Nevertheless the village of Chashi itself was a genuine Russian village with wooden houses and very special mud out in the streets. It was kind of greasy and was not washed down with water, but smeared on high boots and got stuck to them like plasticine.  Generally speaking it was an absolute nightmare.

However when I changed my medical specialization and moved to work at Kurgan regional mental hospital, which was though called Novopetropavlovskaya and its official postal address was in a village of Novopetropavlovka, was actually located three kilometers away from it in a village of Malinovka. Doctors lived on the territory of the hospital in excellent cottages. That was the place where one could really cry for help. It was 180 kilometers away from Kurgan, and the asphalt road was laid only to Shadrinsk, and it was absolutely impossible to walk or to drive from it to Shadrinks in a rainy weather. Maybe it was not bad for the mental hospital to be so isolated from the civilization, but the staff, to put it mildly, felt depressed.  So we were looking for any kind of entertainment the way we could. At the hospital I made close friends with Vitya Loitsker. He was a smart doctor, his mind was like modern Wikipedia, its medical part. He was on a regular basis addressed by his colleagues with many questions about kinds of symptoms, and in what cases they could be manifested.  So Viktor Markovitch with kind jokes very clearly explained to an inquisitive one the details of the question. As soon as Vitya was a god father of my transition to psychiatry, he became committed to make a real psychiatrist out of me. Though I am talking not about this now, but about Victor’s making me enjoy active free time passing. I had no inclination to hunting, but picking up mushrooms and berries as well as fishing were my favorite pastime.

Mushrooms picking was a trivial mechanic work in that area. There were so many mushrooms, that one could afford to be picky. For instance, I liked to pick up milk mushrooms and took only those which had caps of not less than five centimeters in diameter. I remember how happy my Batya was when I sent him those mushrooms as a present; and he put them on the table together with good vodka and onion and vegetable oil to treat his guests on holidays and never forgot to explain that the mushrooms were sent to him by his son from Kurgan. My Batya lived in Kirghizia, in Frunze, so those mushrooms were quite popular there.

As for berries picking, things were a bit different in that case. In spring during the time of blossoming of wild strawberries and sheepnoses Vitya and I drove on our bikes around the nearby fields and clearings and forest edges and checked where lots of berries were in blossom and took stock of what we found out. And when the berries turned ripe, we knew exactly where to go; no wonder I usually had minimum two sacks of dried wild strawberries stocked for winter, and it is not like regular strawberry.  In winter kissels and fruit soups made of wild strawberries had such appetizing smell, and they were wonderfully delicious, just finger-licking good.

And my last hobby was fishing. God awarded Kurgan region with about ten small lakes, where there were crucian carps and peled fish (northern whitefish). And the crucian carps grew up to one and a half or two kilos, and I liked them very much when baked in home made sour cream. They were not crucian carps, but a song, a very sincere and lyrical one. The carps also had prominent anti-dysphoric effect; if one sat down eating in low spirits, then after lunch he left the table a happy and relaxed person, whose life was just wonderful.
Preparation to fishing was started long before. During a week we checked our fishing nets and fishing rods. All the hospital knew that Loitsker and Syedyshev were going fishing. Patients-fishermen, who were in their remission stage, fixed our nets, if that was necessary. We went fishing obligatorily with an overnight stay, as a rule on Friday after work. The algorithm was a well established one; we came to the spot, erected a tent, then went in a boat to put our own fishing nets. I underline the word “our own”, because according to the local customs it was allowed to take fish from somebody else’s nets, which had already been in the water, to make a bucket of fish soup, which we never failed to do.  After that there was a campfire and fish soup. That was obligatory. Generally speaking, the fishing trip was arranged quite often specifically because of it; a bucket of fish soup with alcohol or vodka, night and endless chatting, and we always had topics for the chats we had. In the morning there was fishing with fishing rods, right after the daybreak till night. We returned home in the evening on Saturday or on Sunday, if we felt like continuing talking at the fire after having fish soup. So during one of those chats Viktor offered me to go to Sverdlovsk (that was how present Yekaterinburg was called back then) instead of fishing. I had a weakness for adventures like that, and in addition to that I made up my mind to introduce Vitya Loitsker to Zhenya Romashov, who lived in Kamensk-Uralsk on the way to Sverdlovsk. So said so done, to cut it short. The first trip was a success, Vitya and I visited Sverdlovsk and on the way back made a stop at Zhenya Romashov’s place in Kamensk-Uralsk. However greed ruined many guys, so it did not spare Vitya and me. We liked the first trip so much that we were about going “fishing” on the next weekend as well. When we came back Vitya did not like right away that his wife Lidiya Aleksandrovna was hanging around garages. She as if happened to be there by chance at the moment of our arrival. When we were coming out of the car in dirty fishing clothes, Lidiya Aleksandrovna kind of incidentally told me that she did not advise me to give my razor to Loitsker, as he had problem face skin, so I could get the same problem. First Vitya and I did not pay attention to the prelude.  However, the more, the better, then she became surprised that more than a half of what we had caught were peled, as before we had been happy if managed to catch two or three. Yeah, Vitya and I were not good to be Stierlitz (is the lead character in a popular Russian book series written in the 1960s by novelist Yulian Semyonov and of the television adaptation Seventeen Moments of Spring. The character has become  a stereotypical spy in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, similar to James Bond in Western culture.) and Sorge (Richard Sorge, 1895 – 1944, was a German communist and spy  who worked for the Sovuet Union) for sure. We became very well aware of that. Two idiots came after two days of fishing in a lake well shaved. And instead of buying from the fishermen we’d known carps, in order to show off we bought peled. And Lidiya, a “KGB officer”, continued bringing to light our trick.  She praised us for not only drying out our fishing nets but carefully packing them. As usually we brought a tangle of fishing nets. She asked Viktor: “And where were you fishing this time?” Vitya without a moment’s thought replied: “In Solmanovka”. “And how much vodka did you take with you?”. “A bottle per person”.

And there Lidiya Aleksandrovna taught us a lesson of logical thinking. “So, Solmanovka is eighteen kilometers away from here. A round trip will make thirty six, let’s round off to forty. Two nights at a camp fire and with fish soup; you did not have enough vodka for sure. In a store in Solmanovka there is only “Solntse Dar” (wine) available, and you want only vodka, so you went to Dolmatovo. This is forty kilometers both ways. Totally it makes eighty kilometers. And if to believe your speedometer you made three hundred and sixty kilometers. Here is a question for you: where, tell me, please, you had such a successful fishing of peled?”
Vitya and I were standing dumb-founded and at the same time impressed by the feminine logic. That was how in a simple and easy way we were demonstrated to be complete boobies.
If you, my dear readers, are curious, whether Vitya and I went fishing after that, think for an answer yourself, you are the smart ones!

21 September, 2012
Essay 132. Bimbo and, pardon, balls

I’ve already written more than once about our close friendship with Peter Kozlov (see essay 42. A Guitar, essay 51. Gentlemen of Luck and essay 59. Pilaw on Issyk-Kul). We were not just good acquaintances, we were good friends. When life made us part, and Peter went to continue his study at Tomsk military medical academy after the forth year, we were enthusiastically corresponding. Petka knew practically everything about life of his former student group, and I was informed about his adventures at the academy. And we had made an agreement beforehand that we would not lie to each other. To embellish was all right, that was not lie, that was what made reading easy, entertaining and interesting.

With that impressions I went to Tomsk to visit Petka and Valera Kaygorodov, and later to Peter’s wedding at Belovo (see essay 80. “A Pood of Salt”). 

But at some stage our correspondence stopped. I knew that Peter had a job placement to Siberia military okrug after his graduation from the academy and served in Novosibirsk. I knew his postal addresses in Novosibirsk and Belovo, where his mother lived. I wrote to those addresses. The letters were not returned, which meant they were delivered, but there were no answers. However being a persistent and a bit adventurous I wrote to the headquarters of the Siberia Military Okrug with practically one question: “Where is Petka?” And just imagine, they answered me. The letter was signed by a real colonel, who said that because of official reasons “we cannot give you the postal address of the medical service lieutenant Peter Alekseyevitch Kozlov now”.  My first thought was that Petka had become a spy!!! I was treasuring the letter, but later Petka lured it from me. Back then there were no scanning or copying machines.

You can imagine how happy I was, when a letter came from Petka from Novosibirsk, but from a different address to the address of a mental hospital in a village of Pepelino of Kurtamysh district of Kurgan region. I am sorry, but I will make a digression from the topic for a couple of words; I just cannot conceal why the letter from Peter was delivered not to my home address, but to the mental hospital. I was a product of the society, so I believed that to use envelopes with a stamp of the mental hospital was not “theft of social property”. It was customary that a cook took food, a constructor took nails, medics had medicines and a head of a psychiatric department also took official envelopes. So Peter’s mother gave him the address from a stamp of the hospital’s envelope. Yes, I was glad that Peter had not become a spy, that he was alive and sound in spite of a car accident in which he smashed up the “Volga” car he had been given at his wedding.

I was also glad that even though he had been convicted, but sentenced to “work at construction sites of national economy”, there used to be a sentence of that kind; he worked as a doctor at a hospital of a machine building factory in Siberia. Just think about it, there was even lack of doctors in Novosibirsk.

So Petka was about to have early release, and he wanted very much to leave Novosibirsk, about which he had not the best memories. I, a kind heart, made an appointment with the head of the mental hospital to talk about Petka.

V.A.Gorshkov liked the idea of inviting a doctor to the hospital, he promised an opportunity to specialize in psychiatry for Petka and his supposed wife (the first one had been killed in the car accident) and promised to provide them with a big house as a place to live.


So Petya and his wife came to Pepelino. You won’t believe that, but Petka loved everything very much: the work, the place to live and fishing and hunting. And as for his wife… Lyudmila was a daughter of a bureaucrat in Novosibirsk, not a big one, just of a district level, however during socialism a bureaucrat was a bureaucrat, and his family was also infected by the “bureaucrat” virus. So Peter’s wife was pretty, elegantly dressed, young, a real bimbo. Petka himself called her that way.  Lyudmila liked that. Petka’s bimbo was also very nearsighted. I had no idea how much more sensitive hearing ability of a nearsighted person became as the disability’s compensation. So now we get to what I wanted to tell you about in the essay.  Imagine the following picture: Petka and I are standing at my house, waiting for Lyudmila to come up to us, and she was about thirty meters away from us. At that moment a cattleman was driving a herd of cows to a field. Among the cows there was a huge bull of about a ton and a half.

Its skin was of color of wet asphalt, which made it even bigger. Petka and I were looking at it and for the first time we saw under the bull’s belly literally a big sack. Petka could not help saying to me quietly: “Here are some balls!” And there we heard Lyudmila’s ringing voice: “Where, where are the balls?”. Saying this, the bimbo was adjusting her glasses as if to have a better look. She was turning her head around looking for balls. What could you expect?  She was a bimbo, and that was it.

21 December, 2012


Essay 133. Forty years later

Right after the beginning of the year 2012 among the graduates of Kemerovo medical institute of 1972, who I kept in touch with, it was brought up that the year was the one of an anniversary - forty years after the graduation, and that it would be nice to meet and socialize with old friends and just former fellow students. And most active were the graduates of the Sanitary and Hygiene (San-Hyg) Department. Volodya Fainzilberg got into the role of an organizer so much

that via a site of classmates started giving directions of what had to be done and by who. I, as a supporter of the meeting, also took an active part, though as an executor of Fainzilberg’s directions. At the first stage there was an opinion to arrange a mutual meeting of the graduates of both Sanitary-Hygiene and Therapeutics Departments.

There was only one drawback, the date of the meeting could not be determined for a long time. And I am used to an accurate schedule of my life and work. I like this a lot; if I always have breakfast at 6.15 and leave for work at 7.00, then this is it, it will be this way no matter what, and never the opposite. So it was supposed by the San-Hyg graduates to have the meeting in June. The Therapeutics Department graduates woke up in May, and there was immediately determined the date of the meeting, the one easy to remember, the 22 June, and made a decision to have a meeting separately from the San-Hyg graduates.  To my most sincere regret, by that time I already had had business appointments and a schedule of my business trips confirmed. I had to refuse from going to Kemerovo. It was very disappointing to me, but the “merchant’s” word I’d given obliged me. I was glad that by the time of the meeting I’d managed to publish my book of humorous essays based on reminiscences about student years, for which I’d chosen an unpretentious title of “The Guys”.

I was doing my best; I wanted very much the book to look up to the standards, and the printing quality to be high, and the paper to be of high quality. Well, and my main weak point are mistakes. There were lots of them in drafts, and only a lazy one did not write to me saying: “my dear friend, you are not too strong on putting commas”. I had to work hard that in the book all commas were there where they had to be, as well as make friends with a dash and ellipses. Well, as it seems to me all my efforts were not wasted. As a result an excellent book came out.   And this is not my opinion, but the words of those who already have the book. I was making plans for myself, as at the meeting I would present a book to all the present and ask everybody to sign my copy. That would be the memory for the life time. I am sure that with a signature everybody would have left with me a particle of his or her heart.

Well and if everybody would have signed everybody’s copy, then according to the law of transition from quantity into quality, there would be not a particle of a heart, but “the guys’” aura of mutual feelings powerful enough to move mountains. So I thought, and dreamed and imagined. Well, as soon as I did not have a chance to come to Kemerovo to take part in the meeting, I wrote a letter to all of its participants. Again there was a problem of who to ask to read it? It seems to me that I hit the right point when charged Shurik Popovitch with this important task.
 
As when back at the institute he was famous as a talented prankster. And even now who of us can boast to be able to do skydiving? And what about his worries of “how not to get drunk” at the meeting; this is an example in his favor. Only a sincere person, who is absolutely free of a burden of being worried about what impression he produces on others, could think that way. Sasha did not fail me; perhaps I would not be able to read the letter the way he did.  And how precisely he chose the moment at the meeting to read the message; neither earlier, nor later. And in what way he was listened to. How emotions of his listeners where changing from suspicion to placidity and approving laughter.


How Sasha Salmayer gave a start, when heard his last name, how Vagram and imperturbable Olya Ptitsyna became alerted, when he mentioned them. Well and how Tolik Lopatin gave a broad smile, when he heard the words addressed to him. It was so, because Shura Popovitch managed to put accents that way. Good job! Well, I am not going to intrigue you any longer, here is the letter:

“My dear Guys!
I am sorry that I call you that way now, forty years after the end of the official period of being the Guys. May those who now is sitting and thinking: “But I was not the Guy” not act against their consciousness. Sasha Salmayer, are you here? Don’t even think of saying that you were not one of the Guys. Remember how you and I together with my Batya drank homemade brew, which was tasty and strong; how by vigorous breathing out through our nostrils we tried to keep away small fruit worms floating on the surface of the brew. By the way, an essay about that is coming. And is academician Agadzhanyan here? Will he have the cheek to say that he was not one of the Guys? Dear sirs-comrades, and how would you take the fact that the academician-to-be Agadzhanyan together with Peter Kozlov and your most humble servant, and Mukha from the San-Hyg is a witness of that, were walking with their arms around each other in an embrace around Kedrovka and were shouting at the top of our voices a famous back then song: “Do not frown, Lada, you laughter is an award”; or when in Novosibirsk, and the academician-to-be  Agadzhanyan had just presented his Phd dissertation and celebrated the event very well together with your most humble servant and two other guys, how we were belting out a phrase of “and to have breakfast we will fly to Paris”. If, ladies and gentlemen, you say that he is not one of the Guys, but a dreamer, you know, I won’t agree with you. Olya Ptitsyna, it’s up to you, may any other last name be written in your passport, but forty years ago you were Ptitsyna, and do not deny that. And the fact that you were one of the Guys all right is an axiom. Well, who else of the ladies present took part in stealing of chickens? Yeah. Forget the voices that you were not one of the Guys. And what about the San-Hyg Department students? All of them were the Guys beyond all doubts. Once also at Kedrovka Dimka and I made Mukha, our dancer, so much drunk that he himself would not be able to describe his dance after that. As for Faiz, nothing needs to be said at all; and Lyosha Krasnov has always been one of the Guys and remained the one, even though he is a professor. He sends me so special cards, it’s a feast for an eye. He is the Guy. What can you expect from him? And Shurik Popovitch, where is he, by the way? Is he not the Guy? Ah, do not make me laugh. To do parachute jumping? What’s that? And what if one forgets to put it on?  I am not going to be cunning and deny, but will honestly admit: “Yes, I am one of the Guys! I have always been the one and will remain like that till my last day. And I am proud of that”.
Believe all of us, who has kept the honorary title of the GUYS through decades that we have what to remember and what to be proud of.
I propose to use the opportunity of the meeting and institute a title of “A Guy of Honor of 1972 Graduation Year”.  I humbly offer to take the Humorous Essays instead of the statutes. And as a benefit take a double one for the road.
And in conclusion I would like to say that I love you very much. Tolik Lopatin, hello, I love you too! I would like to wish good health and happiness to all of you.
Please, do not forget me and send me funny or instructive stories, we will continue writing the book “The Guys” together. My web site is www.syedyshev.com
Yes, you are right, those who are attentive. Guys, but the ones in Ukraine mangled the last name I’ve got from the day of my birth and wrote after “S” epsilon. No, I believe, they are not the guys anyway, we are not accepting them into our team, but as soon as it is necessary to name them somehow, let them be “scums”.


 There was no reason for me to be that worried. Thanks God, everybody preserved their sense of humor. They started remembering the essays and what had not been included in them and even offered a toast and drank to the author of the Humorous Essays. As it usually happens everybody reported about “What. Where. When.” Then somehow unnoticeably they got into groups of two, three, four and it started: “Do you remember?...” “And you remember?...” They stayed till midnight, and it was great that nobody remembered what happened on the day (22 June) sixty seven years ago; everybody was more interested in what took place forty year ago.

Yes, forty years later everybody was remembered.
As Confucius said:
“Everybody is dead,
except for those, who are alive
and those, who are remembered”.

5 July, 2012



Essay 134. Product #2 again

For some reason during the years of my study as well as many years after that, it was a shame to come to a pharmacy and ask for a condom.

There was even a joke popular back then: “An intellectual man comes to a pharmacy. He is frail, short. He is wearing a hat, for sure, which is pulled over his eyes. He says to a female-pharmacist in a whisper: “Give me two condoms”. And the pharmacist loudly repeats the request: “Condoms?” The intellectual in a whisper: “Yes, condoms”. The pharmacist loudly: “How many condoms?” The intellectual under his breathe: “Two condoms”. The pharmacist repeats: “Two condoms”. The intellectual loudly and shrilly to be heard by everybody in the pharmacy: “Well, who else has not understood that I am going to wh…s?” It is now condoms are sold at every corner, but in those days they could be bought only in a pharmacy and for the fixed Soviet price of two kopeks per piece. So with such public attitude to condoms, you can imagine what started in a small trans-Ural village of Chashi of Kurgan region, when a young surgeon, who had recently arrived after graduating from the institute, in an official application for emergency medicaments for the department wrote a request for ten condoms. Well, you understand that the young surgeon was me. My colleagues from Chashi hospital kind of in a good manner, but in most various ways were joking about the situation of the demand for condoms for the emergency surgery. The jokes were about a young and pretty female patient and young nurses who had recently come to the hospital according to their job placement, and all the variants of events they thought possible were concluded with the words: “though there are always condoms in the emergency medical set”. The chief physician of Chashi hospital Volodya Shalyapin was especially eager to joke. He was a local resident, even though he worked part-time as a surgeon, he performed surgeries only when I was absent from the hospital. Shalyapin got so much excited that even ratted on me because of that case to the district executive committee and district committee of the Communist Party and to Kurgan regional hospital.

However at a doctors’ short meeting at his office I gave reasons for the request, saying that a condom was, and now it is even better to say used to be at that time, the best exhaust valve in pneumothorax cases. Krakovskiy personally had told me that when at the institute and recommended to remember that in my future medical practice. However they listen, when they want to hear, and that time after my explanations, he signed my request for condoms, but continued mocking at me. I have to say that the fact that he had snitched on me to the CP district executive committee of Kargopol and the CP district committee even helped me in the future. It happened so that the head of the CP district executive committee and the third secretary of the CP district committee came to the village of Chashi on some kind of their business, and when they remembered Shalyapin’s words about condoms they came to the surgery department of the hospital as if to learn about the current needs of the surgery. You know, it is popular now to picture all Party executive committee members as well as all secretaries of Party committees like some monsters. However those two accompanied by a chief nurse of the hospital (Shalyapin was out of his office as usual), came to the department, entered my office, Maria Semenovna introduced them to me and quickly left somewhere. I will honestly say that I grew timid at the beginning, as they were the supreme authority of the district. However they turned to be cool guys, they told me right away that they felt terrible after a party they had on some occasion a day before and asked, whether I could give them “emergency medical help”?
May my batya, Peotr Andreyevitch Syedyshev, rest in peace. When preparing me to go to Kurgan he among many other pieces of advice advised me to make friends at the center of the district and always have sufficient quantity of alcohol in my office for any contingency.
By the way, when I told Maria Semenovna about the alcohol, she took it absolutely normally and poured a cut-glass decanter of spirit for me, which was kept in a refrigerator in my office waiting for its time.  Yes, I’ve almost missed to mention that the decanter’s cap was in a shape of a jigger and contained fifty grams of liquid exactly.  So the contingency time had come. I offered my guests a cocktail of alcohol, a quarter of which was diluted with 5% chilled glucose.  Funny enough, but those big shots had never tried anything like that before. Of course, they had had alcohol before, but never diluted with 5% glucose. They liked it so much that stayed too long at my office. For an appetizer I offered them Central Asian dried apricots.
Now I understand what kind of abracadabra it is to drink 96% alcohol diluted with glucose to 70% and drink it with dried apricots. However when Maria Semenovna came back in 10-15 minutes and brought a peled pie (peled – is the most delicious fish in Kurgan region), for which she had rushed home, as by her experience she knew what the event would lead to.

So the pie did not have any success. Well, how to put it more clearly, the guys’ condition became much better, the way they felt got stabilized, and we parted, as they announced, good friends. By the way, after that every time they visited Chashi together or separately, they always came to my surgery department, where I had a decanter ready in the refrigerator and 5% glucose, and dried apricots. Much later, when one of doctor’s assistants Volodya Ostanin ratted on me to the Young Communist League District Committee, that I had burned my Komsomol ID, there were them, who hushed up the case saying that I was a nice guy, but a fool. Yes, and even though my guests were not medics, but when after another decanter’s cap I told them and then demonstrated how a valve made of a condom worked in case of pneumothorax, they understood everything just fine. In a similar way Shalyapin’s squealing to a chief surgeon of the regional hospital did not have any success. I was ordered to come to Kurgan, where I also demonstrated how everything worked in practice. I was told that I did a good job, that in Kemerovo doctors were smart people, and that I had to tell Shalyapin to go to hell next time. They’d better did not say the last thing. Literally in a month or two to my department there was delivered a patient with pneumothorax, and I used Krakovskiy’s advice in real life. The effect was tremendous. The patient’s lung restored its shape almost for a day. So I, like a real fool, and because of excitement caused by such success told Shalyapin to go to hell, like I had been advised by Tarasov, the chief anesthesiologist of Kurgan regional hospital. The third secretary of Kargopol CPSU district committee was right, when he, even though much later, said that I was a nice guy, but a fool!

1 July, 2012.


Essay 135.  A Prescription

Yeah, my dear friends, perhaps I am a notorious insolent fellow and a self-confident person. I’ve just published my first book and now am brimming over with a desire to teach somebody, admonish and somewhat share experience. Via my web site I’ve addressed all my readers and asked them to send me their stories about their student years, which could become the basis of humorous essays, or finished essays, which I promised to publish on my web site with reference to the author. So far only Zhora Chernobay has responded to my call and sent four of his essays. I am very grateful to him for that. And as for those who have not sent me their essays yet, I took the liberty of teaching them “some good sense”.
First of all, I’ve already written that I do not pretend, not a bit, to be the absolute truth, but only set forth my view on the subject. As usually, before making a decision I had a conversation with my deputy of the home front in our kitchen. Frankly speaking, that time the discussion was finished very fast, as Natalek categorically stated: “Teach other people? Take the responsibility? Leave me out of that.” Well, once again I got added evidence that a woman remained a woman. Nevertheless, knowing Natasha, I continued talking as if to myself: “What is really needed to write an essay?” – I was asking Natalek.
Please, don’t tell me that a literary talent is needed and all those innate abilities.
Sure enough, they are needed.
So why then “Les Mis;rables” was written by Hugo and not by someone who had the talent? For instance Zola or Chekhov (A.P.Chekov, 1860 – 1904, a Russian dramatist and writer of short stories)?
Experience, life experience and knowledge of the subject are needed, - Natalek agreed.
Here you are, Natasha, as usually, in a simple and easy way, expressed from my point of view the most important argument. From myself I can only add that, of course, you should have epistolary skills and abilities.
And now as soon as I am a doctor, though a former one, here is a prescription. Hundreds of volumes are written about how one should and should not write.
My prescription is going to be not a simple one, but structured in steps. I dare hope that the one who wants to learn something interesting, will be able to do that, and use it creatively.

Step number one, the main one. What are the problems? What are you afraid of? What do you doubt? Are you afraid that you will not be able to write and doubt your own abilities? Don’t be afraid or hesitate. You will do that just fine. For sure, now you’ve remembered a saying that any man can do what another man has done. Exactly, any man can do.

Step number two, not less important. You remembered a situation from your student life, which you had told many times at parties and everybody laughed. So, what’s the problem? Take it as the basis and start remembering details. You will remember so many of them that you will grow dumb with astonishment, how come you did not remember them before and did not tell them at the very parties? It would have been much funnier then!
Step number three, also an important one. That’s it, quickly go to your computer and start turning your thoughts and reminiscences into words and phrases. Remember my words, while you are typing, you will remember more and more of new episodes. Medics, do not pull my leg, remember Ribot’s Law. It exists and works. Sure enough, at this stage you would feel like finding old photos and looking through them. And this will help you as well. It has started, so it’s time to take the next step.

Step number four, you will laugh, but it is also a main one. Re-read what you’ve written. If it is funny, laugh heartily and loudly. Though you will laugh even louder, when you see that you’ve written something like: ”…a characteristic characteristic, which characterizes his character is complete lack of character…”. It might look this or any other way. So correct it quickly!

Step number five. For me it is the key one. It is a rare case when I do not like what I do. This happens only in case when I am made to do something against my will. Though as soon as I enjoy writing essays, then I read with pleasure what I’ve written. However opinion of other people is also important. I have Natalek. She would not be insincere and soothe me, if I wrote some crap; she would openly say: “Well, what a crap you’ve written.” And if she likes something, she will undoubtedly mention it. Find your “Natalek”, the most important thing is that he or she is objective.

Step number six, the main, of course, the main one. Re-do, correct and improve.
Re-read again. So, are you happy now? And you were saying that you wouldn’t be able to do this….

4 June, 2012.

Essay 136. Striptease of Fomitch

Yes, exactly one year ago, on the sixth of June, I had a surgery of coronary artery bypass grafting, five bypasses were grafted. Well, if to look into it, it’s not an occasion to celebrate, as, for instance, birthday or the New Year. However why not to consider the date as my birthday?
I did not have any complaints about my heart, and I had never even thought about it. For the last fifteen years I suffered of labored breathing, and I helped myself with “Galazolin” nose drops (Xylometazoline).  It looked like I became addicted to Galazoline, to cut it short a drug addict of Galazolin; I used the nose drops up to four-five times a day, otherwise I had a headache and could not think clearly. I got used to the situation; basically it did not bother me, as I had Galazolin everywhere - on my bed table and in my car, and in my office, in short, everywhere. A year before the CABG (coronary artery bypass grafting) my guardian angel went to a “Virtus” clinic in Odessa, because of some of her own business. There she was told that they had a magically good doctor, who did that kind of surgeries with excellent results. So the guardian angel started pestering me by repeating that we had to go there. What was there to be afraid of? Basically I was not scared; I just had no time to waste.

Nevertheless giving up to Natalek I agreed, and went to Odessa.

We booked a private ward with two beds, as Natasha promised to take care of me after the surgery. Well, in my Humorous Essays I usually depict humorous situations similar to that one. So I absolutely do not remember that, but nurses from a postoperative ward told me laughing than when they were waking me up after anesthesia, they kept approaching me with a question about how I was feeling. So after the third question of that kind I demanded to call my wife, Natalek, to the ward, because I got fed up with their curiosity and, as I stated, unhealthy interest in the way I was feeling. The nurses were women, for some reason it pleased them that the first person I wanted to see after the surgery was my wife, and not them. Literally in half an hour the whole clinic knew about that, so after I completely came to my consciousness and was lying in my ward with a nose stuffed with tampons, almost everybody of the staff of the clinic visited me with the provocative question: “How are you feeling?” I was really weak after the surgery, or I would’ve made them acquainted with the complete arsenal of curse words I knew.
In spite of my feebleness, I remembered one of the visitors. It was Leonid Fomitch Gerber. He was a very charming person, I just could not swear at him in response to his “How are you feeling?” I do not remember our conversation completely now, as it was not a dialogue, but more of a monologue of Fomitch. He got carried away. He was chatting as if he had spent a month in a one-man cell, where he had nobody to exchange a few words. He was telling jokes, and I should say, he was really good at that. He was talking about “Virtus” and the achievements of “Virtus” and then somehow switched to his own health. He told me that he had had CABG surgery in Kiev at a Heart Center, and his surgeon was an academician Boris Mikhailovitch Todurov himself.

Leonid Fomitch started taking his clothes off in order to demonstrate his scars left after the surgery; only Natasha’s presence in the ward stopped him from stripping himself completely. I was nodding, but Natasha remembered everything that had been said. Especially well she remembered the phrase that it was better to get to the Kiev clinic by himself alive and kicking, but not like he - by an ambulance-plane. I was discharged from the clinic. Thanks to “Virtus” for about two years I have not used Galazolin even once. Though, Natasha started again and again persistently talking about a check-up of my heart.  I resisted, as I did not feel any problems. Only Natalek, too, could be insistent, so I gave up on a condition that both of us would have check-ups and have them in the “Into-Sana” clinic in Odessa. The clinic was praised and recommended to us by Leonid Fomitch; he also gave us a name of a doctor to visit.

Well, a bicycle ergometer indicated signs of stenocardia, and a coronary ventriculography test - sclerosis of coronary vessels up to ninety two per cent of opening.

 After that conclusion there was no need to persuade me. The fact that I had the coronary venrticulography test on 23 May, and my surgery was on 6 June was only a result of the academician B.M.Todurov’s being not in Ukraine, he was at a conference abroad. As soon as he returned to his Center on the second of June, my surgery was scheduled on the sixth of June. I remembered the phrase said by Boris Mikhailovitch: “You’ve made it in time…”.

And the starting point was a desire to undress himself of Leonid Fomitch, a wonderful doctor and just a good man. 
 

6 June, 2012.

Essay 137. Twelve…

In those old days, when at the end of December calendars for the coming year were bought, people were carefully studying calendars in order to see on what days there would be holidays. There were lots of holidays then. Everybody without any exceptions was happy, when holidays were on working days, and especially when they were on Mondays or Fridays. Obviously that way weekends were longer. That year when Vitya Kiss was in his third year, the 8 March (International Women’s Day) turned to be on Saturday. That was a pity, but one cannot argue with a calendar. One should treat it with respect, addressing it with “You”, if you please. And on the night of 7 March the lot to be on duty at the #9 clinic fell to Vitya. He was one of the boys there; he had worked night shifts there since his second year at the institute. That time another student to be on duty happened to be Sergey, a nice guy, but absolutely indifferent to surgery. Luckily Sergey’s handwriting was good, so Victor and he agreed that Sergey would not be bothered as for the patients, but would be in charge of filling in all medical reports.

That time doctors on duty were Grigoriy Vasilievitch Shilnikov and Ivan Ilyich Gavrilko. They were cool men and great doctors. As usual, there were very few patients in the evening, to be more precise a couple of guys with injuries. When the night started, it was as if a valve was opened somewhere. To cut it short, the doctors practically did not leave the operating room. In the morning on Saturday, on 8 March, everybody was sitting in a doctors’ lounge exhausted and relaxed. And Serega was working hard, he was in turns dictated surgeries’ reports, and there were many of them during the night, so Sergey was working by the sweat of his brow. It is now that there are computers with standard forms of reports for any case possible. Though back then one had to do all the writing with his own hands. The atmosphere was calm and quiet; Sergey was writing, and the rest were sitting relaxed, sharing their plans for the current day of the holiday and waiting for the final chord – arrival of a nurse on duty, and for some reason she was late. All medical reports were already written, verified and signed. Sergey was rubbing his hands, they were numb as if in spasm.

Finally Zinaida entered the doctors’ lounge room and poured everybody coffee and traditional “a couple of drops”.  Before that Shilnikov took out of his briefcase a plastic bag with chocolate candies, greeted Zina and asked her to treat to the candies all women, who were on duty at night. Only after that everybody began drinking their coffee and “a couple of drops”.

Zinaida was not leaving, but asked a question to everybody who was on duty: “What was unusual at the night shift?” Everybody started thinking hard, but did not know how to do that properly. So they took wild guesses saying something irrelevant; Zina was laughing. “Eh, you, men, you missed the fact that that was the night before the 8 March! How could you do that? Where were your eyes? During the night you had surgeries of 12 females and none of a male. Yes, they were women; the youngest was 16, and the oldest 23 years old. You, men…” Zina left laughing, and the ashamed men remained contemplating how they could make such a blunder. 


14 May, 2012.



Essay 138. Love and gastric ulcer

I suffer from ulcer disease, i.e. it, my gastric ulcer, has been officially diagnosed and confirmed with a roentgenological test since nineteen seventy two. Yes, that’s right, attentive and regular readers have immediately noticed, that that was the year of my graduation from the institute. Yes, I was labeled with the diagnosis at Kurgan regional hospital.

Though the diagnosis is one thing, and its manifestations are an absolutely different story! No, I am not going to bother you and expound semiotics of gastric ulcer. I will simply say that back then in 1972 – 1973 I used up about three tons of cabbage to drink a glass of freshly pressed cabbage juice three times a day. Vitamin U (from the word ulcus – ulcer), which is contained in fresh cabbage juice is a great power. So for about fifteen years I did not have practically any problems. But it happened so that after I had married Natalek, my duodenal cup ulcer started playing pranks again. That was the time of my honey moon, life was great, and I had my semiotics manifesting itself, and in such a way that it could not be ignored.

 I had residential registration at Yagunovka then, but Natasha and I lived on Soviet avenue in Kemerovo. Near it there was the third city hospital. Natalek was kind and affectionate, but suddenly she firmly said: “You go to the hospital. Period.” So I went to my former fellow student Bella Friedman to complain at the “naughty thing”, not at Natalek, but the gastric ulcer. My visit to Bella was just wonderful, and when she saw results of fibrogastroscopy, she categorically announced that hospitalization was an absolute need as well as immediate beginning of treatment. I myself when carrying the FGS (fibrogastroscopy) results peeped into them and saw that in addition to my gastric ulcer I had multiple erosion of stomach mucous. So Bella did not have to put too much effort to persuade me in necessity of hospitalization. In spite of all Bella’s attempts, I refused to go to a “private ward”, but insisted to be placed on general terms. So I was placed that way. In our ward there were six men, and all ulcer patients of the first-class.

It is known long ago that ulcer patients’ character changes not for better. So imagine: five ulcer patients, almost kissing tell each other about their: “kissing ulcers”, or swear at each other when choosing a TV channel. I excluded myself from their group, so they avoided me. Nevertheless Bella called the head of Gastroenterology Department and said something to make my life easier at a regular ward. So a junior nurse had warned all of them that a doctor, a psychiatrist, was going to be placed to their ward. Basically I was glad that I was not annoyed with questions about how I was feeling after eating this or that. They did not impose their pieces of advice on me, but they acted like that between each other. I was prescribed tons of tablets and injections, and a table #1 diet. That was a nightmare; I was a hearty eater, but received blended soup or a steamed cutlet. That was terrible; the diet was killing me morally. I was constantly hungry for a couple of first days. So I persuaded Natalek that nothing would happen to me, if she brought me a real steak, and if she brought me solyanka (a spicy soup of vegetables and meat), I would be three times happier and would get better much sooner. As the main argument I promised to eat everything I was given at the hospital. And I did persuade her. Natalek came rushing home from work, made a steak for me and took it to me in a thermos together with solyanka. It was finger-licking good. I opened the thermoses and enjoyed smells coming out of them. And the smells, I should say, were wonderful. As Natalek was frying according all existing culinary rules, and spared no spices. My poor hospital ward mates, they, too, smelled the aromas.

One of them, the most sullen one, asked me: “Do you really have gastric ulcer?” He was utterly amazed, when I confirmed that. So, I will tell you all the truth about how I was treating my ulcer disease. I was brought a handful of tablets three times a day; however I have to admit that I took none of them. Remember a line from Vysotsky (Vladimir Vysotsky, 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980, was a very popular singer, songwriter, poet, and actor during the Soviet period; his songs are well known and widely quoted): “And heaps of medicaments we sent down a toilet, who was not a fool…”

The only thing I could not escape was injections. So, all my treatment was the following: I diligently followed daily routine, slept eight hours a day minimum and received the prescribed injections. Sorry, I have not mentioned the main cure – Natashka’s love! Natasha visited me every day, and two-three times a day on weekends. Her care and solicitude gave me comfort and cured my shredded by the ulcer and erosions stomach. And what do you think? When by the end of the third week I had a fibrogastroscopy test, its result was not given to me. Bella herself came to my ward. She was sincerely happy and a bit surprised, as mucous of my stomach was clean, without any erosions. I did not want to disappoint Bella in power of tablets, which I had been prescribed; maybe they really were very efficient. It should be said, my ward mates did not betray me, though had threatened to do so.
When being discharged from the hospital, I told them: “Here is the true power of love! It not only removes mountains, but cures ulcer without a trace!”

9 May, 2012.


Essay 139.  A victim of essays

Thirst for knowledge is yet irresistible. It was the thirst which brought Mikhailo Lomonosov (1711 – 1765, was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science) to Moscow. This is the thirst which makes young people enter universities. Well, for instance, me and my fellow students. For sure there are people who put money in the first place. People of that kind used to be in the minority before, and these days there is a sufficient number of them. However I am talking about another thing, I just rush from side to side. I am talking about modern times. To be more precise, about the essays I write. So I’ve worked on them for a year already. Around today 120 essays have been written, and a book “The Guys” has been published. The bush telegraph works among my former fellow students, and more and more people learn about the essays, read them on my site and leave their comments in the guest book. Generally speaking, I am using benefits of civilization and the internet at full blast. However Olya Ptitsyna, sorry, she was Ptitsyna when was unmarried, and now she is Olga Petrovna Shilnikova.

So Olya hates computers and everything related to them. It is just like that. She knows herself and is worried that she can become an internet or computer addict. What can be said here? Of course, there is some truth in it. For instance, for me computer is a tool for my work, and I cannot do without it. However Olya could and did fine without a computer for a while. How, from who and when she learned that I was writing essays remains a mystery. However the rumors were growing bigger and wider, she was told by someone and then by someone else about the essays, and that she was mentioned in them. And the rumors were the most contradicting. Well, Olya would not be a woman, if she did not become very curious. She started asking questions to people of what and how. And she got a reasonable answer of go to Syedyshev’s site and read yourself, and she was even given the site’s address: www.syedyshev.com.

 Well, what else could she do? Did she have to stick to her principle of never touch a computer, or act to satisfy her extreme curiosity? Olya decided to throw a coin: heads or tails; in case of heads to go, and if there were tails, forget about everything and stay at home. An American coin left after the last trip was right on the table. The coin rolled under a bed, and her husband was not at home to reach to it.

So Olya made up her mind to visit her acquaintances and read herself what kind of crap Syedyshev was writing, that everybody was so interested in it. 
She was reading all day long and read everything that was on the site. It was night already, time to return home. Under the influence of what she had just read Olya came out of the building, slipped and crashed down. “And I have not touched a computer for so many years, why have I dragged myself there? These essays are the last thing I need!” – those were her first thoughts after the fall, and then there was sharp pain in her arm.

Semen Semenovitch Gorbunkov (one of the main characters of a film “The Diamond Arm”, released in 1968. This is a Russian cult film and is considered to be one of the funniest comedies of its time.), when in a similar situation said: “I slipped, fell down, fainted…closed fracture, came to myself – there was a plaster cast”.
Later Olya made jokes about herself saying that she had fallen victim to the essays!

24 June, 2012


Essay 140. Sleeeep!

Yes, a decision to change my medical specialization was not an easy one for me. I had graduate surgical education under supervision of great surgeons Yakov Davydovitch Vitebskiy and Gavril Abramovitch Illizarov – two luminaries in surgery of Kurgan.

I was pretty good at what I was doing. At that time I was still single, so for several days in a row I did not leave my department, where I was performing surgeries, slept in my office for two-three hours and again had appointments at a polyclinic and surgeries in a hospital. I was the only one surgeon in the hospital except for a chief physician of the very village of Chashi, who worked part-time as a surgeon; and the area we served was enormous; they were laying a gas pipeline at that time there. And hard people worked at the pipeline. Every week there were knife and gunshot wounds. To cut it short, I had the most significant practical experience there. Nevertheless I changed my specialization, and quite abruptly, for psychiatry.
In my essay “Fainzilberg’s Mistake” I described the events which lead to my transition to psychiatry. And now I can openly say that a psychiatrist Viktor Markovitch Loytsker and a chief psychiatrist of Kurgan region at that time Boris Zakharovitch Khaikin gave right arguments at the right time and found the right chords of adventurism and inquisitiveness, which they played. I never regretted even for a second my change of the specialization in the future. Two smartest psychiatrists Loytsker and Khaikin made a not bad pro of me. They entrusted very interesting cases to me, and in a couple of years I was already a member of a commission in lunacy of Kurgan regional mental institution. However I did not have a certificate of my specialization in psychiatrics at that time, so there could be a problem with resolutions I issued as a member of the commission in lunacy. So I was urgently directed to a famous city of Kazan to major in psychiatrics.

In those days primary specialization in psychiatry lasted for six months. So nobody came there by accident to relax and have fun while studying. Though I was going to tell not about a curriculum of the primary specialization, but how I took an optional course in psychotherapy.  Somewhere in the middle of the academic course, Maya Alexandrovna Shmakova, who was supervising our group of cadets, as doctors were called at the institution, announced that there was an optional course in psychotherapy conducted by Valeriy Alexandrovitch Ivanov.

She persistently recommended everybody to take the optional course. However the course classes were in the evening and on weekends. Ivanov was such a devotee that he often spent nights in his office when reading the course. At the beginning all of us together came to have a class. Though in a week there were two of us left: me and Mikhail from Kalmykia, do not remember his last name. I liked the classes very much, and Valeriy Alexandrovitch was very good at explaining things and he illustrated everything with examples right away. I will say honestly, that I was showing pretty good progress, and I was already in charge of five patients with different pathologies. However I still did not like and could not accept sessions of group psychotherapy. As for individual sessions, which were considered to be more complicated, I mastered them quite well.

The first open s;ance of psychotherapy (hypnosis) I conducted right at Kazan State Institute of Advanced Training for Doctors. And that was not just at the institute, but at the Psychotherapy Department, with all my colleagues-cadets and all the staff members of the department present. The adventurer Ivanov had praised me at department gatherings. And he provoked me by saying: “Can you do a thing like that?”. That was an absolutely risky venture. Even though for the session we brought my patient with the best hypnoability, who almost without any preparation on the count three went into the third stage.  With all my colleagues, all the members of the department and the department’s head Derd Galeyevitch Yenikeyev present I could not make my patient sleep. I did and tried everything and anything. Valeriy Alexandrovitch was sitting next to Yenikeyev pail, like a bed sheet. Because of hopelessness and despair I literally shouted to the patient: “Sleeep!”, and she fell asleep. Yeah, that was something. After that I brought myself together and demonstrated all the moments Ivanov and I had planned for the cadets, such as hindered breathing, stimulated cough, singing, and as a special thrill I commanded her complete anesthesia of both hands and pricked her skin with an injection needle in the anatomical snuff box area. I left the needle in the skin and woke the patient up for several seconds. Yenikeyev asked her whether she felt any pain. The patient loudly said: “No” and fell asleep again. That was later when I learned that in order to produce hypnosis in the patient I had happened to apply rational and imperative methods, though I had not had the slightest idea about them. Because of self-respect I studied both methods and they never failed me in my medical practice later.

1 July, 2012.

Essay 141.  A password is needed.

I love my relatives, and they reciprocate my feelings. And it’s been not only now, but always this way. During my student years, as soon as I managed to get examination questions for an exam, I immediately went to one of my aunts, Nina Mikhailovna or Nadezhda Mikhailovna, and they made as many copies as possible on a typing machine, and I was disseminating them in my group. My aunts were secretaries – typists. Well, as it used to be at the times of socialism, I had never had any problems with stationery. My another aunt, with who we were growing up like brother and sister, as she was only four years older than me, her name was Valentina Mikhailovna, but I lovingly called her Valka. So Valka was a radio and television engineer at a regional communications administration. The administration was in the same building as the central post office, but its entrance was from the Soviet avenue, next to a caf; “Kholodok”. I used to come quite often to visit my dear aunt to have a chat; they even knew me at the pass-through. So, once I came to Valentina, we were having a chat, and I noticed a pack of envelopes without stamps on her desk.  And in my briefcase I had about ten letters, I had written to my parents and friends. I’ve written in my previous essays that I did not waste my time during lectures and was writing letters for future use. And there were envelopes that were missing. Valentina off her master back offered me to take as many as I wanted.

So I took the whole pack, and then asked whether a stamp had to be put on them. Valentina laughed and said the envelopes even without a stamp would be delivered quicker than airmail.  And it was really so: an airmail letter was delivered to Frunze, where my parents lived, for five days, and that one arrived already in a day. My mom was so surprised that she even made a long distance phone call to ask me why I had sent a letter in an official envelope of the Ministry of Communication of the USSR. And Ilgam, my friend, who was in a camp then, next to a flea market across the Iskitimka. So he also wrote to me a letter with a question, where I had managed to get such kind of envelopes, as when he received my letter, it was not checked by the censor’s office for the first time, and he was given the letter on the second day after it had been posted.

Passed by military censorship
After correspondence was checked a censor put a special stamp on the envelope with the State Emblem of the USSR and text: “Passed by military censorship”, and lower a personal number of the censor.

Sure enough I went to Valka to thank her for the envelopes and get some more, if there was any luck. Valentina was pleased with my reaction and my admiration of the envelopes, as if it was her, who I was admiring. She gave me one more present, though made me promise beforehand that I would use the gift only to communicate with my parents. Why not? I gave her my word without a moment’s thought. And I want to assure you, that only now, forty years later, I am talking about this for the first time. Now I know exactly why the Communists fooled away their power. They trivially did not appreciate the power they had, did not even try to increase it. Generally speaking they had a couldn’t-care-less attitude towards everything. For instance, chancellery of the ideology department of the regional committee of the communist party had not changed a long distance telephone communications’ password for two years. Of course, the Inspection and Revision Department had never ever checked up the CP regional committee, in other case they would find right away outside long distance phone calls in the bills. And sometimes the outside long distance calls lasted for almost an hour. But who cared? Or maybe that was customary in everyday practice of the CP regional committee? So Valentina gave me a password of the very ideology department for telephone operators. I was afraid first, when right from Valentina’s office I made a long distance phone call and said only one word “Vostok” (East) and gave a telephone number in Frunze.

My dear mom was extremely surprised to hear my voice. I called her at work. The audibility was amazing. There was no any background noise and rustle. As Valka said, the noise and rustle were caused by the tapped telephone lines. And with the password, everything was super. To cut it short, the test went just fine. The more the better, after that I was talking for an hour with my batya and my mother on weekends. Of course, they were asking me, where I got money for such long distance phone calls to talk to them. I lied that I earned the money. And what else could I do? I had given Valentina my word to keep the secret. 

 2 July, 2012.


Essay 142. Home brew

It is now I know what kind of town the one of Kara-Balta is, and that its name translates from Kirghiz as “a black axe”. No wonder, as I used to work in a system of the III Main Administration of the Healthcare Ministry of the USSR, which served residents of towns of that kind.
And for the first time I learned about Kara-Balta, when Sasha Salmayer came to visit me in Frunze on summer vacations. So, in summer, 1970, my Batya (father) and I were sitting at home in Frunze making plans for the nearest days. I had three weeks left to stay with my parents, and my Batya was on a sick leave. He accidentally had his left hand badly burned. So we were figuring out what we would be doing for the three weeks. Well, it would take one week to go on vacation to the lake Issyk Kul, my dear mom had got special price sanatorium vouchers for us to a “Solnetchniy” holiday house in Cholpon-Ata. However the two weeks left had not been decided upon yet. My Batya and I were sitting deeply in thoughts not knowing what to think of.

In our reflections we were helped by home brew made of plums by Batya, plum brew; that was how Batya called the final product of brewing of extra fruit, heaps of which by some mysterious way got accumulated in our house. 
It was impossible to eat all of it; as well as to process into jams and stewed fruit; so Batya had found as it seemed to him the most optimal way of processing. Without a gram of sugar and yeast he had in all kinds of containers gurgling brews made of cherries, plums and apples, and various kinds of fruit mixed. Those were the purest most natural kinds of wine. Batya filtered the wine, let it settle and poured into other containers.

Sure enough, every time when I came on vacation, the reserves started disappearing, like snow in spring. I do not remember who, but someone definitely from medics, had told Batya that the healthiest thing was to drink live wine before it had fermented and was filtered. In our family we called it home brew, so Batya preferred the brew and was treating others to wine, which had not settled yet, and if there was the home brew available, he treated everybody to it. I will also add that in ripe fruit, not processed with chemicals, after they wait without any processing for some time, there appear small white fruit worms. Well, in the home brew they came to the surface in white foam. So Batya and I were sitting and thinking: “Eh, that’s life”. Suddenly the doorbell rang. I dashed to the door, opened it, and there was Sasha Salmayer in person standing there.
When at the institute I had given my address to everybody and invited to visit me. Petya Kozlov, Marik Golubkov and Sasha Salmayer had promised to come. So there was he. Sasha and I hugged and kissed, and I lead him inside to meet my Batya.

Batya was sincerely happy to meet the guest, and immediately busied himself with frying lamb’s ribs, which we had had already in tomato marinade in our refrigerator, waiting for Alexandra Mikhailovna to come home from work. We laid the table in the kitchen. In those days kitchen was a universal room. It was a kitchen as it was, and a reception hall, as well as a banquet room. So we were sitting chatting, the lamb was crackling in a cauldron, but first of all Batya offered to have a drink to the meeting and getting acquainted, and brought three enameled mugs of about 350 grams each with his special not fermented “plum brew”.  It should be mentioned that Batya was not squeamish about those fruit worms and believed that other people also had to have the same attitude; he had the home brew together with the “appetizer”. I learned to deep my lips lower into the brew and drink from the depth of a mug, and what was floating on the surface was left there, and I splashed the “appetizer’ out afterwards. Though poor Sasha Salmayer, he did not know my tricks, but he saw Batya, who in a wink finished his toast “cup”, and started slowly drinking the brew. When drinking he was vigorously exhaling via his nose in order to keep off everything that was floating on the top. It was very funny to watch him. Sasha was choking, but kept drinking. The brew was actually very good and quite strong at the same time.

Sasha told us that he came from Kara-Bolta, where he was staying with his uncle, but did not tell us about the town, it looked like his uncle had strictly ordered him not to, but we did not ask any questions, we did not bother to be interested in all those secrets.
So we were sitting and having a chat. After the third mug Sasha stopped breathing out into his mug and was drinking in a Russian style – in big gulps, and was praising the plum brew, he insisted on not calling it a home brew. Batya liked Sasha so much, that as soon as he learned that Sasha also had some free time left, at the same time as our trip to Issyk-Kul, that he gave him his voucher, for us to go on vacation together. We were frying lamb once again. Our appetite grew because of some mysterious reason. That night Sasha failed to return to his uncle’s place, perhaps he had too much of the fried lamb, and it was the freshest, the most delicious; ultimately, after having it Shurik could not stand on his feet for some reason, as well as Batya and I, by the way.
Briefly about what happened afterwards: in the morning we went to Sashka’s uncle to help him escape the punishment and pack his stuff for the trip to Issyk-Kul. Sasha’s uncle was a great guy; he even did not ask why Sasha had failed to make it home the other day. He only breathed in deeply and said that he had a cure for overeating of lamb and poured us a glass of cherry home brew each. The cherry brew was not worse than the plum brew, though the “appetizer” was not floating in it, it was clear like a tear and of pomegranate color.

Generally speaking, if we did not have to go to Issyk-Kul in the morning, then we would have started frying mutton again.
And how it was at Issyk-Kul is an absolutely different story, as Leonid Semenovitch Kanevskiy says.

23 June, 2012.

Essay 143. Mind what you say

I wonder in what age a person grows up and correspondingly becomes clever? It’s difficult to say. Some people die without becoming grown-ups and correspondingly growing wiser. It’s great when they are not aware of this, they are happy, and this is the main point. I am not going to dig so deep. I would like to tell you a short story, and you are free to judge who is just stupid, and who has not become a grown-up yet, and there is still a hope. My dear mom had a brother called Anatoliy. Both, his sister, my dear mom, and my dear father, or batya, as I called him, loved my uncle Tolya, and passed on this love to me. How much welcomed he was at our place. “Tolya, please, have one more piece of goose stuffed with apples.

You just can’t have any more? I will pour cold vodka for you, and you will have it with an apple and have a goose leg together with it…” . This way, or maybe not exactly so, but quite close to it poor Tolya had always been soaked with food and drink. Tolya was a keen fisherman, and at Kedrovka we always went fishing together with him, we went to a dam to fish gudgeons, and if we were lucky, we even got a burbot.   
So once my uncle came to visit my parents and before dinner promised to me that we would go fishing before dawn. I was about ten years old maximum then. I was quite grown-up actually. I had my fishing rods ready since evening, and I had always had worms dug out for future use, I kept them in a special bag of significant size in a mixture of soil, humus, manure and rotten wood. The bag was in a pit, and above it there was a board, and in addition to that I was regularly watering the spot once in three days. Generally speaking, I was very well prepared for fishing. In order to wake up and not to bother anybody else, I did not use an alarm clock; I tied my foot to bed and kept waking up every hour. At about five in the morning I made my uncle wake up, and we left. It was a long way to go, so we made it right by dawn, when the day was breaking.

 Fish were biting like crazy. For an hour we got almost a bucketful of gudgeons. Suddenly I saw that Tolya was vomiting. Yes, and he was so sick that even was writhing with attacks of sickness. I felt sorry for him; I ran up to him and asked what was up. And can you imagine, what the joker told me? “I have swallowed a worm.”  Wow! I believed him.  He was giving baloney to me saying that before you put a worm on a fish hook you had to moisten it with your own saliva.

And the best thing was to put a worm in your mouth and keep it there for a while. After that fish were biting like mad, one had to be quick to catch it. So he told me that he did not notice how he swallowed a worm, that was why he was so sick. And I, a little fool, not only believed him, but started putting worms in my mouth and after that put them on a fish hook. That was a real nightmare. Much later it was explained to me that I had been an absolute fool, and only when Anatoliy Mikhailovitch personally told me that he had had too much to drink back then, and did not want to admit that in front of his beloved nephew, so he had made up that nonsense.

However this is not the end of the story, I’ve ventured to tell you. Even though I quitted putting worms into my mouth when fishing, I had crossed the threshold of fastidiousness towards worms for my life time. So in spring before the end of my first year at the institute, my parents had not moved to Frunze yet, they asked me to come to Kedrovka to help them plant potatoes. Of course, I came.
 
That time my parents were given a land lot right near water at the dam, where we usually went fishing.  So I brought my fishing rods with me. We started planting potatoes; well, we had about ten holes filled, and I found a very big earthworm. It was not just red, but dark-red. So I said to my dear mom: “Here, if I put the worm in my mouth, will you let me go fishing?” My dear mom said: “You’ll never do this in your life, and if you do, then you are free to go fishing”. Batya tried to bring my dear mom to reason saying that the son of a bitch would do that one hundred per cent.
 
However who can bring a woman around to his point of view? Right, nobody can. So first I even felt sorry for my mom, she had an expression of such disgust and squeamishness on her face, when I put a worm on my tongue and closed my mouth. Well, I thought, what if I started vomiting, like Tolya. Though it turned out that even back then I knew that “one should be responsible for what he or she says”. My batya was aware of that as well, he allayed my apprehensions and sent me fishing.

5 July, 2012
Essay 144. Experimenters

My dear granny, or like I called her Old Mom, had a vegetable garden, it was even though not big, only six hundred square meters, but we had to work the land ourselves and by hand. 

Only digging-up was mechanized, even back then around Yagunovka there were walking people with entrepreneurial abilities, who had a horse and a plow; they dug-up gardens quickly and with good quality. And if to remember those days the best and most stable currency was the one in glass. And my Old Mom became good at making homemade brew, so when her garden was dug-up, the pay by the homemade brew was accepted with pleasure. However, it was also needed to plant potatoes, and that had to be done manually.  That spring I was in my fifth year, I passed all my examinations ahead of the schedule and before the annual camp dreamed of flying to Frunze to visit my parents for the whole June. But I had promised my dear Prakseyushka to plant potatoes before my departure. I started pondering on what to do and who to invite to help me though without long persuading and do everything quickly. Maybe the way I was thinking was not exactly correct, but it was the following. Marik Golubkov since winter had been negotiating with me to make me ask my dear mother in Frunze to arrange for him and his wife discount sanatorium vouchers to Issyk-Kul. 

And a discount sanatorium voucher to the famous Cholpon-Ata cost at my mom’s sanatorium seven rubles and twenty kopeks per person for twenty one days with three meals a day, which were though not exquisite, but not absolutely bad.
So I made up my mind that he would be the first helper, well, I should not persuade my mom to arrange the sanatorium vouchers for my friends just for nothing anyway, when almost everybody in Kemerovo region and Kedrovka were begging her about the same.  Negotiations with Marik were surprisingly easy; Marik even kind of expressed his indignation and even stated that he would have been offended, if I did not invite him to participate in the project. Well, I knew Marik very well. I knew that he was a kind and responsive guy. So together with him we started thinking who else to invite to join us for the agricultural work in my granny’s garden. There it occurred to Marik that at the regional hospital there was one of the first interns Victor from Gorkiy. He was a great guy, lived in a boxroom at the administrative building of the regional hospital, so we decided to invite him; in exchange Old Mom promised to supply him with potatoes and sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers. So said so done.
Vitya, of course, agreed for such a fee. We agreed to start the work on the nearest Saturday. By 9 in the morning we got together at my granny’s hut at Yagunovka.

And my granny, the kind heart, she simply could not let us start working without making us eat first. So in the morning she made literally a mountain of pies stuffed with onions, rise and boiled eggs. The pies were so toasted and smelled so appetizingly, that we sure enough immediately concurred. And in Prakseya’s cellar there was a container with homemade brew, and Marik and I went down to the cellar. Just think for yourself, we were about to plant potatoes on the area of six hundred square meters, so it was just blasphemy not to dive into the cellar because of such event. And as soon as we dived there, we could not come back with a small glass.

So we poured a three liter jar just in case. And the so called “case” didn’t take it too long to wait for.

With the pies, which we dipped into melted butter (my Old Mom recommended us to eat that way saying that that was much tastier then), the three liter jar was quickly emptied. So in a stately manner we swore to Prakseya that after one glass more we would start our work. Well, what can I say, of course the work went on smoothly; Marik kept telling Vitya about what a big container was down in the cellar, he intrigued Victor so much that he demanded that I take him and not Marik with me to the cellar. Our hands, or to be more precise, noses were itching. So somehow without any special agreement we started planting potatoes by a square pocket planting method.

Distance from a hole to a hole was not less than a meter. We threw into a hole not one, but two-three potatoes. The work was going on swimmingly. The area to plant on and the seed potatoes were decreasing in extent and number.
However a protest was brewing in the working mass against the intensity of work without any adequate incentives. I was chosen as a mediator, and Marik joined me as a support group. Without any special preparation I told Prakseya about the mass’ protest ad lib very emotionally using such words as “till when?” and “it’s a disgrace”. What could you expect?

She was one of the common people, and it turned out that she had foreseen such progress of events, and she already had prepared a one liter decanter with the homemade brew, last year’s pickles cut in circles, topped with onions and oiled with vegetable oil and three pies on a small plate. However she came forward with an urgent request of her own, that we satisfied our protest not in the house, but in the “field”. We did not start putting on airs or wasting our time. We were in a hurry to finish the planting as quickly as possible, because Marik had to return home by six. Though as they say man proposes, God disposes. With the planting method we’d developed in half an hour or an hour we were done. It should be said that Old Mom was a bit amazed at the speed of the planting and kept asking: “Have you really planted everything?” We all together replied: “Everything!!!”.
What a great banquet was waiting for us in Prakseya’s hut, it was a fairytale.

The most important thing was that there was a sea of the homemade brew. Marik was still repeating that he had to be at his place by six, that he had promised so to his father. The brew was tasty and at the same time strong. Marik kept repeating his line, like a spell, when falling asleep next to Vitya in Old Mom’s hut.
And Old Mom said: “Good night, my dear workers. Take counsel with your pillow”.

P.S. Old Mom was worried all summer long that she would have not enough potatoes in autumn, however our square pocket planting method produced impressive results. In autumn we dug three times more potatoes than usually. This is what it means not to be afraid of experimenting!

15 July, 2012.
Essay 145. An autograph

Even though I’ve never been on long-term farming assignments directed by the institute, yet I believe that modern students have not benefited because of their abolition. After a month of working in fields (forget a month, sometimes even two weeks were quite enough) and dwelling in buildings of entertainment centers or other shed-like premises in anti-sanitary Spartan conditions, most various qualities were shown up in students.  That was the time when leaders showed themselves, those who could make decisions and lead others; now they would be described as cool guys.

Boiled eggs. Are there any hard-boiled?
It was there where those willing to submit clearly manifested their traits, they were nice guys, but they needed a word of command. It was the time when students made real friends, and the friendship lasted for years, even decades. First love affairs started also there with tumultuous dates in haycocks and haystacks. And what funny situations took place there, and how many there were of them, not to count. For instance, only I will not give any names, because of obvious reasons. I will only say that that happened with student groups who graduated in 1971. For those who know, the characters of my essays Zhora Chernobay and Kolya Kozlov were among those students.
Here is what happened. Back in pioneers’ camps we were excelling in all kinds of mischief after the lights-out time. Usually we smeared toothpaste on those who were fast asleep, or if we were lucky to get hold of a lipstick, then we used it. There was all kind of mischief to draw moustache or just smear all face around. During our student years the objects of mischief got changed.
On the very first day of the arrival Mikhail announced that his sleep was very light, so he would not allow to play mischievous tricks on him. Everybody was very surprised by the announcement, especially if to take into account that Misha was about two meters tall, and his weight was about one hundred kilos. However, even if guys were not going to play any tricks, the warning of that kind made them start thinking about some mischief. They could not wait for too long, and in a couple of days, to be more precise nights everybody got convinced that as soon as Mikhail fell asleep even a gunshot would not wake him up. And in addition he was snoring very loudly, so the reason for a mischief was, as they say, obvious.

All the evening long before the revenge the way of performing it was discussed, so it was decided to pour ink from a fountain pen on his manhood. To do that was very easy also because Mikhail always slept on his back and practically never used a blanket. His boxers were big enough to fit two Mikhails, no wonder that during his sleep his manhood was put forward all the time. The guys were chuckling, and girls when they came to visit were, to put it mildly, embarrassed by such ingenuousness. That day everybody could not wait for Mikhail to fall asleep. The waiting was so tense that nobody slept; everybody knew about the revenge, and everybody was excited. General excitement was transmitted to Mikhail. He was telling jokes and himself laughed at them. Finally he managed to fall asleep, as soon as Misha had bared his manhood, Sergey without wasting any moment poured all ink from a fountain pen on it. There turned to be so much of ink that not only the manhood changed its color, but half of the belly was also in ink together with a sheet, or, to be more precise, what was called a sheet. Amazingly enough, but that night Mikhail practically did not snore.

It remained a mystery, how it happened that in the morning Misha did not see or feel anything. Yeah, Misha seemed to be a sinner all right. As by the lunch time a terrible story happened. Mikhail was sliding down on his butt from a huge hay stack and hit a pitchfork carelessly left by someone. Luckily Misha only slightly scratched his scrotum, though it was bleeding. How much a doctor of a local hospital was surprised, when Misha was delivered to him! He plainly asked him: “You what? Do you, young gentleman, also sign your name with it? Give autographs?” It is not known what else they were talking about, except one thing, Misha persuaded the doctor to issue a medical document releasing him from the farming assignment.  On the very day he returned to Kemerovo.

It is not clear how it happened that when the witnesses of what had happened came back to the institute, the story was already widely told around a dorm and in classrooms, but everybody thought it to be a tale. However it was not a tale; that was real life.

21 June, 2012

Essay 146. Hydrocele

I find it difficult to say what kind of person an actor Alexander Demianenko was in real life, perhaps a good one. Though the fact, that he was one of the most popular and loved actors of Soviet students, was an absolute truth. It was he, Demianenko, who had created a character of Shurik, a cheerful and a bit clumsy student of the 60s. We recognized in the character if not ourselves, then a neighbor-guy from a dorm.

And the scene when he was peeping into a synopsis of a female student he did not know! So I have a question: wasn’t it Valya Timoshenko’s synopsis of lectures? Yes, the Valya, who studied together with me in the same group at the institute, and later when all of us left according to our job placements, it turned out that she and I happened to be placed on a job at Kurgan region. So Valya Timoshenko (and we used to call her Timokha or Timonya, depending on the request we addressed her with) was making super great synopses. She never rewrote them, like I did, for instance. From the very first time Valya had everything written in clear and even handwriting, and as for the contents, she in some incredible way managed to grasp the most essential thing and wrote it on paper in two-three theses, which were better than hundreds of pages of a textbook. Generally speaking, everybody who prepared for examinations using her synopses as a rule got an “excellent” grade into his or her student’s record book.  Zhenya Romashov had special trusting relationship with Timokha, so it was he, who received her synopses first. Kostya Romashov, Zhenka’s younger brother was lucky as well, as Zhenka had his own methods of making his brother accustomed to medicine. You know, Yevgeniy liked to relax on a sofa in the evening and made his brother sit next to him, gave him a textbook or a synopsis, and Kostya had to read aloud for him, though Zhenya was listening while napping and sometimes even started snoring a little. However as soon as Kostya stopped reading Zhenya menacingly told him: “Go on reading, I am listening carefully”.  And he was really listening and heard. Once Kostya examined Zhenka; asked him to repeat what he had just read, after his snoring. So Yevgeniy repeated everything he had heard word by word and warned Kostya that he would haul him over the coals, if he ever checked him again! Him, the elder brother! Though, by the way, he never executed his threat. So in that winter evening of 1970 Kostya was studying hard in a dorm for his surgery examination. It should be said, that he believed surgery to be the main direction of medicine, and wanted to get nothing less than an “excellent”. Zhenya came in as usually unexpected and with many questions: “What are you doing? Ah, you study. What are you reading? Cholecystitis, wonderful!”. Kostya understood what was wonderful about that only when Zhenka handed him Timonya’s synopsis and said that he had to learn by heart everything about cholecystitis for his therapeutics examination.

Kostya was a kind guy, he read for Zhenka everything about those kinds of cholecystitis, and he himself learned everything he had read quite well.
The examination was conducted at a central district hospital of Kemerovo region. That was, if one took a #51 bus, then at Rudnik a stop had the same name of “A Hospital”. They say that everybody has his own “skeletons in a wardrobe”. In Kostya’s case that was his propensity to be late for examinations or as he said “be a little late”.
That time he did not fail to follow his rule, he was worried that he could be late and finally was late. He rushed into the hospital building when everybody had already taken the exam, to be more precise, one person was still there answering to an examiner. The examiner was not an institute’s staff instructor, but a substituting one from practicing doctors. I do not remember his last name, but it looks like his name was Nikolay Nikolayevitch, as among the students he was called Nik-Nik. He looked tired, was a bit unshaved – he seemed to be after a night shift, and had to deal with exams and latecomers. It looked like he was about to reprimand Kostya. Though the latter also was no fool, he did not allow the instructor even to open his mouth, apologized and announced that he would not keep him long, and would answer without any preparation. Without asking for permission, he took an examination card and, oh, it was a miracle! There was cholecystitis in it! 

Without a moment’s thought, like we do, when sing the song: “Jingle bells,….” Kostya started expounding classification and diagnostics, and all symptoms starting with bitter taste in a mouth up to Courvoisier symptom.
Nik-Nik was sitting with his eyes closed as if having a nap. However Kostya was not the one to be tricked by that, he had trained on Zhenka by unnoticeable for others signs see that a person was not asleep. So Kostya started recounting treatment: spasmolytics, activated carbon, antibiotics, choleretics. He was also telling the dosage – super. So what else the man could need? However he started asking additional questions:
V: - Blood picture?
O: - Leykocytosis from … to …
V: - ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate)
O: - Accelerated.
V: - Shetkin-Blumberg symptom?
O: - Can be positive.
“Everything is correct, but your treatment does not help the patient. What shall we do?” Oh, what a bore Nik-Nik turned to be. Kostya started getting out of a scrape saying: extra spasmolytics, antibiotics, got a patient eventually on a drip of glucose. And Nik-Nik was insisting that the temperature was going up anyway. Kostya got confused, as he remembered very well that there was nothing else in Timoshka’s synopsis. And that was Timonya herself, and there was some…
And Nikolay Nikolayevitch asked in tired and annoyed voice: “Well, and where are you now?” And Kostya did not think of anything better than to say: “At the examination”. Ultimately, Kostya was given a night to resolve the issue and was sent away till the next day. And on his way to the exam he had thought he would get an excellent grade. Kostya felt disgusting in his heart. He had told him everything like a poem… He went outside, stopped to light a cigarette and turned to the entrance covering it from wind. He looked up and saw a sign: “USSR Healthcare Ministry Surgery department…”

Kostya understood everything, as the question was not just cholecystitis, but acute cholecystitis. And he, stubborn as a mule, was telling the surgeon…

How slowly time was crawling on that day. Kostya annoyed Zhenka with an old joke about scrotal hydrocele. “A patient comes to a surgeon, shows his problem: scrotum sticks out of suspensory, like size eight breasts out of a size three bra. The surgeon diagnoses the illness as hydrocele and concludes that a surgical treatment is needed. The patient’s got scared and rushed away from the surgeon. He has come to a therapist. The latter asked what he was frightened by? Perhaps you visited a surgeon and he told you that it had to be cut. “And what have you got? I see - hydrocele. Get on a chair and jump down from it.” The patient jumped. “And now get on a table and jump down from it.” The patient did so. Then the therapist suggested the patient jumping down from a bookcase, and after that the scrotum fell off by itself. “You see, - the therapist said, - and surgeons cannot do anything else but cut”.

In the morning Kostya without being late, at 9 am sharp, was at the hospital and right in the hall told Nik-Nik, when he was passing by: “The surgery is needed, it needs to be cut”. The instructor laughed and without any further questions signed his student’s record book with a “good” grade and wished him good luck. “And he is a decent man”, - Kostya thought and headed to boast to Zhenka that he had passed the exam.

22 June, 2012.

Essay 147. Clip on the back of the head

I’ll never stop singing the praising of women, their beauty, incredible ability to adjust to various situations and their patience and their unique female humor. Though, let me tell about everything in order. In my essay 89 “A Born Obstetrician”, I touched the topic of obstetrics and childbirth. However this is an all-embracing and boundless topic, that is why I’ve returned to it again with a short story that happened with Sasha Khoroshilov’s group in their fourth year. I was always proud that I studied in a group # 18 and later group # 14, where there were only three girls. In the graduation year of 1972 it was the only group of that kind; however it turned out that Alexander’s group was totally male. In our group we, for instance, considered Tatyana Yanchilina and Olya Ptitsyna “cool guys” in everyday communication, nevertheless we never forgot that they were young girls, and that kept us within the limits, though, to be honest, we were telling jokes without any hints or significant silence, but called a spade a spade, and the girls were laughing louder and in a more rollicking way than the guys. I do not know why in our group of young and single the most favorite jokes were the jokes about a mother-in-law. And the most favorite was the one in which a man was standing on a roof of a five-storied building together with an old lady trying to push her off the roof; the lady actively resisted. The crowd standing down on the ground was scolding the man for his attempts to push a human being, a woman, off the roof. However when the man on the roof announced to everybody that that was not a human being and even more, not a woman, but his mother-in-law, sympathies got dramatically changed. There were even shouts heard: “Eh, old bitch! She is even resisting”.

However I want to talk not about this. So Sasha Khoroshilov’s group consisted almost completely of former secondary school leavers; only the group monitor managed to finish a Kemerovo medical college, serve in the Army and even get married and have twin boys.
Generally speaking, he was all around positive, because of his being so positive he was appointed to be the group monitor. So the group got into hands of an associate professor Titova, I had already written that she was our Tatiana Yanchilina’s aunt. She was an excellent professor; honestly, it was pleasant to get any telling-off from her. All students knew that if she was reprimanding someone, that meant, that she considered him or her to be a good and promising student. Theoretical classes in class rooms are of no interest now. However when Titova brought the group to a labor room to train in assisting at childbirth, the guys got confused. No, they did not lose their heads, but got confused. They were in their fourth year, were majoring in their future profession; however they still felt embarrassment in certain situations. 

So that time the delivery was going on without any pathologies, even though there was born a Thumberlina like girl there were insignificant ruptures. Titova was aware of the situation, nevertheless she asked: “Who is going to suture up?”  The guys hiding behind each other pushed forward the group monitor. Titova was waiting.
The poor devil had no choice, he sat on a low chair, blushed with embarrassment, sweating hard with trembling because of excitement hands started suturing up the insignificant ruptures, which had resulted from the childbirth.

And the woman almost completely came to consciousness after the delivery, she saw how the guys were confused and pushed forward one of them, and how he started suturing up the ruptures, so she decided to relieve the tension. A very clever woman, she asked the group monitor to be careful and not to sew up anything extra. She said she would find him and make him restore everything the way it was before. The group burst into laughter. Sasha as if not addressing anyone commented that the guy could not do that as he was married. The group monitor gave Sasha a clip on the back of his head, and Titova approvingly said to the group monitor, though it was not clear meaning what – the results of his suturing up of the ruptures or his reaction on Sasha’s comment; she said: “Good job; that’s right!”

10 June, 2012.
Essay 148. Al Qasr

You, my dear readers, perhaps thought that I would write about a famous elite hotel Al Qasr, which is in Dubai, in a resort area of Madinat Jumeirah.

Undoubtedly, the hotel is like in a fairytale. My wife and I visited it more than once; and maybe someday I will tell something interesting about it as well. Now I would like to write about events that took place forty years ago. The essay is related to the hotel only by its name, and it is translated from Arabic into Russian as steeds, not horses, but steeds.
I’ve got to tell it like it is.

There is no doubt that modern students missed a lot because of abolition of their labor on farms; that was a good school of life for them. For instance, Vitya Kiss, a guy who had little to do with farming, already in his first year during a farming assignment at a collective farm learned to drive a GAZ-53 truck (a truck produced at Gorky Automobile Plant) and was very proud of that. He still remembers with a kind word a collective farm driver Victor Metsker. Of course, uncle Vitya, as everybody addressed him, let Victor do anything even independent trips to get silage. Once Vitya overdid it, loaded too much silage into a poor truck and it simply died. Only magic hands of uncle Vitya brought it back to life. All in all after the very first farming assignment a wimpy and sickly looking Vitya Kiss, who had been relieved of attending physical training classes at his secondary school, felt himself to be a man, and later together with Volodya Kravtchenko organized a sambo (martial art) group.
However the story offered for your attention is about a farming assignment after the second year at the institute. Vitya together with his fellow students Kolya Fokin, Yura Krashevskiy and Victor Savtchenko came to Kemerovo at the end of August. The guys came to the institute and met there a logistics manager of the institute, his name was Nikolay Semenovitch or Nikolay Savelievitch, I do not remember. However I clearly remember that he was in charge of maintenance of the university buildings and was responsible for a steed.

So the steed, even though it was born and grew up in Siberia, to be more precise, in Kemerovo, had a very impressive conformation. Believe me, he had something of Akhal-Teke. It was well fed, and a well fed horse has glossy sides. It was grazing all the time in front of the main building of the institute and attracted attention of all female students by its impressive genitals. The logistics manager and Vitya were fellow townsmen, so they knew each other pretty well. So during that meeting the logistics manager offered Vitya and his friends an “elite farming assignment” – laying-in of hay for the horse. Grass was cut by instructors (sun, fresh air, alcohol, payment), and the guys would have to put it into hay cocks. The trip was supposed to be for a week, and after it all of the guys would be relieved of September farming assignment. Only an idiot could turn down such an offer, as you understand, but not a Soviet student. A student from a parallel group forced his company on them; he was an utterly city boy. Ultimately they were given food to last for a week, brought to the place somewhere further than Zhuravly. Not far from a meadow there were two huts without electricity, on another bank of a small river there was an apiary. That was it… nature! The city boy was confused and asked: “And where shall we live?” We replied: “”Here is the place – in a hay cock”. One should’ve seen expression of his face. The rest three of us, who had grown up in private homes and loved walking trips, got a kick out of that.  Daily routine was the following: in the morning after the sun dried hay on the top, it was tossed, by lunch time it was raining, so everybody was resting.

In a couple of hours the hay was tossed again, raked up into a cock, and it was raining again. It was like that for five days. We were running out of bread and had run out of vodka. We borrowed bread from neighbors, there was no vodka. We were running out of food, after rain the road was impassable, a car could not make it to us. By that time Zhenya, “the city boy” started getting accustomed. He was already not afraid of a horse with a sweep, stopped stepping on rakes and started tasting vodka. And what could he do? They not without a reason say that evil communications corrupt good manners… And the group had menacing an unpleasant perspective of walking for 15 kilometers to a village to get food. Luckily the hostess of the nearby apiary came and asked to help her add hay collected in other places to the already formed cock.  The bargain was quick – a bucket of potatoes, a three liter jar of mead and four loaves of bread. The next day anticipating receiving of the payment from the apiary’s hostess we worked so hard that by the evening the new cock was ready. The whole group was also cooked, ready to be squeezed, as they say. Those who cut and cocked hay know how hard the job is. After swimming in the river the guys made themselves comfortable on a grassy plot. What a chic table they laid for themselves – hunks of homemade bread, a basin, yes an enameled basin full of honey and spring water.

After they ate, they lied down belies up and waited for sweet sweat to appear, which became visible practically in five minutes and smelled like honey. They had a quick swim in the river and ate again. As far as I know after that honey feast Vitya could not look at honey for about ten years if not more. As a bonus for the excellent work, the cock was done according to all standards, the hostess added some cereals. So they had comfortable life after that, and the mead they had in sips did its thing for two days, after that Zhenya, “the city guy” and Kolya had to go quickly to the village to get vodka, other way there would be no romanticism. Only a week later a car managed to drive to them and they were finally evacuated. The funniest thing was that that year the rest of the students were not sent on a farming assignment, and the participants of the “elite farming undertaking” were late for classes.

However their work for the benefit of the only in the whole institute beautiful steed was very appreciated by the chancellor, and the guys were not given non-attendance marks. So, that was the way how a group of decent guys had a lucky escape after another scheme.

And as for the institute’s logistics manager, Nikolay Semenovitch or Nikolay Savelievitch, every time Vitya Kiss met him, he always remembered the “elite farming assignment” and together they had a good laugh.

14 June, 2012.

Essay 149. We were optimists…

 “Necessity is mother of invention” – who would argue about that?  Though, this can be said about students when raised to the tenfold power. We already had chemistry classes in our first year. We diligently studied biochemistry together with that subject. It was my favorite subject even when at my secondary school. I can boast that Raisa Vasilievna Sadovnikova, our chemistry teacher at Kedrovka secondary school, even allowed me not to attend her classes. Well, if chemistry was the last lesson in a timetable, and the weather was fine, then I skipped it with pleasure to go fishing, and quite often Vitya Belkov and Lesha Borichev were off school together with me. However that had been at the secondary school, but I was at a higher educational institution, the medical one. All in all I was an excellent student in chemistry at the institute, and gladly helped Zhenya Romashov and Dimka Mkheidze; and together with Dima we helped Yevgeniy. Poor laboratory assistants of the Chemistry Department; after every our class they missed flasks or funnels, or trivial test tubes.

Why Yevgeny needed all that, neither Dimka nor I knew or understood, but helped Zhenka to filch all those goodies from the department. Communists however selected and developed a new gene in people, a very powerful one. It was a gene of misappropriation. A Soviet person filched everything he or she saw. We were not an exception from the rule.
Of course we enquired Zhenka what he needed all that for. But he gave a short answer: “It might come useful…” However when Zhenya made up his mind to steal in the Communist style a Liebig condenser from the department, Dima and I said in unison: “But this is a distiller 90%!!!”

Zhenya smiled cunningly to that and announced: “Eh, it’s a pity that this is a straight condenser. Efficiency factor will be low. We need a coiled one. I cannot say anything for Dimitriy, but I opened my eyes wide and was staring at Zhenka: “What efficiency factor?” I will honestly tell you, one should have known Zhenka to imagine his kind and somewhat attractive smile. “A lot of vapors will be wasted, and there will be little of condensate”, - Yevgeniy had unimaginable potential of worldly wisdom compared to us, greenhorns. Ultimately it took Zhenka not long to be sad. In just two or three classes the lab assistants left a Liebig coiled condenser in a class room, and we successfully laid our hands on it. Then the issue of laboratory glassware somehow died away by itself. We studied, had parties on occasions of birthdays and holidays; generally speaking everything was all right and even wonderful. And why not? What are the students’ worries? They are about how not to receive a bad grade or make up for the already received one.

Once in our fourth year Yevgeniy offered to club together and make home-distilled vodka, to have at least something to celebrate holidays. Yevgeniy made an inflammatory speech about what a paying business it was. He said that from two kilos of sugar, there would come almost two liters of pure, like a tear, moonshine. He also said that he had stashed lots of filters to purify the finished product; and with a jar of Indian coffee we would turn the moonshine into excellent brandy. The speech was really inflammatory, it was liked by everybody. A hat was immediately sent around. It was decided to put enough to get five liters of the finished product per person. Timid squawks of Arkashka Blyakher and Toma Ogorodnaya that we would be poisoned were fiercely scoffed at; and they were announced that they’d better give the agreed amount voluntarily, or it would be deducted from their stipends. Generally speaking the unanimity was restored. In the same democratic way it was determined that Zhenya Romashov and Valya Timoshenko would be in charge of everything. Supervising and examining commission included Arkashka, Toma and me. It beats me how come that we overlooked that Zhenka, with the best intentions, of course,  decided to increase  quantity of the finished product, and instead of regular white beet sugar from a grocery store, got yellow Cuban cane sugar stolen from a brewery. However that was three times more by the number of kilos. Zhenka was praised for his zeal and scolded for his adventurism, as there were Department Against Misappropriation of Socialist Property (OBKhSS, the Soviet financial police) officers constantly hanging around the brewery at Kirovskiy.

However what was done was done, and it was left to find a container to make home brew, i.e. half-finished home-distilled vodka. And there invaluable help was given by Valya Timoshenko, or Timonya, as we lovingly nicknamed her. She ordered and was brought from a village the very container, and it was Timonya, who brewed the home brew in it. She turned out to have experience in the matter prior to the one she got at the institute. She had seen how the brew was made and matured. Everything comes useful in life. Don’t you agree? So on Friday Yevgeniy announced that he had sampled the brew, and it was very strong, which meant the moonshine would be strong as well.

It was decided to distill the home-made vodka on Saturday after classes, in order if it took too much time, there would be Sunday to finish. A brigade of moonshiners included Zhenya, Valera Kaygorodov and Slavka Sizikov, and Arkashka and I were supposed to come with an unexpected inspection. It was agreed beforehand that “the unexpected inspection” would be on Saturday night. Though, somehow it happened so that we managed to come with the inspection only in the morning on Sunday. My God, what we saw in the house at Tretiy Osobyi. Our moonshiners were hammered. They were unconsciously drunk. Slavka Sizikov was trying to set on fire a tablespoon of moonshine, and Valera was just holding his thumb up in silence and nodding significantly. The only person able to make contact with was Yevgeniy. He reported to us that the home-distilled vodka turned to be the first class one, and they had already significantly exceeded the expected rate, and by lunch time would finish, if they had enough energy.

He also gave us to try the moonshine they had produced. No matter how much Slavka and Valerka were asking Zhenya, they were absolutely denied sampling. Arkashka and I sampled about one hundred grams of the turbid, stinky, warm liquid, which was burning with blue flame. Oh, they made such crap. We told Zhenya exactly that. 

Later at a general meeting of our group after our report, very favorable, by the way, the group decided that that quantity of the product would be enough to last till the New Year minimum. We were such optimists!

Moonshine is a strong alcoholic drink, made by distilling brew via homemade (or industrial) distillers; the brew is made of brewing grains, potatoes, beets, fruit or other products containing sugar and converted starch substances (from Wikipedia – free encyclopeia).


12 May, 2012.






Essay 150. Despotic and willful person

Despotic and willful person is a person who acts by its whim and self-will, humiliating dignity of others (from Wikipedia)

Former students, when they become imposing and pompous after graduating from their institutes, forget various situations they had had in those happy, and nevertheless, not careless years. However when they are in a certain situation, for instance in a company of their fellow students, then it starts: “And you remember how…” or “Do you remember that…”. So Victor Kiss found himself in the situation when memories came flooding back after he had read my Humorous Essays. His memories were so bright and vivid that he could not resist immediately writing about them to me. And he had a lot to remember. You will laugh, but again the main character of the reminiscences about the second year at the institute is a great figure on a scale of the Kemerovo medical institute of those days. I wrote more than once about that distinguished and ambiguous person, who combined rough manners to students with thorough knowledge of his subject and incredible love of it.

Of course, this is Timofey Fadeievitch Ryzhkov or “Faradeiy” in student everyday life. He was loved and hated.  He invoked those feelings, because he was a genius of anatomy, but an incredibly despotic and willful person. So Vitya happened to be among those who were re-taking the tests they had failed; the guys were nice in everyday life, but poor students in anatomy. Please, do not judge Vitya and the other too strictly, because to be a poor student was not very unusual or something special with Faradey.  That time Vitya did not pass the only test he had failed on, even though he thought that he had prepared one hundred per cent for it. He simply even did not have a chance to answer. It happened so that Faradey chose Volodya Kravtchenko to be the first victim. So to speak about Volodya, he was a strongly built handsome guy; he was a couple of years older than the rest in his group. Volodya was doing his best, but received bad grades on a regular basis, and he had seven of them from Faradey. To make up for the test Volodya came looking like a real dandy, but the main thing was that he had learned everything, at least that was what he thought.
When he started answering everybody grew numb with astonishment. Volodya was giving a detailed answer with using specimen for illustration; he successfully answered five of Faradey’s questions in a row, if not to exaggerate!!!, so the latter one had nothing to do, but circle five out of his seven bad marks. That was a record. Nobody had managed to answer so many questions of Faradey during one class before. However Volodya started rejoicing and dreaming of his future without failed tests at least in anatomy too early. Yes, it was too early. On the sixth question Volodya got really confused. It was as if his mind went blank, he could not even remember the Latin name of a rib. That happens. And there was Faradey’s trademark yell.
Sorry that was not a yell, but a roar “Those like you do not belong to the medical institute… You should be sent to the Army!!!” And there Volodya quite calmly went: “But I served in the Army, I am a reserve senior lieutenant…” Hair started moving in Faradey’s nostrils, and there came the roar again: “To the mine!!!...”. And Volodya replied: “And before joining the military forces I had worked in the mine…”. Yeah, that was some situation! The next was not a roar, but a howl: “You should be a yard cleaner…” What’d bitten Volodya, he himself could not understand afterwards; but he gave an answer to that question as well: “I work part time as a yard cleaner now at Sevastopolskaya…”. There was dead silence in the class room, Faradey breathed in, but could not breathe out. Everybody was in panic, what would happen next? And there, how fortunate, was the end of the class.

9 April, 2012.
Essay 151. With a sickle at the balls

It’s been known for a long time that meat of gelded piglets tastes better than of not gelded ones. There is hot polemics in the European Union now: whether to geld or not to geld. And they inclined to the idea that it was better not to geld. A law which forbids gelding piglets to turn them into boars comes into action since 2018.
And in those remote 60s of the last century there were not any “the green” yet, and nobody fought against gelding as it was. People knew that gelded piglets (bores) had tender and tasty meat, and meat of not gelded piglets (bucks) was hard and stinky. 
In those days I did not care about anything of that; I simply did not know the taste of meat of the bucks. However the fact that such an event as group gelding was undertaken and without me, plunged me into shock. I was asking Zhenka: “Just how could you do that?” and: “Why did not you tell me that you were going to do that?” Yevgeniy did his best to get out of a scrape saying that it had not been planned and happened by chance. It did not console or sooth me. By my sighs he realized that something had to be done and quickly. Zhenka Romashov would not be Zhenka Romashov, if he did not find a simple resolution of the situation; he offered to arrange a gelding action once again. He was consoling me saying that at the previous time the weather had been bad, it had been wet, and next weekend it should be warm and sunny. And what was the point of consoling me? It was not necessary to comfort me; the most important thing was that we would do that. During the week I went to Kedrovka and let my parents know beforehand that I would not visit them on the weekend, as I had to study hard. Now I do not even remember what tales I told them. For some reason I did not want them to know the real reason of my not coming to visit them. I do not know why.
We scheduled the action on Sunday. Zhenya was absolutely calm, and I was for some reason nervous, as if we were going to do something forbidden. Kolya Kozlov was also going with us, and Zhora went to his training for the whole day on that day; he was doing heavy weight lifting and was especially good at jerk. We never missed a chance to ask Zhora a question of: “Well, how is it going with a good jerk?” Is everything all right?” or: “Well, and has your jerk failed you today?” We were having a good laugh, and Zhora kindheartedly ignored our jokes: “Dorks…”. At about ten o’clock we left the house at 22 Hertsen street, which was in the Third Special Kirovskiy district of Kemerovo and followed Zhenka. We had divided responsibilities beforehand: Kolya was in charge of holding a piglet, Zhenya of cutting, and my task was to carry a plastic bag with balls and collect money, as last time Zhenya’s hands had been in blood and iodine, and Kolya’s hands had been also dirty. Piglets had had no desire to lose their balls just for nothing. All in all we were walking and listening to Zheka, and he was uttering words of wisdom. And why we implicitly obeyed him? Just because it even did not occur to me that the time of the action had to be specially chosen. Yevgeniy was explaining to Kolya and me that last time he had made a mistake and had come after lunch, but at that time people had already been tired and wanted to relax for the rest of their day off, and there were they offering to geld piglets. That was why there had been total refuses. And today, Zhenka was inspiring us, we would see that he was right. And he really turned to be right. Yevgeniy would’ve made an excellent businessman, if he lived till these days. Though let’s not be sad. Zhenka turned to be right about everything.

He was right that last time people had not responded to the offer, and later, after they had learned that their neighbor’s piglet, the one Zhenka had worked on last time, was alive, and healthy and full of energy, remembered that they needed their piglets to be gelded as well. And back then they kept piglets practically in every household in the Third Special in Kemerovo.

It happened so that the first was the house, which owner had jokingly asked to castrate her husband last time. There were three piglets in the yard, small ones. I felt sincerely sorry for them. The woman knew the prices, but asked us to do everything not for fifteen, but for ten rubles. Zhenya did the right thing; he did not start saying no, but agreed. And why to refuse, that was a five minutes’ business; and the first client is sacred. The woman called her husband to help us. The one, who his wife had asked us to cut something off last time, without which that was not possible, was a mean and stinking drunk little guy. The first thing he did, he grabbed hold of Kolya’s shirt front and demanded certificates. And he was a bit taller than Kolya’s waist. However the woman snapped at him in such a way that he rushed to a pen and came out with two screeching piglets in his hands.

And while Zhenka using only a scalpel and iodine simply “tore off” the piglets’ balls and turned those two poor things into eunucks with the help of Kolya, who was holding the victims during the execution, the man brought out the third one. In my ten times washed plastic bag there appeared first six small trophies. And when the woman brought out of the house and gave us tchervonets (ten-ruble banknote), the little guy howled and grabbed hold of Kolya’s shirt front again. It was funny to look at the picture. And the woman kind of without any laughter again asked us to castrate the little guy-scum of the earth, saying that she was sick and tired of him. Yevgeniy addressed me with a question: “Do we have enough iodine?” I patted on my pocket and said that we had enough.

 The man let Kolya go and in some strange way happened to be outside the gate and shouted at the top of his voice: “Help! Killers!” Neighbors started coming out to the street, it looked like they knew freaks of that Heracles, and started asking the woman about what was going on. She informed them that the medical assistants were gelding piglets. That was some advertising for us! There was a line to invite us, we were lead from a household to a household, and in a couple of hours we were already on our way home with a plastic bag full of testicles and a bundle of money, which Zhenya counted while walking. The sum was astounding – seventy five rubles. Kolya and I were really happy, but Yevgeniy offered to put thirty rubles into the fond of our mini-dorm on food expenses for all of us, then he divided forty five rubles between three of us and gave Nikolay and me fifteen rubles each.


In the evening when Zhora came after his training, we had a swell dinner: piglets’ testicles fried with onions and black pepper and accompanied with vodka “Osobo Moskovskaya”.

I started eating the first piece very carefully, I was afraid of something, and it was not clear of what. Though my curiosity prevailed, and I agreed with Zhenya that that was finger-licking good.

23 March, 2012.

Essay 152. Liquidation

If to search really well in every nook and cranny of my memory, I might find many interesting and amusing episodes. However, right now the following one has occurred to me. After I had left the mini-dorm, my place was taken by Kostya Romashov, Yevgeniy’s brother. Change of tenants did not affect the rules that had been set before. However, let’s talk about everything in order.

On that memorable day it happened so that Zhenya was going to the apartment after classes together with Kostya. Zhenya was in a bad mood. He was tired; he could not get home for two days. He had classes at the institute, after that there was a night shift at the city clinic #9 at an X-ray laboratory of an accident ward. The night happened to be difficult, there was a lot of work, and Zhenya practically had no chance to have any sleep, and in the morning he had to be at the institute again. At the institute he failed a test in anatomy, and Slavka Sizikov drove him mad when playing Scrabble during a lecture with double “s” in a word “rassolnik” (see essay “Beer at Lectures”). Generally speaking there was a reason for Zhenya’s dysphoria, and it was considerably manifested, Kostya was feeling that on his own back. When on a tram on their way to Hertsen street, Kostya decided to spare money and did not buy tickets, a ticket collector got into the wagon at the very same time, so they had to urgently get off the tram, one stop before the one they needed; Kostya got the first clip on the back of his head from Zhenka.

Afterwards when they were walking along the tram road Zhenya was reprimanding Kostya for his attitude to economizing, his own brother, meaning himself, to his study and life in general…; and all that time he was threatening with two more clips on the back of his head. Kostya was compliantly keeping silence; he knew that “silence was worthy gold”, he was just nodding. In such a way having a nice conversation the Romashov brothers reached their mini-dorm.
And when they came inside…
Just tell me why is it said that gustatory sensation is formed in the mouth by taste bulbs on a human tongue?
I believe that the bulbs allow only tell the difference between bitter and sweet, and salty and sour. And the whole range of tastes man receives via his vision and sense of smell. It is a nose, which makes it possible for man to sense all the variety of smells; we have not even tried food, but our mouth is already watering.

There were Kostya and Zhenka’s noses which were hit by a sharp, sour and even sickening smell in their rooms. And if Kostya did not dodge a blow on time, he would’ve got one more clip on the back of his head, as if it was he, who had spoiled the air in a well-known way.
Zhenka opened all doors and ventilator windows and started looking for a source of the stink. Kostya quietly withdrew outside, as if to a toilet. And Zhenka saw a big pan on the table and understood everything; somebody was having breakfast in the morning, was in a hurry and it looked like he was eating right from the pan, there was no dirty plate near it, and a spoon was right on the lid, he left everything and rushed to the institute; and it was very hot then. When Kostya came back Zhenka interrogated him demanding all details: at what time he had left, who had been at home except him in the morning. Kostya guessed that it was Vadik Severiukhin who had done that, but did not betray him, to all questions he was answering: “I was in a hurry, din’t see anything around, don’t remember anything”. As soon as there were not any other dwellers, Kostya had to carry out liquidation of borsh.
Yeah, Zhenka’s brother’s fate was a grave one. Even though Zhenka loved Kostya he was tough when it came to disciplining him; when Kostya informed Zhenka that he was going to conduct the liquidation via throwing the spoiled borsh into a cesspool of an outdoor toilet, he almost was beaten up again (just kidding – had another clip on the back of his head). Zhenka was outraged by his brother’s lack of foresight; if at such heat fermentation continued already at the cesspool with its contents; then the whole neighborhood of the Tretiy Osobyi would have nothing to breathe in. Ultimately Kostya received a simple and clear order: dig a hole in a vegetable garden, pour the borsh into it and fill up the hole.

After he had received the clear instruction as for the liquidation, Kostya took the pan and went outside to follow the instruction. It was not without reason that Kostya had been born and lived in Central Asia before entering the institute; he had learned very well that no matter how much in a hurry you were, you would always have enough time to be late, so he sat at the porch to have a cigarette before the liquidation. And why not? Where to hurry? Kostya was smoking and thinking that he was very lucky to have such a brother; as if it was not for him, the borsh would’ve ended up in the toilet for sure. And at the very moment his contemplations were interrupted by arrival of Zhora Chernobay. Zhora was in high spirits, joking, asking whether dinner was ready. Kostya told him about borsh and the coming liquidation. Zhora grew dumb with astonishment, he literally was indignant: “What kind of liquidation?”. He immediately opened the lid, smelled and rolled his eyes up as a sign of pleasure. Yeah, gourmands are people of a special category. However to like spoiled borsh? That would take not a gourmand, but a gourmet! Kostya had no time to reflect on subtlety of differences between a gourmand and a gourmet. Zhora took the pan and went downstairs right to the kitchen. How it came that Zhenya did not notice him, was not clear, though, he did not sleep for two days; however when around the well aired house there again started spreading specific aroma from the kitchen, where Zhora was already heating up the borsh, Zhenka came to his senses and overcoming attacks of nausea  went downstairs to the kitchen. Zhenya assumed that it was Kostya who disobeyed him and was up to something, so he was going to put him on the straight and narrow, but saw Zhora in the kitchen, pleased, and even not just pleased, but happy. Without saying a word Zhenya turned around and went outside to Kostya, he smoked and offered Kostya a bet: if Zhoura would have a diarrhea after having the borsh or not? Zhenka made a bet that he “would have diarrhea”, Kostya had to make his bet that “there would be no diarrhea”. However, what was the most amazing, Kostya really believed so, that it was doubtful that Zhora’s bowels would move after some two liters of bad borsh, and he did win the bet. Zhenka easily reacted to his loss, he only said: “Our daughter in law guttles anything”.

29 April, 2012.

Essay 153. Resonance

Believe me, I ask you very much indeed. It’s not my fault that I again and again come back to those last names. And what I am saying, not to the last names, but to the people, to the professors.

It happens so that I’ve  written the essay “Golubev and Sasha Plokhikh”, the twelfth one about the unforgettable Boris Feodorovitch Golubev, a professor of Social Sciences department, a very clever man and boozer, and a wonderful lecturer. Yes, at his lectures we, the graduates of Kemerovo medical institute of 1972, did anything we pleased, played sea battle, ouths and crosses, and the most reckless even played cards. Golubev B.F. lived near the institute. He had four boys. His wife worked at a cloakroom at the Sanitary-Hygiene building, and sometimes he could be met at the cloakroom, when he was substituting for his wife, who had left on some urgent business home. We, students, usually felt shy at the meetings, and he helped us feel at ease saying, when you got married, we would see what tricks you would play.
However his lectures were interesting, he was reading them the way they were remembered. Just tell me how we, greenhorn students, could not remember the following confidence of Boris Feodorovitch he shared with us at his class. Once at his lecture he was explaining, I do not remember what exactly, something about relativity. So he gave the following example; I am telling it from his name: “Once during a break between lectures I came home really quickly, because of necessity. It was extremely hot, and I was very thirsty. In the kitchen on a windowsill I noticed a bottle of beer, though not a full one. I was grateful to my wife, that she had left half a bottle for me, drank it in one gulp and hurried back to the institute. In the evening Zina asked me, whether I had seen a bottle on the windowsill. I replied that I’d seen it, and thanked her for the beer, that I had drunk it and put the bottle into a closet. And she started scolding me, as that was our son’s urine she had prepared to take for a test.”

There were the maxims he used at his lectures stating that everything was relative.

So after I posted the first essay in the internet, I started receiving e-mails from readers; and they were sending me plots of stories about Igor Victorovitch Golubev (see essay “Winter Examinations”) as well.
He was a good man, an excellent specialist, but the demon drink did not spare him too. What we did at the exam conducted by Boris Feodorovitch, when we poured vodka instead of water into a carafe for him, students did more than once at examinations conducted by Igor Victorovitch. And everything was just wonderful: the students and Igor Victorovitch were satisfied. Irina Gulnyashkina’s group was aware of all that and prepared for an exam correspondingly. At the beginning of the exam, when the first students were already with their examination papers and were preparing, to be more exact, closely watching Golubev, when he would check the carafe. Well, it should be said that it did not take them long. Golubev made a couple of rounds along the class room, approached a desk and carelessly, as if unwillingly, poured about twenty-thirty grams from the carafe into a glass and took a sip. And there one had to see Igor Viktorovitch. On his face, like in kaleidoscope, there were changing various expressions from expectation to complete satisfaction, and then, as if he remembered something, he carefully closed the carafe and said to the students: “I will be back soon” and quickly went out of the room, leaving the students by themselves without any control.

So there it started, guys were literally in panic… and they poured vodka into a sink. They assumed that Golubev left to bring the administration. The room was small, and smell of vodka was hanging thick in the air.  In five minutes Golubev came back. He had something wrapped in his hands. Golubev came in and breathed in via his quivering nostrils the air. Obviously he liked the smell in the room. He slowly, obviously prolonging the pleasure opened the carafe, put the stopper, which was also faceted like the carafe, on a small plate, slowly trickling started pouring into the glass, also faceted, but without a rim, the contents of the carafe. When he poured about one hundred grams, he with no hurry put the carafe back on the small plate and put the stopper on it. The guys were watching him mesmerized. In their mind there was rushing one and the same thought: “What will happen now?” Nevertheless physics are right by having proved the resonance phenomenon. In that case resonance got manifested itself – electromagnet waves of each of them got overlaid, and the silent question: “What will happen now” was as if loudly pealing in the small room. Golubev was also influenced by the resonance. Anxiety was also reflected in his face, everybody saw that. He grabbed the glass and drank what was in it in one gulp. Again there was a kaleidoscope of feelings on his face: disappointment, offence, anger… The professor put the glass on the table with such a bang, that everybody thought it would be smashed into smithereens. Golubev was smart, he quickly estimated the situation: “You got scared, idiots, and poured it into the sink, and I went to buy meat pies”. So he started conducting the exam. Frankly speaking, it was an exaggeration to talk about his conducting of the exam; he was giving unsatisfactory grades to everybody one after another.

And it is true, in those days, in Kemerovo they were selling very tasty round fried meat pies. Those who studied or lived in Kemerovo remember that there were many kiosks, equipped with big frying pans, where meat pies were fried. Back then they cost 19 kopeks, but their taste was worthy a whole ruble.

 29 April, 2012.

Essay 154. Shock therapy

I learned what shock therapy was already after graduation from the institute, when I was majoring in psychiatry. We were told about it and showed in all details varieties of shock treatment such as electroconvulsive therapy and insulin-shock therapy. Much later I also learned about shock therapy in economics. 

I will honestly admit that about the fifth kind of shock therapy I’ve learned just recently, even though I worked in medicine for more than twenty five years. It turns out that a unit of morbid anatomy of a hospital is called the fifth shock therapy.
After all I was going to write not about myself, but about a KSMI (Kemerovo State Medical Institute) graduate Victor Kiss. Those who follow my opuses already know him from the essay “Good Luck of Victor Kiss”. So if a person is lucky, he is lucky in everything. This is I am about Victor. As a curious guy and also a diligent student, Vitya never missed an opportunity to work a shift at a hospital. He worked at both a city clinic #9 at Kirovskiy district and a city hospital #3. Most of all he liked to work at a traumatology department of the city hospital. And it was there where he learned one of methods of shock therapy. It was the one neither of psychiatry nor of economics, but of traumatology. The method was quite unique and had not been described in any traumatology text books before. Vitya was keen to learn something special, that all the rest did not know. So here is what happened. Once in his fifth year Vitya was working a shift at an admission department of the city hospital #3. It should be mentioned in what company he was lucky to work. The company was the right one: legendary G.Y.Kutikhin, a chief traumatologist, and a doctor O.G. Shumilov, who was also teaching at a medical college of Kemerovo and brought a group of his students to practice during the shift. All in all there was a big crowd, and it was fun till they brought a patient with a craniocerebral trauma. That was written in a referral from an “ambulance”. Well and the patient himself was heavily drunk, he was stiff drunk, hammered, you name his state the way you wish, but it was a fact that he was too drunk to make sense.

And now imagine a two meters tall goon who weighted not less than one hundred and fifty kilos. And what was the most amazing that bastard, sorry, the patient did not react when he was spoken to, but he did not shut his mouth up, belching forth so ingenious swearing, that even hard core nurses of the admission department blushed, like, forgive me for saying it, girl students. I will add that there was a wound on the head of that marvel, there was blood all over him, and he also had motor anxiety. The first victim was a nurse who with the words: “Who did that to you, poor thing…” approached him to take the bandage off his head. However the goon pushed her and she flew like a bit of fluff to the corner and almost overturned a table with medical instruments. And swears followed her. Shumilov was trying to explain and demonstrate to his students on the patient the methodology of examining of an injured patient and performing of initial care. Though the hulk swore at him in a way known in that kind of situations and raised his hand against the medical college students; and those, poor things, shrank into corners, being reasonably afraid that they would get it hot just for nothing. And there came Kutikhin. To everybody’s surprise the dork stood calmly the examination and went accompanied by the same nurse to do an X-ray test. However in about twenty minutes they were returning with swearing again. He again tore the bandage off and was using foul language addressing everybody. Even to Kutikhin, when he had a look at a picture and said that there were no fractures, the troublemaker showed a fist and cursed him spelling every swear word. And what did Kutikhin do? He gave an order to bandage him and send home, and left for the traumatology department. And there the patient absolutely lost control; he was shouting, making a brawl and gave a kick to a nurse passing by.

Everybody who knows O.G.Shumilov, picture a nice, polite and well-mannered man.
However at that moment, after the last scurvy trick of the boot, Shumilov literally threw his doctor’s smock off, threw it away and with the words: “My doctor’s uniform did not allow me to give you a punch in the jaw”. Who could imagine that with two practically unnoticeable moves, he, let’s say delicately stopped the hooligan and sent him down the stairs out in the street. All the present at the admission department… Did you see a scene from “The Government General”? (also known as “The Inspector General, is a satirical play by a dramatist and novelist Nikolai Gogol. Originally published in 1836, the play is a comedy of errors.) The situation was exactly the same. Everybody was standing paralyzed. And then they happily rushed to greet and thank Shumilov. He only said addressing his students: “Shock therapy! Sometimes it’s very efficient”.

P.S. Afterwards it became known that the man was placed in the city hospital, but he did his best to pretend that he did not remember anything, when he met students and doctors he had been insulting.

1 May, 2012.
Essay 155. Good luck of Victor Kiss

If now to start remembering really hard, then it becomes clear that all professors of the Pharmacology Department were very strict and exacting. Sure enough, there was some sympathy and some antipathy felt for them, however basically students were afraid of them and had no special liking for them. Nevertheless when Vitya Kiss learned that in his group the course would be conducted neither by Sazykin, nor Sapozhnikov or Borovskikh, but by Nikolay Nikolayevitch Aleutskiy, he liked the news.

Aleutskiy was the head of the department and students considered him a man of his word, if he promised something, then he would do that without fail. Students’ bush telegraph did not have any rumors about him being especially hard on students. That was nice. Generally speaking long before his first class, there was if not mellow, then for sure not nervous atmosphere in the group concerning pharmacology. So in such working mood the group came to the first “pharma” class.
However it turned out that Vitya relaxed too early. There was a lot of talking afterwards, but nobody could find the reason, why Nikolay Nikolayevitch had not liked the group form the very first classes. What had happened, when happened and how happened, nobody had even the smallest idea, but the fact remained, and failed tests were pouring on the group, as if from the horn of plenty. Of course, they were passed later, though the new ones appeared without any delay; all that led to the situation, when before an examination Aleutskiy announced that nobody would pass it from the first try. The group grew numb with astonishment. How come? Why? Anticipation of death is worse than death itself. “And why to study and strain ourselves, if we do not pass it anyway?”. Voices of that kind sounded louder and louder in the group. However majority of the students studied, crammed and ground away at their books. It was not without a reason rumored among the students that Aleutskiy was a man of his word, and he should be given a credit for he was exactly that way. He did what he had promised that time as well; nobody in the group passed the exam after the first attempt. Of course, it was nice to deal with the man of his word, but the statement did not refer to the given situation. What was going on; only part of the group passed the exam after the second try? And Vitya was not one of them; he was assigned to take the pharmacology exam once again on 24 August!!! And what it meant? That meant say farewell to summer vacations. However Victor had a wonderful trait, he even did not notice it in his character first, not to mention others. Vitya could accept misfortune, which was a significant constituent of achieving happiness.  Sure enough that that summer he did not think about those philosophical maxims; it was much later when he discovered the trait in himself, and it downed on him like enlightenment, like a bolt from the blue. Yeah, they are not born wise, but become like that, unfortunately not all. Vitya and two of his friends, who also got added evidence of striking any imagination honesty of Nikolay Nikolayevitch, had to stop at the end of their rope on 24 August, after that there was looming an expel. The guys got really concentrated and studied, studied and studied again. They studied so hard, that they even decided to leave their homes for the final two weeks to avoid temptations, and they did not feel like communicating with anyone. So, there was the re-examination. If they used a tear-off calendar in Vitya’s family, they would‘ve for sure saved the page of 24 August as a relic.

However, there was no calendar. The last 18 students, who had been unlucky enough to fail the exam, gathered at the department. Everybody was waiting for Nikolay Nikolayevitch. He came at nine, as usually clean-shaved, and elegantly dressed. “What a dandy”, some students thought; “What a scum” – the other thought. Here is for you unity and conflict of opposites in one person, even though an attractive one, but of the head of the department. Victor and his buddies clustered together and were trying to prompt to each other. Aleutskiy heard that and loudly announced that Vitya’s prompts were incorrect, and it seemed to him, meaning Aleutskiy, that Vitya would fail again… Poor Victor, he sweated so much that his shirt stuck to his back, and everything vanished out of his mind. He was just sitting and waiting what everything would end up with. The first heroes went to answer and received a satisfactory grade each, nevertheless they were happy and darted out of the room; so there was Vitya’s turn to go to Aleutskiy, like a rabbit to a boa. I remember about forty or fifty year ago there was a song with the following words:
“And you keep saying over again that there are no miracles in life.
Well, what can I answer? They are there.
There are so many miracles in life, that all of them cannot even be counted.”
The song was splashing ardour and enthusiasm; and a miracle happened. It appeared in person of an associate professor of the Pharmacology department Popova, who at the very moment entered the examination room with the following words:” Nikolay Nokolayevitch, I decided to help you.” Aleutskiy: “Oh, no, you should not give yourself the trouble”. The associate professor Popova: “No, Nikolay Nikolayevitch, I cannot tolerate that you are working so hard, when on vacation”.
Aleutskiy, a well-known ladies man, sure enough agreed; so Popova loudly asked: “Who’s next?” Everybody was silent looking at Victor and Aleutskiy, who in his turn was also looking at Vitya Kiss. Yeah, there was some situation. Victor became dumb and was silent as well, but looking down at the floor. So Popova feeling great, as she came to help her boss, cheerfully approached the desk and picked up a random student’s record book.

 Now try to guess, whose record book she took? You are smart and guessed right away that that was Victor’s. Wow, what a mixture of feelings he had at the moment – joy, delight and some enlightenment. And how well he was answering; Good Lord, how enthusiastically he was talking about single doses of medicines and ratio of intake! It was like a song, and I would even say like a serenade. Vitya’s buddies quickly estimated the situation and one after another went to answer to Nikolay Nikolayevitch, who was listening to Viktor’s answer spellbound; he gave satisfactory grades to both of them with his eyes closed. And inspired Vitya remembered even what he had never known, and it was unlikely that he would’ve remembered that in a different situation, even if a machinegun was pointed at him. Popova was satisfied, she was about to give Viktor a good grade, and announced that out loud. Poor Nikolay Nikolayevitch almost had a stroke: “He does not know anything!!!” - he yelled. Popova answered quite calmly: “His answer was excellent!!!” – “Though we have a rule to put only satisfactory grades for re-examinations”. So they agreed on that. And during the argument an agile girl got a sat from N. N. Aleutskiy and went out of the room as fast as her legs could carry her, though nobody cared about that.

12 April, 2012.

Essay 156. Herd instinct

Where can one find measure of human foolishness? How to measure stupidity? In what units should foolishness be denoted? Even Albert Einstein, the Wise Head, as piqu; vests used to say in Ilf and Petrov (Ilf and Petrov were two Soviet authors of the 1920s and 1930s; they did much of their writing together, and are almost always referred to as "Ilf and Petrov"), even he cannot give distinct definition, except size of stupidity. He beautifully said that: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former”.

The first year at an institute is a period of formation. This is the time when everybody considers himself or herself clever, lucky and super quick-witted. They do not need any reasons or grounds for that. The very fact of entering the institute is the proof and explanation. And it’s a disaster if these feelings do not leave students on time. Paraphrasing Remarque (Erich Maria Remarque, 1989 – 1970, one of the most famous German writers of the XX century) it can be said that a student should not be ashamed to be stupid in his first year, though it’s a shame to graduate from the institute being a fool.
Galya Veldyaskina, even though she did not know these sayings by Einstein and Remarque, got evidence that they were right. Here is what happened. The Physics department for some reason was not taken seriously by students-medics. Reckless, without any life experience, everything seemed to be easy and simple to them and fun as well. Galina’s group was lucky, an associate professor Voronina was conducting a course of physics for them. She was not doing anything special, but honestly followed the academic curriculum of the first semester for the first year students.

Together with the group she conducted lots of laboratory experiments and was waiting, when her lazybones would start getting those works up properly in their exercise books and after that passing them. No, she was not waiting passively for the laboratory works to be properly presented, but many times appealed to the students’ conscience. However the number of delayed laboratory works was growing, and the number of days before examinations was inexorably decreasing. And the reckless even did not bother; it seemed to them that everything would be resolved by itself, and Voronina would forget about everything. Nevertheless Voronina was not in a hurry to forget anything, though the reckless are the reckless even in Africa, so they were still waiting for something.

Who was the first to suggest the idea, which in the best way proves the Einstein’s point about infinity of foolishness, cannot be determined even now, many years after graduation from the institute. Nobody wants to claim authorship of the idea, which could cost to many from the group their study at the institute. However back then everything seemed to be perfectly planned. Somehow they got the department’s telephone number. The group monitor, and it was she, who was trusted to play the main role, had to call from a pay-phone during another laboratory work, when it was possible to slip out of the class unnoticed, and call Voronina to the telephone and then keep saying hello, pretending that was a long distance call. She had to try to keep Voronina as long as possible at the telephone. Well, and the rest was a matter of skill and sleight of hand. So the group monitor went downstairs to the first floor of the building at Tretiy Osobiy to a pay phone; and what else could be done – there were not any mobile telephones back then, everybody got ready. Everything happened the way it had been planned. A laboratory assistant peeped into the class room and asked Voronina to the telephone saying that there was an urgent long distance call for her. Voronina left. Something unthinkable started in the group after that… Everybody as if they were crazy rushed all together to her desk and using her pen, snatching it out of hands of each other, started putting crosses in front of their names in her notebook as if their laboratory works had been passed. At that moment nobody even thought that those small crosses could turn into a big cross on their further study at the institute. Say whatever you like, but Einstein was right. Galina together with her best friend Yulishna, or simply Yulia, also yielded to the herd instinct, they also rushed to the desk, and when the pen came into their hands, they put only one cross each – they could not bring themselves write more. And the people as if grew mad; some of them came up to the desk for the second time and scribbled five or six “passed” marks for themselves.  Voronina was leaving almost a virgin clean notebook on the desk, and then she returned to …Good Lord, how much na;ve one should be to believe that the professor with many years of academic experience, associate professor of the department would not notice anything? One had to see how eyes of always kind and calm Voronina grew big because of so many crosses in her notebook. She went out of the class without saying a word. She was out for a long time. Suddenly everybody began to see clearly and realized that they did too many incredibly stupid things.

Voronina returned accompanied by the Dean and the head of the department. The conversation was extremely unpleasant for everybody. The students were reprimanded and threatened with expel, and everybody was very ashamed. At the end of the conversation Voronina looked in the notebook and suddenly pointed at Galya and Yulia and said: “Here, there are only two decent and honest people in your group, they did not put any grades to themselves, so I will mark their laboratory works as passed without presenting them to me. And all the rest of you will be presenting your laboratory works to me till the very summer, you are punished by your own greed and stupidity. You should be happy that have not been expelled”.
Voronina was very kindhearted, so nobody was presenting the laboratory works till summer. Everybody apologized and was forgiven. The case was not pursued.
And Galina and her dear friend Yulishna decided not to disappoint Voronina as for themselves.  They intuitively realized that failure to mention is not a lie.
 P.S. It is not a shame to be born stupid; one should be ashamed to die a fool (Erich Maria Remarque)

10 April, 2012








Essay 157. Cond’omer

So if you believe that Arkashka Bliakher was a poor and miserable student, then you are very wrong. Yes, I admit and confess that he was a target of practical jokes and pranks; including those played by me. However, did anybody poured salt by spoons into his soup, like it was done to Dimka Mkheidze? Or did anyone put a spoke bone under his bottom before he sat down? And with a sharp end up, like for Zhenka Romashov. Or was he mocked at, like Vadick Pochekutov, during the assembly? No, no and no again. I will tell even more – nobody put a dead frog into his briefcase, like to Slavka Sizikov. Why – I do not know. Maybe they liked him? Or maybe he was respected. I am not going to guess. There is one thing I know for sure – Arkadiy himself was the one who never missed a chance to play pranks at his close ones.  Let me tell you about everything in order.

Group eighteen, and later fourteen, was, generally speaking, a group of though the guys, but the ones striving for knowledge.

Most of us regularly worked in a reading room at the main building of the institute. Among regular visitors of the reading room I would name myself, Arkadiy Bliakher, and Slavka Sizikov. However, if I was a regular visitor, then Arkadiy was also a diligent visitor, which cannot be said about Slavka.

He went to the reading room on a regular basis. As a matter of fact he lived one hundred meters away from the main building. Though when he was in the reading room he was constantly hanging around the tables and annoyed everybody with all kinds of rubbish, then he was cadging cigarettes from them. And it is still a secret what brought the group monitor of our group Valeriy Kaigorodov to the reading room on that day. Slavka Sizikov was absolutely happy – Valera was his friend, and he always treated him to cigarettes without a murmur, so he did not have to fool people in order to ask, as if incidentally, for a cigarette later.
So after two or three smoke breaks Valera and Slava approached Arkadiy and me with a question: “Where is it possible to get Esmarch’s tourniquet?”

For your information I will say that this is a known to everyone rubber compression bandage used to stop bleeding of lower and upper extremities.  Though Valera named it by its inventor’s name and could not explain what it was.  And there the initiative was taken by Arkashka. He demonstratively slapped himself on his forehead and exclaimed: “This is the cond’omer”.  Valera asked suspiciously: “A condom?”.  But Arkashka persuasively explained to him that a condom so to say was a condom, but a cond’omer was an Esmarch’s tourniquet. Arkadiy’s reputation was somewhat different from mine. If I’d started saying that Esmarch’s tourniquet was a cond’omer, Valera would’ve never believed that whatsoever. Arkasha was quite different; nobody expected a mean trick from him.  However Arkadiy also got carried away and started developing the trick.

He announced that a day before he saw a cond’omer at a #9 drugstore, which was a hundred meters away from the institute. And even more to that, Arkadiy declared that they were buying cond’omers fast, so it was risky to delay the purchase. So he suggested immediately going to the drugstore to buy it. Those sitting around were listening to our conversation. They immediately realized that that was a prank and started persuading Valera that cond’omers were not easy to find, and if he needed one, it had to be bought. Kolya Kozlov even stated that he was going to the drugstore to get the very tourniquet. That had an effect of a trigger, so Valera said that he would be back in ten minutes and asked to watch his books. Though who would do the watching? Everybody who was aware of what was going on also started for the drugstore as if to get the very Esmarch’s tourniquet.
When the crowd went out of the institute, Valera demanded that he would be the first one to buy the cond’omer, as it was he, who started talking about it.  Everybody agreed, only Kolya insisted that in that case he would be the second in the line.  So talking that  way we barged into the drugstore. At the counter there was standing a young woman.  I cannot bring myself to describe the way she looked. And it is even not because of her appearance, but because of the disdainfully arrogant expression of her face. Later Arkasha Bliakher said about her: “She wanted to be a flight attendant…”, but that was later. When we lined up behind Valera and prepared to listen, the unaccomplished flight attendant asked Valera through her clenched teeth, what he wanted? Valera vigorously and a bit provocatively announced: “a cond’omer”.

The flight attendant grew dumb with astonishment: “What?”. “A cond’omer”, - Valera said again with an accent on “o” in a squeaky falsetto voice. It was interesting to watch the face of the pharmacist-flight attendant. For some reason it started slowly turning red and literally became of color of a beetroot.  Nevertheless she did not lose her self-control and uttered slowly and distinctly  to Valera that she recognized the group as students of the medical institute, and that they had to know that correctly it had to be said not a cond’omer, but a condom. And that colloquially that was also called a rubber. Then she insidiously asked, what exactly Valera needed: a condom or a rubber?  Everybody laughed out loud together. Everybody, except for Valera.  There were tears in his eyes.
Valera left without saying a word. For two weeks Valera did not speak with anyone of us, even with his close friend Slava Sizikov.

25 February,  2013

Essay 158. Help-it’s a panic

So it was God’s will to bring all three of us, who studied in the same group at the institute, together in Kurgan region. How much happy we were, when we met at Kurgan regional hospital. We, together with Arkashka Bliakher hugged and squeezed Valia Timoshka, expressing our joy in every possible way. As we did not know, or maybe did not remember, that we were placed on jobs there long ago.  When I received address of an apartment where I would have to live for four months, I was told that the room was for three people, and I was going to have two room-mates.  So after some questions about various arrangements we were dismissed to get settled at our accommodation. I was walking to the address I’d been given to Proletarskaya Str., 18-6, but I noticed that Arkashka tagged after me. I explained to him that we would meet later, and that I was going to the apartment. Though Arkadiy, too, told me something like – go your way, as he was also walking to his apartment. To put it short, gradually we found out that we would dwell together at the address of Proletarskaya Str., 18-6. However Arkashka and I were tortured by the question about: who would be the third one? My Lord, what if that was Timoshka, who would share the accommodation with us? I protested and even stated that I would refuse from my specialization training, if Timoshka would not be moved out from our place. Arkasha quite seriously was placating  me saying that it was not possible, as we were males, and she was a female anyway.  I opposed him with a good reason, because I knew what kind of tricks Kurgan bureaucrats played to keep young doctors longer in the region. I told him a horror story, which took place in our village of Chashi. In the year of 1972 two institute graduates arrived to Chashi district hospital: Volodia, a pediatrician from Tomsk, and Marina a therapeutist from Novosibirsk.  So local jokers from the district administration offered a three room apartment (!) for two of them, saying that there were not any other apartments at that time. Well, and what do you think happened? The jokers reached their goal – Marina got pregnant right away, and Volodia, as a gentleman, “had to” marry her. The wedding was on 7 November. At the wedding the head of the district executive committee announced that it was his idea. I was too fast to state that Volodia “had to” marry. In about ten years I met the couple on Novosibirsk academic campus; they lived happily in their marriage.  I openly told Arkadiy that he was a happy man, because he was already married, and what choices I had as a single man. I sacredly believed in the truth of Zhvanetskiy’s  (Mikhail Zhvanetskiy is a famous satirist, known by his catch phrases) words, that when socializing with a woman one awkward move, and you were already the father! I did not want to follow the path of Volodia and marry, like a gentleman, after an awkward move. Arkasha laughed heartily at me, as there was always a possibility of divorce. However even in that situation I believed the phrase, though not Zhvanetskiy’s one, but of Kisa Vorobianinov (a character of a satirical novel “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilf and Petrov): “To get married is for the lifetime!”.

We did not notice how being deeply engaged in our discussion we reached the place we would share for the four months to come. To our surprise and joy there was already the Third there, and thanks God, the third was not Timokha, but on the contrary – that was a young guy. Volodia Tsargorodtsev – he introduced himself.  In the morning we honestly told Timokha about our cordial sorrow and the big joy that it would not be her to share our room with, but Volodia, who we immediately introduced to her.  Valia was not offended, she told Volodia that Arkashka and I did not become smarter after we’d received our diplomas, if only turned the opposite.  Generally speaking, we resolved the domestic problem during our specialization training.  I would like to tell you a couple of words more about Volodya Tsargorodtsev.  He was a guy from Vladivostok. He graduated from the medical institute there. At that time the guy’s father was a big boss at “Dal-Ryba” (fish processing and trading industry). During socialism times that was something like “Gazprom” now.  The guy had superb perspectives. However he did not want to live in the “outskirts of Russia” and decided to get his job placement after his graduation from the institute in Kurtamysh in Kurgan region, because that was not some “Far Eastern god-forsaken hole”, but a place closer to Europe. I am not going to describe to you his disappointment after getting acquainted with the “European” part of Russia. I will only say that he was disappointed. Nevertheless Volodia did not give up. He knew tons of Jewish jokes, which he could tell with special charm. Arkashka and I were amazed by his ability to start telling a joke at the very first request and stop only because of some objective reason.

Every day we walked to the regional hospital along the central square of Kurgan by the theatre. In those old days of total and general deficit there was a tradition that at theatre cafeterias there were always delicacies of some kind.

So Voldia really annoyed Arkadiy and me with his  anguish for cervelat, so we decided to take him to the theatre on one of the weekends, when all three of us because of some reason stayed in Kurgan and did not go to our homes. You won’t  believe that, but we even did not have lunch, as we assumed that we would have plenty of sandwiches with smoked sausage, caviar and cheese, and maybe if we got lucky treat ourselves to “Dvin” produced in Yerevan (Yerevan, capital of Armenia, famous for its cognac and brandy production). We pressed our pants, Arkashka tied Volodia and me our ties; he was an ace in doing that. Generally speaking, we dressed up and a couple of hours before the show arrived to the theatre to watch Menglet (Georgiy Menglet 1912 – 2001, a Soviet and Russian actor), who was performing on that day. To our surprise we were let inside the theatr, and the cafeteria was open, and to our joy there were all objects of our dreams available –open  sandwiches with smoked sausage “Moskovskaya” and with meat loaf “Soviet”, and with cheese “Russian”, and most importantly there was Dvin there.

There were also open sandwiches with caviar, but Volodia said that they  were inedible , and one could believe him; he was from Bladik (Vladivostok), where people were experts on caviar.  Arkashka also made his contribution, he demanded, or to be more precise insistently asked to uncork “Dvin” before our very eyes and pour it not under the counter, but on it. Arkadiy did not have to explain to us the reasons of such overscrupulousness, we immediately grasped his point. You know, in those days all soviet barmaids looked alike. Of course, they were different, but at the same time could be recognized a mile away.

They had grand stature with generous front, on the head there was a pile of henna dyed hair. And the most important thing was the face, all of them had a carbon copy face expression of one another: independently-arrogant and scornfully-condescending. And what else one could expect to see; they had access to deficit… Our barmaid was from the cohort, though she felt some inexplicable liking for us, and when we were making an order, she even whispered that she did not recommend taking caviar, as it was stale.
It was something unbelievable. Or maybe it was because we showed up that early, and she was simply bored. Anyway when we after having a significant snack left and then came back again, she welcomed us , like old friends, and loudly proclaimed: “Well, shall we repeat that?”.  That was exactly what we came for.  Generally speaking after visiting the cafeteria twice and having a full-scale sampling of “Dvin”, we felt comfortable and a bit frivolous. Volodia kept asking why in the halls and everywhere around, where it was only possible, there were hanging fire extinguishers. He approached them and checked their expiry dates on labels.  Arkashka and I worried that he could have an idea to test some of them. Bliakher read a long lecture to Volodia saying that there were many people in the theatre, and that risk of casualties was high in case of fire. All in all he was doing his best to distract Volodia from his intention to test fire extinguishers, at least one of them.
As for Arkashka’s comment about a big number of people in the theatre, he argued that if calculated on that day, the number of fire extinguishers was twice bigger than the audience. And he was right, son of a gun.

That was especially obvious in the auditoriu. We, like three idiots, sat in the third row, and there was nobody in front of us, but interestingly enough, there were not many people behind us as well. Yeah, Kurgan theater had problems with attendance.  They obviously did not have any problems with fire extinguishers, but the attendance left much to be desired. When we settled in the hall, Volodia kept looking around. It turned out that he was looking for fire extinguishers in the auditorium, and was indignant by the obvious fault of the administration; in the foyer and corridors there were fire extinguishers in every meter or two, but there was none in the auditorium.

He started debating with Arkashka demanding, that at least one fire-fighting set had to be placed in the auditorium, the one which consisted of a pick hammer,  a crow, a hook, a cone-shaped pail and a spade. And together with the set, there had to be a box with sand.  Volodia got so much carried away giving reasons to Arkashka that as soon as few people came there, a half, or at least one fourth of the chairs could be taken out, and in the spare space fire hoses could be put and a couple of fire hydrants be installed.

Then such extremely fire-safe theatre would attract crowds of people, who would come there to see new products of firefighting accessories.  And then the price could be raised to compensate the disassembled chairs. Volodia was carried away to greater degree than even Bender (a character of a satirical novel “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilf and Petrov), when he was predicting transformation of Vasiuki into New Moscow.  I did not interfere into their discussion, but did not miss any curve of thinking of the new genius of fire prevention in the theatre.  I even liked that Arkashka and I got such a unique roommate. Their interesting conversation was interrupted by an attendant, as gradually they started talking really loud. Volodia set quietly for five minutes and then again started looking out for something that time on the stage. “It’ a disgrace”, - his loud whisper could be heard, “There are no fire extinguishers on the stage. And what if there is fire!”. Arkasha almost lost his temper trying to placate Volodia. He asked me to help him. He’d better not, because I absolutely agreed with Volodia and his clincher: “And what if there’s fire?”. And then unspeakable happened in the middle of the first act.

There was smoke coming from under the back curtain. Volodia was the first to cry: “Fire, we’re burning, help!”.  And he was shouting not with suffering, but with joy.  He instantly rushed somewhere from his seat. He got crazy, Arkashaka and I concluded. However a real fireman came out from the curtain and asked everybody to leave the auditorium without panic and rush. When we were leaving the hall, Volodia was running to us with a fire extinguisher in his hands. When he reached the stage he banged the fire extinguisher’s fuse at the floor and threw it on the stage. The fire extinguisher was rolling, spitting foam everywhere. Volodia was happy. “Just look at that – it functions”, he grabbed us by sleeves. Now you, please, explain to me, what really happened? All evening long before the beginning of the show and after it we were talking about fire, so it turned out to be self-fulfilling prophecy?

However that night left the most wonderful memories, and especially those of “Dvin”.  The fact that we continued the so finely started evening with “Posolskaia” (vodka brand) did not spoil the impression, but even added spice to it.

8 April,  2013.

Essay 159. The Gypsy Baron
One can argue about bad doctors we have, and how badly they teach students medicine. I absolutely do not agree with the statements. We have good doctors and they taught medicine, at least, my generation, really well. Those who wanted to study studied and became not just fine, but wonderful, outstanding professionals. As for the fact that we had some mishaps that was the very learning process, a doctor goes through for all the period of his practice. For instance, I was so much disappointed and grieving, when after my arrival to the village of Chashi to work as a surgeon, during the very first surgery I could not for three hours find appendix of my patient. Only after I called to help me a local gynecologist Lubov Andreyevna, and she found it, I performed appendectomy.  Yes, later I remembered that we had been told at the institute, that a caecum could be located behind peritoneum. Though, we had not been shown it even once, as there had happened to be no patients of that kind.

And there I had my first patients and with such a unique case. And the appendix was a phlegmonic one. Indisputably a label of a booby and not of a surgeon could be stuck to me. However that was a great experience to me! And later it helped me. In my surgical practice I had one more similar case, and, believe me, in that situation I acted up to the standard and right away suspected retroperitoneal location of appendix , and the surgery lasted even though not fifteen minutes, but neither four hours as well.

And here is  a case from medical practice of my fellow student. I am not giving her full name because of obvious reasons; let’s call her Sveta in this story. I will tell you the “horror” story with her permission. Everybody knows what Kusko’s mirror is.  It is familiar to practically all women, though they may not know its name.  So one day a young gynecologist Svetlana had an appointment with another young specialist, a village school teacher, where both of them worked during their first year after graduating from their universities. Thanks God, the patient had nothing serious, and after examining her Sveta honestly told her so.  The young teacher happily left the office.  Though Svetlana had almost finished receiving patients at her women’s consulting office, when Anna (the teacher) entered her office again. She complained that something was making her uncomfortable!?... No problem, Svetlana quickly put Anna on the examination chair had a look and …, her jaw slowly fell down… “My goodness”, - Svetlana thought, - “How could I do that?” She left the Kusko mirror in her patient after examining her in the morning.

Svetlana felt how her cheeks turned red under her gauge bandage. She quickly regained her self-control and in a confident voice announced: “I am sorry, I left a prophylaxis tampon, but forgot to tell you about that, it’s good that you’ve come yourself”. Svetlana told me that she had sensed that Anna did not believe her, but just pretended as if she trusted her.  And Svetlana in her turn acted as if she was confident that Anna believed her. To Svetlana’s good luck, Anna was a calm and even-tempered girl, so she raised no scandal. Anyway literally in a month she got married and left for Mezhdurechensk to join her husband, so they never met again.  However Svetlana remembered that case for all her life and later, when she became a head of a department in a big hospital, she always told about it to the beginning doctors and nurses.  Amazing enough, but respect to her among the beginners only increased after the story.
The both cases were with Svetlana and me after our graduation from the institute. And here is a short story, which happened during internship after the fourth year.  It was told by the very Svetlana. She had her surgery internship at a hospital of railway industry in Novokuznetsk. Somehow it happened so that she was the only one from Kemerovo Medical Institute there, the rest of the students were from Tomsk. So one day all of them were sitting in a doctors’ lounge  discussing in a slightly joking manner
the surgeries they performed, of course they were the doctors who discussed the surgeries, and the students were sitting with their mouths wide open listening to them.
A nurse entered and reported that a patient from the ward # 7 had urinary difficulty and he was making a lot of noise for the whole department to hear. And the patient was a Gypsy, and not just a Gypsy, but a Gypsy Baron or something like that; he had adenoma of prostate, so he was absolutely forbidden to drink alcohol. Every time after a party his sons brought him to the hospital, and he was annoying doctors at the department for a couple of days until his urination restored back to normal in a natural way. Everybody at the department knew the patient.
With the help of a metal catheter he was urinating easily, and the procedure was not a problem. Why the head of the department sent Rimma, a female student from Tomsk, to perform the urinary excretion procedure on the Gypsy remained an enigma.  Though, Rimma left proud of the trust.

A couple of words about Rimma herself.  She was petit and about one meter fifty centimeters maximum tall. She had a very fine slim figure. She always wore miniskirts, and her doctor’s smocks were of medium length. So when flaps of her doctor’s smock opened a  bit, that was very spectacular. To cut it short, that very cute babe left to help the old Gypsy urinate via a catheter. In about five minutes she rushed into the doctors’ lounge, her eyes widely open, her doctor’s hat cocked and shouted: “I’ve broken the catheter, I’ve broken the catheter”.

Sure enough everybody jumped and ran to the #7 ward. One had to see the poor old Gypsy… It’s not clear what kind of manipulations she was performing with the catheter and the object it was applied to, but the man, and the Gypsy even though he was a mature one, but still a man, responded in a natural and adequate way to the manipulations. Rimma estimated that, as if the catheter got broken inside urethra and raised panic and called for help loud enough to be heard in all corners of the
department.
Yeah, it was good that the internship was over in a couple of days, because every morning at the end of the morning conference somebody always asked, if any of the patients had urinary retention? And everybody was laughing loudly, and Rimma was laughing together with them her face red like a beetroot.
18 June, 2013ã.

Essay 160. SI system
Of course, everybody knows that the International System of Units, which is based on centimeter, gram and second, was proposed by a smart German, whose last name was Gauss in a remote year of 1832. Later there were many of those, who wanted to improve the System. Most different variants were suggested. However the Slavs did not bother – meter, centimeter. They were quite comfortable with a native system of units, which gave such freedom for imagination.

They were comfortable until a certain moment, when inquisitive Russian mind got puzzled with practical application of the system of units. However, let’s put everything in order.

It could not be denied that Sasha Popov’s company was solid. It could not be any other way, as all of them were infected with fishing and hiking. The guys were quick-witted and inventive. They had no problems with humor as well.  They suffered permanent and chronic lack of bank notes. That was exactly like that, they had something, but that was always not enough. However a credit should be given to the company, they did not feel sorry about that a lot.

All of them got ready for another regular trip to Mezhdurechensk, as if for skiing. Sure enough they took skis with them, as well as various skis lubricants. You won’t believe that, but each of them brought a good piece of salted fat “just in case”.  They also took money with them; as much as each of them had got. They were sitting in a hotel pondering on whether they would not drink, that would be a crime, and if other guys had learned about that, they would mock at them. And unluckily they terribly wanted to have a drink. So all discussions were around the only question of  - what to buy?

Suggestions were the most different starting from “Agdam”, which was well known in those years in Kuzbass. And somebody even offered to get “Posolskaya (a vodka brand)”. Only Misha Leonov did not participate in the conversation; he was sitting with his eyes closed and his lips were moving. Frankly speaking, nobody paid any attention at him. However at the most heated moment of the discussion about “Posolskaya” Misha as if woke up and announced that Vietnamese vodka had the highest degree of gram-percent-kopek (GPK), and it should be in a bottles with capacity of seven hundred grams.
Everybody grew dumb with astonishment. And Misha... here is what pride and well deserved attention of the other does to man. So Misha became barrel-chested, but clearly and convincingly explained to everybody, that with the budget they had the Vietnamese vodka in a seven hundred gram bottle was the best buy.

He produced calculations and examples with a pen in his hand. He compared GPK of various brands of vodka and wine and finally proved that he was right. A bit later everybody was offering toasts to Misha, to the new unit: gram-percent-kopek and was very sorry that nobody had thought to introduce such an important for people measuring unit into the SI.



TABLE 2.1 Units of the SI system, units derived from the SI system, and their relationship to several English units.

Property
being
measured
Basic
SI Unit
Derived units
Relationship
to English Unit
length
meter (m)
kilometer (km)
1 km = 1000 m
centimeter (cm)
1 cm = 0.01 m
1 m = 39.37 in.
1.61 km = 1 mi
2.54 cm = 1 in.
mass
kilogram (kg)
gram (g) 
1 g = 0.001 kg
1 kg = 2.204 lb
453.6 g = 1 lb
volume
cubic meter (m3)
liter (L)
1 L = 0.001 m3
cubic centimeter (cm3, cc)
1 cm3 = 0.001 L
milliliter (mL)
1 mL = 1 cm3
1 L = 1.057 qt
946 mL = 1.0 qt
temperature
Kelvin (K)
Celsius (C)
K = °C + 273.15
Fahrenheit (F)
°C =
°F - 32



1.8
= 5/9 (°F - 32)

energy
joule (J)
calorie (cal)
1 cal = 4.184 J
kilocalorie (kcal)
1 kcal = 1000 cal
  





It was true though that the guys themselves did nothing to glorify Misha and file an application about a new unit for the SI System – gram-percent-kopek. However they themselves had actively used GPK since that moment.
21 July, 2013ã.

Essay 161. Foie gras
Foie gras is a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. The word is indeclinable, and officially its gender is neuter, but in everyday Russian life there is a tendency to decline it in feminine gender.
There are many ways of servicing foie gras, but most of all I like this one.   
There is a heap of dandelion leaves, and there is the goose liver on the heap as if carelessly scattered and a bit roasted. It is breathing, as they say. On the side there are obligatory twenty big white gapes cut in halves and fried in goose fat. Everything is sprinkled with roasted pine nuts. And I’ve almost forgot, there should be a couple of well-done toasts. My mouth is watering, while I am writing this now.

I have to admit that I love to treat myself to foie gras.
However we are talking not about me, but about Sasha Popovitch. He too passionately loves foie gras now. And then, in the fall of 1966, when he just entered Kemerovo Medical Institute, and like the rest of them, was sent to a collective farm to dig potatoes, Sasha knew nothing about foie gras.  That was the vicious policy the Communists had – farmers planted potatoes, weeding and especially digging was done by students, but information about foie gras was not provided neither to the farmers, nor the students whatsoever.
Zhenya Romashov was the lucky one; they were assigned to clean hen houses. So they had no problems with food. They had chicken cooked in most different ways and abundance of eggs. Shura Popovitch together with the other did not get lucky on the collective farm they had been sent to, they were fed poorly.  Though their young organisms demanded food, and demanded in a loud and persistent way. So Sasha together with his friend Edick Zemlianukhin wavered under the pressure and went to steal geese on the very same collective farm.

Don’t judge them strictly. Yes, they were stealing, but because of lack of food.  They quickly got a hand of doing that, especially Edick, he was very gifted in general; that is why he is a chief physician at an acute care station in Kemerovo. And back then they had no less than goose soup every day. And about five people were fed together with them.
Generally speaking for two weeks of harvesting they were the heroes and idols of a certain circle of initiates.   Though, frankly speaking, practically everybody knew about the fact that geese were missing on the collective farm.  However how and where, only the initiates knew.
After returning to classes the topic of geese was brought up again, but in the form of stories told during breaks and student parties, and with every other story it became more and more impressive.

And then as it usually happens the topic became out-of-date. However in 1971 a young lieutenant of medical service arrived to be placed on jobs Oleg Mukhopad, Sasha’s buddy. After graduating from Tomsk Military Medicine Academy he was assigned jobs as a head of medical corps to a military unit 21070, which was stationed in Kemerovo.
Their meeting was a happy and abundant one, and after the third Sasha, a sixth year student, already proposed himself for a position of a medical assistant, and after the fifth they remembered about geese.
Oleg did hired Sasha as a medical assistant, so one day the medical corps lieutenant and the sixths year student-almost a graduate, in that case not because of starvation, but pure foolishness went to the nearest village on a military jeep, nicknamed “a loaf” with intentionally stained with dirt car plates and armed with Sasha’s small-calibre gun.

In the village they shot a couple of geese practically in full view of dumb stricken locals, and before the villagers came to their senses drove away.

You, sure enough, remember lieutenant Schmidt’s “son” unforgettable Mikhail Panikovskiy from “ The Little Golden Calf” ( it is a famous satirical novel by Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, released in 1931). Mikhail Samuelevitch loved goose very much, and that was why he kept trying to steal a goose. The true boobies and goose lovers put at the steering wheel a career soldier Valera Lukashkin.
In a couple of weeks they made the sally again. Things were going on like that for August-September. One morning after a regular expropriation, when their heads relatively cleared after “the yesterday’s”, suddenly they were struck by insight. Both of them became terribly ashamed and scared.  If they were caught by the local men in the village, they would be at least generously let have it. And if they were caught by the cops…, it was scary even to think about that… And you say Panikovskiy.

Foie gras - is  a synonym of gastronomic chic and cultural myth.


                12 July, 2013
Essay 162. Divine disposition
The village of Pepelino, where there was a Kurgan regional lunatic asylum, where I worked and where to I later attracted Pet’ka Kozlov (his last name could be translated as “a goat”) together with his wife, consisted of the only street of three and a half kilometers long. Even though a post office, a store and a hospital were located in the village center, and we lived not far from the hospital, the village seemed to be huge to Peter, and he almost immediately bought a motorbike “Voskhod”, or as it was colloquially called a“Goat”.
Sure enough, I immediately inquired, whether Peter was not worried that people would say something like “one goat is carrying another one”? We were friends, and even the joke was a rude one, Pet’ka did not mind it and drove to the store only on his bike. Pet’ka started right away bothering me with an idea that I had to buy a similar bike for myself. He was saying that we would ride around the area, that he would introduce me to hunting, and we would ride together to gather mushrooms and berries. So there were the final arguments he persuaded me with. For about two months we were driving around without any driving licenses and rules. Then Peter suggested getting driving licenses.
In the village they were advertising a driving training course, which was taught by a husband of one of the hospital nurses. Generally speaking, we got the certificate of finishing the course without any problems. A team of examiners even arrived to the village to conduct final examinations. Peter and I knew by heart all forty examination cards of ten questions in each, and passed the theory test from the first try with distinction.

The motorbike driving test we passed also from the first attempt. Though as for a car driving test, we had some problem. Neither Pet’ka nor I passed it from the first try.  In my case the car moved backwards when starting, and Pet’ka, when starting, forgot to switch on the turn to the left light. We were politely explained that those were very gross mistakes and allowed to have car driving re-examination in a week, but that time at the district center, the town of Kurtamysh.
Peter got very upset, as he had had a driving license before, and driving, in his mind, was not a problem for him. And I missed a chance and did not swear to him that I would pass the test from the second try as well. That was a mistake, I comcluded, when I failed the driving test for the tenth time. And when I failed the test the seventeenth time, I honestly announced that that was a big mistake.

Yeah, the epic of taking a driving test made me popular among traffic police officers practically of all district centers of Kurgan region. For some reason I assumed that they intentionally made me fail in Kurtamysh district and went to take the test to the one of Kargopol. And then to Dalmatovskiy, and after that  to Kurgan regional traffic police station. They recognized me and welcomed like a family member, saying: “Ah, here is a psychiatrist from Pepelino!”, though every time I did something wrong, I did not make way for an obstacle from the right, or I did not put anyone to watch, when I was driving out of a gateway. Generally speaking, I will not remember now all odd things I was doing during those examinations.

However the seventeen examinations I failed definitely tell about something.  To cut a long story short, after the seventeenth failure, I made up my mind to quit. I had no car at that time anyway, and I was already issued the license to drive a motorbike.
An incident made me resume to a new try to take the driving test and receive a license to drive a car. And that was the try number eighteen. Once a man with depression was delivered to my department, when reading his case history I found out that he was a driving school director at a town of Shadrinsk, Kurgan region.

Good gracious, how it could happen that I was practically everywhere, but not in Shadrinsk to take the driving examination.  And my former group mate Galya Vinnik worked there as the head of the urology department, and for sure, she had good contacts in the traffic police there. Though I thought better of it, I would pass the examination by myself. I treated Ivan Semenovitch like the rest of the patients, without any special attention, but he recovered faster than usually, and when being discharged, he enquired, what he could do for me to express his gratitude. So I told him my long story of taking car driving exams. He laughed and offered me to come to Shadrinsk in a couple of days to receive the driving license.  I nearly made him depressed again by my rejection. He was very much surprised, when I asked him to do me quite a different favor. I asked for his permission to study at his school, but instead of the full course, only  for two weeks, and he  would give me a personal driving  instructor for about four hours a day. And I would take an exam on general terms together with the rest of the students.  Those were two interesting weeks. That was then that I was satisfied that psychiatrists had vacation of forty eight days. I took two weeks of vacation, and stayed at a hotel of a district CP committee for all that time. So together with uncle Misha we were driving along Shadrinsk in an old GAZ (a car made at Gorky Automobile Making Factory).  It was just terrible, if to count, how much we together with uncle Misha earned by moonlighting for those two weeks. We carried logs, and furniture, and stuff from a container station. Uncle Misha was both an instructor and an entrepreneur for moonlighting. He absolutely did not agree with my suggestion of conducting division of money and insisted on equal shares. The only thing he accepted from me was a bottle of “the der white” (colloquial for vodka) once in two days. However he drilled me in the best way possible.

I can boast that on 5 November, 1975 during sleet, I would like to stress that there was sleet, I passed both theory and driving exams with excellent grades and received a driving license with valid categories of “A”, “B” and “C”.  That’s right, I received the driving license of a professional. And somebody told me that eighteen times was a shame. Though, I believe that it was disposition of God, because since then I’ve driven cars without any problems.
21 July,  2013.

Essay 163. Chizhik-Pyzhik*
*Chizhik-Pyzhik is a name of a children’s rhyme of 19th century, which refers to students of the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St.Petersburg, Russia. The students wore uniform of yellow and green colors, which resembled the colors of a bird called the Siskin (Russian:  chizhik). Because of that, they were nicknamed Chizhiks-Pyzhiks.

Siberia is Siberia. And it is cold in Siberia in winter.  I remember that it was even forty eight degrees below zero. So one definitely needs a hat in Siberia, and it’d better be warm.

And it is even better, if it is warm and fashionable.  Deer-skin and mink hats were considered to be the coolest. Nutria hats were prestigious too. As for rabbit hats, even though one could not buy them in a store, everybody had them. As Raikin said (Arkady Isaakovich Raikin, 1911-1987, was a very famous Soviet stand-up comedian): “We do not like him, but he also has it”. For the first two years of the university I was parading in a rabbit hat. So when before my leaving Frunze for Kemerovo to study in the third year, my Batya in a spectacular way took out from some secret place a pale yellow nutria hat, I was absolutely happy.
I was a boaster by nature and knew that I did not see a similar hat on anybody in Kemerovo.
Generally speaking, I understood very well the pride of Misha Lobanov, when he appeared in front of his friends wearing a deer-skin hat. Yeah, to get such a hat was a real act of heroism.

Only members of the CP Central Committee and CP Regional Committees wore deer-skin hats. And then Misha also did. He was literally trembling over it. To enter a canteen in a hat? Maybe majority would not do that, but Misha could not leave his pet without his personal supervision, even with guarantees of a cloakroom attendant.

His friends together with Shurik Popovitch had a suspicion that he was paying less attention to his girlfriend than to the hat. Oh, I am sorry, not just a hat, but a deer-skin hat.  So if someone did not care, then Popovitch could not sleep, because of such an unfair shift of love balance from the girl to the hat, even though the deer-skin one. He just could not leave the fact without any reaction.  Long before he made up his mind what to do, Kirillytch, as Sasha Popovitch was nicknamed by his friends, used any opportunity to say that, it was a big risk to wear such a hat; as they would, as sure as fate, take it off from his head. And in those days there were lots of cases of such kind in Kuzbass.  Even though Criminal Code of Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics classified such acts not as theft, but robbery, which was punished much more severely, bad guys were not stopped by that. So Kirillytch was shamelessly using the fact.  Misha only snarled back saying, let them only try…
It was cool to wear a deer-skin hat in Kemerovo, but it was also cool to go skiing in it to Mezhdurechensk.  One day a group of friends together with Kirillytch and Misha-the hat-owner went to Mezhdurechensk. They had great skiing, and on the way back there was a stop at Novokuznetsk.
Passengers all together left the bus. Some wanted to use a potty, and some wanted to buy a pie. Popovitch was bit late; he was the last to leave the bus.  He too was bothered by two problems, both of the potty and the pie, and decided to resolve them starting from the first. “The small hut” as it was called buy Gennady Khazanov (Gennady Khazanov, 1945, is a Russian stand-up comedian and an actor) was located in a basement and divided into sections by plywood partitions not more than a meter high. When Kirrilytch entered the “small hut” a wave of cold air got mixed with atmosphere of the hut and filled the facility with clouds of fog. Though, even through the fog Shura Popovitch saw the familiar deer-skin hat above the partition of on one of the sections.

The plan got made by itself: while Misha was with his pants down, grab the hat and rush outside.  He made a point to prove to the stubborn hat-owner that a hat could be stolen even from his head. He did like he planned. In a second Shura was outdoors with a hat in his bosom. And in another second a former hat owner darted out.  He had tragicomic outlook: his hair was ruffled, coat unbuttoned, and there was nothing to say about his pants. I believe the readers have vivid imagination, so each of them can imagine a man, who worried about saving his deer-skin treasure, but not about putting his passt at least on.
Misha was nearsighted, and in the frost his glasses became hoary, so he could see absolutely nothing.

Of course, Aleksander Kirillovitch Popovitch was not a scum; he approached Misha and with the words of consolation slapped on Misha’s head the loss. That was not the moment to say anything comforting. Misha was on the edge of hysterics.  Later, when on the bus all the way long from Novokuznetsk to Kemerovo the friends did not feel sorry for Misha any longer, and asked Popovitch to tell again and again about the way the hat looked over the section of the “small hut”, most of all they were interested in the external appearance and details of the outlook, even more than, when Misha rushed out to catch the robber. The bus was shaking with of roars of laughter.
21 July, 2013.

Essay 164. Culinary terrorist act

Just have a look at a plate of borsh. How many associations it can invoke in a man not devoid of imagination. Without any doubts your mouth is watering now, and you feel like stirring sour cream and eat, eat, eat…

Why not, most of people would act exactly that way. And if  borsh is served by a pretty waitress, then appetite is increased many times.
In 1970 a caf; “Sovremennik” opened in Kemerovo. It was located at the corner of Kirova Str. and N.Ostrovskiy Str., in front of the City Garden, right near the #3 municipal hospital. The caf; was cozy and clean. Young girls-waitresses were hired to work at the new caf;. And during the day time they also served business lunches of a salad, a first course, a second course and obligatorily prune compote.  The lunches were tasty, affordable and were highly popular among senior students of the medical institute. Your most humble servant used to visit the caf;, not very often, but he used to come there to have sour pottage with pickles, which was just very good at “Sovremennik”. The trio of bosom friends: Vova Farbirovitch, Vitya Kubasov and Shura Popovitch came there to have business lunch as well.

Everybody can eat tasty things, but to eat in a tasty way is a talent, this is God’s gift. So the three of them had the talent and with great appetite, getting inspired by each other, and with jokes and loud laughter spent their lunchtime there.  Once Volodia, before the ordered lunch was served, told the guys a story about a fly in borsh: “Four men enter a caf;: a Georgian, an Englishman, a Russian and a Jew. They ordered borsh, and there was a fly in each plate of borsh. The Georgian made a waiter to wear borsh on his head, the Englishman politely asked to exchange the dish, the Russian took the fly out and started eating, and the Jew received money from the waiter for keeping the secret”.

Sasha and Volodia were laughing out loud, Viktor’s reaction was strange – he hemmed and got into a deep thought. On the next day Vitya Kubasov urged his friends to go to “Sovremennik” for lunch, and he was very glad, when he saw that borsh was included in the lunch menu. The guys were terribly intrigued, as Vitya, who was always self-restrained and calm, somewhat imposing, acted inadequately to his self. Well, Viktor, after he had enough of enjoying Sasha and Volodia’s impatience told them, that he doubted very much that the dishes returned by  guests for any possible reason got thrown away.  The guys were nodding for agreement. So he had planned an experiment to prove his suspicion and make his table companions laugh at the same time. Vova and Shura’s eyebrows slowly moved up demonstrating their utmost curiosity. The serpent-tempter slowly opened his brief-case, was rummaging in it for inappropriately long time as if looking for something, and took out of it a jewelry box. The guys’ jaws dropped down. Vitya in a showy way opened the box, and there was a dead fly in it. 



At that moment a waitress brought the order. Vitya very carefully in order not to ruin the original outlook of borsh and, God forbid, break that mini-iceberg of a tea spoon of sour cream, poured a table spoon of salt and a spoon of mustard into the borsh, and it was extremely hot at “Sovremennik”; after that he put the fly into the borsh. To the reasonable question of, what he was doing? Vitya carelessly replied – a BOMB, culinary bomb. He called the waitress and even without saying a word with his eyes pointed to the fly in the plate.  The waitress blushed, got confused, apologized and took the ill-fated plate away; in a minute she brought new borsh, in which an iceberg of sour cream was at least three times bigger. The guys thanked the waitress and started eating. Vitya asked them to be attentive, listen and watch the people around. So literally in about five or ten minutes there was a loud yell and a scandal burst out.
Well, Viktor was explaining, that according to his understanding, the waitress took the plate, carefully put the fly out of it and served it to another guest. So he, like a normal person, stirred sour cream together with the hellish mixture in his borsh…
The guys repeated their culinary terrorist act several times more. There was a problem of where to get a fly in winter?
Essay 165.  A Hen

Somebody is keen on reading, somebody likes to play cards, somebody is fond of vehicles, and Shura Popovich since his student years has been fond of a joke.  He did not just play jokes, it was his lifestyle. He could be easily called a joke addict.

Well, and what else can be said about a man, who being far from a student, but an officer, a doctor, and even a head of a department at a regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs plaid jokes of the following kind? I believe, Sasha will not mind, if I tell about some of his pranks.
In those old days even in a regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs patients were given the liquid medicines they had been prescribed in small phials (see the picture).


They were certainly sterilized in steam sterilizers in autoclaves. The steam sterilizers were then brought to departments, and there the phials were filled with the prescribed medicines. It should be mentioned that the phials had the following weak point – if one hit by pincers not with force, but briskly at the bottom of a phial, the bottom fell off, as if cut out.

At the very days Rogozhina Aleksandra Anisimovna worked at Sasha’s department. Among hospital staff she was famous like Kuzmovna. Just imagine a hen, which is ready to cover all baby-chicks and hide them under her wings. So there is Kuzmovna. At the department she was in charge of pouring mixtures into phials. You’ve already guessed even without me, what was the way the head of the department Aleksandr Kirillovitch Popovitch was having fun. He went to the sterilizing room beforehand and broke off bottoms of some of the phials in the steam sterilizer of his department. And then he took the trouble under any pretext gather employees of his department at the place where Kuzmovna was pouring the mixtures and at exactly that moment started, like they say now, the show. Kuzmovna was asked not to stop what she was doing, and there was started a discussion of some trifle. Willy-nilly everybody was watching Kuzmovna took a phial from the steam sterilizer, poured mixture into it, and put it on a slip of paper with a patient’s last name.

Kuzmovna was very much surprised, when she was told that the phial turned to be empty. She became even more surprised, when she noticed that the phial’s bottom was missing. Sasha explained to her that perhaps bottoms fell off during the sterilizing process. However Kuzmovna argued that she’d checked phials at other departments, and they turned to be of a better quality. Of course, everybody guessed, what was going on, and were giggling, but Kuzmovna did not allow even a hint, that those were pranks of the head of the department.

Essay 166. The first vacation

Like at any other hospital back in those days, at the regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs they started making a schedule of vacations. Sasha Popovitch very content that he was invited by the chief physician to discuss the issue was at Aleksander Stepanovitch Koropchenko’s office having a “heart-to heart” talk. In that year of 1973 Sasha had a plan for August,  he intended to lead a group of Tomsk students along Altai. So when Aleksander Stepanovitch asked him, he vigorously replied that he would like to have his vacation in August. The chief physician looked through the papers and offered to change the time, so Sasha asked to give him vacation in July.
He was the head of the group of tourists, and could set dates. Koropchenko agreed, and later in the list of vacations’ schedule, which was hung out for everybody to see, there was July next to Sasha’s last name. Though when talking to the chief physician, Sasha asked him to issue a certificate to confirm that he would be given vacation in July. He explained that he needed the certificate to be submitted to the rescue service. For some inexplicable reason, Sasha asked the certificate in duplicate, he immediately received both documents properly signed and stamped.  Everything was fine, but at the end of June the chief physician called Sasha to his office again and informed him that he could not allow him to take his vacation, because many doctors were on vacation already, so he could not leave the hospital empty. Sasha’s arguments that he was a young doctor, and that by law he was supposed to receive vacation during summer time, that in the vacations’ list he was scheduled for July, and that he even had a certificate signed and stamped, he submitted the certificate, he brought with him sensing that dvelopment of events. Aleksander Stepanovitch  was dumb-founded first because of unspeakable impertinence and then started shouting at poor Sasha, that things would be only the way he said and that was it. What could be done? So Sasha made up his mind. The next day, on Friday, he discharged from the  hospital everybody who was ready for that, and for the rest he wrote interim epicrisis, by the way, at the regional hospital Sasha was the only one who wrote such kind of epicrisis, and he had always been praised for that. He put all the case histories in a file and placed it at the corner of the desk. In the evening of the very day he flew to Biysk, and in the morning on Saturday together with the group he was in Gorno-Altaisk, and after registering at the rescue station by the lunch time they were running along Chuiskiy rout towards Mongolia.

On Monday at the regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kemerovo a row burst out, like a thunder-storm. The chief physician was ranting and raving even more forcefully than Greek gods; he was looking for Sasha Popovitch, who failed to show up at work. Daah, everybody around had a hard day then. Though do not forget that the chief physician of the regional hospital was a colonel of Law Enforcement Forces. Through the Ministry of Internal Affairs channels he contacted Kemerovo regional tourism bureau and found out that in July Popoitch was leading a group of Tomsk Polytechnic university students. He found among hundreds of tourist clubs of Tomsk the one he needed, called “Penelopa” and learned that the group could be detained only on the stage of registration at the rescue service station (RSS). So a special wire of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was sent to the RSS of Gorno-Altaisk with a request to block registration of the group of A.K.Popovitch. Alas, that was too late.

Here is a proof that bureaucrats are bureaucrats even in medicine, that’s terrible.

Well, when Sasha returned to his working place, after a successful hiking tour, Aleksander Stepanovitch cooled down, and generally speaking, he was not a bad person, he did not scold Sasha, but sent him to the Medical Department of the Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as Sasha’s absenteeism had been too long. Yurii Sergeievitch Zakharov, a former CP Regional Committee officer, who had been demoted for his addiction to the “demon drink”, welcomed Sasha with a malicious smile, saying, gotcha! However what was special about Sasha was a mixture of carelessness and prudence. In that case by the end of July, before returning at work, he paid a visit to a law firm for a consultation, honestly told them everything and asked four questions:
Can I be fired?
Can I be imprisoned?
Can my diploma be annulled?
How can I be punished?

Pretty young ladies, who worked there, had a good laugh at him; they definitely liked Sasha, and gave answers to all his questions:
1. He won’t be imprisoned100%.
2. He won’t lose his diploma – there were not them who had issued it.
3. He could be fired, but unlikely.
4. There could be administrative penalizing such as: an administrative reprimand and warning or a transfer to another position for a period not longer than three months.

Generally speaking, the notorious truant A.K.Popovitch was calm and legally very well prepared, when called to the carpet by the fan of the “demon drink” and a former CP Regional Committee officer. The main things were that he would not be imprisoned and his diploma won’t be annulled, and he would be absolutely happy to be fired, as for reprimands and transfers he was not afraid of that at all. So when Yurii Sergeievitch announced that he would annul Sasha’s diploma and put him into prison for six years for his failing to provide medical help, Sasha gladly said: “Thanks God, it is not the 1937 now, or you would have perhaps shot me”. He obviously was provoking Zakharov to fire him. “This is about the legal prosecution. As for my diploma, it’s also a goof; it was not you luckily, who’d issued it, so you cannot take it from me. I doubt that you fire me, but I won’t mind if you transfer me to Muriuk. Only do not delay with that. August, September and October are the best for mushrooms, fishing and hunting in taiga, and after that I am going home to Kemerovo. You have no right to by law to transfer me for a period longer than three months”. Before that Sasha even could not imagine what color range is hidden in a human face. Yurii Sergeievitch turned red first, then he suddenly became pale, and then he became of green color, like his favorite demon drink.  “Get out” – he hissed, the administrator really hissed. Though, Sasha made it even worse: “No, I will get not out, but will go at work. I will not perform my duties, as soon as you do not allow me to do so, but I will regularly attend. As you may know later I will have to be paid for the forced truancy…”.  Sasha did not have time to finish, as a huge yellowish-pink ashtray of color glass was flying at him. God saved Sasha, the bureaucrat missed. Sasha did not try to tempt fate any longer and rushed out of the office. In the morning Sasha learned that he had received an administrative reprimand and he was allowed to resume his work. Generally speaking, that could be the end of the essay, though here is a question: “And where is a vacation?” For some reason Sasha remembered about that in seven long months.

He directly said to the chief physician: “And when will I have my vacation for the last year? I did not have any vacation; I failed to report at work”. And he was given a vacation. For god’s sake do not laugh. When he got his vacation in March, Sasha led a tourist group to Gornaya Shoria. He broke his leg, and again was loafing all summer long.

Essay 167. Tails

Back in those days at the same regional hospital, at the surgical department, there worked as a traumatic surgeon the nicest woman ever Olga Mikhailovna Sviridova. She was a fine doctor. Her patients adored her. From the very beginning she somehow started acting as Sasha’s guardian. She praised him for case histories, which he had compiled and wrote down in a well- organized and professional way. She liked Sasha, though did that in a peculiar way – for one week she liked him, and for another one she did not. Olga Mikhailovna believed everything she was told, and Sashka, as they say, was mocking at her. He pulled her leg in all ways possible. So after each prank Olga Mikhailovna did not like him and did not speak to him for minimum a week. So, once a period of her not liking him lasted for about a month. It’s up to you to judge. It was winter of the year of 1976. Sasha entered the doctors’ lounge of the surgical department, and Olga Mikhailovna was sitting there alone. Sasha inquired immediately: “And where is everybody? Left to get tails? And why are you still here?”
 
Who remembers that knows that those were not very replete years, to be more precise, they were the hungry ones. The regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was assigned to a small store, where once in a while the staff members were sold something from deficit goods (meat, sausage, cod leaver, etc.). Sviridova got it right away.

“What kind of tails? Pig? They are the best for meat jelly. And what about you?” Sasha replied that he did not care for meat jelly, but preferred tails fried with spices.
       
He advised Olga Mikhailovna to hurry up, as there were many of those who wanted to get them. It was easy to say to hurry up, but Olga Mikhailovna had actually to change from surgical overalls into her own clothes, and do not forget, that it was winter then, she had to walk for about two hundred meters along the territory of the hospital, then go through the check point and be checked by a guard, leave the colony and walk up to five hundred meters more to the store. And the rime was just terrible; it was ice glazing powdered with snow. Olga Mikhailovna slipped and fell down. She did not hurt much, but tore her favorite stockings on a knee, the most noticeable spot. Generally speaking, she finally got to the store cursing and swearing. Yeah, I’ve almost forgot, Olga Mikhailovna had one more peculiar feature – she spoke very fast and kept repeating the last word for several times. “Hi, Valya, well, give, give two, no, three, yes, three, better three kilos”. A couple of special words had to be said about Valya as well. Imagine a lady of about two meters tall, who weighed about one hundred and fifty kilos, but was not fat, just big. She had quite a pretty face and a blaring voice, and she was just a real foul-mouth.
“What the f…k three kilos of?
“Valya, tails, Valya, three kilos of pig tails, three”.

“What the f…k pig tails?”.
“Well, three kilos of pig tails, Kirillytch said. I was running, fell down and tore my new stockings. Tails for a meat jelly, three kilos”.
Valya, though she was a foul-mouth, was aware what it meant to tear stockings and felt sincere sympathy to Olga Mikhailovna.

In three words she explained what kind of person Kirillych actually was, and the words were absolutely not for press. Olga Mikhailovna completely agreed with her...

Essay 168. PEA

The communists highly rated all kinds of mass meetings of people, where they could promote their ideas and train the masses in political literacy. To put it short, where they could brainwash average people.

There were the most various forms of such brainwashing. There were individual meetings, but collective meetings became the most popular, especially during the final years of the communist government. As in those days there was an era of reports. So those on charge reported that they had “got involved” that many and for such and such period of time. The most annoying thing was that those meetings were held after working hours. Officially they were called Political Educational Activity, PEA for short. Though among people that was called: “prate, endure, abandon”.
After graduation from the institute Sasha Popovitch worked as a doctor in a system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He qualified for a rank of an officer and was a head of a department at a regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was located at “the five” – a prison camp in Kemerovo, on the other bank of the Iskitimka. He got extremely sick and tired of the annoying PEA, which was conducted by the head of the surgical department careerist and flatterer Sasha Griaznov.
   
It was impossible to set a deal with him. So in order not to attend those get-together Sasha did a stunt….
I am absolutely sure that you will never guess what kind of adventure Sasha plunged into. He had always had unconventional way of thinking, so that time he thought that as soon as he could not make a deal with Griaznov in order not to attend the PEA, he would pay a visit to the party organizer of the Medical Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And so he did. When the “party member”, as everybody called the party organizer, listened to his request, he literally grew dumb with astonishment. Sasha was applying to study at the University of Marxism-Leninism, neither more nor less. People’s arms were twisted to make them enter the university. And there was an application on one’s own free will. Sure enough, Sasha received a letter of referral and most positive references. Two years of study flew quickly. What kind of years they were is an absolutely different story; though when remembering them Sasha says that there were some interesting lectures, where things were revealed, about which nothing was said in newspapers in those days.
However the main thing was that he received a certificate of higher political education and not just a certificate, but the cum laude diploma!
   
Sasha Griaznov welcomed Sasha with seeming cordiality after his study. “So, we are going to have one more propagandist at the hospital”, he rejoiced. “Who is the one?” – Sasha inquired. “You will be the one”. Sasha was very surprised that Griaznov had assumed that Sasha would be the propagandist and refused point-blank. Griaznov was outraged “So, then you will attend the meetings together with the rest, and that’s it”.
   
I will tell you honestly, Sasha was prepared for something like that and asked Griaznov whether he had higher political education? And when he received a negative answer he insidiously inquired: “So what is it that you, ignoramus, can teach me? Me, who has a cum laudi diploma of the University of Marxism-Leninism!” No, Sasha was not mean. He just did not like characters of that kind.
Essay 169. Sochi

What are you preoccupied with on the last day before your vacation?

For sure, with anything, but not with what Kirillych was preoccupied with on the last day before his another vacation. There was no problem with agenda of the vacation. Sasha was a fan of tourism in it most different forms. However he could not even imagine how he could leave his dear Olga Mikhailovna without a prank. No wonder, as he played all kinds of jokes on her. So said so done! There will be a practical joke. And Kirillych chose to make an instrument of the joke, neither more nor less, but the deputy director of the medical department. Sherbakov Gavrila Ivanovitch had worked as an ENT physician at the hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; and he was a good doctor. Besides that he was a fine man, and perhaps, that was why they called him Gavrila at the hospital. And there is one more explanation necessary to make, even though the hospital was a regional one, there was only one telephone connected with the city for the whole hospital, and it was in the doctors’ lounge of the surgical department. Do not take me wrong; of course, the administration of the hospital had direct telephone connection, sure, sure!


So Sasha comes to the surgical department. Without being noticed he blocks the buttons of the telephone with a match and starts pretending to be dialing a number.
Gavrila, hi! Why did you ask me to call you? What’s the hurry?
There was at pause then, Sasha was as if listening to what Gavrila was telling him.
What “on last-minute sale” vacation package?
Then there was a pause for Gavrila’s answer.
      - Where did you say? To the resort “Salut”? In Sochi? But I’ve never been to a health resort, what for do I need that? No, I don’t know. I don’t really have any health problems.
There was a pause again. The doctors, who were in the room, were openly listening to the conversation.
Gavrila, well, I don’t know. I need to ask for my mom’s advice. How long? Two days? I will ask her and will call you back for sure, bye.

In all hospitals surgeons are quick-witted guys and get things immediately. So that time they understood everything right away and started offering all kinds of reasons to persuade Kirillych to go on vacation. The arguments were the most different:
“You will have a good rest and real fun!”
“You will find a chick!”
“You will get a chick and have fun!”
“You will get a chick and get finally married!”
“Just go, it’s for free!

Sasha was somewhat sluggishly making excuses saying that he was well and sound and things like that, and Sochi was so far away. Olga Mikhailovna did not participate in the discussion, she was kind of working. Though after lunch she approached Sasha:

- Are you really going to receive a free vacation package, really free?
- Yes, Gavrila called me and said that it was the “on-last-minute sale”, and he promises also to cover my trip expenses.
- Well, why do you need the health resort, why the resort? (I’ve already written that Olga Mikhailovna had a habit of repeating words for several times).
- Yeah, I am not sure.
- Refuse to go, what for you need it. To travel that far. Refuse.
- And what’s in it for you? As I have not made up my mind yet.
- You refuse from it, and I will take it, I need it, I will take it.
- How can you take it, if this is a vacation package for officers? Are you an officer? No, so what?
- I will transfer it to a trade union vacation package.
- You won’t do that.
- I will, I will do transfer it.
- But I haven’t made up my mind yet.
- You just refuse and make you decision.
- Gavrila gave me two days to talk to my mom.

In the morning Gavrila called Kirillytch and told him a horror story that in the evening of the previous day, by the end of the working day, Olga Mikhailovna came to his office and almost committed a sexual violence act in a specially cynical and pervert form – she started demanding to give her the “on-last-minute sale” vacation package to the health resort “Salut”. To Gavrila’s words that he had no idea what vacation package she was talking about, Olga Mikhailovna announced that she had heard everything for herself, and if the vacation package was not given to her, then she would unmask all of them.

And then Gavrila asked Sasha to choose somebody else as an instrument of his jokes, but not the medical department and its staff.

 



   


 
Essay 170. VOLGA


So ten years have flown unnoticed since a joker and humorist Shurik Popovitch started working at the regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Yeah, Shurik played jokes once in a while; he cut bottoms of measuring phials (see “A Hen”), played pranks on his co-workers, and invented and did many other things. However all his jokes were estimated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union back then as not undermining the defense power, but on the contrary it even awarded him with a medal for the irreproachable service!
               
Sasha Popovitch, or Kirillych as he was called at the hospital, accepted the well-deserved award as an encouragement, and immediately made up his mind to answer it with another practical joke. He came to the doctors’ lounge of the surgical department and addressing everybody asked to lend him some money. Somebody asked how much he needed and for how long? Kirillych
gave no details, he gave a short answer: “A lot”. The surgeons knew Shurik way too well and responded with a recommendation: “Well, then you’d better talk to Olga Mikhailovna. She is the affluent one of all of us”. So Sasha was happy to do that. However Olga Mikhailovna demonstrated purely feminine curiosity: “How much?”
 
Sasha - “A lot”.

Olga Mikhailovna - “How much “a lot”?
Sasha – “A lot, six thousand!”
Olga Mikhailovna’s jaw started slowly dropping down. No wonder, a loaf of bread cost twenty kopeks back then.
“Are you kidding? What for do you need that much?”
Sasha: “You do not have to worry; I will give it back in a week or ten days maximum”.
“No, you tell me first, what for you need that much?  What for that much? This is a lot.
“Well, I need it…”
“No, you tell me first, tell me by all means, what for that much?”
“Well, I need it, I will give it back, theygive me “Volga” (a car made)”.
Here it should be said that in those days to receive the right to buy “Volga” was extremely prestigious. Olga Mikhailovna started jabbering: “How come “Volga”? What for “Volga”?  Are you a front-rank worker or a record setter? As “Volga” is only for front-workers.”
“I am a front-worker, I was awarded with a medal”.
Olga Mikhailovna could not stop: “So you were awarded with a medal and given a “Volga”? What for do you need “Volga”? Why “Volga”? It is such an expensive car”.
“And I am the front-worker; I was awarded with a medal after all”.
Olga Mikhailovna could not stop: “So you were awarded with a medal and also given a “Volga”? What for do you need “Volga”? What for? It is such an expensive car. Get a “Moskvitch” or a “Zhiguli” for yourself, what for do you need the “Volga? Such an expensive car?”
Actually I do not need the “Volga”. I am not going to drive it. Though, as soon as they offer it, I’d better take it. I was called from the medical department and told that they were going to give me a “Volga”. I will sell it. The Georgians have been following me for two weeks already. They offer me a double price. I will pay the debt back right away”.
Kirillytch, you will end up in prison, in prison for sure.  Absolutely in prison, as this is profiteering. What for you need a “Volga”? Kirillytch refuse from it”.
“Olga Mikhailovna, nobody will send me to prison, if you only hold your tongue. Who will send me to prison?”
“I will never do that, I am like a tomb stone. You do not worry, never, do not worry – the tomb stone”.

Olga Mikhailovna was muttering for a long time that it was an exceptional case – a medal and a “Volga.”. Though she had to be given a credit; she gave no money to Sasha. However the next day the whole hospital was talking only about one thing - that Kirillytch had sold!!! to the Georgians his “Volga” for a double price.
 





    

      

 

 

 
Essay 171.  Muriuk

Of course the procedure of placement of institute graduates is a very serious moment in lives of the professionals to be. Everybody approach it differently. For example, I collected a pile of papers to ground my request to direct me under the supervision of the Ministry of Health of Kirgizia.

Volodya Bobkov asked to send him to any place, but to work as a psychiatrist, and he received a job placement in a village of Kedrovka at a mental institution for psycho-chronic patents. Vagram Agadzhanian asked to send him to Prokopievsk regional traumatology hospital and his request was complied with. It is not clear how to explain Sasha Popovitch’s agreement to go to Muriuk, a prison camp of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It could be only excused by spring avitaminosis, as the placement was conducted in March.
               
Otherwise it is not clear, how he, a purely city dweller, could give his consent to go to taiga, to lumbering, located in the middle of the nowhere 150 kilometers away from a town of Marshinska. You cannot even imagine what a distant place it was. Though Sasha signed his agreement and forgot about it, and why not, life was going on. There was a period of preparing for examinations, then final state examinations, a graduation party and a first month of vacation, all that flew very fast.
In the middle of August Sasha received a letter from Muriuk with a reproach for his not coming to the destination of his job placement. What made Shurik to promise to go there, he cannot understand even now. He promised that he would go there to get introduced and asked to send a car for him. They arranged to meet at the Kemerovo oblast chief medical administration at ten in the morning on the next day. Sasha came there on time and waited for five hours. Then he called Muriuk and found out that the car left to pick Sasha up at seven in the morning. Shura got confused; what was the place he was going to work at that after a mild rain a car could not get to Kemerovo for eight hours. Susha came home perplexed and haunted by a thought of: “I am not going to Muriuk”. Yet it is so good that there are friends. One of Sasha‘s friends visited him and invited to go fishing. Sasha was in a very low mood, so he immediately accepted the invitation. When he came back in three days, his mood was quite vigorous, so he calmly received the news that there was a telephone call from the medical administration, and that he was invited to have an appointment with the head of the medical department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yurii Sergeievitch Zakharov.
               
If invited, we will come. As they say: got bathed-shaved and left. I will say a couple of words about Yurii Sergeievitch. He was a former officer of Kemerovo CPSU Regional Committee; he was that much active in promoting the party’s ideas that started receiving one reproach after another for his being too close to people, which was expressed through his addiction to the “demon drink”. The party did not leave its affiliates to the mercy of fate, so Y.S.Zakharov, a foul-mouth and a drunkard, started ruling the medical service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kuzbass.

He aggressively met Sasha: “Well, why are you not at work?” Sasha said that he had changed his mind to go to Muriuk.
“What the f…k, changed your mind? You will go”.

“No, I am not going”.
“You will go, what the f…k, you won’t?”
Yurii Sergeievitch, let me go in peace. I…”

Sasha did not manage to finish, because Zakharkov burst out with such severe cursing to express his indignation in exclusively swear words. He banished Sasha from his sight. The next day Sasha was again at his office, and came there all week long. “I beg you, do not let me commit a sin, do not come here every day, or I’ll kill you…”. Though, Shura as he was waiting exactly for that said: “Fine, I’ll come here every other day”. So one day he visited the office and the other one made a telephone call, and finally he got the right moment of repentance, which all lovers and admirers of the “devil drink” periodically have.
Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, a person realizes that he is ruining himself, ruins his family and offends people around… He is angry at himself and feels sorry at the same time. As a rule this condition appears after the first shot to cure a hangover.

“The devil” is gnawing one’s heart, it’s terrible. So at the very moment Sasha paid another visit to Zakharkov, and it was already November. “Will you agree to work at “the five?” – he asked quietly. It should be said that Sasha got confused because of such metamorphose with the man, but he regained his self-control and asked, what “the five” meant?
“This is a regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs”.
“Is it in Kemerovo?”
“In the Kemerovo”. I did not make a mistake, Y.S.Zakharkov said it exactly that way.

 So in a day Alexander Kirillovitch Popovitch worked as a physician-anesthesiologist  at the regional hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Though, if to be completely honest, he managed to work there only for four days…
No, he was not fired, he was transferred to work as a therapeutist, and he did not object, because for how long one could loaf without a job, as if all the six ears of his study were spent in vain.

Essey 172. At the world’s end

It cannot be counted how long ago the Russians for the first time became puzzled by the question: “What is it “At the end of the world?” And where is it really located?”

However Tolya Veselov knows exactly, where the “end of the world” is. I was not there myself, so I am not going to lie. Though, as for Tolya… For the two final years at the institute Tolya worked actively in a scientific-research group at the Department of pathologic anatomy. He was very much determined to remain to work at the Department after graduating from the dear Kemerovo State Medical Institute (KSMI). He had all necessary preconditions for that, and there was even a proper “document” from proper authority. And if I confidentially tell you that Tolik’s mother was even though a deputy head, but not of some collective farm “The Right Way”, she was a deputy head of an Executive Committee of Central district administration of Kemerovo. Now you are convinced that Tolya had absolutely all grounds to believe that a position at the Department of pathologic anatomy was in his pocket. That was the way Tolya thought; that was the way his mother thought, and that was the way all Tolya’s acquaintances thought.  However an incident changed everything. God determined that Anatoliy Veselov needed to get acquainted with the place that is colloquially called “at the end of the world”. The Almighty chose well known to all students Yevgeniy Nikolaevitch Sherstennikov as an instrument for that. If you just ask Tolya where and how his and Sherst’s paths had got crossed, he would not tell you. Nevertheless it is still a fact that Sherstennikov insisted on Tolik to be placed on a job at Muriuk. Yes, it was the very same Muriuk, to escape which Shurik Popovitch used all means possible and finally managed to escape it. And it happened so that he does not know (A.K.Popovitch) where the “end of the world is”, and Tolik and Liudmila do know.
Tolik was preordained to happen to come to Muriuk, and what for did Liudmila need that? It goes without saying – love is a terrible power. And how much of the very power the young and beautiful Tolia’s wife needed to overcome that? It is scary even to imagine. See for yourself; the Veselovs flew by U-2 plane to Tolik’s job placement destination; they flew not because he was some VIP, but because a car could not make it there, and there were no trains to the location as well, that was taiga, excuse me, “the end of the world”.
And immediately there was an unexpectedness; the plane landed not in Muriuk, but on a clearing by the Bold Mountain, and that was also “the end of the world”, but sixteen kilometers away from Muriuk. “I happened to make a mistake”, as the pilot said and flew back to Kemerovo.
There was nobody to meet and welcome them. I believe everybody will understand and forgive Liudmila for all her reproaches expressed to Tolik, and her tears of despair will be forgiven, when night fell down on the clearing. Liudmila’s question: “Why did not they fly back on the plane?” hung in midair over the clearing, and even playing at maximum volume radio set “Spidola” could not muffle it.
Yeah, the night spent on suitcases in the middle of the clearing in taiga left unforgettable memory in the Veselovs’ family. How happy they were, when in the morning they saw a horseman at the clearing, who started even to stutter, because of the unexpectedness, however he explained to them where they were, though there was no reason to explain: “the end of the world” is everywhere “the end of the world”.
The stranger rode to Muriuk and sometime later returned with two horses for Tolik and Liudmila, but he forgot to bring the rope to tie the bags, so he rode back to Muriuk. Tolik was happy; his beloved focused all her anger on “the perfect fool”, who was hanging about between Muriuk and the Bold Mountain all day long. Well, to cut it short, “the perfect fool” returned with the rope before dusk, and the caravan started on the journey by the night time. Interestingly enough, the distance, which “the perfect fool” travelled four times during the day, the illustrious gathering made only by the morning time. Yeah, that was taiga!!!
Yet the caste of Soviet bureaucrats was unimaginable: they shouted from the roof-tops that there was no doctor at Muriuk and the corrective labor colony located there. They were making a lot of noise about the demand, though did not bother to meet two doctors who literally fell down to them from the sky by U-2 plane, and did not prepare a place to live for them.
Generally speaking, somebody can get anywhere, if he knows how to use his tongue, and Tolik and Liudmila were brought by the tongue to a hospital of Muriuk, where they threw on the floor what they had at hand and fell asleep for twenty-four hours.
Sure enough, I cannot talk about Vologodsk or Tambov regions, but in Kemerovo region “the end of the world” is definitely Muriuk. If you do not believe me, ask the KSMI graduate Anatoliy Veselov.
 

Essay 173. Rupture   

They have a good reason saying: “Can the leopard change his spots?”.  You don’t believe me? I will prove that now.
My former fellow students remember very well Zinoviy Goldfeld. Well, for sure he was a dark-haired handsome fellow, a smart guy. He was a top student, almost never missed classes and lectures, though as well as many other guys he was doing not what he was expected at some lectures, to be more precise, he was busy with publishing activities… Yes, yes, the publishing activities. And what else will you say about a man, who together with his friends, one of who was a native artist, came up with the idea, edited, wrote items and took photos, to put it short, the illustrious gathering was “publishing” a decent magazine during lectures. The first issue was produced during a lecture on surgery, when professor Krakosvkiy was reading a lecture about intrauterine ruptures. Without sophistry Zinoviy named his magazine “Rupture”. Zorik was working hard; he glued photos, draw a frame for a photo and himself wrote an article about architectural luxuries. The glued photo was of a girl with an oar. Those who visited Kemerovo remember the masterpiece on the Tom river bank. It was easy for Zinoviy to write, he knew the topic; his father was a well-known builder. He was writing to his friends in Kharkov, also students. Zinoviy was satisfied, the magazine looked impressive: a school notebook, one double page, the title is written by a multi-color ball pen in wound letters, the photos and the most important, the article, written in a burst of inspiration with humor and professionalism. Yeah, Zinoviy was a great editor, if to consider the technologies he used, when publishing the “Rupture”.
Though then there is a detective story: somehow, the letter to Kharkov together with the magazine “Rupture” came to the hands of the authorities; well, there is no need to puzzle over that; that was somebody from Zorik’s circle of friends, who betrayed him. And the latter obviously had a catching of samizdat quota (a penal offence), which got frozen, so they were pleased to put a tick in their report. And if to look from the official point of view, then “Rupture” was samizdat, the most authentic samizdat. I am not going to write about interrogations of Zinoviy in big offices of KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kemerovo, as you won’t believe, but together with Zinoviy his close friend Tolia Veselov was also called for the interrogations. To the guys’ good luck that was the time of Khruschev’s thaw period, and not the epoch of Brezhnev, otherwise that would have cost them their heads. Nevertheless, it took a lot of Anatoliy’s courage not to become a “rat”, but he managed, and as a result of that, was expelled from the third year of the institute together with Zinoviy. The formal reason for that became a satirical article in a regional newspaper “Kuzbass” of 1959. I will tell you right away that in a year both friends were reinstated at the institute thanks to the chancellor Beliaev Stepan Vasilievitch and successfully graduated from Kemerovo state Medical Institute (KSMI).
It would be stupid to retell the piece of writing of the “golden” pen of the newspaper “Kuzbass” Pavel Iosifovitch Bekshanskiy, who because of lack of wisdom or the order distorted everything and combined the “political” with some brothel in his satirical writing. I am quoting extracts from the phrase-mongering of the journalist P.Bekshanskiy:


However I was about to prove, whether a leopard can change his spots. Here you are:
After graduating from Kemerovo Medical Institute Zinoviy Goldfeld worked as a psychiatrist for some time and was the head of a department at Kemerovo mental hospital, however his craving for publishing and editing, because of which he had suffered so much before, won, and since the beginning of the 90’s Zinoviy works in New York as a deputy editor of a big magazine.
You see, I managed to prove to you in an easy and simple way the truth of the thesis that a leopard cannot change his spots!
Essay 174. Bear’s disease

It is reasonable to assume that policemen, sorry, cops, are all law-abiding.  And dietitians are all slim, well, and all doctors are healthy and don’t have any diseases. Well, as the saying goes, man proposes, God disposes. There are lots of most different cases. Let me tell you about one of them.
I have already written that Tolya Veselov thanks to Sherstennikov’s efforts happened to be placed on a job at the end of the world, or to put it in a simple way, at Muriuk. Anatoliy should be given a credit that he was not plunged in depression, but vigorously was introducing health into lives of the masses of local population. Very often calls for a physician were scattered around taiga settlements and villages. Tolik was lucky to have a medical assistant from the locals. He knew the area like the back of his hand.  And if I tell you that he was also a competent male nurse, you will understand, why Tolya forgave him his weak sides. One of his weak points was fishing.
He was just a great fisherman, though the fact that he could talk about nothing, but fishing, made others go crazy. If to believe Semen, then there was taimen (species of salmon) everywhere, even in small springs in the neighborhood, and they were not less than a meter big, at least he personally was catching fish only that big. Tolik knew all Semen’s fish stories, but never interrupted him to say that he had already heard that. And Semen liked him for that, and when there was a call from a distant settlement he himself harnessed their horses and came to Anatoliy with the horses ready to go.
It was exactly that way on the first of May, when they received a call from Olginka.
The weather was great, the sun was glaring, and the sky was clear and blue and fathomless deep. It was warm, so Tolya and Semen was walking driving their horses to the bit. The scenario was well-tested and run many times; Tolik was deep in his own thoughts, and Semen was talking without ceasing. He was telling his old fish story pretending it was the brand new one. Tolya sometimes added to the monologue his exclamations: “Really!” or “Wow!”. Suddenly Semen stopped talking, and his face fell, the horses became alert.
Tolya turned around and got numb with terror; he saw a huge bear though at a distance. For some reason Semen shouted: “Come on, start singing”. Tolya would sing gladly, but all he could think of was alphabet: “A, B, C, D, E…”, nevertheless the guys hopped on their horses and started with a jerk to the turn without looking back. They were flying like whirlwind, the horses were wheezing, but carried their riders. Later Tolik confessed that only then he learned what it was like to have a “bear’s disease”, when they say “pants are loaded with fear”.
So again in an easy and simple way I proved that doctors too can suffer diseases, even though the “bear’s” ones.
Wikipedia informs: “Bear’s disease in modern interpretation means unexpected diarrhea caused by severe fright, nervous tension”.


   
Essay 175. An escape
How strongly university graduates do not want to be placed on a job in a village. And what great memories they have of those years afterwards. With what passion and even delight they remember that. Tolya Veselov was very upset when he was placed on a job in Muriuk.
Though a credit should be given to him, he was upset not for himself, but for his wife Liudmila. For some reason Tolya believed that his wife was so vulnerable, such a city girl. And he brought her to Muriuk, to the end of the world. So Anatoliy was doing his best to brighten up her rural life.
Though it turned out, that Liudmila happened to have philosophical mind and took everything surrounding her calmly. Tolya was very happy when his grandmother came to Muriuk to visit them, for her that was a heroic deed; she was for the first time on a plane, and what kind of plane – U-2. Though most of all Anatoliy was surprised that Liudmila was not complaining to his grandmother, but asked her about various down-to-earth things. Grandma’s lessons turned to be useful; Tolik was mellowing out, when he saw his wife watering a cucumber bed with boiling water; not the cucumbers, no, just the bed. He was extremely happy and proud of his wife, when they were the first in Muriuk, who had first cucumbers. They were juicy, with pimples, and when taken a bite of, sputtered juice and crunched loudly. They seemed to be sweet to him. It remains an enigma, why doctor Veselov decided that they had to be stored in the attic, but that was the fact, which was well known to everybody not only in the village, but at the correction labor colony as well. One early morning a pediatrician of Muriuk Galina Ivanovna Drobyshevskaya came to the Veselovs and asked Tolya to assist her in childbirth in a village of Shirokoie.
In Muriuk everybody knew that Tolya never denied assistance, but in that case he did not want to leave his house very much. Two days before a prisoner escaped from Muriuk colony, and that was an emergency event, so Tolik did not want to leave his Liudmila at home alone. Nevertheless he quickly got dressed and warned his wife: “Be careful! A prisoner escaped from the camp…”.
They had a chic trip on an all-terrain vehicle  to Shirokoie, and arrived just on time, when the childbirth started, and the head was already visible. I will skip description of the process of the childbirth; will mention only that the happy father was making so much fuss and was so happy, that he was an absolute nuisance for the doctors with his attempts to help somehow. Well, sure enough, when everything was successfully over, from nowhere on the table there appeared a bottle of home-made brew.
It was useless to refuse, so everybody had a drink all together to good health of a sturdy newborn. During the process of making good wishes, they did not notice as that was already night, and it was time to go back to Muriuk. They found neither a car, nor a horse, but the demon drink adds not only power, but courage as well, so they chose to walk home on foot through taiga with a hope to be picked by a “passing car”. 
Beware of the demon drink, it is so many-sided; so without sophistry it helped our doctors to lose their way, and in taiga night comes instantly.
Burst of machine-gun fire sounded over their heads, even branches started falling down from trees, and they flopped down into a muddy pool untill guards approached them. It turned out that they came back to Shirkoie again, and at the very time there was a search for the escapee from the camp there.
Later Tolya learned that the runaway prisoner was hiding in his attic and was living on Liudmila’s special cucumbers all that time. Yes, they were tasty and crunched, but the escapee got so much fed up with them for the period of his escape, that he voluntarily went to surrender. After coming down unnoticed from Tolya’s attic, the prisoner approached a control post of the colony. When he saw a guard, he set on a bench and asked for a cigarette. The latter handed him a cigarette without looking: “Why are you so gloomy?”, the prisoner inquired. “I was just reprimanded for the escape”. “It’s not a big deal, you’ll find the escapee, and the reprimand will be annulled…”. The guard looked down and became dumbfounded: “I’ll kill you, bastard”. Though his reprimand was really annulled...