Chapter 24
When Kim arrived in Leningrad at the end of summer, Vitaly met him right at the train station. The next day at lunch in the student cafeteria he managed to arrange a meeting between Kim and his classmate, who worked part-time in the admissions office as a secretary’s assistant. After meeting Kim, the girl told him under great secrecy that per the unspoken instructions of the authorities, the admission of Jews to most Leningrad universities was severely limited this year especially. At their Polytechnic Institute, the number of new students who corresponded to this norm might be selected from among the medalists, therefore Kim, most likely, would have no chance of entering the institute by competition. In the opinion of his new acquaintance, in his case it would be more correct to enter the Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture, at which the ill-fated restrictive “norm” was not at all imposed, and at the end of the first year to transfer to the second year at the Polytechnic Institute without thereby losing a year.
Kim was offended and humiliated by apprehending this unpleasant information, but upon reflection, he decided at least to get acquainted with the unknown institute and took a tram to the indicated address. Unexpectedly, to his delight and admiration, it turned out that in contrast to the Polytechnic Institute, located on the outskirts of Leningrad, the educational building of the Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture was in the historic part of the city. The monumental educational building stood a few meters from the edge of the Field of Mars, and its facade faced out towards the Palace Embankment on the Neva River directly opposite the Peter and Paul Fortress. Not far from there you could see the treetops of the Summer Garden, and the legendary Winter Palace, the Engineer’s Castle, the Russian Museum, and other historical landmarks were within a few minutes’ walk from the institute. In general, of studying in such an interesting place, one could possibly only dream, and Kim, discarding all doubts, immediately submitted his documents to the admissions committee.
He was well prepared and successfully passed all of the entrance exams, and in mathematics he even got into a dispute with the examiner. Inferring the presence of an error in one problem, which in no way could be solved, Kim tried to draw the teacher’s attention to it, but the teacher just dismissively brushed him off and was already preparing to give him a low grade. Kim flared up and, decisively taking his card from the table, demanded for the examiner himself to right there in front of him solve the ill-fated problem. The outraged teacher left the classroom and returned together with the chairman of the admission committee. Upon learning what was the matter, he unexpectedly supported the demand of the applicant. The error was immediately discovered, and the embarrassed teacher was forced to put a good grade on Kim’s card.
Possibly, the error was not at all an accident, because later, during the process of studying, Kim more than once was convinced how biased against students with Jewish surnames this teacher was. Those applicants, who were present at the first unequal dispute with him, even after several years admired the courage of Kim.
Fate willed that at the same time as Kim there was admitted to the institute from the Tula region, a Jewish girl named Roza. Young, charming, graceful, she attracted the attention of young people, among whom turned out to also be Kim.
The young people got acquainted, and from the very first meeting between them there developed very kind, trusting relations. The meetings became increasingly more desirable and happened increasingly more often. Delightful strolls in the beautiful city, visits to cinemas, theatrical performances, museums, exhibitions, the marvelous parks of Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof, brought them both unspeakable joy. And the magical enchantments of mutual love soon turned them into a happy and inseparable couple.
Kim and Roza at the student practicum in Gatchina. 1955.
At the institute, Kim and Roza became used to seeing each other together even in the lecture halls, in the student cafeteria, and on free evenings off. Together they completed coursework, together they prepared for tests and examinations. In the summers of 1956 and ’57 as part of the student crew, together they participated in the harvesting of wheat on the virgin lands of Kazakhstan.
In those years the country’s leadership conferred great national importance on the development of virgin and fallow land, hoping thereby to quickly increase grain production and reduce its imports from outside the country. The Komsomol, as usual, took an active part in executing the Party’s tasks, so the members of the crew were given Komsomol vouchers and departed for Kazakhstan full of pride about their assigned task.
However upon their arrival at the assigned state-owned agricultural farm, the students unexpectedly stumbled upon a completely indifferent attitude toward them on the part of the farm managers, affirming, that they did not at all need such unqualified helpers, even though on the day before their departing for the virgin soil all the members of the crew had specially completed courses for combine harvesters and received appropriate certificates. To the requests of Roza and Kim to be provided the opportunity to work together on the same harvester, no one paid any attention either. So they themselves persuaded a Ukrainian machine operator, who had arrived in Kazakhstan to earn money with his harvester, to take them both on as helpers, promising for that to decline for his benefit their share of the grain, owed to all participants in the harvest as the means of supplemental pay. As a result Roza and Kim succeeded safely in working together for the entire term of the first harvest work season under the guidance of an experienced machine operator, who generously shared with the novices his wealth of practical experience, which was very helpful to them the next year.
In the summer of 1957 they were sent to another state-owned agricultural farm. For this time the circumstances were such, that the young people were faced with a choice: either to become assistants for the combine operators, but on account of this to part ways until the end of the harvest campaigns, or to bring into working condition an abandoned, tattered, looted for spare parts, old combine harvester and drive it out into the field on their own.
There were only two weeks left before the start of the harvest, and Roza and Kim, not losing time in vain, eagerly took up restoring the battered agricultural machinery. Necessary parts could be successfully found sometimes in the warehouse, or in the workshops, or at times at the scrap metal dump. And for a liter of moonshine local craftsmen repaired the engine, such that it worked no worse than a new one.
Soon the restored combine harvester, nicknamed “students’,” went out into the field. To the surprise and envy of the old-timers, it was the only one in the whole brigade that had properly functioning electric lighting, allowing for working during the dark time of the day.
For more than twenty days the harvest continued. Throughout all of this time the students’ combine harvester participated in it on par with the others, not at all inferior to them in the quality of harvested hectares, or in centners of threshed grain.
Roza and Kim were pleased and proud of the results of their work. Intensive independent work and even domestic difficulties in the brigade’s field camp all the more so brought them closer together, strengthened their relationship, and enriched their feelings. The conscientious work of the young people did not go unnoticed. Upon the completion of the harvest, in addition to their earnings, they were awarded a bonus for the restoration and preservation of the combine, as well as a certificate of appreciation from the management of the state-run agricultural farm.
In a good mood, the students arrived at the train station, to head back to Leningrad. And here awaited them a “surprise,” forever to remain in memory.
Along the alternate tracks there stretched long, more than two meters high, piles of grain that were intended, apparently, for export to the central regions of the country. This grain had already managed to have been under the rain and inevitably had to wait for the near frosts. The students with bitterness saw the final result of their labor, doomed for this, to rot and become garbage! This visible lesson in Soviet thuggery and mismanagement completely spoiled the legitimate feeling of satisfaction from the conscientiously completed work.
The money earned on the virgin land turned out to be very useful, when in November of that same year in the large Leningrad apartment of Roza’s relatives there took place a modest, but happy wedding of Roza and Kim.
Kim with his wife Roza. Leningrad, 1957.
There remained six months until graduation from the institute, after which the young family planned to begin a new, independent path in life. Kim assumed that after he and Roza started working and received their own housing, which they were entitled to by law as young professionals, Braina would move in with them and become the third member of the family.
From Kim’s words, Roza knew about the tragic circumstances of Braina. Having grown up without a father, who had died at the front lines, and having also known from having evacuated together with her mother and brother from necessity, hunger and despair, Roza sincerely sympathized with Braina and responded with understanding to Kim’s intention of taking care of his elderly mother. However these plans were not destined to become a reality because of the forthcoming events within the country of abrupt political changes.
In February 1956, at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, unexpectedly, like a bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky, there sounded a report, exposing the cult of personality of Stalin. The “great successor to the work of Lenin, leader of the proletariat of the entire world” and “wise father of the peoples” appeared before the stricken Soviet people as a cruel and bloody dictator, a ruthless and insidious schemer, directly responsible for the mass repressions, that took place in the country during the years of his unrestricted power. In the fates of the miraculously surviving “enemies of the people” and members of their families, positive changes soon also began to occur.