Vladimir Maz'Ya (Auth.) - Differential Equations of My Young Years-Birkhäuser Basel (2014)

Vladimir Maz’ya
Differential
Equations of
My Young Years
Vladimir Maz’ya
Differential Equations of
My Young Years
Vladimir Maz’ya
Domherrevägen 20
Sollentuna
Sweden
ISBN 978-3-319-01808-9 ISBN 978-3-319-01809-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01809-6
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014933549
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

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Foreword
This autobiographic book by Vladimir Maz’ya, an outstanding mathematician of

worldwide reputation, a remarkable representative of the St. Petersburg-Leningrad
school of mathematics,1 is intended for a diverse readership that includes people
who have had little to do with mathematics. For this reason, while introducing the
author of the book to the public, it is perhaps pointless to describe and enumerate his
scientific achievements in any detail. I would simply say that the great number of
his publications (about 500 articles and 20 books),2 and the great depth of the results
he has obtained, his fundamental new ideas, and his skilled technique, cannot fail to
make a strong impression on a wide variety of readers. This statement is richly
confirmed by a Wikipedia article that, in addition to naming V. Mazya’s works, also
cites his honorary titles and awards and the universities where he wrote and taught
in the USSR, Western Europe, and the USA.
I am fortunate to have been the coauthor and friend of such a Master – a term
used here in the sense of this word as coined by Bulgakov. (Near the end of
Maz’ya’s book, see the Sect. 6.13, which touches upon the correlation between
Bulgakov’s “master” and Mazya’s lists of titles, diplomas, etc.)
The fact that mathematics appears on many of its pages in no way diminishes the
book’s clarity of discourse and attraction to a variety of readers. While minimizing
the use of special terms and formulations, the author shares with the reader stories
of the dramatic emotions and strains that a mathematician can experience in
struggling with a complex problem in pursuit of a, sometimes seemingly constantly
escaping, solution. As an example, I cite the author’s recounting of his discovery of
a new approach to the theory of Sobolev spaces (the Sect. 5.9) and an unexpected
solution of a problem from Hilbert’s famous list. But the mathematics in Maz’ya’s
1
See V. I. Smirnov’s speech, quoted in the Sect. 6.4.
2
Among them is a voluminous and captivating monograph devoted to the life and works of the
famous French mathematician J. Hadamard; it is quite accessible to a non-specialist. (Jacques
Hadamard, A Universal Mathematician, V. Maz’ya, T. Shaposhnikova, AMS, LMS; there are
French and Russian translations).
v
vi Foreword
book (as in the life of every serious scholar) is not separated from everyday life or
the people around him (both colleagues and non-mathematicians). His personal
connections, so vividly expressed by the author, determine a singular, and even
somewhat peculiar, character of the book that speaks to the interests of mathema-
ticians as well as to the general public. His abundance of astute observations,
concrete depictions, and vivid portraits gives the text an encyclopedic character,
and makes it a valuable source of information for the historian of the Soviet life in
the 40s–60s of the last century.
Subjects related to mathematics do not appear in the book at once; indeed its first
part is completely devoid of them. At the beginning of the book, the author tells us
of his early childhood which coincided with the hard times of the war. All his
grandparents perished in the siege of Leningrad. His father and two uncles died at
the front. (One can’t help but remember Slutsky’s poem: “The bullet spared me. So
that they may say truly: ‘The Jews did not fight in the war. They all returned
safely.’”)
The book describes the author’s and his mother’s evacuation to the rear during
the war, his school years in postwar Leningrad, poverty, and communal apartments
(alas, a still existing characteristic of Soviet life). All of that is vividly described in
the first half of the book. Here, as well as in the second half, there are many realia of
Soviet everyday life requiring words that are (fortunately, given their meanings)
disappearing daily. These words may need to be explained even to a present-day
Russian reader, to say nothing of an English speaker who would most likely lack the
necessary context. (I refer to such terms as “communalka” (Communal apartment),
“kerosinka” (kerosene stove), “fifth item” (internal passport record of Jewishness),
“permitted to travel abroad – not permitted to travel abroad” (for political or
national reasons), “ideological commission” (it checks your loyalty to Commu-
nism) and a host of others with devastating connotations.
Approximately from the middle of the book, the mathematical content increases
and becomes more and more emphasized. The negative features of Soviet reality
were historically combined with a well-organized educational system, at least in its
physics and mathematics aspects. While reading V. Maz’ya’s book, we learn a lot
of good things of the mathematical life in Leningrad – about school children keen
on mathematics, amateur circles of young mathematicians, contests (Olympiads) in
mathematics, and finally of the Mathmech (a colloquial name for Mathematical and
Mechanical Department of the Leningrad/St. Petersburg University). There is a
gallery of portraits – descriptive and lovingly selected photographic representations
– reminiscent of the mathematicians’ life of that time in Leningrad. It was quite
intensive and abundant in both people and events. The beginning student could
easily find a knowledgeable professor. Freshmen were taught by venerable math-
ematicians as well as by peers. And it was possible to contact a professor in other
settings than in class. An example of such informal and truly crucial contacts was a
conversation of Student Maz’ya with Professor Mikhlin (see the Sect. 5.7).
In the second part of the book (devoted to the “Mathmech”), a peculiarity
mentioned above becomes clearly apparent. Episodes of the author’s creative
activity, reconnaissance of his own path in science, work with mathematical
Foreword vii
problems and flashes of inspiration, all of these alternate with stories of events and
meetings of non-mathematical life. The description of Maz’ya’s discovery of a new
approach to Sobolev spaces theory gives place to a chapter concerned with a trip to
the Virgin Soil. After two dissertation defenses – the Candidate and Doctor of
Sciences degrees – the story passes on to the so-called special stores and to the
banishment of most travel abroad. A significant amount of space is dedicated to
meetings with actors, musicians, and impressions of their works.
I have briefly and only partially mentioned what is presented in the book. I hope
other readers will experience the same enjoyment that I myself have had. I would
also like to address the author with a wish (that probably would be joined by other
readers): Please write a sequel. It would no doubt be somewhat more mathematical,
but would still be appreciated by both mathematicians and the general public.
V. P. Havin
Meritorious Scientist of Russian Federation
ThiS is a FM Blank Page
Author’s Notes
I wrote this book at the insistence of my children. The text covers events from 1937
till 1968 only.
With the advancement of time as my life went on, it became necessary to speak
more and more of mathematics, which for many years fortunately remained and still
remains the core of my existence. But because any description of this material
cannot be fully understood by non-specialists, it was doomed to failure a priori.
This is actually the main reason why my memoirs had to be stopped at quite an
early date.
My pleasant task now is to express cordial thanks to my wife Tanya, my children
Misha and Gali-Dana, my son-in-law Nekod as well as the friends of my youth
Leonid Druz and Arkady Alexeev. All of them were of great help in writing this
book. I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Victor Havin for adding the
Foreword to the English edition. I also owe special thanks to Arkady Alexeev for
taking the burden of translating the text of the Russian original with its complicated
terminology and many idioms.
I would ask Sylvia Lotrovsky and Thomas Hempfling of Springer Basel to
accept my gratitude for deciding to publish my reminiscences in English.
ix
ThiS is a FM Blank Page
Contents
1 Family and Early Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 The Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Time of Peace Is Over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 My Mother’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 My Father’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5 In Sverdlovsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.6 Back to Leningrad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.7 Postage Stamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.8 Crime Without Punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.9 From the Kiosk to House No. 19/18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.10 Life in the “Small Room” on Marat Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.11 Aunt Rita and Lusya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.12 Lusya, Ella and the Sinclairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.13 Uncle Aron, Bathhouse and Chess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.14 Mother and My First Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.15 Durian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1.16 Our Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1.17 The Kitchen and the Toilet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.18 Life Has Become Better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.19 Even the Sun Has Spots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2 Boyhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.1 It Is So Difficult to Become an “A” Student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.2 The Importance of Being an “A” Student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.3 Slingshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.4 Illnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.5 “Physcult” and Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.6 To Me the Most Important Art Was the Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.7 A Sharp Kid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.8 Foreign Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.9 My Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
xi
xii Contents
2.10 Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.11 Fimka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.12 The First Place in the District! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3 High School Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.1 In the Sixth Grade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.2 In the Seventh Grade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.3 The Indecent Topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.4 My Circle of Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.5 I Chose Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.6 A Circle at the Palace of Pioneers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.7 Two Lectures for School Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.8 Murderers in Doctors’ Smocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.9 The English Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
3.10 Arkady Alexeev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.11 Alexeev’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4 Mathematics and Other Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.1 Vanity of Vanities, All Is Vanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.2 You Cannot Live Without Women. No! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.3 Phase Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.4 My First Mathmech Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.5 Student Contests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.6 We Lead Our Life in Major Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.7 A Mysterious ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.8 Musical Moments (Leonid Druz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.9 Valery Maisky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.10 The Authorities Did Not Like Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
4.11 How I Did Not Become a Dissident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
4.12 Misha Danilov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5 Mathmech Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.1 The Mathmech Cafeteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.2 Fractional Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.3 Something New at Last! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.4 Student Scientific Society (SSS) and Tseitin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.5 “Quasi-publication” and S. M. Lozinsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.6 The Mathmech Choir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
5.7 My Doubts and S. G. Mikhlin’s Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
5.8 A Few Words About Mikhlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
5.9 In the Fourth Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
5.10 The Virgin Soil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.11 In My Fifth Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
5.12 Bakelman’s Special Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.13 Job Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
5.14 Siegfried . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Contents xiii
6 Dissertations and the Years After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

6.1 Steel Sheets and YMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6.2 Possibility and Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
6.3 Defense at the Moscow State University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.4 Defense at the Leningrad University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.5 About V. I. Smirnov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6.6 An Order: Scatter the Composed Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
6.7 About the “Big Seminar” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
6.8 After the Defense of the Doctor’s Degree Dissertation . . . . . . . . . 170
6.9 One Hour Late, Lose the Whole Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
6.10 A Similar Topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
6.11 Non-Travels to Foreign Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
6.12 Counterexamples to a Hilbert Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
6.13 Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
6.14 Farewell, My Young Years! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
6.15 How Many Medium Range Rockets Were There? . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.16 Under Close Surveillance? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Chapter 1
Family and Early Childhood
1.1 The Beginning
Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) on December 31, 1937 at a quarter to

midnight I understood, although much later, that I arrived in haste. This fifteen-
minute rush to get ahead of the calendar has made people believe that I am a year
older than my real age, which cannot be pleasing to anyone in my place. My parents
could have recorded my birth as happening in 1938, but they did not use this
opportunity, wishing to let their dear son start school earlier.
Several days after the birth, as custom demanded, the newborn baby boy was
circumcised. It was witnessed by “a huge number of guests” who gathered in
apartment 55 at 17 Suburban Avenue where resided Mark Mazya, the senior brother
of my paternal grandfather, with his wife Hana and children.
In a large Jewish family, or more exactly, in its Leningrad branch, I was
considered to be the only long awaited little kid who could be destined to ensure
continuity of generations and thus was idolized, constantly spoiled and incessantly
praised for intellectual achievements. Probably it was due to this circumstance that I
developed a high self-rating and an unbending desire to be on a par with it. Or was it
just my genes?
Mother liked to speak of an event that happened when she was still at the
maternity ward thus reliving over and over again the apotheosis of her life. She
managed to persuade the nurse to call our friends, the Gindins, who lived in our
house in another apartment and, unlike us, had a telephone. The nurse called them
and joyously said, “You have a boy!” The neighbors who had gathered at a New
Year celebration table did not expect any addition to their family, but it did not take
them long to guess whose newborn was implied. So they sent someone to our
apartment where my father and my numerous relatives celebrated the New 1938
Year too.
“How happy they were!” my mother used to say with tears in her eyes. “Mam,
stop crying, “ I would beg her. Later, because of those tears, I was usually irritated
when she talked about the past. Besides, she repeated her stories word for word each
V. Maz’ya, Differential Equations of My Young Years, 1

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01809-6_1, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
2 1 Family and Early Childhood
Photo 1.1 I am about

2 years old here
(© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
time, which bored me a lot. Among other events there was a tale of my refusal to
suckle right after birth, which caused my mother to develop mastitis. “You ate so
poorly that I had to endure a surgery twice under general anesthesia.” I felt I was a
criminal. I heard this reproach from my mother so often in my childhood and youth
when I sat at table for hours suffering next to the plate! My appetite was miserable
even during the hungriest years, and eating (especially to my mother’s accompani-
ment: “please eat one more little spoon”) was a torturous nightmare. Fearing that I
might get anemia my mother always had an upper hand. She was a woman of strong
character.
Well, it’s time to say more about the happy prewar years. No attempt on my part
to imagine myself in a stroller or in my mom’s hands pronouncing my first word
“tsyty”1 in front of a flower shop on Marat Street can take me through the mantle of
time. My earliest memory, dated by my mother, is around the time when I was about
a year and a half. I remember I spilled the contents of my tea cup on my clothes at
some family gathering. Possibly the tea was not too hot because I did not cry but
rather was glad to be the center of everyone’s attention. Then I see myself
surrounded by frightened women hovering over my naked little body while I was
lying on a wide bed feeling sunflower oil flowing along my skin.
Something more interesting retained in my memory must have happened on a
beautiful summer morning in 1940 when I was two and a half years old. Answering
my question that I asked many years later, my mother told me that at that time we
stayed for the summer in a village not far from the city of Gomel. I remember
myself lying alone in my room, half-awake, looking through the wooden planks on
the side of my bed at patches of shining sunlight in the window. A curtain was
slowly swaying on the window frame. Then suddenly a strong unfamiliar feeling
arose in me. Now I would call it inspiration for at that time I suddenly clearly felt
myself an individual; I understood that I was I and that discovery brought about a
1
A baby talk distortion of the Russian word “tsvety” meaning “flowers”.
1.1 The Beginning 3
Photo 1.2 With

Grandmother Gita in the
summer of 1938
private collection)
surge of remarkable joy. I am not sure I have succeeded in describing that moment
clearly, but I cannot do any better.
Before the war we lived in the center of Leningrad, in the street bearing the name
of the French revolutionary leader Marat. When I was born my mother’s parents,
grandfather Gilya and grandmother Gita, got a residence permit in a tiny room of
communal apartment No. 4, house No. 19/18, on the corner of Kolokolnaya Street. I
was placed in another room that we called large, 47 m2 floor space, with the
windows facing Marat Street. In addition to myself the inhabitants of the room
included Grandmother Khaya and Grandfather Leyba, that is the parents of my
father, plus the father himself and my mother. A screen and a couple of wardrobes
perpendicular to it partitioned off a small rectangular space containing the bed of
my parents and my little bed, there was also a white ornamented tile stove. Any
soundproofing was unthinkable. I very much disliked going behind the screen at the
height of the adults’ continuous activity. “But in the morning you’ll have a little
chocolate under the pillow,” my relatives would console me, and they did not lie.
Providing chocolates to me was my uncle Aron’s habit, the youngest of my father’s
three brothers who was a student of the Mining Institute with his official residence
in the school dormitory but often staying with us on Marat Street.
Probably because of all that, when I arranged my relatives according to the
principle “who loves me most” I placed him third after my mother and father.
I remember I had a habit, after turning in, to twirl a forelock on my head before
falling asleep. But most of all I loved to climb out of my little bed, get into my
parents’ bed and sleep, having settled between them! In one instance my timid
Photo 1.3 Uncle Aron in

1938 (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
request to be allowed to occupy my favorite place was satisfied (could they really
upset their little “sunny”?) but only after a brief mumbled discussion. While I was
climbing over to their bed I heard the whisper: “Careful, he’ll feel wet in this spot.”
It was an incomprehensible remark and just because of that it stuck in my memory.
One of the walls of the large room was decorated with an old darkened painting
inserted into a heavy gilded frame. As I know now the painting depicted a biblical
theme: “A female slave gives the basket with baby Moses to the pharaoh’s
daughter.”
The large room’s ceiling had ornamental plaster mouldings, and there was a
parquet floor which allowed the 3-year old Vovochka 2 to improve his skills in long
jumps. I don’t remember the toys I had there, but the cardboard aquarium with little
toy fishes and a magnet fishing rod enchanted me as a miracle.
I constantly listened to “The little speckled hen”, “The little turnip”, “The
buzzing fly” and other kids’ stuff.3 My mother was proud of my declaiming so
many verses by heart. During holidays Vovochka-the toddler was made to stand on
a chair and he would tirelessly pronounce one verse after another for the shocked
guests. Probably I developed a conditioned reflex because soon I began declaiming
poetry off a chair on my own initiative, which was sometimes done quite unex-
pectedly the moment visitors appeared in our house.
Here is the beginning of one of “my” poems I often recited before the war:
Color pencils, eraser and a notebook.
Two boys, two brothers are drawing in a nook.
One says: “I drew a house I want to make.”
The other answers: “It’s the house that I’ll break.
I am quoting these lines here because I’ve never seen the poem printed in any
book. I don’t know who the author is or the result of the brothers’ argument.
2
Vovochka, Vova, Volodya and Vovka are Russian diminutive forms of Vladimir.
3
Translation into English of the titles of popular Russian nursery rhymes.
1.2 The Time of Peace Is Over 5
Photo 1.4 I can recite a

poem if you like (©
Vladimir Maz’ya, private
collection)
1.2 The Time of Peace Is Over
The day of June 22, 19414 was not retained in my memory, but I clearly remember
the siren of air-raid alarm transmitted that summer by the black disk of our home
loudspeaker. The howling sound was not familiar and caused fear. Therefore if the
grown-ups were not around I climbed the table in order to reach the plug and,
standing there on my knees, turned the radio off. This trick was always disclosed
and I was lightly reproved because it was everyone’s duty to run to the air-raid
shelter. Later, all the people were issued gas-masks – rubber helmets with a crimped
trunk. I remember being scared by the elephantine heads the grown-ups had on their
shoulders and, with a howl, refused to put mine on. Afterwards I never had an
opportunity to breathe through a gas-mask.
4
The date of the German attack on Russia when the Russo-German war – a part of the 2nd World
War – began.
1.3 My Mother’s Story
By the beginning of the war I was almost three and a half years old. My father was
32 and my mother 33, but she never admitted that she was a year older than her
husband. My mother was beautiful. The few of her photographs that have survived
– in those days people took photos not as often as nowadays – can persuade anyone
that she was pretty. After the war she told me repeatedly that her lady-friends
envied her complexion and questioned closely what cosmetics she was using. “But I
did absolutely nothing,” she proudly declared to me. Mother lived until she was
92 and died in 2000 in Sweden.
My mother’s parents used to live in the town of Romny, Poltava Region. My
future grandfather Gilya Sheinin was born in 1869, and the grandmother Gita was
3 years younger. According to my mother her parents did not love each other. Gita
was in love with another man and her marriage to Gilya was not of her own free
will. In 1896 their son Israel was born and a year later their daughter Sonya. The
family prospered as Gilya owned a department store where one could buy anything.
“I had a real ‘Muir & Mirrielees’!”,5 he liked to say when proudly remembering
those days.
A third of the town (Romny) population consisted of Jews. Time passed quietly,
but on October 18 and 19, 1905 Pogroms took place. The Pogrom-makers burned
down in Romny all Jewish stores, pharmacies, two synagogues, two print shops,
several schools, the Jewish part of the town market, killed eight people and
wounded more than 30. After a Pogrom Gilya, his wife and children left for
Alexandria, Egypt. But, they did not like that country and began thinking of
emigrating to America. Still, before making a final decision Gilya and Gita asked
for advice of their friends who remained in Romny. Their opinion was as follows:
“Come back home! Remarkable business opportunities have appeared.”
So, they returned, and the quiet life in Romny continued. True, the former scope
of business no longer existed – Gilya now had just a small shop. The family lived in
the town center in a comfortable house with an orchard. It was there, in 1908 that
Manya, my future mother, was born.
Gilya probably had dreamt of a son and was disappointed. At any rate Manya
perceived that her father did not have any tender feelings towards her, and she was
somewhat afraid of him. When my mother, many years later, tried to make me sit
straight at table, she always told me of her father painfully slapping her on the back
(without any commentary) wishing to break her habit of stooping (with no result).
As to her mother, Manya loved her dearly; later in her life she would always add the
words “My poor little mummy” when she spoke of her.
In 1919 the Petlura,6 peasant bands, Whites and Reds occupied and devastated
the town by turns. Many years later my mother told me of being hidden in the house
5
“Muir & Mirrielees’” – a nineteenth century department store in Moscow named for the two
Scotsmen who established and owned it.
6
A chieftain of the Ukrainian nationalists during the Civil War.
1.3 My Mother’s Story 7
Photo 1.5 Mother, about

private collection)
Photo 1.6 Grandfather

Gilya before the Revolution
private collection)
under a feather bed, trembling in her fright when she heard the screams of her
parents beaten with ramrods in the yard.
In the 1920s she was a student in a Russian school of the gymnasium type where
among other subjects they taught German and French. Her brother Israel married
Rita, daughter of a famous rabbi. In 1926 their daughter Lusya (Lubov Israelevna)
was born who became my favorite cousin. My mother’s sister Sonya got married,
and in 1927, while being pregnant, suddenly died just after having returned home
from a theater.
As early as 1918, when the first Soviet Constitution was adopted, Gilel Sheinin
was registered as a “citizen with limited rights” as he was a private trader. At the
end of the NEP7 in about 1930, Gilel’s entire property was confiscated, including
7
NEP – “New Economic Policy” – by the decision of the Soviet government it was a temporary
return to a capitalist type of commerce and labor relations in the Soviet Union in the 1920s.
Photo 1.7 Gilya and Gita

with children in Romny
before 1908 (© Vladimir
Maz’ya, private collection)
the house. The family was evicted and relocated to the village of Zasulye beyond
the city limit. In spite of the fact that at that time there was a campaign of expelling
the children of parents “with limited rights” from the senior school grades, my
mother managed to finish high school, but higher education was out of the question.
However, thanks to an acquaintance, Manya’s father was able to obtain a
certificate of worker and peasant parentage for her, and in 1930 my mother came
to Leningrad.
At first she had nowhere to live, but she entered the Marty8 Ship Building
Factory as an unskilled worker and was placed in the dormitory. Soon Manya
Sheinina (or Marusya as she was called at the factory) was advised to study to be an
accountant and after completing the course she was transferred to the accounting
department. It was at that time that she was allowed to take residence in the 9 m2
room on 19 Marat Street. Afterwards someone from the administration convinced
my mother to enter the Ship Building Institute – the factory authorities had to
provide new students to the Institute according to a distribution order.9 In those
8
André Marty (1886–1956) – a leading figure in the French Communist Party; there is an article
about him in Wikipedia.
9
Here: a document from a superior authority demanding a certain number of workers to be sent to
an educational institution as students.
1.3 My Mother’s Story 9
Photo 1.8 Mother as a girl

private collection)
days there was no competition among college entrants. Thus armed with the
distribution order and some work experience at the factory, Marusya was immedi-
ately admitted.
Alas, her higher education studies did not last long. In a short while her
certificate of worker and peasant parentage was due to be confirmed, but the person
from Romny who could help had hanged himself by that time. Besides, Marusya
saw at the Institute someone from Romny; she was concerned that he would
denounce her and, fearing disgrace, she ceased attending classes.
Approximately at that time her parents with their son, daughter-in-law, and
granddaughter Lusya came to Leningrad. At first they lived in a suburban village
Pargolovo, then all five of them moved to a 22 m2 room in Communal Apartment
No.3 on 22 Kirillovskaya Street where both grandfather and grandmother had to
sleep in the corridor.
In 1935 Manya Gilelevna Sheinina married Gilel Leibovich Maz’ya who was
her neighbor in the 19 Marat Street apartment; she then moved to the “large” room
while her parents Gilya and Gita occupied the “small” one. In 1940 Grandfather
Gilya was pushed out of a streetcar in motion and lost both his legs.
Photo 1.9 Lusya in 1936

private collection)
1.4 My Father’s Story
I don’t know when the families of “citizens with limited rights” – brothers Mark and
Leyba Maz’ya – moved from Mogilev to Leningrad. Probably it happened after
1920, that is when their Mogilev enterprise consisting of a copper foundry and a
mechanical factory was nationalized.10
Leyba and his wife Khaya had seven children: their three daughters Keylya,
Dora and Grunya were born in Mogilev. In 1909 Gillel, my future father, was born
(he was Gilel according to his passport, and Gilya for relatives and friends), and
after him three more sons Girsh (Grisha), Sholom (Syoma) and Aaron (Aron) saw
the light of day. In about 1930 the three sisters got married and left Leningrad
together with their husbands.
Gilya was the eldest son and had to help his father to support the family. As a son
of a “citizen with limited rights” he could not get higher education (this limitation
was abolished in the new Soviet Constitution of 1936). Since 1930 he was
employed as a metalworker; in 1934 he got the position of mechanic at the
Leningrad factory “Slovolitnya” – “Word casting” – where they produced printing
equipment.
The last time I saw my father was in the middle of July 1941. No matter how
hard I try I cannot clearly remember him in living motion. Some of his photographs,
combined with tales told by my mother, have shaped the images which have
10
This enterprise still exists.
1.4 My Father’s Story 11
Photo 1.10 Grandfather

Leyba (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
Photo 1.11 Grandmother

Khaya (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
survived from my childhood and which boil down to a vague perception of someone
big, smiling and tender. Mother used to say that he liked joking. I have an enlarged
photo made in 1941 that hangs in my den at home and shows a handsome serious
young man looking at me from the picture, but is he really my daddy? My two sons
look older.
My mother told me that in 1941 they made rosy plans. Father’s salary had been
increased and he bought his wife a squirrel fur winter coat that she wore into holes
for several years after the war.
By the way, my father was called Ilya at the factory instead of the passport
version of Gilel. This explains the way my first name Vladimir was selected. My
naı̈ve parents thought that my name and patronymic would sound Vladimir Ilyich,
that is like that of Lenin, which might help me to fit into the Soviet environment.
At the beginning of the war the “Slovolitnya” factory organized the production
of military equipment. My father had the right for exemption from military service,
Photo 1.12 My father’s Certificate: “From mechanic to foreman” (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private
collection)
1.4 My Father’s Story 13
Photo 1.13 My father’s Character Reference, 1934 (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
but refused to use it, having said to his wife that he was ashamed to walk the streets
when others are fighting the war. He went to a recruitment center in the beginning of
July and offered his services as a volunteer.
Several days later my mother and I were evacuated from Leningrad to Sverd-
lovsk.11 My grandparents stayed in Leningrad, convinced that the Germans would
11
This was the name of the city from 1924 to 1991. Its name was Ekaterinburg before 1924 and
was restored in 1991.
Photo 1.14 My father at a

machine tool (© Vladimir
Photo 1.15 My father

before the war (© Vladimir
1.5 In Sverdlovsk 15
Photo 1.16 Grandmother

Gita, 1941 (© Vladimir
not be allowed to come too close and the war would soon end. My mother’s parents
could not leave anyway because her father, having no legs, was bedridden.
My father was killed in action near Leningrad on December 21, 1941 (He was
32 years old.) In the “killed in action” notice received much later the authorities
informed us that he died near the village Veneryazi (does not exist nowadays) not
far from the town of Pulkovo. Recently I read the material of the “Memorial”
Internet site, the “Where buried” section, and found information that my father
“was left on the battle field after our army retreated.” I examine his photo and ask:
“What if you were still alive when they abandoned you there, my poor daddy who
looks like my son now. Did your suffering last long in your trench or snowdrift
while you waited for your death? Or maybe you were crushed by a tank, or some
attacking German gunned you down out of mercy?” It was not easy for me to grow
up without a father, and how cruelly my mother’s life was crippled by his death is
beyond description.
My father’s youngest brother Grisha (he was not yet married) died at the front at
the beginning of the war; my mother’s only brother Israel Sheynin was reported
missing. He was survived by his daughter Lusya who was born in 1925. My father’s
two younger brothers were drafted in 1943. One, Syoma, was a tanker, the other,
Aron, an artilleryman. They both fought all the way to Berlin and, unhurt, returned
to Leningrad, the first in the rank of Captain and with the Order of Red Star, at the
beginning of 1946; the second as a Lieutenant with medals came back half a year
later.
1.5 In Sverdlovsk
I’m not going to describe in detail the 4 years we spent in Sverdlovsk as evacuees. I
cannot say that I have forgotten that period. Simply, these are not happy memories
and I don’t feel like returning to that time in my imagination.
Photo 1.17 Uncle Grisha

(1912–1942) (© Vladimir
Photo 1.18 Uncle Syoma

in Germany (© Vladimir
I vaguely remember our journey in a heated freight car from Leningrad to

Sverdlovsk. The freight car was packed full with passengers, all slept on beds of
boards. The train stopped very often.
On arrival we settled at Aunt Grunya’s (my father’s sister) to stay with her. She
lived in two rooms of a communal apartment No. 15 in 11 Turgenev Street with her
son Zorik, 7 years my elder, and her daughter Ira, 1 year younger than I. Grunya’s
husband, Yuda Itin at that time was already at the front in spite of being lame, and
soon, in January 1942, was killed in action. From the start Grunya regarded us as
strangers. Alone with two children she perceived us as potential hangers-on.
Afterwards she changed her attitude, having witnessed my mother’s excessive
scrupulousness. Sometimes Mom was half-starving, but she would not ask her
sister-in-law for even a piece of bread, as she did not wish to be a burden on her.
Photo 1.19 My father’s “killed in action notice” (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
We did not know about my father’s death all during the war. No letters from him
came, and my mother’s requests to send her information about his fate resulted in
no answers or a notice would arrive: “Is not listed among the dead or missing.”
That was the reason why for three and a half year in Sverdlovsk Mother did not
receive the loss-of-breadwinner pension normally paid to the family of a soldier
fallen in battle. At first, for a year and a half, she worked as an accountant in various
places, e.g. at a flour mill or a post office, and even at several tree felling sites; she
also acted as a blood donor because donors received a special food ration.
In Sverdlovsk I spent most of my time in kindergartens. From December
19, 1942 to May 16, 1945 my mother worked as a teacher in round-the-clock
kindergarten (boarding school) No. 166. The reader may rest assured that she
transferred me to the same boarding school. I was in the middle and later senior
section while Mother taught in the junior one. I remember she was proud of her skill
Photo 1.20 With my

mother in Murzinka, June
private collection)
in making upholstered toy couches, beds and armchairs for the little kids. The
children spent all weekdays in the kindergarten except Sundays.
An unforgettable kindergarten nightmare – stiff cold cream of wheat with huge
clots. I could not eat it. Sometimes we were treated to dates, contaminated by
worms. I remember we were also given some delicacies like stewed dry fruit, sweet
light brown syrup, gray macaroni with American canned pork, and omelets made of
powdered eggs, an American product too. According to my mother our food was
outrageously bad and not just because of poorly organized supplies, but also due to
an active thievery at the kitchen.
One of the memories of those days – our singing in chorus. We learned such
songs as: “Hey you sailor, you are a handsome lad. . .”, “Here is a frog hopping
along the path stretching out its legs. . .”, and even “From behind the island and to
the midstream. . .”12. I enjoyed the process of chorus singing and was not tone-deaf
(After the war Mother wanted to enroll me for piano lessons, but we did not have
enough money to pay the teacher; as to the piano that stood in the “large” room
since the time before the war, it was later sold by my relatives.)
12
Russian songs, the last one being very old.
At the kindergarten we loved to play soldier. You would crawl on the floor on
your stomach like a scout or you would run after the Krauts banging away – “Ta-ta-
ta-ta-ta” as if firing a tommy gun, and then you hear:
“Fall down, you are killed!”
“No, I am wounded!” and you wallow on the floor with a splendid feeling that you
are in a real battle and behave heroically. In 1943 for the first time in my life I
saw a movie; our kindergarten group was taken to a movie theater where they
were playing “The Two Soldiers” after which I sang together with the others :
“Dark night. Bullets only are whizzing in the steppe. . .”
Like all other kindergarten pupils I had a folder with my own pencil sketches.
There were lots of sea, air, and land battles in them, especially those with combined
arms. I was indifferent about their artistic quality, but their quantity was a matter of
great pride. I had more sketches than any other pupil!
Nevertheless neither in those days nor later did I ever have any talent in drawing.
But imagination was another matter! I did have it. There was an occasion when
staying alone at home (on a sick leave or something) I drew by pencil an ugly face
and afterwards was terrified to look at it.
At the kindergarten for the first time I felt the heady taste of leadership in social
work when I organized the burial of a dead sparrow. Under my guidance the
ceremony participants dug a shallow pit, put the little bird there, covered it with
dirt, crushed a piece of brick with a rock and strewed the pink chips on top of the
grave. On the next day, out of curiosity, exhumation was carried out, but the grave
was empty.
I will add some other details of my life in Sverdlovsk in the chapters entitled
“Illnesses” and “The forbidden theme”.
At the beginning of May 1945 everybody knew that the war was coming to an
end. The official announcement of the capitulation of Germany13 on May 9 found
me lying on my cot awake during the “rest hour”. The loudspeaker was turned on,
the teachers and nurses assembled beneath it waiting and waiting, and at last the
wait was over! Levitan14 declared: “We won!”
Shortly before leaving for Leningrad Mother was hired as an accountant at a
pioneers’ camp15 near the village Murzinka in the middle part of the Urals, and she
took me with her.
I clearly remember that the camp was located on a gently sloping hill from where
one could see forested mountains and a small river. I was enchanted by the beauty
of that place. Unfortunately I have never been able to visit it again. By the way, in
13
Capitulation of Germany was signed on May 8 in Germany, but was announced on May 9 in
Moscow due to the difference of time zones.
14
Y. B. Levitan (1914–1983) Immensely famous Radio Moscow announcer who took part in all
important Soviet government broadcasts.
15
Pioneers (or Young Pioneers), a Soviet version of boy-scouts, raised as future Communists.
Photo 1.21 My first school

private collection)
the past Murzinka was famous for its deposits of topazes, amethysts, and
other gems.
1.6 Back to Leningrad
My mother brought me home from Sverdlovsk in the summer of 1945, soon after
the victory over Germany. She immediately rid me of Ural dialect traces, persuad-
ing me, for example, to stop saying the “uncultured” dialectal word “cho” – “what”
and pronounce its correct Leningrad version “shto”. Still, a slight nostalgia for the
Sverdlovsk time stayed with me for some time.
With intense excitement both of us waited for the great day of my life, and finally
it came! On September 1, Mother took me to Boys’ School No. 207 in the
Kuybyshev District, situated on Nevsky Avenue16 deep in the back yard behind
the movie theater “Kolizey”.17 The morning happened to be warm and sunny. At
the school doors gathered a crowd of moms and grannies with their sons and
grandsons, but there were practically no men – most of the dads had yet to return
home after the war, or, like in my case, they were fated never to return. Nina
Vasilyevna, a woman I’d never seen before, assembled the First Grade “D” class to
which I belonged, and having formed us in a military type column led us away to
our new life. Although a year and a half had passed after the siege of Leningrad was
lifted and the destructions the city suffered began to disappear, the traces of the war
could still be seen everywhere. I remember in the same backyard where my school
stood, a little further away from Nevsky Avenue towards Vosstaniya Street, there
16
The main thoroughfare in Leningrad; its Russian name is closer to the English words “Nevsky
Prospect” which means “The Neva (river) Avenue”.
17
“Kolizey” is the Russian for “Coliseum”.
1.7 Postage Stamps 21
Photo 1.22 Second grade, Class “D”, December 1946. I am third from the left in the bottom row
(© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
were ruins of a residential building. Sometimes, weather permitting, school chil-

dren came to that uncanny place. Even nowadays I seem to smell the odor of the
broken brick dust hanging in the air. It looked goldish in the sunrays that penetrated
the interior of the building through the shattered windows and destroyed walls.
Along a kind of fencing were stretched poorly insulated heat pipes about a meter
thick, on which homeless children sat and warmed themselves. They were some-
what older than us and were nicknamed the “Coliseum scum”. It was risky to come
close to them. I remember they took away the schoolbag from one of my
classmates.
1.7 Postage Stamps
Right across from the arch of the Coliseum movie theater, my Marat Street abuts
against Nevsky Avenue. When going back home from school I liked to linger at the
corner of Marat and Nevsky near the newspaper kiosk where they also sold postage
stamps for collections, my unfulfilled dream.
But please don’t think that I did not have any stamps. I had a prewar fruit jelly
box full of them! Some were issued before the revolution with a portrait of Czar
Nikolas II, those produced after the revolution with pictures of workers and Red
Photo 1.23 A view of Marat Street from movie theater “Kolizey”, 2011 (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
Army men, stamps with Papanin expedition members,18 and the Chelyuskin crew
heroes.19 The monument to Pushkin picture could be found there too and even
several foreign stamps which informed me of the existence of the Latin alphabet. I
did not buy these stamps. I steamed them off from used envelopes by holding them
near the spout of a boiling tea pot. I got those envelopes from my relatives and
Mother’s colleagues whom she told about my hobby. Sometimes the stamps were
stuck on envelopes using “incorrect” glue, e.g. the one intended for rubber; as a
result they were damaged while I steamed them off or rather their denticles were
disgracefully thinned. Such “defective” stamps were admitted to my box too,
although examining them was not pleasant. The box also contained several samples
of what I believed “valuable”. They probably were twin stamps in someone’s
collection bartered in the backyard or at school. But when one of my peers let me
see a real stamp album presented to him by his father and which they replenished
together, how worthless my treasures seemed to me.
18
I. D. Papanin (1894–1986) headed the first Soviet Polar Station in the 1930s.
19
The Chelyuskin was a Soviet ship crushed by the ice in the Arctic; its crew was saved with the
help of aviation.
1.9 From the Kiosk to House No. 19/18 23
1.8 Crime Without Punishment
In that same first school year when I was eight I violated the “Thou shalt not steal”
Commandment having taken out from under Mom’s mattress a big part of her
salary cash and shoved it into my pockets and school bag. I hoped she would not
discover the loss and that the remaining part would be enough for everyday
household needs. By that time Mom had already left for work, and I, full of joyous
expectations, marched along Marat Street and Nevsky Avenue. At last I reached my
cherished kiosk that sold stamps! But it was too early and, to my great disappoint-
ment, the kiosk was closed. No problem – I’d postpone the buying of stamps until
the end of that day’s classes. So, I continued on my way to school.
In class I began bragging about my riches. Anyway my pockets were bulged out
by the banknotes and it would be impossible to avoid the question “What is in
there?” Some of the money immediately wound up in the hands of my classmates,
and I was taken aback a little bit, feeling that I had lost control of the situation.
However it ended more or less happily – the banknotes were collected by Nina
Vasilyevna and when classes ended she returned the money to the legal owner who
had arrived to pick up her good-for-nothing son and take him home. She was
absolutely terrified thinking that I would grow up to be a thief, but there was no
scolding, she just said that my Daddy would have never done anything like that and
some other no less persuasive words. I was ashamed even without her exhortations,
and in future never took any money without permission. Nevertheless I confess that
the dream of becoming rich has never been forgotten and I still have it.
At school we exchanged not only postage stamps but also other possessions,
e.g. candy wrappers. Playing with them was fashionable at one time – you put it on
your open palm (the wrapper should be folded in a certain way which I have
forgotten) and strike up from below your protruding and pressed together fingers
against the edge of a table or a window sill. If your candy wrapper soars by inertia
and covers someone else’s wrapper, you take both. If not, your rival tries to repeat
your attempt. I admit I have not perhaps described all the game rules: so many years
have elapsed.
1.9 From the Kiosk to House No. 19/18
I am back to the corner of Nevsky Avenue and Marat Street on my way home. With
great effort I overcome the temptations of the kiosk and continue my unhurried
movement towards Kolokolnaya Street. On my back I have a plywood school bag.
In it any first grader has an ABC book, Arithmetic, thin 12 page notebooks with
margins, oblique guidelines for beginners as well as a checkered notebook with
metric measures and the multiplication table on the last page of the cover. Oh yes,
I’ve nearly forgotten the inkpot and a pencil/pen case with a penholder and pen
No. 86. Senior students were allowed to write with other pens like the so-called
“duckling”, but I steadily remained an 86-pen admirer until, much later, there
Photo 1.24 Marat Street, house No. 19/18, my house as it looked in 2011 (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
Photo 1.25 The back (“black”) staircase (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
appeared relatively non-leaking ball point pens. Among those especially luxurious
were believed to be metal, multicolored and foreign made pens, but they often
broke down and they could not be recharged anywhere.
Some 60 years later my curiosity brought me to an antiquarian stationary shop in
the Paris quarter le Marais, and suddenly I saw pen No. 86 on the display, an
unexpected melancholic salute from my distant Soviet childhood. The “duckling”
1.9 From the Kiosk to House No. 19/18 25
pens and goose quills were also displayed under a glass cover, but they were none of
my concern.
Next to a bread shop, on the ragged stucco of house No. 3 (already not in Paris,
but again on Marat Street of 1945), you could read a still legible notice: “This side
of the street is dangerous when shelled.” I am passing a grocery on the corner of
Stremyannaya Street, and having crossed it am walking past a small telephone
station on 7 Marat from where you can make a trunk call. The station was on the
first floor of a deserted church covered with multicolored decorative tiles having no
domes removed probably before the war. According to the practice of that period
the church was used as a warehouse. Above a stern holy image watching the street
from the height of about the third floor one could see a barely readable inscription in
old Slavic ornate lettering darkened with passage of time saying: “Come, good
people, and bow to the Christian God.” There was a story about Povarskoy and
Dmitrovsky lanes which were most cruelly destroyed by bombing because the
German pilots, using outdated maps, thought the Stremyannaya/Marat street church
was the one which used to stand near the Moscow Railway Station, but was rebuilt
as a dairy factory in the 1930s. They believed they were bombing the Railway
Station.
The church on the corner of Marat and Stremyannaya Streets was torn down in
the 1970s and was replaced by public baths. But when, after a long absence, I
visited St. Petersburg in 2004 I could not detect any baths there. Instead there was a
tasteless glass structure of a shopping center.
Well, now it’s time to end my stroll. I am leaving behind five fine buildings
which in those times badly needed restoration and approaching our modest looking,
having almost no architectural extravagances, three-storey house No. 19/18 on the
corner of Marat and Kolokolnaya Streets. I am opening the low main entrance door
and entering a dark lobby with a narrow through passage to the back yard.
The structural peculiarities of this house described below no longer exist. They
disappeared in 1956 after major repairs. At that time the main staircase which I used
to climb in the 1940s was removed and its role was transferred to the stairs in the
back of the house. In the same year a fourth floor was added above us.
But now we are still in 1945 and I am climbing the main stairs with damaged
stone steps and bent metal handrail. There are no windows here, but in the main
wall an embrasure was made showing the service stairs where windows exist. In the
daytime this is the only source of light near the main staircase; in the evening a dim
electric light bulb on the second floor is supposed to burn, but someone, for selfish
ends, usually screws it out and then it is pitch dark on the stairs, still, I have to climb
to the third floor. Once, while ascending in the dark towards the landing between the
first and second floors, I saw a tall white figure next to which I had to pass. I felt
frightened, but when the figure burst out laughing loudly I was terrified and
desperately darted out to the street. Half an hour later, while climbing the stairs
together with someone from among my neighbors who was returning home from
work, I did not find any figure, but I swear it stood there before. I think it’s after that
episode that I began fearing darkness.
Photo 1.26 The window of

our room seen from the yard
(third from the right, on the
third floor). There was a
crater from a bomb near the
dump (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
This was the house to which my mother and I came to live on the third floor in
that same communal apartment where we used to live before the war. This time we
had to stay in the poky little room of 9 m2. The large room in the same apartment
was occupied after the war by my father’s relatives.
In 1945 the 9 m2 room had almost the same modus vivendi as before the war
when the room was occupied by Mother’s parents. Grandmother Gita, a kind, sickly
little old lady who adored me, slept on “my” couch, while Mother’s bed was
occupied by Grandfather Gilya who was crippled in a street-car disaster. According
to my Mom he had ill temper. Granddad died on July 30 and Grandma on
November 17, 1941. The death certificates show their ages respectively as 72 and
69; my Granddad’s cause of death is indicated as a stroke, and my Grandma’s – as
cardiosclerosis. Someone from among the neighbors who escaped death during the
siege told Mother that my granny, weakened by hunger and cold, died because of
the whizzing of an unexploded bomb falling under her window. As a reminder: the
siege of Leningrad began on September 8.
Recently I found on the Internet that my paternal grandfather Leyba died in
February 1942 at the age of 66, and grandmother Khaya – in March 1943, having
only reached 60 years of age. Both grandfathers and grandmothers were buried in
the Jewish Preobrazhensky Cemetery, but their graves were not preserved.
1.10 Life in the “Small Room” on Marat Street
Having returned to Leningrad my mother saw on the table in her parents’ room a
notification of my father’s death. The document had remained in the room during
the whole war. At last we began receiving a pension for my father; it was very small
1.10 Life in the “Small Room” on Marat Street 27
Photo 1.27 Death Certificate of my Grandfather Gilya (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
because he was a private “Red Army man” as they used to say then. In the death
notification his name was wrongly written as Ivan Leybovich, but all other data
were correct.
Mother tried her best to prevent me from “starving or looking like a ragamuffin”.
She mostly worked as an accountant or tally person in various places, always for
beggarly wages. She would proudly demonstrate to me her skill of making a quick
mental reckoning and using an abacus. “I stayed up the whole night preparing an
annual report. Nobody could have done it as quickly!” – she would boast. Some-
times she was laid off because of “staff reduction”, and she could not find a job for a
long time as “Jews were not hired” in that period.
Photo 1.28 Death Certificate of my Grandmother Gita (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
In 1947 Mother was an outworker in a lampshade shop – she sewed lampshades

on a piece rate pay. Of that time I kept something in my memory: “plissé or with a
smooth padding”, made of “crepe-back satin, silk or velvet”, “with cord ruffle or
scalloped edge”. In those times cloth lampshades were not considered “retro” and
had low prices. On top of the wardrobe we had metal frames piled up, some of them
wrapped in white tape, others not yet.
One day, relatives of Mom’s late father Gilya, those who had left for America
before the revolution, passed on to us through a third-party a parcel with used
clothes that looked new by our standards (at that moment foreign parcels were
allowed). Mom did not find anything fitting her there and sold some of the clothes.
As for me, I wore a cherry-colored velvet jacket with a zipper for a long time – I’ve
recalled it now while looking at the photo of my 4th year “D” class. Later, one of
1.10 Life in the “Small Room” on Marat Street 29
Photo 1.29 Lamp shade

made by Mother
private collection)
Mother’s American relatives whom she had never met before came to Leningrad
and somehow found a way to inform her of his arrival and a wish to see her. Afraid
that she might harm me, her “young pioneer”, she ignored the invitation fearing that
she would be nailed in the act. Many years later, in quite a different epoch, I asked
Mother of her American relatives, but she did not know anything about them.
After work Mother usually dropped in at the Kuznechny market,20 located not
far from our house, planning to buy some finger-licking goody for her Sonny.
Having returned home tired, but with trophies, she proudly explained her success by
telling me that she “ran all around the market” and tried to prove with vivid
examples that one should necessarily get to that place close to the end of its
operations in order to buy on the cheap.
Sometimes in the evening Mother read the cards playing solitaire, and I, when
not busy with a textbook, would pester her out of boredom: “How about a game of
cards?” and we began playing “Durak”21 or some other unpretentious game.
Nevertheless I have never been attracted by card play. On the other hand for a
period of time I played “Words” and not only with my mother, but also in class with
my most knowledgeable classmates. I will explain this game now just in case. The
players select a word and using the letters of which the word consists write down
other words without showing the result of course. He who compiled a longer list of
such words is the winner.
The loudspeaker was always turned on: Morning exercises – Feet are to be
shoulder-width apart! “Pioneers’ Dawn” morning routine, Radio broadcasts of
football matches, News, Radio literary performances, military and folk songs,
symphonies and operas. All of these made up the audible background of our life
in that period, and the small televisions with no lenses and only later with lenses
appeared as late as 1950 and in better-off families only, unlike ours.
20
One of the several so called “collective farm” markets in Leningrad, selling mainly produce and
some other food stuffs. It was an approximation to a “free market” in otherwise tightly government
controlled Soviet commerce.
21
The simplest and most popular card game in Russia. “Durak” means “fool”, also “Podkidnoy
Durak” – “fool with throwing in”.
Mother retired and began receiving an old-age pension in 1963 – 52 rubles a

month.
1.11 Aunt Rita and Lusya
After the war, my cousin Lusya, 12 years older than I, remained my only maternal
relative. Her father, just like mine, did not return from the front, and at the end of
1941 Lusya and her mother Rita found themselves, like us, in Sverdlovsk. Even
now (and she recently was 86) she emotionally remembers me as being “very
likeable in my little fur coat” and how I protested against climbing on foot to the
fifth floor after a stroll with her. She could not carry the plump kiddy in her hands
and spanked him painlessly as he was dressed in his fur coat. “You looked at me
pouting your lips and tears in your huge eyes saying ‘I’ll tell Mommy about it’” –
continued Lusya. I myself have not remembered this incident.
Soon Rita and Lusya moved to live with Rita’s relatives in Zlatoust22 where they
stayed almost till the end of the war. In 1944 Rita found out that someone had
occupied their room on Kirillovskaya Street which meant that they had nowhere to
return. Then she wrote a letter to M. I. Kalinin23 himself with a complaint, not
hoping for success. But something unbelievable happened – the room was vacated!
And the mother and daughter returned to Leningrad in the fall of 1944, even earlier
than we did.
At that time Lusya was 18 and had just finished school and entered the English
Language division of the Leningrad State University (LSU) Philological Depart-
ment. When Uncle Aron returned from the army he fell in love with her and made a
proposal, but he was refused. She perceived him as a 30-year-old graybeard as he
was 10 years her senior. After marrying her coeval, Lusya did not find happiness in
her family life. It turned out that her husband had a serious heart disease and she
became a widow quite early.
Aunt Rita, like my mother, never married again, but it seems to me she lived
better in the material sense. Her brother Mark returned home from the war unhurt
and helped his sister. She worked as a typist and made some money on the side.
Lusya brought home her merit scholarship and later began teaching at school.
In the first years after the war Mother and I visited Rita and Lusya quite often.
They were our only contacts with whom Mother could talk about her life in Romny,
about her parents and her short prewar happiness. I too liked to visit Kirillovskaya
Street. I liked to play with a dirk captured at war by Lusya’s uncle Mark. It excited
my imagination and I dreamed of having it.
22
Zlatoust (in English the name means “Golden Mouth”) – a city in the Chelyabinsk Region.
23
M. I. Kalinin (1875–1946), from 1938 he was Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme
Soviet. He used to be called the “All-Union Custodian”.
1.12 Lusya, Ella and the Sinclairs 31
Photo 1.30 Lusya in

Leningrad, November 1944
private collection)
Lusya taught me to pick out simple tunes by ear on the piano, and she herself also
played and hummed Neapolitan songs like:
Tell, girls, to your sweet pretty young friend
That I can’t sleep the nights dreaming of her,
Of all the beauties she’s the one who’s Godsend,
I wanted to confess to her myself
But could not find the words. . .24
Vova Maz’ya listened to the song and felt he was in bliss.

Aunt Rita’s pet subject was politics. While treating us to tea with cranberry
preserves she simultaneously would try to persuade us of inevitability of an
impending war with the Americans and predicted a forthcoming atomic bombard-
ment of Leningrad. How terrified I was by her prophesies! Because of them I woke
up at night on my couch and gazed at the dark window in fright expecting a flash of
an A-bomb explosion. When Mom would suggest to me that we go to the
Kirillovskaya Street I agreed on condition that she would persuade Aunt Rita to
discard her apocalyptic topics.
1.12 Lusya, Ella and the Sinclairs
In 1950, in early summer, at the Philological Department, Lusya and her friend Ella
were going to defend their graduation theses in the specialty “American literature”.
Their topics were connected with the works of “progressive” writers Sinclair
24
This is an English translation from the Russian text of the famous Italian song “Dicitencello
vuie”, lyrics by Enzo Fusco, music by Rodolfo Falvo. Many music critics consider it one of the
most fascinating Neapolitan songs.
Lewis25 and Upton Sinclair.26 My cousin had to write about the novel “Kingsblood
Royal” by the first one. The hero of the book is a young successful American who
learns that both a king’s and a black man’s blood flows in his veins. When he
discloses this fact he becomes a victim of racial discrimination.
On her science adviser’s recommendation Lusya devoted the first chapter of her
graduation thesis to a summary of I. V. Stalin’s works on the national problem.27
The paper was defended easily.
But Ella who wrote about Upton Sinclair suffered a catastrophe right before the
defense of the thesis, and the culprit was no one but the writer himself. Undoubt-
edly, the anti-fascist author never planned to harm a student of the Leningrad
University Philological Department, but exactly in 1950 he refused to sign an
Appeal for Peace thus defecting to the warmongers’ camp and winding up,
according to Ilya Ehrenburg,28 “in company with Mr. Truman”.29 As a result,
Ella’s thesis was completely ruined, but trying to avoid other problems the univer-
sity authorities accepted the guiltless student’s old course paper as a diploma thesis.
I learned the particulars of this story many years later, but have a clear memory
of Ella’s tears and her friends consoling her in the house on Kirillovskaya Street.
1.13 Uncle Aron, Bathhouse and Chess
After the army service uncle Aron lived for some time in our apartment, but in the
“large” room of course. He was not yet married and could devote some time to
me. It was he who taught me how to chop wood and we did the sawing together with
a lumberman’s saw. He took me to the public bathhouse on Pushkinskaya Street.
We filled the small washtubs with hot and cold water, soaped ourselves, rubbed the
backs for each other, and went to the steam room with bunches of green birch twigs;
afterwards, having broken into a sweat, we drank cold kvass30 in the locker room.
Before Aron returned from the army I was taken to the bathhouse by my mother
to the women’s section of course. I was 7 or 8 years old, but the naked dames were
discontented with my presence in spite of my mother’s explanations that I was
growing without a father, they would protest: “He is already a big boy”. It was
much more interesting to go to the bathhouse with Uncle Aron, but after
25
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) – the first American Nobel Prize winner in literature (1930).
26
Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) wrote more than 90 books. By the way, in one of them, “Mental
Radio” (1930), he argues that telepathy exists as he describes the experiments he conducted with
his wife.
27
This was the time when the pro-Stalin propaganda called him ”coryphaeus of all sciences”.
28
I. G. Ehrenburg (1891–1967), writer, journalist, public figure. See “Struggle for Peace is the
duty of everyone”. Interview with the writer Ilya Ehrenburg, magazine Ogonyok,
No. 36, September 3, 1950, p. 8.
29
Harry S. Truman (1884–1972), USA President (1945–1953).
30
A Russian national beverage prepared from rye bread.
1.14 Mother and My First Library 33
Photo 1.31 Uncle Aron,

about 1953 (© Vladimir
approximately a year he married, a daughter was born, his wife got sick, and he
moved out of our house. At that time I became old enough to wash in the bathhouse
all by myself. This routine continued until 1956 when, after major repairs, a
bathroom appeared in our communal apartment.
It was Uncle Aron too who taught me to play chess and checkers, or more
exactly, he showed me the moves. He did not know the theory and played as an
amateur. At first I played with him, then with my schoolmates, but checkers and
kindred games like giveaway checkers and “ugolki”31 did not captivate me. Chess
was another matter. I liked it when I was still a boy and, already a ninth grader, even
joined the Chess Club at the Art Center on Nevsky Avenue between Liteyny
Avenue and Mayakovsky Street. However, I did not go beyond second rating. As
a matter of fact I had understood long ago that participating in a sporting compe-
tition did not attract me and, which is more important, after the seventh grade in
school I began to play a more interesting game – mathematics.
1.14 Mother and My First Library
Many years later Mother told me that having learned of my father’s death at the
front, she had hopes for my uncle Syoma who, as the senior surviving brother of her
husband, was obligated according to the old Jewish tradition to marry her. Did he
31
This checker-like game is known in Europe under the Russian name “ugolki” which means
“little corners”. Each player tries to move all his game pieces from the starting corner to the
opponent’s corner of the checkerboard.
Photo 1.32 My father’s Certificate of Achievement, 1934 (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private

collection)
ever think about it? Now no one can answer this question, but after demobilization
he married another woman.
Mother remained a widow and devoted her life to me, combining her
all-encompassing motherly love with a belief in my exceptional capabilities.
“You must become as clever as your Daddy,” she taught me, showing a letter of
appreciation received by my father for his innovatory proposals at work.
I can’t say if her confidence about my talents had any objective basis, but I
remember that from early childhood I was full of resolve to live up to her
expectations. I don’t doubt that I was not a child prodigy in the real sense of the
words. But by all appearances my memory was excellent. For a long time it seemed
to me that everybody had this kind of memory, but now I have changed my mind.
I learned to read when I was four with no one’s help and then kept reading avidly
for many years. By the way, in 1945, in a scrap-heap at her work, my mother found
and brought home several books intended for kindling stoves during the war but
fortunately they escaped this fate. Among them there were “The Quest for Fire” by
Joseph Henri Boex; “Interplanetary voyages” by A. Sternfeld; “The Earth for Sam”
by W. Maxwell Reed; “How man became a giant” by M. Ilyin and E. Segal; and
“Entertaining Botany” by A. Tsinger published in 1934. I recommend these to
everyone who has not read them.
1.16 Our Room 35
1.15 Durian
For a long time I haven’t had the books mentioned above, but with my mental eye I
clearly see their covers, illustrations and very well remember my childish impres-
sions I gained from each of them. The last of them in particular prompts me to ask a
question: “Do you know what is the most tasteful fruit on earth?” I found an answer
to this question in the book on botany by Tsinger when I was 8 years old, living in
Leningrad, scarcely supplied with food after the war. This fruit is the so called
“durian” whose name recalls the Russian word “durak” – “fool” and was easily
remembered because of that. After I married Tatiana Shaposhnikova32 in 1978 I
retold her the corresponding fragment from “Entertaining Botany”. At that time we
both were not permitted to travel abroad and were sure that our chance to taste
durian equaled zero as surely as to receive personal evidence that Paris or London
existed. However, times changed, and 25 years later, when we visited Taiwan we
had an opportunity to detect a mistake in “Entertaining Botany”.
No, my friends, the taste of durian does not at all remind you of a mixture of
strawberries and a pineapple according to the assurances of the author of the book
on Botany who most probably never tasted it. In reality durian tastes like a sweetish
cream. As to its odor, the topic is controversial and I’d like to omit it. At present it’s
no problem to find information on this exotic fruit in the Internet, and it can be
bought in the West at good Chinese supermarkets.
1.16 Our Room
It is high time to describe our postwar lodging on Marat Street which is an easy task.
Try to visualize a rectangular room with the floor area being 3.5 m by 2.5 m. In the
middle of one of the walls there is a door leading to the corridor, on the wall across
from it – a window facing the backyard. In the corner, to the left of the door there is
a stove shaped as a cylinder with a corrugated metal surface painted in beige oil
color. Further on, along the left wall – a wardrobe, a diminutive cupboard, and my
little couch, on which my grandmother Gita formerly slept. Between the couch and
the window at a 45 angle there is a pier glass with a small table. In the mirror I
systematically examined myself always dissatisfied with my appearance – it
seemed to me insufficiently intelligent and macho.
32
Tatiana Olegovna Shaposhnikova, born in 1946, a mathematician. In the 1970s she made
translations for the “samizdat” – illegal dissident publishing in the Soviet Union – specifically
“The Chronicles of Narnia” from the English. Among her translations from the Swedish published
of late are books by Astrid Lindgren, Barbro Lindgren, Sven Nordqvist, and Ulf Stark. Together
we wrote a historical mathematical book “Jacques Hadamard, a universal mathematician”,
AMS, 1998.
Photo 1.33 Why don’t you

taste it! (© Vladimir
Photo 1.34 Our room

private collection)
On my mother’s pier glass table, there is someone’s present for her birthday – a
bottle of “Red Moscow” strong smelling perfume in the shape of the Kremlin
Savior Tower, there is also a Wedgwood china powder case with an art nouveau
portrait of a beautiful lady on the white cover under which there’s a cotton wad and
pink powder. There is also a napkin with Mother’s childhood souvenirs on it: a
couple of shells from the tropics with the “noise of the sea” in one of them, and a
painted ceramic little house with a removable roof serving as a container for buttons
1.16 Our Room 37
Photo 1.35 Little house

and shells (© Vladimir
Photo 1.36 Mother’s

powder case (© Vladimir
including some antique ones. Earlier there was also a carved yellow fan made,
according to Mother, of ivory. I was very much interested in it. Thus when I stayed
at home alone I began to break out strips from it, little by little, trying to do it
unnoticeably. Each of the strips isolated from the rest in this way was touched by
Vovochka33 with the flame of a burning match. The strip would take fire, burn
brightly while hissing and vanish, leaving behind an unpleasant synthetic smell.
Could ivory really burn? The fan gradually became sparser and sparser and finally
disappeared. But Mother did not raise a question about its fate.
33
See Footnote 2.
Photo 1.37 “Kolizey” (Coliseum), 2012 (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
The two shells and little house with a yellow roof, which are more than a
100 years old, are now on my book shelf. My mother’s powder case belongs by
right to her grandchild and my daughter Galya who lives in Jerusalem.
This is the end of a really long story that I felt I had to write about the pier glass
between the window and my couch. Now let’s go back to the door and turn towards
the window. Adjacent to the long wall on the right there is my late Grandfather
Gilya’s bed. Now it is my mother’s, it has a caved in spring mattress and nickel-
plated spear-like decorations on the back. Under the bed there’s a pair of nonde-
script suitcases, but then the bed back is adjoined by a stand with my book treasures.
Above, on the wall there’s a loudspeaker and finally by the window you can see a
table and a couple of chairs. Such was our room.
I remember that the wretchedness of our home did not depress me. Of course I
was aware of the fact that we were poor, but this seemed a natural consequence of
the war, something unimportant, temporary, and I was completely absorbed by
thoughts of the future. When lying in bed, before falling asleep, I would think of
eternity, infinity and death, or indulge in sweet reveries about meeting a magician
who would fulfill my three wishes. One of them was always the same: let my father
survive the war and return home. That was mostly at the time when many families
1.17 The Kitchen and the Toilet 39
greeted the demobilized soldiers, but alas! my father’s certificate of death was not a
mistake.
In the cold winter days I brought firewood from the shed to our third floor and
stoked the stove. It was heavenly joy to squat in front of the furnace and, opening its
door, watch the fire and listen to the crackling of the burning logs! At the end of the
stoking process it was necessary to shut the damper no later (and it was even more
important) no earlier than the blue flames died out – there were rumors that
somewhere in Leningrad someone was poisoned by charcoal fumes.
During the early postwar years the showplace of our backyard were sheds for
firewood and, additionally, a local laundry situated in one of the backyard corners
equipped with a hot water tank, a washboard, and huge washing tubs. Here the
housewives, including my mother, were busy one after another with washing
bedclothes and underwear. The wash was hung out on ropes in the yard or in
apartments. Sometimes from the yard calls of knife grinders reached us through the
window: “Grinding knives and scissors!” or junkmen’s cries collecting rags and
threadbare clothes. Later on, this type of “private enterprise” disappeared and even
the people’s clothes began to be taken to mechanical state laundries.
1.17 The Kitchen and the Toilet
On the left side of our room, looking towards the window, was the kitchen. Our
room’s wall was common with the kitchen’s where the tenants, including my
mother, had their tables next to the wall. Such tables stood in the remaining
unoccupied spaces near the kitchen walls, one between the two windows facing
the backyard, and two more against the opposite wall. The design of the fourth main
wall, parallel to ours, can definitely be called unusual. At any rate, having had a
40 year experience of getting to know the peculiarities of Leningrad communal
apartments I’d never seen anything similar. Attached to the middle of the kitchen
wall there was a toilet depriving the kitchen of about 2 m2 of floor space. There was
of course a toilet bowl and a constantly clogged rusted flush tank. The toilet bowl
often got backed up, then its role was taken over by a bucket. The toilet did not have
its own ceiling, its wall stucco was damaged in some places, and one could see the
underlying boards with cracks between them; the thin door had a hook used as a
lock, and opened into the kitchen. The remaining part of the kitchen wall was
occupied by a washstand and a service door leading to the staircase and the
backyard. To provide a final touch to this picture I can add that there was a slop
bucket behind the service door, emptied every day by members of the family on
duty. That duty was an unpleasant chore as it included a weekly washing of the
floors in “common utility areas”. A list of those on duty was always compiled by
one and the same tenant, “apartment monitor” Mariya Andreevna Lukyanova, a
soldier’s widow like my mother. She never took part in the furious quarrels that
broke out in our apartment from time to time, but she tacitly sympathized
with Mom.
Finishing the description of our kitchen in the early postwar period, I should
mention the low-power electric bulb hanging from the sooty ceiling, and finally the
gray unpainted floor. Through the slits between the floor boards which vibrated
vertically under your feet one could discern the supporting beams between the
second floor and ours.
On the kitchen tables, kerosene stoves smoked and “Primus” stoves made a
noise. There was a kerosene shop in the basement of a house on Kolokolnaya Street
near the closed down Vladimirsky Cathedral. My trips there for brown household
soap or to refill a kerosene can were not unpleasant to me. Like a grown-up I joined
a queue, and having reached the salesman gave him the can and somewhat pomp-
ously pronounced: “Two litres please.” Besides, I was pleasantly intoxicated by the
kerosene smell filling the shop and the odor of rubber galoshes and boots in tailor’s
shops acting on me in the same way. I used to go to the bread shop on Marat Street
too. But in general Mother did not burden me too much with household chores
always saying: “Studying is the main thing!” and I fully agreed with her. My
father’s relatives collectively although softly reproached her: “You should not
spoil him that much. He’ll grow to be an egotist.”
Well it looks like I diverged from the topic of this chapter, although not too many
things can be added anyway. In 1956 they began major repairs of our house which
we survived by staying in a tiny room somewhere on the Fontanka River. I
remember it was not far from Anichkov bridge34 near a library that I visited almost
every day because they did not allow one to check out several books at once. After
the repairs our apartment No. 4 in house No. 19 on Marat Street was renamed
apartment No. 7. They added 2 m2 to our room, having moved the left-hand wall in
the direction of the kitchen, removed the toilet from the kitchen and even managed
to add a bathroom with a bath tub and water heater without increasing the apart-
ment’s floor space. Already for a long time the city had been supplied with natural
gas from Estonia and gas stoves supplanted the kerosene stoves in kitchens.
1.18 Life Has Become Better35
Optimism dominated my mood during the early postwar years. After all I was still a
child. But it seems to me that most of the people around had a similar disposition.
Living standards were improving gradually but steadily. I remember my mother for
the first time brought home dairy butter. It was very expensive but its taste seemed
delicious! And a simple delicacy like Eskimo pie! After the war they began
producing ice cream, though not at once. And the chocolate (or rather soy) bars!
And the multicolored slightly sour fruit drops called “Montpansier” or the less
34
A famous bridge in St. Petersburg/Leningrad with equestrian statues.
35
Compare to Stalin’s words: “Life has become better, life has become more joyful” pronounced
by the dictator at the beginning of KGB mass repressions in 1935.
1.18 Life Has Become Better 41
popular sweet candies called “little buttons”! And the lollipops shaped like cock-
erels sold by Gipsy women, but for some reason not produced by the food industry!
In the same period the fairy tale of “gogol-mogol”, a Russian style eggnog, came
true; according to my mother, I loved to eat it before the war. I would definitely like
it nowadays too, if not for all this modern talk of excessive calories and
cholesterol. . .
In 1947 the rationing system was revoked, and afterwards every year the people
happily learned of the newest price reduction. In truth “Life has become better, life
has become more joyful”. And before the New Year holidays we were allowed to
buy a certain amount of flour which was sold to each family member who was
present in the store.
Here we are, Mother, myself, and all our neighbors standing in line as long as a
street block and waiting for the shop to open. There’s light snowfall. We are not
sleepy, our mood is marvelous and later in the morning everyone who was on time
to receive the flour returns home with packages in their string bags. If the shop ran
out of flour and you did not get it – no one was to blame but you yourself. You
should have lined up earlier! But my mother and I always came on time.
The factor of material improvement acting on my mood was combined with
ideological pressure: the school curricula, radio broadcasts, newspapers, books and
in general the whole propaganda torrent flooding my young psyche may prompt you
not to expect any pessimism in my world-view or critical attitude to the life around
me in that period. I believed firmly, as if it were an axiom, that I would be happy in
the wonderful country where “life flows freely and grandly like the Volga
abounding in water”36; I lived in a great country, blazing the trail to Communism
– the radiant future of progressive humanity.
During the first school exam in the fourth grade, when I got a question card with
the poem by Isakovsky devoted to Stalin, I declaimed it loudly, without a flub and
certainly without a shadow of doubt: “We believed you, Comrade Stalin, as
strongly as probably we did not believe ourselves.”
At the very first art lesson I did not succeed in drawing a jug which proved, in a
conclusive way confirmed by the whole course of my life, that I had no capabilities
to create pieces of visual art. However, inspired by the general adoration of the
Soviet leader, once staying at home because of an actual or imaginary ailment, I
spent half a day to draw his portrait from memory with violet ink using pen No. 86.
No, it was not a full face portrait – I would not have undertaken to do the job. But I
could sure do profiles! My picture had all Stalin’s famous features: his thick hair,
his smile full of wisdom, and many other things, but the most important was his
moustache. I myself liked the portrait very much, I simply could not take my eyes
off it and still remember it well. I immediately imagined Comrade Stalin, having
seen my masterpiece, would summon me to the Kremlin, would say something
extremely pleasant, and maybe even award me a medal like in the case of Mamlakat
Nakhangova (In my ABC book there was a passage: “The Tajiks have sonorous
36
From the famous Soviet song “Wide is my dear native land” by Vassily Lebedev-Kumach and
Isaak Dunayevsky.
Photo 1.38 Portrait of I. V.

Stalin, painted by the Stalin
Prize winner D. Nalbandian
private collection)
names. Mamlakat means ‘country’”. So, I knew everything about the feat and
triumph of the young girl (harvester of cotton crops). In those times and later on I
was a dreamer.
As soon as my mother returned home after work I proudly showed her my piece
of art, but to my great surprise, she panicked: “Don’t show it to anyone. Tear it up
and never do anything like that!” I did not share her fright, but obeyed. Of course
now I understand that a caricature of the great leader could do great harm to us.
1.19 Even the Sun Has Spots
Alas, even at that joyful time my “Octobrist”’s37 and later Pioneer’s soul began to
monotonously develop a thin fissure which I at first perceived as some kind of
misunderstanding. I will try to explain it now.
37
Octobrist, in Russian “Oktyabryonok”, member of a Soviet organization for little children
preceding the Pioneers by their age and raised according to Communist ideals. In the unofficial
Communist propaganda they were called “Lenin’s grandchildren”. For Pioneers see Footnote 15.
1.19 Even the Sun Has Spots 43
In that period of time, like everyone else daily, I heard the Soviet national
anthem, which solemnly proclaimed that our Fatherland was nothing less than
“the reliable stronghold of international friendship”. It was exactly this clear-cut
statement that my child’s life called in question, and the statement probably did not
stand the test.
Under our window, next to the dump was a crater of an unexploded aviation
bomb. It was a big pit half filled with water. For some reason, the pit had not been
covered over with earth for a long time. In 1945, in the middle of the yard, there was
a pile of logs intended for stoking the stoves in the winter. Having climbed the pile
we, the children from our house, talked about all sorts of things, for example
decided which games we would play: knife throwing, hopscotch, “lapta”
(a Russian ball and bat game), dodgeball, hide and seek, playing soldier or the
game of cities: Minsk – Kostroma – Aktyubinsk – Kursk – Kineshma –
Akmolinsk.38 There, on those logs, I happened to hear the words of one of the
kids: “If only they gave me a tommy-gun I would shoot down all the Jews.”
Explanation: all of them are cowards, they did not fight in the war, sitting snug in
the rear. I did not say a word.
I was 8 at that time, but even earlier, at the age of 5 in the Sverdlovsk
kindergarten, I was quite surprised when someone of the boys called me a Yid
and, naively, I asked him: “Am I a bird?” because I knew that the children used the
word Yid to call the sparrows. Mother explained then that we were Jews, and “Yid”
was a bad word that bad people used to call our nationality. I don’t remember what
else she said; probably she tried to teach me not to pay attention to such words, but
soon I learned from subdued conversations of the grown-ups that Hitler, according
to rumors, was killing off all Jews. This information, for the first time, filled my
heart with mortal fright whenever I stayed alone.
And now, in 1945, in a Leningrad yard, someone wanted to shoot down all Jews.
Similar occasions happened in school too. For example a certain boy T. in my class
“hated the Jews for nepotism” which evidently was his emotional response to his
parents’ discussion of an Anti-Semitic article in the newspaper “Leningrad Pravda”.
My mother instructed me: “If they tease you tell them that Karl Marx was a Jew
too.” But when I once used that argument my opponents did not believe me. And
really, how could one believe such slander? I did not have any proof to support that
assertion. By the way, for the first time I saw a printed confirmation of the
non-Arian descent of the author of “Das Kapital” 13 years later in one of the
volumes of “Children’s Encyclopedia” that had just been published in Moscow,
the last goodbye to Khrushchev’s thaw.39
When I was a boy I felt terribly embarrassed when my mother talked to someone
in Yiddish in the presence of non-Jews. I felt ashamed in the bathhouse or locker
rooms when people could see that I was circumcised. I was also ashamed of the
38
Each starts using the last letter of the previous one.
39
This is what was called the short period of liberalization in the Soviet Union after Khrushchev
denounced Stalin in 1956 until the end of Khrushchev’s rule in 1964.
word “Jew” and my patronymic “Gilelevich”,40 when, in front of the whole class I
had to pronounce my personal data for the teacher to record them in the class
journal. When I lived in the USSR my patronymic was rendered as Gilyevich,
Grigoryevich, Georgievich, Gilyenovich and even Galileevich. In my childhood I
also suffered because of my non-Russian last name Maz’ya,41 which inspired my
classmates to come up with such nicknames as Mazila (“dirty fellow”), Mazepa (the
name of a Ukrainian opponent of Peter the Great) or Maznya-razmaznya (“slop and
craven”).
How I yearned to be like everybody! But I knew – nothing would help me. As
more material on the topic of Jewishness appears chronologically I will return to it,
but right now I’d like to find myself in the first year Class “D”, school No. 207.
40
Gillel (75 BCE – around 5–10 CE) – one of the most significant Jewish religious teachers of the
Second Temple era. For the first time I heard about him from Academician Vladimir Ivanovich
Smirnov when I was a 5th year student of the Leningrad University Department of Mathematics
and Mechanics. Additionally he softly drew my attention to the absence of a second “l” in my
official patronymic.
41
According to our family legend, the last name Maz’ya was derived from High Priest Maaziah
(Bastion of God) whose family – the sons of Maaziah – the last, 24th guards of the second temple
in Jerusalem – was mentioned in the Bible in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as well as in the
Babylonian Talmud. The priestly family of Maaziah settled in the city of Tveria (Tiberias) founded
by the Romans, and in honor of that family, in the early Middle Ages, the city was called Maaziah.
Chapter 2
Boyhood
2.1 It Is So Difficult to Become an “A” Student
In those years, even in the most intellectual families, it was not customary and
actually considered counterproductive to teach children to read before starting
school (“the child would be bored in class”). But my mother was sure that her
“treasure” devouring one thick volume after another would be a straight “A”
student1 and infected me with this confidence too. Alas, the first days at school
turned out to be a real shock to me. The fact that I could read fluently did not help
me at all. Having just one time relished my virtuosic ability to read, the teacher
Nina Vasilyevna Smirnova did not call on me any more, concentrating on teaching
the overwhelming majority “Russian oral skills”. There were exactly 40 students in
the class.
As to “written Russian” or “writing”, things were not going well at first. I clearly
remember myself sitting at my desk with an open notebook and a pen in hand. I had
to write a line of hooks like the cursive letter “i” but with no dot on top. You may
say it’s easy, but I could not write it. First of all, ink blots! Whatever I did I could
not dip my pen into the ink well and avoid the blots. If I made a blot I had to dry it
accurately with a blotter – it was strictly forbidden to tear out pages from the
notebooks. But even if I reconciled myself to the blot, how to picture a hook? In my
ABC book it was beautiful: a correct tilt along the notebook oblique line, the bold
and thin parts, the curvature were exquisite, but what did I have? Nothing good –
what a repulsive sight. Nina Vasilyevna walked between the rows of desks and
repeated: “make thick lines”. I was a diligent boy, understood her literally and
pressed down the pen with all my might. The paper naturally gave in sometimes
and got torn. Add to this picture the endless variety of sizes and tilts of my hooks!
Then followed the result: “Maz’ya – a “C”! Afterwards a “C” for circles and one
more for commas and periods. They were bad too.
1
In Russian schools the highest grade is “5”, not “A”.

46 2 Boyhood
Mother was seriously alarmed. “Next time I will leave you for the after school
program and won’t take you home” – she threatened while returning home with
me. I did not take her words at their face value, but my mood was nasty. I was sadly
following my Mom along Marat Street. “I am making thick lines but they are not
beautiful,” I tried to justify myself desperately. After a talk with the teacher Mother
found somewhere old samples of writing that could not be discovered in any
stationary stores in 1945, we sat down at table and I finally learned how to write
“thick lines”. Under Mom’s vigilant supervision I began copying the calligraphic
samples better and better, and soon (what a marvel!) the ugly duckling turned into a
beautiful swan – I began getting “A’s” for writing exercises.
True, I have to confess that frequently even after a year, two or three I had to
correct my home work with an eraser or a razor blade. If it did not help, then, in
spite of the teacher’s ban, I had no alternative but to try and replace the damaged
pages with new ones! Let’s assume that you made a blot. At first sight, there is no
problem – you yourself or with Mother’s help straighten out the staples, remove the
unwanted page, replace it with a newly reproduced text, and press the staples down
into the initial position. It’s impossible to find any evidence of the crime! Never-
theless, my dear reader, don’t rejoice too early because it is possible to stumble over
complications, which sometimes may be quite serious. For example on the reverse
of the damaged page Nina Vasilyevna might have written something in red ink. You
may ask what can be done in this situation? But I can’t give you any advice.
Other types of antagonistic contradictions might take place too. For example the
same ink blot with the difference that it was made when writing a test paper that had
to be submitted urgently. As you see yourself it was not easy to get “A’s” in written
Russian!
Some of my readers may be interested in learning my first school year results in
arithmetic. Here is an honest answer: problems existed, but only in calligraphy. So,
after I learned how to write letters I could accurately reproduce numbers as well.
The simple arithmetic operations were not difficult for me, but mental reckoning
was always mediocre.
I hated the “combined action” problems that were introduced in the third or
fourth year. For example two pipes filling up a tank or trains moving towards each
other from points A and B. It was somewhat strange to regard as a unit unknown
quantities of liters or kilometers. Fortunately the teacher did not object when, in the
fifth grade, I began solving arithmetic problems using Xs and Ys although they
belonged to algebra, not arithmetic.
According to my “Personal Record”, on June 19, 1946 I was moved up into the
second grade in the capacity of an “A” student. Unfortunately the beautiful expres-
sion “an ‘A’ student” should be understood in its wider sense because the school
progress record clearly stated that in addition to an A for conduct (a lower grade
would be an emergency), two A grades in Russian (written and oral) and one in
arithmetic, Vladimir Maz’ya got two B’s in his first school year. “How come?” a
surprised reader may ask. I would sadly answer: “Serious obstacles appeared in the
curriculum, they could only be overcome by a really gifted student”. Just a wish was
not sufficient. I am talking about “drawing and modelling” plus “physical
2.1 It Is So Difficult to Become an “A” Student 47
Photo 2.1 (a–c) Vova Maz’ya’s Personal Record (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection).
(c) A page from Vova Maz’ya’s Personal Record (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
48 2 Boyhood
Photo 2.1 (continued)

2.1 It Is So Difficult to Become an “A” Student 49

50 2 Boyhood
education”. “But a B is not a bad grade, is it?” would be said by a benevolent reader,
and it would be silly to argue. However, in these subjects grades lower than B would
never have been given me in order to keep the high level of the school results. Not
only A students but also those with B grades were valued.
2.2 The Importance of Being an “A” Student
At the very beginning of my school life I sat at a desk positioned in the middle of the
classroom. When I complained that I could not see well the words on the black-
board Nina Vasilyevna seated me right in front of her at the first desk of the middle
row. Years passed, teachers changed, but I continued to sit in front of the teacher’s
table.
Generally speaking that place was not very popular because from the point of
view of a regular student it had obvious drawbacks: you are under constant control
of the teacher, it is hard to crib, and there’s no one in front of you to poke in the back
in order to be prompted.
All of that is indisputable, but I also found advantages of my old haunt that
partially compensated for the negative features. The first one – a possibility of a
silent inculcation into the mind of the teacher sitting in front of you that calling you
up to the blackboard is undesirable at this moment (an imploring stare, a suffering
mien and so on). The second, and more important – the knowledge of what was
written in the Class Journal. It took only to raise yourself a little and stretch out your
neck and the journal was in plain sight. Judging by the checks next to names you
could definitely see who would be called on by the teacher. If at the end of a quarter
you saw that almost everyone had been called up to the blackboard twice, but you
only once, then, sure thing, get ready. Warned means armed. You’d be the first to
know the grades for a test, etc.
However as important as your whereabouts in the classroom may be, your so to
say “geographic” position could not open all the opportunities that the status of an
“A” student could be capable of. My practical experience showed that a high
achiever’s life was easy. He was allowed to do many things a simple mortal
could not even dream of. For instance, being an “A” student you would always
find understanding on the part of the teacher if you notified him/her before the class
started that it was not a good day to call on you because of a bad headache you had
had yesterday. The teacher in his/her turn might hint that tomorrow a Regional
Inspection Commission was expected, so it was advisable not to fall flat on one’s
face. Is it really necessary to explain why teachers needed “A” students?
But noblesse oblige: if you are an “A” student you react to every “B” as to a
traumatic event. Some of those “B’s” are annoying even today. This is the other side
of the coin. When looking back I think that a lack of relaxation supported my
disaffection with the school, and this aversion grew from year to year.
However, I concealed my antipathy in such a masterly way that no one suspected
it, not even Nina Vasilyevna. Here is how she warmly characterized me leaving our
group to the cares of a new class supervisor:
2.2 The Importance of Being an “A” Student 51
Photo 2.2 A facsimile of the Character Reference after the fifth grade (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
Character Reference for the third year “D” Class student, School No. 207
Vladimir Maz’ya
All the three years he studied in School No. 207.
Each of the years he finished as an “A” student.
Marvelously good abilities in studying. Reads a lot of books.
A good companion to his peers,
a public-spirited and active boy.
He headed the issuing of 5 wall newspapers.
He helps poor achievers with great pleasure.
Mentally developed, quick-witted, resourceful,
polite, and disciplined.
52 2 Boyhood
5/19/48
Class supervisor
N. V. Smirnova
2.3 Slingshots
Slingshots were fashionable for a long time in schools and streets. These small arms
were of various types and different striking force. A perfect slingshot is a Y-shaped
piece of wood with a rubber band attached to its horns. While holding fast the
vertical part of the Y in the palm of your left hand you place a pebble in the middle
of the rubber band, strongly pull it away using your thumb and index finger of the
right hand and release the pebble. Although this design had been known for
centuries it was not very popular in my young years because of probable compli-
cations when shooting at living targets. The pebble might pluck out an eye and
making a slingshot of this type was not too easy.
Somewhat later slingshots made of wire appeared and were used when playing
soldier, while the bullet was an ashberry. Understandably such slingshots were used
in the wild and at the end of summer. An alternative weapon could be a simply
made “blowpipe” – a part of a tubular plant belonging to the umbellate family. You
put a handful of elder-berries in your mouth, bring the blowpipe to your lips and
blow strongly. It’s hard to miss the target.
But a really easy to use, and universal, as to time and place, construction turned
out to be a slingshot whose fabrication did not require anything but a short resilient
rubber string procured for instance from your briefs. The rubber string is attached to
the thumb and index finger of your left hand with the help of two loops at each end
of the string and voila! we have a slingshot. Shooting is performed with “pellets”,
that is paper or metal staples. You hook up the pellet to the rubber string, pull back
and shoot. Very handy.
A paper pellet is a bent-in- half twisted strip sometimes slobbered all over to
preserve its shape. It was widely used in battles during school breaks and even in
class although less often when one of us would grasp his own neck and whirl at his
desk in search of the aggressor. “Maz’ya, stop fidgeting about!” “But he shot at me,
Nina Vasilyevna.”
The metal pellets, that is staples made of a soft wire, were not regularly used
inside buildings, but the sidewalks of Marat Street were sometimes literally littered
with them. I did not make pellets myself – no need, your supply could always be
replenished in the street.
Although memories of slingshots of the first two types leave me indifferent and
are included here just to make the picture complete, the simple rubber slingshot
once caused strong emotions in me. I was about nine. On an early evening in August
1947 when Mom had not yet returned from work I hung about alone on Marat Street
not far from the main entrance of our house and as usual secretly shot my slingshot
at posters, lamp posts, and other motionless targets as well as at girls’ legs and car
wheels passing by. These actions brightened up my time and spiced up my stroll.
2.4 Illnesses 53
Suddenly I saw a “Pobeda” car2 driving on the other side of the street, then
making a U turn at Kolokolnaya, it braked abruptly near me. A taxicab driver
jumped out of the car, grabbed my arm strongly, pushed me into the car, cursed and
promised to take me to the Militia station.3 It was an unexpected threat: “Why, Sir?
What did I do?” Instead of an answer he showed me a crack in the windshield where
a pellet had hit! In spite of my entreaties to be spared and my tears, the “Pobeda”
was implacably taking me away from my house along Vladimirsky and Liteyny
Avenues. Finally, next to the Neva, my abductor, having learned that my mother
was at work and father died in the war, stopped the car, dragged me out to the
sidewalk, twisted my ear till it bled and drove away. I was saved, but my home was
far away. I remember it was not difficult to find my bearings, but someone who
knows the place would confirm that it would take some time to reach the corner of
Kolokolnaya and Marat Streets. One of our neighbors who happened to witness the
abduction had already told my mother returning from work that I had been taken
away by a taxi driver. Fortunately, my poor mother did not have time to rush to the
Militia before I came home.
2.4 Illnesses
When in Sverdlovsk I endured most of the children’s diseases such as measles,

mumps, chicken pox, and innumerable common cold virus diseases (now called
ARDS, for acute respiratory distress syndrome). Every winter and early spring I
walked around sniffling. They would say I caught cold. But the feelings I had during
the illnesses of the evacuation period disappeared from my memory completely
together with recollections of such a nasty illness as tuberculous bronchadenitis.
True, a certain event connected with the disease considered dangerous at that
time was well retained in my memory as my mother retold it to me many times. She
recalled that the doctor who made my diagnosis prescribed wholesome food and
antibiotics. But the first years of war were difficult. Though there was no real
starvation in Sverdlovsk, the supplies were dwindling. Rationing had been enacted,
my mother’s wages were miserable, and she did not receive any pension. Anyway,
my food problem had to be resolved by her herself. The situation with antibiotics
seemed desperate. They were a new remedy, not for sale in pharmacies.
Then, according to my mother a miracle happened. One floor below us there was a
door of the flat occupied by a little girl Rosa (somewhat older than I) and her
grandmother. They were evacuees from Moscow. Rosa’s last name was Tevosyan
which at that time was known to the whole country because Rosa’s father was the
2
This type of car was produced in 1946 and named “Pobeda” – “Victory”. It became a very
popular car and its production lasted for a very long period of time.
3
“Militia” was a name for the police after the Bolshevik revolution. It was changed back to
“Police” in 2011.
54 2 Boyhood
People’s Commissar4 of the USSR ferrous metallurgy. As most of my time was spent
in the kindergarten boarding school, I was not well acquainted with Rosa, but Mom
greeted her grandmother at the staircase or in the yard. “She loved you a lot” my
mother told me already in Leningrad. Well then the old woman after learning of my
mother’s misfortune once brought us a box with hard to procure food and tablets of
synthomycin. I recovered and was sent by Mother to the Tevosyans to thank them. I
remember my timid ringing of their door bell and an invitation to have some tea.
I can’t say anything interesting about my measles that I had at 4. Definitely my
measles was like any measles – running nose, cough, high fever and rash. But
staying in bed and being alone for days played an important role in my life. The
thing is that it was exactly at that time that I got an ABC book at my disposal, and I
very quickly learned how to read. The only question that turned up during my self-
studies that I had to ask my cousin Zorik after he came home from school was about
the soft and hard signs.5 My cousin’s examples of the pronunciation of words with
these signs clarified everything.
After that episode, sick or healthy, I was never bored in the possession of an
interesting book. Sometimes the kindergarten teacher would seat a group of chil-
dren around me and said: “Vova will read for you”. Talking to her relatives Mother
boasted: “He learned how to read when he was four!” I must confess that empha-
sizing this fact at any convenient moment was pleasant to me; it strengthened my
not yet too solid belief in my talents.
I already mentioned my positive attitude to kerosene. Now I would add a
hypothesis about its origin at the kindergarten time. It’s a clear reminiscence
about the ability of kerosene to rid us of lice, breeding in huge quantities at the
kindergarten. An even less appetizing memorable event of that time involved me
and surely my contemporaries whose childhood was passed in the far-from-perfect
sanitary conditions of kindergarten boarding schools. Those conditions were
responsible for an intolerable itch in the groin before falling asleep. It was caused
by small worms (threadworms) laying eggs in the anus. They were exterminated
with the help of large amounts of garlic used with food. I must confess: all my life I
have liked garlic but not because of its vermifuge properties.
Well, as I have recalled the two sources of skin itch experienced in my child-
hood: lice and threadworms, it would be unjust to forget about the third one. This
unpleasant sensation, especially in the palm of your hand and the sole of your foot,
accompanies the granular red rash caused by scarlet fever. This disease, once fatal
for children, but not dangerous with the advent of antibiotics, struck me in
Leningrad in the early spring of 1949.
Once I came home and felt somehow out of sorts. Chills. The thermometer
showed at first 38.5 ,6 then 39. Feeling hot and cold intermittently. I got to bed.
4
In early Soviet times the rank of People’s Commissar was equal to the rank of “minister”.
5
These are called signs because they do not refer to any sounds like letters.
6
In Russia, temperature is measured on the Celsius scale. Normal (healthy) temperature on this
scale is 36.6 .
2.4 Illnesses 55
When Mother returned from work my thermometer was almost at 40 . It was the
first time in my life! The next morning there was a rash. Scarlet fever! It meant you
would be sent to a hospital for 3 weeks and nothing could be done about it, besides it
was done not to protect your precious health, but to prevent infecting others.
The terrible word – “hospital”, who would like to go there? But an ambulance
was already on the threshold. It was a long trip, together with my mother, to the
place of my future confinement. The hospital was for children and it was situated
somewhere on the outskirts of the city. (My memory tells me that its name started
with a “p”, but that’s all I remember.) Mother took home my belongings and in the
admission room they gave me a gown and slippers. Afterwards – a cold shower, and
the nurse took me to the ward, a long room with two parallel rows of metal beds.
Most of them were occupied by boys of different ages, and one bed was empty
intended for me.
I endured the hospital life with stoicism, but at the end it became intolerable.
There was nothing to read and there was no desire to ask Mother to bring something
from home. First of all, I had read all my home books already, and secondly, books
brought to the contagious isolation ward were not returned. Our food was scant
even in the opinion of such a food hater as myself. There was a draft from the ward
windows which were not weather proofed, and probably because my bed stood by
the window sill and we covered ourselves with thin cotton blankets I developed a
running nose. As a result it was necessary to familiarize myself with medical
inhalation, that is inhaling steam which was not repulsive by itself, but whether it
helps to treat a cold is still unknown to me.
Worst of all was “mobbing” (a new expression in Russian) directed against
me. To explain it clearly and without pretension, it happened that at some time they
began to tease me in the ward with such words as “little Jew”, “little Yid” etc. This
was initiated by a newcomer and no one objected.
It is interesting that at school at that time nothing like that occurred, because
even out-and-out hoodlums respected me. Appearing at school early in the morning
I gave my homework to anyone who wanted to copy it. In class I prompted all those
who suffered at the blackboard, and sent out cribs during tests. In a word I was
useful to those who did not provoke me.
But though I could not expect any help at the hospital, deliverance came soon.
The “mobber”, as they call an instigator of mobbing, was unexpectedly transferred
to another ward, and my troubles finished at once. A happy end resulted from the
following events.
Mother asked me to write her every day, which I did, accurately knowing that
she would surely come here after work in order to receive my letter and answer
it. Then, one day she arrived at the hospital and did not discover my missive in the
mail pigeon hole with the letter “M” on it. Alarmed about the fate of her son,
Mother with difficulty persuaded the nurse to ask me what was going on, and
received my answer that I had sent the letter and everything was OK. Well, the letter
had disappeared, and Mother calmly returned to Marat Street.
What was that letter and what happened to it? I’ll describe it now.
56 2 Boyhood
Not long before I was taken ill with scarlet fever Fimka B., my bosom buddy
since the first grade, lent me the “Military book”, very popular stories telling
children about crossbows, cannons, airplanes, submarines, etc. There was also a
section about the Morse Code. You know: dot – dash – dot and so on. My younger
readers may be interested to know that in the heyday of telegraphers and radio hams
the Morse Code was quite popular as an element of the military patriotic education
of the young Soviets. The book was fascinating and when reading it I incidentally
learned the Code. Fimka did the same, and we sometimes used tapping for
communication.
At the hospital, fearing to write Mother openly (and sealed letters were not
allowed!) that the boys called me a Yid my decision was to use the Morse Code.
The idea was that she would find the explanation of the Code in the “Military
Book”, but it turned out it was not necessary.
Perhaps not all of our letters were inspected at the hospital, but after Mom
questioned one of the nurses it became clear that my cipher had been intercepted
and read by someone. As a result the anti-Semite was transferred from my ward to
another one.
So far, enough about diseases.
2.5 “Physcult” and Sports
The strange first word in the above title is an abbreviated form of “physical culture”.
That was what we called the subject which I did not like at school.
Who was our “physcult” teacher in the elementary school and what we did in
class has escaped my memory, but I clearly remember the boisterous games played
by us in the school hallways during breaks: the wild running and “docking” with
each other using one or two legs. A challenge to single combat (let’s “dock”!) was a
standard call to “measure swords” with someone and never ended up in a brawl.
In the fifth grade and later on, my attempts to qualify for the “BPLD”7 rating in
“physcult” classes were unsuccessful which could be predicted as I was prepared
neither for labor nor, all the more so, for defense.
“Physcult-hurray-hurray-hurray!
Be prepared
For the hour
When the enemies won’t be spared. . .”
This was the song by the poet Lebedev-Kumach who, to no avail, tried to
persuade me to follow his call in every-day radio transmissions. However, his
advice to become “hardened like steel” produced on me a certain effect – I began
taking a cold shower every morning and got ill with a sore throat. No intent on my
7
“Be Prepared for Labor and Defense” sports rating for young children.
2.5 “Physcult” and Sports 57
part to agree that post hoc ergo propter hoc, but after the illness I had no inclination
to take cold showers.
In the “physcult” classes when making a high jump I stopped before reaching the
bar; I could throw a grenade only to the distance of 15 m instead of 25 required by
the “BPLD”; while running 1 km I got sharp pains in my side; I was unable to make
a handstand, while parallel bars, horizontal bars, vaulting horse and buck were
torture instruments to me. Still, I discovered that, when climbing a rope, if you held
it with one foot and gripped it in the bend of the other you could pull yourself up
with almost no effort, and iterating these moves you could reach the ceiling, but this
was an insufficient consolation.
When I grew older, all I could achieve in football was becoming a dedicated fan
of the Leningrad “Zenith” team, although in the elementary school I used to play as
a center forward, defenseman and even a goalee. Once I gained my teammates’
respect after I grabbed the ball off the center forward’s foot when he broke through
close to the goal. Where and when the match took place, what team I played with,
who the opponents were? I can’t remember for the life of me. But the feeling of
pride remains.
Stop! I have suddenly recalled when and where we kicked the ball about. That
happened in the fall of 1949 in the backyard garden of girls’ school No. 209 on
Vosstaniya Street. Our school near the Coliseum was overcrowded, several classes
from it were transferred to the building of School No. 209 and the banished were
given a new name – School No. 215. My class happened to be among them. I’d like
to add “banished from paradise”: the distance from home to the school became
about twice as large, and, in this respect, the situation worsened when we were
given our own building on Zhukovsky Street near Liteyny Avenue.
Girls’ school No. 209 was in the location of the former Pavlovsky Institute of
Noble Maidens where the action of Charskaya’s8 novels takes place. Our classes
received a small portion of the building completely isolated from the representa-
tives of the fair sex.
We played football in the sports grounds located in the garden adjacent to the
back side of the school invisible from Vosstaniya Street. It was exactly in that place
where I was serenely walking when I took a crushing blow to my head with a
football kicked by the boot of a grownup fellow. He calmly took his aim from the
distance of about 15 m, struck the ball with all his strength, hit me smack in the
middle of my forehead and roared with laughter joyfully. I was not up to laughing.
But fortunately my glasses were not damaged.
It would not be correct to imagine that I was a complete weakling during my
school time. Actually, when I was about 10 I learned all by myself how to swim:
first on one side and my back, then the breaststroke. Even now I can swim for a long
time without tiring, but much slower than my wife Tanya swimming a beautiful
crawl. A little later I learned to ride a bicycle, and at some time discovered that my
8
L. A. Charskaya (1875–1937), a very popular author in the beginning of the twentieth century,
but later proscribed by the Soviets for a lack of Communist ideology in her books.
58 2 Boyhood
hands were not too weak. It’s not by chance that the rings were my preferred
apparatus unlike the above mentioned hated ones. My participation in arm wrestling
contests did not look bad. I once even deserved a nick-name “master of a steel
squeeze” used by one of my friends. In the summer of 1948 on the Daugava river
Uncle Aron taught me how to row.
However I could never show any success in adroitness, besides, starting from the
second school year, I wore glasses for nearsightedness. Their strength in diopters
grew every year, which allowed me in the senior grades to become exempt from
physical culture, and in my university years from military training. In my youth I
happened to familiarize myself with skis, but quite superficially, without a trainer.
Also I had ice skates, at first the so-called “Snegurochki” – “Snow Maidens” which
had to be awkwardly screwed on to regular boots, but when I was 14 my relatives
gave me racing skates. Then I was able to take part in my classmates’ trips to the
skating rink at the Central Lunapark9 with a half-conscious dream of meeting there
a fair lady. Unfortunately my skating left much to be desired and I did not meet a
fair lady at the rink.
The described modest success in sports helped me to avoid an inferiority
complex, but a certain dream of my life did not come true – I never learned “to
smash somebody’s mug” although this skill was sometimes necessary.
I’d like to repeat that I hated the “physcult” classes and always tried to get away
with such lame excuses as “I have a headache”. One day, Yury Fedorovich, our
sports teacher in the senior grades, a highly cultured man devoted to his profession
approached me after class and said: “Vladimir, I hear that you are quite serious
about science. But think of your health. You will need sports in your life.” He
himself died of a heart attack even before he was 50.
I have a medical hypothesis that explains my lack of appetite in my young years,
and probably even the absence of enthusiasm for sports. In 1984, several days after
a surgery intended to eliminate gallbladder stones, surgeon Nechay, professor of the
Military Academy of Medicine told me: “I gave a lecture to my students in the
morning that I called ‘Professor Maz’ya’s gallbladder’. You had an interesting
congenital anomaly, and now your gallbladder is on display at the Academy
museum.” I wished I could have a glance at that bladder, but unfortunately entrance
to the museum was not allowed to everybody. I thought: “Am I really everybody to
my own gallbladder?”
The above-mentioned surgery left a long scar on my belly. It required general
anesthesia and lasted for 4 h. When I came to it seemed to me I had returned from
the other world – my body was icy. But nowadays they would have carried through
the whole operation under local anesthesia, having pierced four small holes in my
abdomen and thereafter would have sent me home on the same day. This is called
laparoscopy.
9
The colloquial name of the Central Lunapark was “The Kirov Isles” or, officially, “S.M. Kirov
Central Park of Culture and Rest”.
2.7 A Sharp Kid 59
2.6 To Me the Most Important Art Was the Movies10
Generally speaking I was familiar with migraine or as my mother once wrote to the
teacher “headaches caused by anemia”. Both the real ones helped with pyramidon
and analgin11 and imaginary which I used extensively starting from, I think, the
second grade. The latter type of headaches for example could be an excuse for
playing hooky on the day of an undesirable test. In that case it was important not to
be noticed by anyone in the lobby of the movie theaters “Coliseum”, “Artistic”,
“Titan” or “October” concentrated on Nevsky Avenue between Marat Street and
the Fontanka river. By the way, in those years the same films were shown almost
everywhere.
Tickets for morning shows were accessible to me even taking into account the
meager funds my mother provided me with for buying breakfast at the school
cafeteria. Thus I could afford the luxury of not missing any movie recommended
by my classmates.
“Did you see the ‘Flying Slowpoke’”?
“Nope!”
“There he in a big way – to her: ‘Come on!’ and she bombed those ‘Bang!!’”
It was clear: it needed to be watched.
Also “Tarzan” – “Aaaa – Aaaa!!!”. Then the “Girl of my dreams” from the
trophy art collection. And from the prewar times “The Merry Fellows”, “The
Circus”, “The Children of Captain Grant”. You can’t enumerate all of them. The
art of the cinema really brightened up the difficult life of the schoolboy Vova
Maz’ya.
2.7 A Sharp Kid
I liked solving riddles as early as during my stay in kindergarten. Do you remember:

“No hands, no feet, but able to draw”, or “No windows, no doors, but the room is
full of people”? Here is one more: “Seven jackets, no buttons”.12 In time my riddle
collection naturally grew richer. I’d like to describe now two encounters with
riddles of a different type when I was in high school.
On 17 Suburban Avenue, not far from the “Five Corners”13 my father’s two
cousins lived, old maids Rosa Markovna and Grunya Markovna, a hunchbacked
woman. By postwar standards they were well provided for and on holidays invited
10
Periphrasis of supposedly Lenin’s words: “Of all the arts the most important one to us is
the cinema”. This was a slogan displayed in all Soviet movie theaters.
11
Names of medicines that are obsolete in modern pharmaceutical registers in America.
12
The answer is “cabbage”.
13
An intersection in Leningrad between three streets (rather than two); the third street joined the
two as a sharp wedge.
60 2 Boyhood
their Leningrad relatives, including Mother and myself, to visit them. As I was the
only child in the noisy company of grownups, I did not wish to take part in their
conversations, and, because of that, between the main meal and the tea with rum
cake or chocolate pie I withdrew to the corridor where, lighted up by a dim bulb,
stood an old glazed mahogany bookcase. It was always locked, but each time after I
swore to put all the books back to their places I received the key and subjected the
bookcase to an avid investigation.
On the shelves, there were mainly religious Jewish books which I unfortunately
do not understand even nowadays, but there were also files of Russian magazines
including the incredibly interesting Niva – “The Field” where they published from
issue to issue the detective novels by Louis Jacoliot.
Another treasure of the bookcase turned out to be the 1928 issues of the
magazine “Ogonyok” – “Little flame”. They familiarized the public with the
game called “Victorina” – the “Quiz” played by the readers themselves. Each series
consisted of 50 various questions, such as for instance “Who discovered the
tuberculosis bacillus?”, “What is the present name of the former Nevsky Avenue
in Leningrad?” “Why do they build skyscrapers in New York?” “In what city was
Homer born?” “Who is Mark Twain?” “What is the most popular Soviet motion
picture?” For a correct answer you were given two scores, for an approximate
response the reward was one score. I solicited for permission (and got it) to take
home the magazines with the quizzes and for a long time participated in trying to
find answers to the questions alone or with friends.
I was inspired to solve riddles of another type by “Leninskie Iskry” – “Lenin’s
Sparks”. That newspaper, intended for Octobrists and Pioneers,14 was reissued after
the war, and a subscription to it was earnestly recommended to parents by the class
supervisor.
The mailman brought a new issue twice a week, and that was my own newspa-
per! I loved it and looked forward to receiving it. If I lived now in St. Petersburg I
would definitely go to the “Public Lib” (Public Library) to refresh my memory, but
here, in Sweden, I have to content myself with what’s kept inside me.
Here is a passage from the section called “Humor” that stuck in my memory. It
dates back to no later than 1946 and is possibly from a reader’s letter. The text has
been modified in translation. For some reason that I have forgotten, a boy only
remembers words starting with the letter “S”:
Scratching Spine Samuel Stared
Suzanne Swallowed, Sam’s Scared
Sister Stole Samuel’s Soap.
Sam Suggests: Suzy, Stop!
Soap’s Spicy, Soap’s Sticky.
Sam says Sister’s Sickie
Sam Suggests: Suzy, Spit!
Silly! – Says She, Soap’s Sweet!
14
See Footnote No. 37 and 15 in Chap. 1.
2.7 A Sharp Kid 61
The “Lenin’s Sparks” had a section “Ask us and we’ll answer” where once, in
reply to my and many other readers’ request, there appeared information on how to
assemble a detector radio (one of the simplest types of radio receivers).
It was the time when I first saw my last name in print. Later on it was repeatedly
printed in connection with the “Club of Sharp Kids” – the name of the newspaper
section containing brain-twisters: rebuses, crossword puzzles, chains of words, etc.
My classmate, Oleg Savichev, and I sent our solutions to the editors regularly,
and on October 7, 1950, in the Section “The Final Result of the quiz ‘Travels for
Everybody’ we found ourselves among the winners. Inspired by success we took
part in another contest organized by the “Club of Sharp Kids” the next year. Again
we were the winners. As an award I was given the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by
Beecher Stowe, and Oleg received an adventure book “The Dirk” by the Soviet
author A. Rybakov. I think our success was gained thanks to the “Chain of words”
that we ourselves compiled and sent to the editorial board. It turned out so difficult
that no one could get the eight points necessary for the win. So, these points were
given us and we won the contest.
The Chain of Words is played by using the last letter of a word as the first letter
of the next word. Thus I would like to suggest my readers to check their knowledge
too.15 The Chain of Words appeared on May 16, 1951, No. 39, and on June 2, in the
Section “Check Your Answers”, they published the correct solutions (see the
Footnote).
15
What follows is a partial translation of the text in the presented picture. Oleg Savichev and
Vladimir Maz’ya (School No. 215) compiled a Chain of Words “History of the Ancient World”; it
has the following entries: 1 – holy cow in ancient Egypt; 2 – the Roman Consul who defeated the
Carthaginian fleet in 256 BC; 3 – King of Sparta; 4 – the blind singer mentioned in Iliad; 5 –
Member of the first triumvirate; 6 – the chief of revolted gladiators; 7 – a Roman statesman and
writer, irreconcilable enemy of Carthage; 8 – a Roman emperor who adopted Trojan; 9 – a hero of
ancient Greece epos; 10 – a Greek sculptor who left 1500 works of art for posterity; 11 – a Greek
orator, chief of the democrats in Athens; 12 – a Spartan military commander; 13 – one of the sons
of Rhea Silvia, the legendary founder of Rome; 14 – King of the state of Urartu; 15 – the first
Roman emperor; 16 – a Roman emperor; 17 – the son of Odysseus (eight points).”
In this English text each word is given in Russian transliterated with Roman letters (to show the
last letter in the Russian version), then the Russian word is given in English translation. Here are
the correct Maz’ya’s and Savichev’s Chain of Words answers:
1. (Rus.) Khator – (Eng.) Hathor; 2 – (Rus.) Regul – (Eng.) Regulus; 3 – (Rus.) Leonid – (Eng.)
Leonidas; 4 – (Rus.) Demodok – (Eng.) Demodocus; 5 – (Rus.) Krass – (Eng.) Crassus; 6 – (Rus.)
Spartak – (Eng.) Spartacus; 7 – (Rus.) Katon – (Eng.) Cato; 8 – (Rus.) Nerva – (Eng.) Nerva; 9 –
(Rus.) Akhill – (Eng.) Achilles; 10 – (Rus.) Lisipp – (Eng.) Lyssipos; 11. (Rus.) Perikl – (Eng.)
Pericles; 12 – (Rus.) Lisandr – (Eng.) Lysander; 13 – (Rus.) Rem – (Eng.) Remus; 14 – (Rus.)
Menua – (Eng.) Menua; 15 – (Rus.) Avgust – (Eng.) Augustus; 16 – (Rus.) Tit – (Eng.) Titus; 17 –
(Rus.) Telemakh – (Eng.) Telemachos.
62 2 Boyhood
Photo 2.3 Oleg Savichev and I in S.M. Kirov Central Park of Culture and Rest (© Vladimir
Photo 2.4 Our Chain of Words published by “Lenin’s Sparks” (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private
collection)
2.8 Foreign Languages 63
2.8 Foreign Languages
In my childhood, I was inspired with the idea of mastering foreign languages. I

cherished a dream to become a polyglot like Jules Vern’s Jacques Paganel and tried
to make it a reality with no one’s help. I laid hands on old textbooks of German,
French, Latin, and Finnish successively or simultaneously. Is it necessary to say that
those childish attempts could not result in anything serious? But at that time I did
not think so and declared that I was going to become a linguist.
In Finnish I don’t remember a single word; in Latin all that remains in memory
are hackneyed aphorisms like “In vino veritas” and some less frequently used ones
like “Noli me tangere”. German, French, and Swedish had to be studied more
seriously much later, and, I am ashamed to confess, no fluent speaking skills have
been achieved by me.
In the third year at school they began teaching English. Arkady Osipovich, the
English instructor, an impressive man of 40–50, while introducing himself to the
class, told us that he had lived in England for a long time and wanted to teach us a
genuine English pronunciation. Nevertheless, because he was absolutely bald, our
class did not like him. He was nicknamed “the Baldy”. At his lessons we openly
played the fool.
I remember a tongue twister:
This is the sixth lesson.
Is this the sixth lesson?
This is how he tried to teach us to pronounce “th”. By the way, I managed to say
it. I remember another little verse he taught us:
Mind the clock and keep the rule:
Try to come in time to school.
When it came to pronouncing the sound corresponding to the letter “a” in a

closed syllable, Arkady Osipovich urged us to open our mouths wide like frogs
do. Then the class would begin to croak in a dissonant chorus, and a good half of the
students would jump froglike between the rows of desks. The perplexed teacher was
just watching the bacchanal unable to call the half-wits to order. I remember having
remained sitting at my desk but shared the common merry making. Arkady
Osipovich kept teaching our class till the end of the school year.
After him came the young Rimma Fedorovna who pronounced “this” as “zys”,
but she ruled us with a rod of iron right away. Then a terrible thing happened to her
3 years later: because of a “C” in the English language at the end of a quarter our
classmate Roman Kreiman hanged himself. One of the teachers informed us of the
disaster on the next morning. Everyone was depressed having suddenly felt the
breath of death. So, when the English teacher came to give us a lesson we did not
stand up and buzzed in chorus “oo-oo-oo”. Poor Rimma Fedorovna!
As for me, at that time I became more and more certain that linguistics was not
my vocation.
64 2 Boyhood
2.9 My Interests
When I was in elementary school, feeling a wonderful lucidity of mind and

intellectual power, there was no limit to my interests or plans to choose a profession
when I grew up. I’ll try now to describe some of those.
At first, under the influence of Uncle Aron I became interested in geology. I
remember us in the distant 1946 sitting together on the curb near our house
examining the “samples” of crushed stone and pebbles that we had picked up in
the traffic area of Marat Street, and I learned that granite consisted of quartz, mica,
and feldspar; besides I singled out sandstone, shale, and gneiss.
In the summer of 1948 Uncle Aron, who was appointed Chief of the Leningrad
Hydroproject expedition, took me along to come to the Latvian town of Kegums on
the Daugava where he was busy with the geological prospecting for a hydroelectric
power plant construction discontinued during the war. There I saw the head water
and tail-water areas looking from the dam of the large power plant, the work of drill
columns, samples of core, exposure of marl and dolomite, and large druses of
quartz. . .
I have never returned to those places and do not know if the natural environment
has been preserved there over the past 65 years: pine forests carpeted with reindeer
moss, an abundance of mushrooms and berries, in the rivers – pikes, catfish,
breams, eels, and lampreys. At that time the Soviet regime had not yet managed
to destroy private homesteads in Latvia, had not yet cut down orchards in the farms,
and half a year remained until the deportation of their owners to Siberia.
Geology did not last for long as my hobby. Uncle Aron moved out of our
apartment on Marat Street, he devoted himself to his family, took part in expedi-
tions, and I acquired other hobbies.
I became ingrossed in botany probably because of the mentioned above book by
Tsinger. (Do you remember my description of durian?) I retained in my memory
names of plants and their classification. For example I have not forgotten the
appearance of the wild varieties of the cruciferous family: winter cress and
caseweed. Between book pages I dried up leaves and flowers, but while studying
botany at school my interest gradually changed to an aversion. I especially loathed
the theory worked out by the great Russian agrologist Dokuchaev and research by
Academician Williams. Even now I wince when my memory reminds me of the
“fine-cloddy soil structure” and the “grass mixture of leguminous and cereal
components, such as clover and timothy” while my learning by heart the six
elements of the grassland agriculture resulted in the first manifestation of my
absolute memory’s malfunction.
My keen enthusiasm for experimental physics appeared too early, when I was
10. It blazed up like a match and died down. While following the instructions found
in “Entertaining Physics” by Y. I. Perelman I took out a coin from water without
wetting my fingers. Then I almost started a fire with the help of a lens, played with
soap bubbles and even contrived a detector radio receiver that let out a loud
crackling. But I was indifferent to physics at school in spite of my victories in
2.9 My Interests 65
Olympiads. It was nice to receive “A”-grades, but I did not like chemistry either:
the non-organic one was more or less all right, but I could not stand organic
chemistry.
My love affair with astronomy continued from the fourth until the sixth grade.
The paradox of infinite space often disturbed me before falling asleep; the wrinkled
face of the Moon and the sight of the sky studded with stars hypnotized me and
strongly excited my imagination when looking at them for a long time. Jules Vern’s
“From the Earth to the Moon”, or Herbert Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” could
not fail inspiring a childish interest in the mysteries of the planets. I persuaded Mom
to take me to the Planetarium on Krasnaya Street not far from the Admiralty. I even
began assembling a telescope following the instructions I had found in a book. But
the necessary lenses could not be afforded by my Mom.
When I was in the sixth grade a City Olympiad in astronomy was organized. The
future winners were promised to be awarded prizes. I tried really hard and prepared
a richly illustrated manuscript “Space Travels” with a review of the topic in which I
was well grounded – the book by Sternfeld was on my shelf for a long time, not
without reason. (In 1951, space flight with rocket engines was of course considered
possible, but the general public expected it to happen in an uncertain and compar-
atively distant future. A reminder, just in case: Gagarin’s flight occurred 10 years
later). I sent my composition to the jury and started waiting, which was a torture
with the out-and-out choleric temperament I had in those years.
Because there was no response until the end of the school year I decided to make
inquiries myself at the “Palace of Pioneers”. My package was found and it was the
only one – there were no other participants in the City Astronomy Olympiad, and
the authorities had concluded to cancel it. I badly wanted to visit the observatory at
the “Palace of Pioneers” where, I was told, one could see a real telescope, but it
turned out to be impossible because of repairs: “Come back in the fall,” they invited
me, but I did not come. This dénouement was oppressive enough to disillusion me
in the romantic profession of astronomer. Ad notam to those interested: I never
regretted that decision and furthermore, I was not eager any more to look at the
Moon, planets, and stars through a telescope. I can also add that theoretical
astronomy is essentially a part of mathematics, and empirical sciences, including
experimental astronomy have never seriously attracted me in my adult life.
The history of the ancient world was taught when we were in the fifth grade.
Simultaneously, I studied in detail “The Legends and Myths of Ancient Greece” by
N. A. Kuhn. I was interested in ancient history, but my interest grew many years
later when it became clear to me that I belonged to a nation that was the first to
profess monotheism, which in its past dealt with Egyptian Pharaohs and fought
against Rome. . . In the Soviet Union of 1950 Jews had no history. I don’t know
whether it was introduced to the schools of the post-Soviet Russia which seems to
be a logical action because this inconvenient nation has had certain ties with the
Bible.
Well, isn’t it enough to talk about science again and again? Aren’t there such
beautiful things as music or painting for example? They of course exist, but
66 2 Boyhood
unfortunately I was unable to make my contribution to these achievements of

human genius because I lacked any noticeable trace of capabilities.
2.10 Poetry
I clearly remember that my first experience of poetic inspiration occurred when I

was 8 years old and, with my Mom, was entering the gateway of House No. 17 on
Suburban Avenue where my great-uncle Mark used to live before he died during the
siege of Leningrad, after which his children moved into the same apartment. Here is
my first rhyme: “There’s a meeting in the city and at the station there’s grandiose a
demonstration.” Nothing much, but a nice feeling! I understood then that I could
compose verses. Here are some lines of approximately the same period:
It’s a verse I’m writing; but can’t find a rhyme.
I won’t be a poet, I won’t waste my time.
No tears and no bemoaning
That I am a bad poet.
I will be surely published
Because they do not know it.
As you see I early became aware of my poetic talent’s limitations simultaneously

with its first manifestation, but did not stop scribbling rhymes either responding to a
social order – for the school wallpaper, or at the call of the heart. Here is a sample of
my landscape lyrics:
The mantle of the fog got rare.
The giant trees now visible again
Raised in the still and glassy air
Their crowns already lit by then.
And in its rays crimson and fair
The sun is rising o’er the flowery glen,
It soars above the ocean all aglare –
A golden fan that challenges my pen. . .
et cetera.
The report of my early poetic work would be incomplete without the verses
inspired by love. . .
The dark pile of houses, a gloomy sight,
The black mass of sleeping trees,
The stars twinkling modestly at night,
The sad moon looks down at lands and seas.
The world is sleepy, I alone can’t sleep.
My memory unwittingly revives
The pages of the past I’d always keep,
Their sweet pain is with me, it still survives.
. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .
I am recalling. . . But why should I touch,
In vain, a painful wound which even now is sore?
The sky and stars go pale but not as much
As to bring me the day they have in store.
2.11 Fimka 67
This was how Vova Maz’ya versified his feelings when he was an eighth grader,
and today, for the sake of self-justification he can repeat that he has never found
comfort in illusions of his poetic capabilities.
But many years later I had a rare fortune to get a close contact with poetry
spelled with a capital letter – the poems of my daughter.16
2.11 Fimka
There was already a chance to mention Fimka B., my friend from the first grade. We
had sat at the same desk almost the whole period of attending high school, and most
of that time were inseparable or what they called “hand in glove”.
At first, for several years, his classmates teased him by using the nickname
“Fatty”. Now I am looking at a photo preserved from the time of the fourth grade
and see his double chin which fact, in those times of semi-hunger, irritated the
socium and could result in ostracism. I never thought of teasing him, but I can’t give
myself the credit of friendly feelings, I simply did not notice anything unusual in his
appearance. From books I learned and had a good idea of what is considered a
genuine men’s friendship. In my opinion, the relationship between Fimka and me
was exactly like that ideal. In those days my attitude to him was indeed brotherly
and I had no doubt that he reciprocated that feeling.
Fimka lived on 77 Nevsky Avenue, on the corner of Pushkinskaya Street, a five
minute walk from 19 Marat Street. Entering the communal apartment on the third
floor I turned right and proceeded by a long dark corridor past the doors of the
tenants’ rooms; there I knocked at the last door on the left side and got to Fimka’s
room. When we were in the first grade his father had not yet been demobilized and
Fimka lived together with his mother just like me. That fact evidently contributed to
our friendship too, but our mothers did not have any special interest in each other
and, while always keeping good relations between them, did not become friends. It
was only natural: his mother Anna Solomonovna, an elegant and vivacious woman,
was considerably younger than my mother and had her own young company.
Besides, her husband was alive. For the celebration of the new 1946 year she
invited me, of course fulfilling a wish of her son. My mother courageously insisted
on my accepting the invitation though it was my birthday. “You will have a more
cheerful time,” she was persuading me, and I was stupid enough to obey her.
During the celebration where the food was delicious and they did not forget to
wish me a happy birthday, I suddenly realized what a mess I had made leaving
16
Gali-Dana Singer (née Maz’ya) – poetess and translator (Russian literature to Hebrew, and
Israeli to Russian) was born in 1962, Leningrad. Her book of poems “Journey Beyond the
Assigned Line”, M.: “New Literary Review”, 2009, was dedicated to me. In 2012, in
St. Petersburg a journal of poetry “The Air” was issued honoring her, Project “Argo”, ISBN
978-5-86793-697-6. Another book by her has just been issued “Convergence points. Vanishing
point”, NLR 2013, ISBN 978-5-4448-0095-9.
68 2 Boyhood
Mother alone. Sitting at table I could not endure it any longer and burst out crying
bitterly. When asked “What’s the matter?” I answered sniffing: “I pity mommy”.
They took me home with a package of candies for her.
Once at Fimka’s, I saw his father in military uniform. I remembered that day
especially vividly as it could have been the last one in my life. I sat on a couch and
Fimka stood in front of me showing off his father’s Walther pistol captured at war.
A second earlier it had been on the table next to the holster and leather belt but
suddenly got in Fimka’s hands pointed at my breast. “Bang, bang!” said Fimka
ready to pull the trigger, but his father managed to snatch the pistol. There was a
cartridge in the charger, and the safety catch was not slipped into place. I envied
Fimka for not too long because his father did not stay with his family. During the
war he had met another woman and left Leningrad to be with her.
For some time Fimka lived together with his mother again and I continued
coming to his place quite often. We spent evenings sitting at a chessboard or
playing table games: bingo, dominoes and others, but that period soon ended. His
mother remarried, and Fimka acquired a little brother. It became impossible to
make prolonged visits to Fimka’s house. Only the school and street were left.
One day, in the fourth grade, we were returning home from school. It was early
fall, a warm and dry weather. We both had Pioneer’s red neckties on. We dropped in
at the ice cream parlor near the Coliseum arch, drank tomato juice in faceted
tumblers having answered the question: “With salt or pepper?” and crossed Nevsky
Avenue. After that our routes had to diverge: his – to the left, and mine – straight
ahead, but we didn’t want to part, and Fimka decided to see me off to my house. In
such cases, having reached the destination we turned back and thus changing
directions hung about in Marat and Nevsky between our houses for a long time.
On that day, we enthusiastically argued about human happiness while swinging
our school bags. Briefly speaking, I declared that to die a happy person one needed
to have lived for the sake of mankind’s prosperity.
N. G. Chernyshevsky17 would have been satisfied with my theory, but I did not
have a chance to hear Fimka’s ideas in this connection, because the man who
followed us said loudly: “Look at those little Yids kicking up a din!” We quieted
down and let him pass.
By the by, have you ever been punched with brass knuckles. I hope you haven’t.
But I once had that experience at the age of 14 as a student of the seventh grade. I
am going to tell you about it.
In Fimka’s apartment on 77 Nevsky Avenue I moved along the corridor towards
his room. It was necessary to pass a couple of doors one of which belonged to the
room occupied by a guy, Yurka S., about 2 years our elder. Using a hurtful and more
modern expression, he parroted thugs, but he did not offend Fimka and told him of
his adventures, some of which my friend shared with me. By that time Yurka had
quit school and was studying in a technical college. He wanted to become a writer
and filled up notebooks with his minute handwriting. One day, at school, after
17
N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828–1889), a Russian utopian socialist.
2.12 The First Place in the District! 69
classes, I was going down the stairs, then opened the door leading to the lobby and
stopped with my mouth wide open unable to inhale. “It took his breath away” as a
poet once said.18 I remember my horror and bewilderment because of a sudden pain
in the chest from an unknown source, and an inability to breathe; but finally I took a
breath and I tried to understand what happened. In front of me stood Fimka and
Yurka. “Well, did you like it?” Yurka asked showing me a ribbed plate that was
held with four fingers on the right hand. “Are you crazy?” I forced myself to say.
“Well, it was a joke,” answered the future Jack London waving his brass knuckles
and broadly smiling.
When the period of puberty came we began constantly taking evening walks on
Broadway.19 On that stretch you were guaranteed to come across some of your pals.
Groups of “dudes” “toddled” from one end of “the Broad” to the other and back
again trying to “pick up” cute gals. I don’t know about other boys but we could
never achieve any result. Nevertheless, the romantic Broadway attracted us like a
magnet.
2.12 The First Place in the District!
The traumatic event that happened to me when I was in the fifth grade was quite
painful. I am going to talk about it now. That was an important lesson; it taught me
to endure similar situations calmly as they repeated in my life. There is no way to
ignore adjustments for the time period or concrete circumstances, but the main
point remains the same.
Let me begin with a handwritten document attested to by a school seal.
Character Reference regarding the fifth year Class “B” student, boys’ high school No. 215,
(previously, in school No. 207, he was in Class “D”)
Vladimir Maz’ya
Maz’ya, Vladimir is an excellent student.
Capable and diligent. He has quick mind,
and a serious attitude to his studies.
Takes an active part in his class activities.
He is a deputy chairman of the Young Pioneer unit council.
Has given reports at Pioneers’ meetings.
A good and responsive comrade.
Helps poor achievers and worries about their success.
Excellent exam grades.
Prepared for the exams intensively and seriously.
18
Allusion to the words from the famous fable by I. A. Krylov “The Crow and the Fox” inspired by
a similarly titled fable by Aesop.
19
Broadway or “the Broad” was what the Leningrad young people called a stretch of Nevsky
Avenue from Vosstaniya Square to Liteyny Avenue.
70 2 Boyhood
His mother has a job but finds time to watch closely

the studies and discipline of her son.
Class supervisor
S. Kogan
6.7.50
Our class supervisor Nina Vasilyevna was replaced as early as the beginning of
the fourth grade by Sophiya Davidovna (with the nickname “Sophochka”), and all
she had written about me was the naked truth. Of course that truth was not
complete, but who expects full truth from a notebook page. Still, if anyone is
eager to find a serious description of the feelings and motives of the fifth year
class “B” student Vladimir Maz’ya, here is a true story for that purpose.
Like in the previous year, on one of the first days of September 1949, Sophochka
supervised the election of our Pioneer “activist group”: “Chairman of the Unit
Council – Slava R.; his first deputy – Vova Maz’ya, second deputy – Fima B.” she
pronounced solemnly addressing the class and afterwards continued calling the
names of rank and file members of the Council. “Who is in favor? Please raise your
hands. Unanimous!”
Fimka and I were highly active Pioneers and the only “A” students in the class.
This made our presence in Sophochka’s list inevitable. But I had a question: “For
what reason is R., a “B” student, becoming the chairman of the Pioneer Unit for a
second year in a row? Everybody knew well that in the past year he, being the
chairman, engaged in so-called social work rather carelessly. But if I openly stated
my perplexity it would sound like “Elect me!”, and I naturally kept silent. At the
same time, speaking honestly, I did not believe that Supervisor Kogan would have
appointed as Chairman a student with such a strange last name as Maz’ya, even
though his “quick mind” were a hundred times quicker. That is why, in spite of my
disappointment, I perceived the situation cum grano salis.
Time, abiding by its rules, healed the wounds. Before the third quarter ended, the
school Young Pioneer Organizer informed us of the starting competition for the title
of best Pioneer unit in the Kuibyshevsky District. We, like everybody else, were
urged to take an active part in it. The criteria of success were performance at school
and Pioneer work; the winning unit was promised a challenge pennant.
At that moment Vova Maz’ya’s Pioneer fervor attained an extraordinary height.
He decided to transform the fifth year Class “B” so as to obtain the status of best of
the best and then, at any cost, to be awarded the District Pennant. It was not really
difficult to impart my enthusiasm to Fimka and some other three or four boys, thus
our group was ready for action. Meanwhile the chairman of the Pioneer unit could
not care less about our commotion. Evidently my venture did not appeal to him and
he, so to say, opted out of it staying calm and even-tempered.
Pioneer work did not cause any problems. Vova Maz’ya, for instance, presented
reports on literary and mathematical themes at the Pioneers’ meetings.
Wall papers were issued regularly. We participated in excursions to various
places. I cannot remember everything but the accountability was perfect.
The most difficult task, sometimes seemingly unrealizable, was help for
so-called “poorly performing” students. Coaching such students had always been
2.12 The First Place in the District! 71
considered a duty of a real Leninist Pioneer. In the third quarter the tutoring of poor
achievers reached an unheard of intensity. Every day we stayed after class with “D”
and “C” students, dictated Russian language tests prepared by us ourselves, helped
them to solve math problems, trained them to answer the teacher when called up to
the blackboard. On the next day one of us (the tutor) would run up to the teacher and
quickly suggest: “Call on N. today please. He knows everything.” The teacher did
not refuse playing our game, and by the end of the quarter the performance of our
students looked splendid. Not only did all of the coached students get on well at
school, the number of “C” students sharply decreased.
In short, we finally received the District Pennant and hung it on the wall.
Additionally, we were awarded the Challenge Red Banner of the school Pioneers’
Unit – understandably, as we had achieved the status of the best unit in the District,
so much the more we became the best at our school.
I was happy! I was so happy! I had never felt such an intensive joy.
Soon we were visited by the photographer G. F. Safonov, a correspondent of
“Lenin’s Sparks” and the father of one of my classmates. Several days later, on my
way to school, I took out of the mailbox that day’s newspaper. The photo of our
Pioneer Unit was made remarkably well. Standing first by the banner was our
council chairman, after him was me, then Fimka and the rest of the pioneers of our
unit. As a comment the photograph had an article in big letters with the words:
“Slava R. and his friends”. My eyes searched for the name Maz’ya in vain. Shocked
by the injustice, I did not go to school that day, and, besides, I must admit a loss of
some illusions. All of my social enthusiasm vanished.
During the fourth quarter changes occurred in our class that cannot be called
other than dramatic. Tutoring the poor achievers suddenly stopped. “D” grades
returned. Before the start of classes on one of the last days of the school year, the
Pioneer Organizer burst into our classroom in fury, barked something scornful at us,
and took away the pennant and banner, banging the door as she left. But I did
not care.
As for Slava R., he was tacitly awarded a vacation package to the legendary
Crimean Pioneer resort called Artek; he told someone about it himself in the fall
when the story of Challenge Pennant had sunk into the Lethe.
Chapter 3
High School Life
3.1 In the Sixth Grade
When I moved up to the sixth grade our school No. 215 had already acquired a new
building on Zhukovsky Street, and I often covered the distance from home to school
on the footboard of a streetcar – this was possible in those times when the old design
of that type of transportation was still in use. While turning from Kolokolnaya
Street to Marat Street the streetcar slowed down and I jumped off to the cobble
stone pavement. The jump had to be done so as not to be run down by a car that
might be turning at the same time. A couple of times, when landing after the jump, I
scraped my knees though not seriously. But then the dear corner house I lived in
was close at hand.
Once in the evening, on my way back along Vladimirsky Avenue, I heard a
scream and my streetcar shook. It turned out a woman threw herself under the
streetcar, and was cut in two. A crowd gathered, I saw something white under the
wheels and hurriedly went away.
Now to another character reference given me by Sophochka on June 17, 1951.
Maz’ya, Vladimir finished the sixth grade with a Letter of Commendation. A cultured and
intelligent student. Reads a lot, although not general literature but books that deepen the
knowledge of school subjects. He was the chairman of the Pioneer Council in his class. A
good Pioneer, he enjoys authority over his classmates. A member of the mathematics and
literature circles.
With regard to this text I’d like to make the following four remarks.
First, I received the Letter of Commendation despite the fact that exactly in the
sixth grade I was given a final C for the year in draftsmanship – it was a first in my
life! When I recall the ruling pens, the set of drawing instruments, the Whatman
paper, and the French curves I shudder at the mere thought of them. Fortunately that
subject, which I hated, was not registered in the school progress record.

74 3 High School Life
Photo 3.1 Kolokolnaya

street, house no. 18/19. Here
I used to jump off the street
car footboard (© Vladimir
Secondly, I did read general literature. In this respect Sophochka made a mistake.
“Oliver Twist”, “David Copperfield”, “Sherlock Holmes”, “The Headless Horse-
man”, “The last of the Mohicans”, “The Two Captains”, and “Shvambrania”. . . As to
my reading “books that deepen the knowledge of school subjects”, that statement
cannot be disputed by me. Any book I could lay my hands on was reading matter to
me out of interest and out of a wish to show off in class.
Thirdly, Sophochka promoted me to my official rank. She realized that in the
new school year it was senseless to expect Vladimir Maz’ya to work well in the
position of a Pioneer deputy chairman (he himself learned it to his own cost): aut
Caesar aut nihil. Besides, she did not run any risk because at the end of the school
year she was going to retire. I did my new duties of Chairman efficiently although,
after the last year’s disappointment, I never took a real pleasure in public work or
reached breathtaking career achievements.
Fourthly, my participation in the mathematics circle in the sixth grade did not
mean that a strong interest in this subject captivated me. I cannot remember what
we did in the circle when it was the last year of studying arithmetic. Was it training
quick reckoning skills? Conditions for divisibility?
Let me add that the sixth grade syllabus, in addition to Russian, arithmetic and
English, included natural science, geography and physics.
3.3 The Indecent Topic 75
3.2 In the Seventh Grade
In that grade the four subjects mentioned above were supplemented with chemistry
and the Constitution of the USSR. Written and oral Russian did not disappear, and
instead of arithmetic there appeared algebra and geometry. It is hard for me to
understand how the hailstorm of new knowledge that descended on us could be
endured by students without damaging our psychic health.
In that school year our mathematics circle staged a play in which I was given the
role of a triangle. Introducing myself to the spectators I said: “Triangle is my name.
My students I can maim. I’m called in different ways when sides or angles are
equal,” and so on. But it was not that mathematical-theatrical experience that in the
seventh grade incited a surge of my interest in mathematics; no, it was something
much more prosaic: a textbook on geometry by A. P. Kiselev.
I confess that it was exactly the seventh grade that I had finished without a
triumph, the only one out of ten grades. In the Russian written exam my compo-
sition titled “The Character of Eugene Onegin” had two unnecessary commas and
that induced the teacher to give me a “B”. Now I hold in my hands the Certificate of
Completion of Junior High School – evidence of eternal disgrace.
In January 1952, 2 weeks after my 14th birthday, I, as a good student, became a
member of the “Komsomol”, a mass Youth organization controlled by the Soviet
regime. I was destined to stay there for 14 years and quit upon becoming overage.
3.3 The Indecent Topic
I have taken pains to delay the story of my psycho-sexual development, but any
further procrastination becomes unnatural – didn’t I join the “Komsomol” already?
I was in all boys’ school, no girls, so what! Even so, when still a Pioneer I took an
active part in the discussion: “Is friendship between boys and girls possible?” and
had a well-reasoned positive opinion in this respect, theoretically speaking of
course.
Anyway, I had my first infatuation for a girl in Sverdlovsk when I was five and
attended a kindergarten that had a boarding school routine. Tender feelings were
incited in me by a blond girl called Katia, whom I cannot depict now for I have
forgotten what she looked like. The girl did not pay any attention to me, but I liked
her a lot, and going to bed at night I indulged in reveries about befriending her,
speaking with her and playing together. In the morning the imaginary events
seemed a reality, and once I began telling the surprised girl about them. She
possibly decided that I was abnormal, I became ashamed and my feelings toward
her faded.
It is curious that in those years the emergence of my libido was not related to my
erogenic zones. I only associated the erection of my penis with a wish to pee and did
not expect my Willy to give me pleasure. But exactly when I was 5–6 years old I
had a noticeable hedonistic behavior I never told anyone about. On one occasion,
when I was trying to sleep in the dark kindergarten bedroom, I experienced a

condition that I would like to call nirvana. I made a conscious effort and felt a
tractile bliss somewhere in the back of my head. Afterwards, before falling asleep, I
was able to reproduce that orgasmic sensation deliberately, but in Leningrad I
forgot that feeling and could never experience it again. Moreover, I could not
ever succeed in finding a description of that phenomenon in any book.
Exactly in accordance with Freud’s1 theory I entered the latent period at 7 years
of age, and after 4 years left it. Erotic thoughts and sensations did not manifest
themselves in me, and girls were of no interest whatsoever. In particular I was
absolutely indifferent about the female anatomy, so the customers of the women’s
baths had no reason to be embarrassed by my presence when I was a little boy.
I received some initial lessons in sex education in the early fall of 1946 at Marat
Street. While seeing me off from school to home, Fimka shared with me a couple of
jokes. From the first one I remember just the final words:
Lie down on the plain of Kashmir,
Hold on to the mounts of Pamir,
And thrust your sword, be brave,
Into Solomon’s cave.
“Do you mean you don’t know how children are made?” asked Fimka with
mistrust, having discovered my absolute incompetence, and then, grinning conde-
scendingly, explained the basics of the process and the meanings of the main terms.
“What about the second joke?” I may be asked by curious readers. “Have you
forgotten that one too?”
No, no, please don’t worry. I remember it well and am going to reproduce it right
away:
Pushkin comes to his friends.
Before his visit ends
They tell their daughter: “Look,
1
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). For a very long time, even when I grew up, I did not see a single
publication by Freud, but, violating the historical course of events in this book, I must inform the
reader that at the age of 18 I read the small book by Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) in a
pre-revolutionary edition which I bought by chance in a second-hand book shop on Middle
Avenue, Vasilyevsky Island, next to the 10th Line (each side of a street is called a “Line”). I
decided that I belong to the extroverted sensation type. That is why, to help my readers who would
like to better understand the psychology of this author, I am presenting here a quotation from Jung:
“No other human type can equal the extraverted sensation-type in realism. His sense for objective
facts is extraordinarily developed. His life is an accumulation of actual experience with concrete
objects, and the more pronounced he is, the less use does he make of his experience. In certain
cases the events of his life hardly deserve the name ‘experience’. He knows no better use for this
sensed ‘experience’ than to make it serve as a guide to fresh sensations; anything in the least ‘new’
that comes within his circle of interest is forthwith turned to a sensational account and is made to
serve this end. In so far as one is disposed to regard a highly developed sense for sheer actuality as
very reasonable, will such men be esteemed rational. In reality, however, this is by no means the
case, since they are equally subject to the sensation of irrational, chance happenings, as they are to
rational behavior.”
3.4 My Circle of Reading 77
Give Pushkin back his book.”

Pushkin says: “She is unable,
She gives me under the table.”
Starting from the second grade, when we had already adapted to school life, the
topic of sex was within hearing all the time. Someone who was suspected to be
friends with a girl was called a “womanizer”, obscene language became a norm, and
girls’ names ending in “-ka” (Irka, Lenka, Anka) were mentioned by my classmates
in the context of “gives to anyone” or even “how she gives”. All of that was
discussed during breaks and not in class of course. The students were of mixed
backgrounds. Here is an illustration: our classmate K. stabbed with a bowie knife
another classmate S. in his stomach. The former was sent to a penal camp, and the
latter survived, but left our school.
On that September day of 1946 when Fimka enlightened me regarding the
relationship between the sexes, I absorbed the lesson with interest, but without a
burning enthusiasm. The flames or rather a blaze broke out when I was 11. But I
won’t speak of those events. I can only say that more substantial facts concerning
childbirth and the vast sphere of knowledge connected with it I secretly learned
from the old encyclopedia by Brockhouse and Efron kept on the shelves in the
“large” room on Marat Street and especially from the German pre-revolutionary
issue, translated into Russian, of a richly illustrated treatise “The Man and the
Woman”.
3.4 My Circle of Reading
The title of this chapter is a reminder of Leo Tolstoy’s “Circle of Reading”, a

religious philosophical work. My task here is more modest.
When I was a high school student I did not have many books that belonged to
me. Most of them were birthday presents and gifts to mark the end of a school year.
The most valuable ones were bought on subscription: 30 volumes by Maxim Gorky,
and 14 by Leo Tolstoy, but they appeared on my shelves when I grew up a little. The
main sources of books were the school and District libraries.
Literature classes caused nothing but a stable aversion to curriculum books. To
read under the lash and by a deadline was disgusting, while cramming the positive
and negative features of the personages in a book could be termed simply unbear-
able. I only appreciated the genius of Pushkin when I reread “Eugene Onegin” at a
mature age. I was lucky that neither Shakespeare nor Dickens were required school
reading.
In the 1940s I was a voracious reader of adventure and science fiction books
accessible at that time. My mother kept telling me: “Don’t read in the lying
position, It’s bad for the eyes.” But I did not obey, and read on in that position.
Here is an incomplete list of books responsible for my nearsightedness: “The
Mysterious Island”, “Timur and his squad”, “Treasure Island”, “The Adventures
of Captain Vrungel”, “The Count of Monte Christo”, “Captain Dare-Devil”, “Quest
for Fire”, “The Solitary White Sail”, “The Last of the Mohicans”, “The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer”, “The Headless Horseman”, “Silver Skates”, “Robinson Crusoe”,
“Mowgli”, “The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel”, “Old man Khottabych”, “Extraor-
dinary Adventures of Karik and Valya”, “Oliver Twist”, “The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “The Two Captains”, “Twenty Years Later”,
“Professor Dowell’s Head”, “Fifteen Year Old Captain”, “80,000 Kilometers Under
Water”, “The Gold Key or the Adventures of Buratino”, “Conduit and
Shvambraniya”, “The Three Musketeers”, “The Invisible Man”, “Sannikov’s
Land”, “Notes of Sherlock Holmes”, “The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin”, “The
Malachite Case”, “Three Fat Men”, “Three Men in a Boat (to Say Nothing of the
Dog)”, “The White Fang”, “The Battle of the Worlds”, “The Gadfly”, “The
Amphibian Man”, “The Dirk”, “Captain Grant’s Children”. . . I am not giving the
authors’ names as most readers know them anyway.
Having moved up to senior grades my reading interests changed. I was reading
“Bel-Ami”, “Le père Goriot”, “Klim Samgin’s Life”, “David Copperfield”, “Martin
Eden”, “Smoke Bellew”, “The Genius”, “The Titan”, “The Stoic”, “Portrait of
Dorian Gray”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, and “Decameron”. . .
A separate list includes the humorist authors: Ilf and Petrov, Zoshchenko, Hašek,
Mark Twain, Jerome K. Jerome, and I could not do without some poets: Fet,
Nadson, Byron, Shakespeare, Blok, and even Shota Rustaveli translated from the
Georgian by Balmont.
3.5 I Chose Mathematics
The summer of 1952 came. Mother rented a room in the suburbs of Pavlovsk
(a small town near Leningrad) as she wanted me to spend my summer vacations
in the fresh air of that place. So, after the seventh grade final exams, I “relaxed in the
country” while she worked in the city. If you had asked me whether I was bored, my
answer would have been a resolute “no!”
In front of the house, under a tree, stood a wooden table and a bench that I turned
into my work station. I sat there day and night weather permitting, and when it
rained I moved to my room. The neighbors said I was a little crazy, and Mother
feared that I would develop meningitis.
What was my occupation? Mathematics. Those who are interested in details can
be answered: “First of all, I read textbooks for senior grades, and secondly, I was
solving mathematical problems.” In that period, the Leningrad University and
Palace of Pioneers2 held district and city Olympiads in mathematics for eighth-,
ninth-, and tenth graders.3 To prepare school children for the Olympiads, little
books with math problems were distributed in schools in order to help students gain
2
Both places bore the name of A. A. Zhdanov, a Soviet Communist leader close to Stalin.
3
International and All-Union Olympiads in mathematics were first organized in 1959 and 1967
respectively, long after I had finished school.
3.6 A Circle at the Palace of Pioneers 79
Photo 3.2 My first booklet of City Mathematics Olympiad practice problems, 1953–1954
(© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
a deeper understanding of the school course of mathematics, and develop skills to

conduct independent scientific research. (Can you imagine? “Develop skills to
conduct independent scientific research” – to me, it sounded as sweet music!)
Here are the math drill problems that I began coping with. They were so
fascinating that by the first of September the issue of my future profession was
resolved: I chose mathematics!
3.6 A Circle at the Palace of Pioneers
Now it is not easy for me to distinguish in my memory what happened in the eighth,
ninth and tenth grades at school. Certainly each year had its peculiarities, but today
the details seem of no great importance in comparison to the main idée fixe – to be
admitted to the “Mathmech and to become a mathematician”.4
4
“Mathmech” an abbreviation of “Department of Mathematics and Mechanics” at the Leningrad
University.
Photo 3.3 Grisha

Lozanovsky (© Vladimir
In September 1952, in the eighth grade, I joined the mathematics circle at the
Palace of Pioneers supervised by the charming Elena Naumovna Sokiryanskaya, a
graduate student from the Mathmech (I have just found her recent signature in
Khodorkovsky’s and Lebedev’s site). We were busy solving problems during circle
meetings and were given home assignments. I was solving something all the time,
and progressed well – of course my intensive summer drills had helped. Almost no
theoretical studies were conducted in the circle, and that suited me completely.
In our circle I befriended an incredibly talented fellow, Grisha Lozanovsky.5 No
one else could both work with mathematical literature and solve problems! Later on
he became an excellent mathematician, but died prematurely at 39 years of age
when the surgeons of a Leningrad hospital performed an operation on him thinking
that a heart attack was a fit of appendicitis. In that year I acquired a friend – Yura
Burago6 who at that time attended a Palace of Pioneers math circle for ninth graders
and afterwards became a brilliant geometer.
Now let me divert my attention from the math circle. Never in my life had I read
a single mathematical book from the first to the last page. When it was necessary to
read a book or a large article I used my own lazy intuitive system: first, I looked
through the book roughly, then read and reread superficially, selecting pages by
chance, often while on public transportation or in some other uncomfortable
conditions, until I got so familiar with the text that the gaps in my understanding
became filled up all by themselves.
I didn’t like then, and I don’t now, to hear lectures related to mathematical
domains completely unknown to me a priori. You have barely had time to make
5
Grigory Yakovlevich Lozanovsky (1937–1976).
6
Yury Dmitrievich Burago, born in 1936.
3.6 A Circle at the Palace of Pioneers 81
Photo 3.4 E. N. Sokiryanskaya with our math club (I am standing on the far right) (© Vladimir
Photo 3.5 Yura Burago (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
yourself familiar with a notion or notation when you become overwhelmed with
dozens of new ones. At seminars, a great majority of talks are devoted to the same
topic: “Look, guys, how clever I am and how stupid you are” in spite of the formal
variety of titles.
Photo 3.6 G. M.
Fichtenholz (© Vladimir
3.7 Two Lectures for School Children
One day, in a secondhand book store, I, an eighth grader, found a pre-revolutionary

textbook of higher mathematics for “Realschule”.7 From that book I learned the
meaning of the derivative and integral, and a year later new and different horizons
were opened to me in the first volume of “A Course of Differential and Integral
Calculus” by G. M. Fichtenholz.8
Exactly at the end of the school year Fichtenholz gave a lecture at the
“Mathmech” entitled “What is Integral Calculus?” which I attended in Auditorium
No. 66 on the 10th Line. Never before had I heard a genuine virtuoso lecturer.
“Well, my esteemed Comrades!” were the solemn words Fichtenholz began his
lecture with in a well-trained voice; he then continued in such a way that we could
not take our eyes off him. It was a real, one-actor, theatrical performance – a
handsome man with well-structured facial features, combed-back black hair with
streaks of grey, and completely grey moustache and beard.
Fichtenholz was then 64 years old; he died 7 years later, soon after being
harassed by a group of anti-Semites at the “Mathmech”.9
As a ninth grader I was fortunate to hear, in the same auditorium, another lecture
for high school students entitled: “What is the Functional?” The lecturer was
7
“Realschule” a German name for schools with emphasis on natural science and mathematics
rather than humanities. This type of schools established in Russia in 1872 did not exist in the
Soviet Union, the Russian name was “realnoe uchilishche”.
8
G. M. Fichtenholz (1988–1959) was the founder of the Leningrad school of the theory of
functions of a real variable.
9
I. Polyak, On anti-Semitism in Soviet science, http://www.proza.ru/2003/12/24/97
3.8 Murderers in Doctors’ Smocks 83
Photo 3.7 A. G. Pinsker

private collection)
Professor A. G. Pinsker.10 He delivered his talk in a quite clear and interesting

manner and although he was not as imposing a figure as Fichtenholz nevertheless he
was a skilled lecturer. “The Functional – he explained – is a function whose
argument is the devil knows what.”
The word “professor” thrilled me at that time so much and for me to become one
was a pipe dream.
3.8 Murderers in Doctors’ Smocks
By the time when on January 13, 1953 the main Communist Party newspaper
“Pravda” published an article about Kremlin physicians accused of being wreckers,
I grew sufficiently wise not to believe a single word in the publication. An open
anti-Jewish propaganda campaign began in the Soviet Union. Patients were afraid
to be treated by Jewish doctors who were being laid off on various pretexts. Soon
rumors began to be spread of an imminent general deportation of Jews to Eastern
Siberia to protect them from the righteous wrath of the Soviet people.
When, on March 5, 1953, Stalin died, it was at first unclear how it would affect
us, the Jews, but fortunately, a month later it was officially announced that the
doctors’ case had been fabricated. The press had never informed the USSR popu-
lation of former plans to deport all the Soviet Jews. Neither Khrushchev, in his
sensational report at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, nor his heirs
and later rulers of Russia ever talked of anything like that. Is it really possible that
rumors about unheated barracks built for us in Siberia were all groundless?
10
A. G. Pinsker (1905–1986). In mathematics a functional is a map of a set of certain objects into a
set of numbers.
Photo 3.8 My notes from the lecture “What is the functional?” by Pinsker (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
3.9 The English Teacher
As late as in the eighth grade we at last were given a good English teacher. A good one?
No, it’s saying too little – an excellent teacher! A school pupil, at least the one who
wants to be a high achiever, has a subtle feeling which determines the worth of a teacher.
The elite of our class too immediately concluded that we were lucky to obtain Yury
Borisovich Golitsynsky, a refined, ironic teacher, and only about 7 years our elder.11
11
He knew English marvelously, but did not have a higher education diploma. That situation did
not prevent him from being hired to teach at a high school because there was a shortage of teachers,
and life had not yet become controlled by the bureaucrats as much as in later years.
3.9 The English Teacher 85
Photo 3.9 Textbook by Y. B. Golitsynsky (English, Grammar, Exercises) (© Vladimir Maz’ya,

private collection)
Photo 3.10 Y. B.
Golitsynsky (© Vladimir
I still have his photograph made in 1956 which he gave me when I was already a
University student. In the photo Yury Borisovich wears a white shirt and an open
collar; his hair is slightly wavy. He stands on a lake shore resting his hand against
the trunk of a tree that was bending over the water. There is a barely perceptible
smile on his lips and a dreamy gaze. A living image of Lord Byron! Even more
handsome! Because his last name “Golitsynsky” sounded similar to the old princely
family name in Russia – “Golitsyn”, we decided that he descended from ancient
nobility.12
He obviously liked to teach English. We could see that he was a talented man.
We were inspired by that, and were eager to study well. Just recently, in 2011,
having seen information about his numerous books on the Internet, I understood
that Y. B. was elaborating his own method of teaching English grammar. In my case
his system proved to be effective: I make few mistakes in writing English texts.
12
I never asked him if that was true and thus did not know; Y. B. Golitsynsky’s ancestor could
actually have been a serf belonging to Golitsyn princes.
3.10 Arkady Alexeev 87
As to an active knowledge of English, practically no time was allotted to it in the

school curriculum. In the 1950s it was assumed that Soviet school children would
not have to communicate with living native speakers of a foreign language, as it was
not advisable from the political point of view.
3.10 Arkady Alexeev
There was just one exception from the general rule: Arkashka13 Alexeev who spoke
English fluently, but he was in Class “A”, not in my Class “B”. I do not remember
what gave rise to our friendship but anyhow we became fast friends in the eighth
grade. He had a mild and warm temper and was not without good looks, both of
which contributed to sympathetic feelings for him. But perhaps I mainly admired
him because of his giftedness in humanities.
He lived not far from my house, on Stremyannaya Street between Povarskoy and
Dmitrovsky Lanes, and we spent a lot of time after school in his apartment. He often
stayed at home alone as his mother and stepfather, actors of the “Baltflot”14 theater
were busy at rehearsals and performances.
I persuaded Arkashka to address me in English only, and attempted to answer in
the same language, which was done timidly and without noticeable success. I
remember we tried translating into English some lyrics of songs popular at that
time, and it seemed to me things were going smoothly. Here is the beginning of one
of Muslim Magomaev’s15 hits in our English translation:
There are lights of bright stars in the deep sky,
And the leaves rustle in the light breeze,
While the moon floating thoughtfully keeps high,
Like a lily on water in peace. . .
By the end of the last year at school both of us became busy with our own
problems and met less frequently. I clearly remember that once I tried to convince
Arkashka to apply for admittance to the Philology Department of Leningrad
University, but his romantic bent led him to choose the Philosophy Department.
After some time he was expelled from the University for anti-Soviet activity: he
had torn to pieces a personalized red mission trip ticket to a construction site and
threw the remnants into a trashcan in the Department corridor. A passing vigilante
collected the ticket pieces from the trashcan, put them together and filed a suit. I
learned later that Arkady and his wife had tried to cross the border into Turkey not
13
A familiar diminutive of Arkady.
14
“Baltflot” a Russian abbreviation of “Baltic Fleet”. Major military and naval units had their own
theaters.
15
Muslim Magomaev (1942–2008). A tenor very famous in the Soviet Union.
Photo 3.11 Prisoner

Alexeev in a penal camp,
Mordovia (© Arkady
Alexeev, reproduced with
kind permission)
far from the Soviet city of Batumi, but were arrested and served two and a half years
in labor camps, he – in Mordovia,16 she – in Siberia.
A lot of water has flown under many bridges since that time. Alexeev, his wife
and son have long been living in America. He teaches at the University of
California at Berkeley. Seven years ago my wife and I visited them in California
and spent together several wonderful days. It was hard to believe that half a century
had passed since our time in Leningrad.
Several days ago I called Arkashka and asked him to add something about our
erstwhile friendship to be included in my memoirs. I did not give him much time or
a lot of space and received the following as a result:
3.11 Alexeev’s Story
My name is Arkady Alexeev. I was born in Leningrad. But that happened long ago,
about 75 years back, and I have already almost forgotten Leningrad, all the more so
that it is not even Leningrad any longer.
Recently, one morning, my telephone rang and I heard:
“Arkashka?”
Who can that be? But suddenly it dawned on me: only one person would call me
like that in my adult years. Of course it was Vovka Maz’ya, a mathematician, a
great prankster, fond of philosophizing, who sometimes did it in English although
not too successfully, but the enthusiasm he possessed to the highest degree was the
important thing. I remember when I was about 15 I decided, after a prolonged
hesitation, to recite my poems to him. He sat on a couch and I, thinking that poems
16
Mordovia, a so-called “autonomous” republic with some political prisoner camps.
3.11 Alexeev’s Story 89
Photo 3.12 A. Alexeev

reciting a poem (not written
by him) (© Arkady
Alexeev, reproduced with
kind permission)
should be declaimed while standing, rose up and began to torture him with my
creations. I recited no less than ten verses and suddenly saw Vovka choking with
laughter.
“Is it so funny?” I asked hoarsely.
“Did you really write it?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You wrote ‘let blood jubilate’?”
“So what?”
“Blood does not jubilate.”
And he burst out laughing sincerely. I slammed the notebook, and did not read
any other verses. Besides, I stopped writing altogether (I mean poems, not prose).17
And it may seem incredible, but I was not offended by the attitude of my first
literary critic. I felt: he could not act against his conscience, which was a rare
behavior as I understood already in those young years. Perhaps there was some kind
of block in him against lying.
17
Arkady Alexeev – author of the historical novel “The Adventures of Giulio Mazarini” in four
volumes. Now he is finishing a book on the life of the Marquis de Lafayette (V. M.).
For example, you may see some daub, and the artist is asking: “Well, how do you
like it?” (sometimes in a trembling voice). I would like to answer “Rubbish!”, but
cannot, although praising is out of the question too. What can be done? As the years
went by I taught myself to use a convenient word “interesting”. You say this
smooth-tongued epithet to the artist and he is satisfied, everybody is satisfied, and
even I am too. I wonder what would Vova Maz’ya say under such circumstances.
He and his wife wrote a thick book about a French mathematical genius where they
express their admiration for everything done by that man.18 Here you see that the
admiration is sincere.
Once in Leningrad I dropped by at Vovka’s place (I think it was a communal
apartment) and saw a mathematician at work. Around him, books were scattered all
over, perhaps even on the floor, thrown about scraps of paper and notebooks
covered with formulas. No personal computers existed at that time (not in America
either), and I did not see even a typewriter in his room, although it could be tucked
somewhere.19 I understood that I had arrived at the coal-face work site of a miner or
a stone mason’s shack. This was in 1975. It was just the time when I planned to
emigrate to America. I thought: would he emigrate too? In that room it became
clear to me that a stone mason did not need America or any other foreign country,
all he needed was a table, paper, and a pen irrespective of the place. So, I decided:
he won’t go. But I was wrong. He did emigrate although later than I. What made
him do that? People ask you, an emigrant, so often why you left Russia, that you
don’t give a damn about such questions. Thus I did not ask him. . . But really why
did he leave Russia? He has a perfect mathematical mind, which I think implies the
existence of formulas for all of his motives.
18
Jacques Hadamard (1865–1963). See the book by V. G. Maz’ya and T.O. Shaposhnikova
“Jacques Hadamard, a Universal Mathematician”, American Mathematical Society, Providence,
1998 (V. M.).
19
At that time I did not have a typewriter, but there was, at the Mathmech, a wonderful typist Nina
Ivanovna, who, almost for free, typed mathematical manuscripts. The author had just to insert the
formulas with Indian ink (V. M.).
Chapter 4
Mathematics and Other Activities
4.1 Vanity of Vanities, All Is Vanity1
When I, Vladimir Maz’ya, was still in the eighth grade I clearly understood that a
failure to be admitted to “Mathmech” would be a catastrophe, and I decided to
avoid it at all costs. It was necessary to be awarded a “Gold Medal”,2 and although
school became more and more boring every year, I had to maintain my “A” student
status. However, even a “Gold Medal” did not guarantee university admittance. In
order to make my standing invulnerable I set myself the task of winning the city
mathematics Olympiad every year. At night I had nightmares of myself not solving
something.
In the end, the fear turned out groundless: I received the “Gold Medal” at school,
three certificates of Olympiad victories in mathematics and three in physics3 on top
of it. So, after the tenth grade, my ambitious plan was overfulfilled.
At the same time I think that exactly in 1955, the year of my entering the
university, judging by the number of Jewish students admitted to the “Mathmech”,
there was no serious discrimination; so, I could do without my grandiose plans. But
who could predict anything at that time? Besides, how often had the easing of
restrictions occurred in ensuing years? Even if someone could have foretold an
absence of discrimination, this would not have changed a lot in my behavior.
In conclusion, I’d like to say a few words about a feature of my character
unpleasant to me myself, the one that I noted still at school. At the moment I
receive a certificate of achievement, a medal, a title, a prize, etc. I cannot feel happy
1
The book of Ecclesiastes, 1: 2.
2
In the Soviet Union, high school Gold medalists were allowed not to take University entrance
exams. The medalists had to pass an interview with Department professors.
3
As for mathematical Olympiads the result was natural. After all, I had prepared myself exceed-
ingly and practiced a lot. But I am still at a loss to understand how I could win the Physics
Olympiads after a relatively non-intensive preparation. The school course of physics seemed to me
tedious and obscure.

92 4 Mathematics and Other Activities
Photo 4.1 (a–c) Winner’s diplomas from the City Mathematics Olympiad for eighth, ninth, and
tenth grades (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
4.1 Vanity of Vanities, All Is Vanity 93


4.2 You Cannot Live Without Women. No! 95
Photo 4.2 I am in tenth

grade (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
or even pleased. I am waiting for the burdensome procedure to end quickly; a weak
positive emotion is only caused by deliverance from fearing a failure. I am sure
there are people who know how to delight in their achievements, but I somehow
lack this ability.
4.2 You Cannot Live Without Women. No!4
Being aware that to be rescued from destitution and to win a place in the sun I could
not rely on anyone, I already at 15 years of age repeated to myself: “I’ll break
through! I’ll break through!” and tried to apply to myself the words Vautrin said to
Rastignac5:
To be ambitious, my dear friend, is not for everyone. Ask the women what type of men they
prefer – those with ambitions. Ambitious men have stronger backbones, their blood is
richer in iron, and their hearts are hotter than in other men.
The ambitious youth Volodya Maz’ya had no woman to ask what type of men she
prefers. I was a student in a boys’ school, in the mathematical circle I was not
attracted by any representative of the fair sex, and being an eighth grader I did not
have a girlfriend.
But Fimka B. had female relatives of our age who invited him to their place for
parties with dancing. I envied him a lot, especially because he regularly drew a
picture of the merrymaking at such parties. It must be noted here that Fimka in the
awkward age was not fat anymore and turned into a good looking and shapely
fellow, while I thought I was thin and angular. Looking at my photos of that time I
don’t see anything repulsive, but in that period I definitely disliked my looks. One
4
From the song of Boni, one of the personages of Imre Kalman’s operetta “Silva”.
5
Honoré de Balzac, “Father Goriot”.
Photo 4.3 D. K. Faddeev

(© Naukova Dumka,
reproduced with kind
permission)
day, having overcome my lack of self-respect, I asked Fimka if he would agree to

take me along with him. In answer, he poured cold water on me, declaring that to be
liked by girls was not for everybody. In particular he could be liked, but I could not.
In his irritation my bosom friend added: in general he was tired of always being
second when I was around. We quarreled terribly and did not speak to each other for
half a year, although we sat at the same desk as before. Afterwards we reconciled,
but our former friendship did not return.
In the ninth grade I got my own mixed company and with it came romance, ice
skating in the Kirov Isles, promenades in the snowbound Summer Garden in the
winter, and – which was the most important – dancing. I’ll do without a detailed
description here, but would like to boast that it was exactly in that period that I
learned how to dance the waltz, foxtrot, and tango. It was of course an amateurish
dancing in which nowadays I unfortunately engage too seldom.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to clarify that at the end of the 1940s and
beginning of the 1950s jazz, foxtrot, and tango were officially proclaimed music
styles alien to Soviet young people. Pair dancing worth of the Pioneers and
Komsomol members were so called “ball dances”: pas de patineurs, pas d’Espagne,
pas de grace, Russian lyrical, waltz and some others. But at the time when I was
finishing high school the foxtrot (officially called the quick dance) and tango (the
slow dance) were quasi-rehabilitated and, together with the waltz monopolized the
dancing grounds. Within the scope of a campaign against so-called “fops”,
the law-givers in the realm of Soviet culture fought, in those times and later, against
the boogie-woogie, twist, shake, and rock-n-roll; but the advent of those dances,
alas, passed without my participation.
4.4 My First Mathmech Year 97
Photo 4.4 I. P. Natanson

(© Naukova Dumka,
permission)
4.3 Phase Transition
After tenth grade graduation there was an interview at the University for gold
medalists where I submitted my Olympiad awards. Professor D. K. Faddeev6
(an outstanding mathematician as I found out later) asked me if I knew something
of higher mathematics; when I answered that I was familiar with the basics of
mathematical analysis he offered me a function to be differentiated, which I did
easily. After that he warmly congratulated me on my admission to the University.
That was the time when my adolescence ended and the period of youth began.
4.4 My First Mathmech Year
The whole of my student life was passed on the Tenth Line of Vasilyevsky Island in
the old building of the Mathmech. I was placed in Group No. 15 where a lasting
atmosphere of friendship was established for us all. We helped each other if needed,
held group parties on holidays, and prepared for exams together.
On October 15, 1955, in the evening, there was a big flood when the water level
in the Neva rose by 3 m. No transportation was available from Vasilyevsky Island to
other parts of the city. Like many students I stayed at the department. It was dark,
the water level grew higher and higher. When the book collection of the Depart-
ment library (the former library of the Bestuzhev Courses7) that was kept in the
6
D. K. Faddeev (1907–1989) was the head of the Mathematical Division of the Mathmech in1955.
7
Higher Women’s Courses in St. Petersburg (1878–1918).
basement became threatened by the water we formed a long line and passed the
volumes to upper floors from hand to hand. We all shared a sensation of students’
brotherhood, the importance of common work, and we were proud of being a part of
the Mathmech.
We did not doubt we had joined the best Department of the University and sang
our student anthem with enthusiasm:
We are the salt of the earth, we are the adornment of the world, we are demigods. This is a
postulate.
There were also the following words:

The physicists, our junior brothers, in raptures sing our praise.
In general there was a lot of singing – at meetings, parties, and small gatherings.
Some of the songs are still in my memory: “The field extends wide modulo five. . .”
“Through the sleeping windows the moon pours its blue light . . .” “Sergey, the
proletarian, worked at a factory. . .” and others.
Well, of course the lectures were a marvel! In those years at the Mathmech they
were delivered from memory only. The lecturer never peeped into his notes. The
course of math analysis taught by Professor I. P. Natanson8 was a masterpiece. He
spoke clearly, almost dictating for us to transcribe his words. His lectures contained
everything that was needed, and nothing superfluous. Natanson categorically for-
bade late-comers to enter the classroom. And he greatly impressed us by his talent
for remembering the names of all his students.
A couple of times G. M. Fichtenholz substituted when I. P. Natanson was sick,
and we could compare the romantic lecturing manner of the former with the
classical one of the latter. Afterwards we would argue as to who was better but
did not reach a consensus. I, personally, liked Natanson more: there was not a single
unnecessary word in his lectures, and everything was recorded in my mind word for
word, including the lecturer’s intonation. Fichtenholz’ style was more emotional
and figurative. For example, he referred to the squeeze theorem which confirms the
existence of a limit of a function by comparison with two other functions as the
“Theorem of two Militia men.”
Another excellent lecturer was D. K. Faddeev (fondly nicknamed by his students
“D.K.”) who taught a course in higher algebra in the first year. Listening to him was
not easy because he was afflicted with a speech defect, but his temperamental style
inspired us. In order to understand Faddeev’s pronunciation I simply moved closer
to the front row, I remember sensing D.K.’ remarkable talent. For instance he was
able to multiply and invert matrices of the fourth order in his mind.
To be sure, at the Mathmech there were boring lecturers too; listening to them
was torture, but nomina sunt odiosa.
8
Isidor Pavlovich Natanson (1906–1964).
4.5 Student Contests 99
I began buying higher mathematics books that were published in large print runs
and were fabulously cheap.9 I often dropped by the “Academy Books” store on
Liteyny Avenue near Nevsky, almost across from the corner shop that was called
“TZh”.10 Over the years, I collected a large mathematical library that is still with
me in Sweden.
On the whole the first year flew by, basically full of new, interesting impressions
(with the exception of Marxism and military training where I, as you might have
expected, did not shine). Fortunately in the middle of the second semester I was
exempt from military training classes because of my highly developed nearsight-
edness. So I got an extra day off– like our female students. Additionally I was
exempt from physical culture training, again because of my poor eyesight.
In addition (I almost forgot to mention) there was the interminable practice of
computation, which produced in me nothing but a feeling of disgust. First we
calculated something meaningless on adding machines; then we were instructed
in a certain programming language to be used for the electronic computer “Ural-1”
which was a machine that occupied about a 100 m². This is the initial source of my
persistent idiosyncrasy in disliking practical calculations on a computer.11
However, in my first university year I discovered a fascinating activity for
myself to be discussed separately.
4.5 Student Contests
During the first days of the first Mathmech year, on the landing of the second floor,
there was a stand with data on the results of the past year’s problem solving contest
among the students. The official first place was taken by Mark Bashmakov who
solved all 15 problems; he was followed by a small group of other prize-winners.
Concrete results were not shown, but I know that Yura Burago had solved 14 prob-
lems. Among the prize-winners there were also two unofficial participants who had
not been admitted to the Mathmech in the previous year: Rudik Zaidman and Erik
Rapoport. While taking entrance exams both had “D’s” for Russian language
9
Among the first books that appeared on my shelf were the courses by I. G. Petrovsky on integral
equations (1951, 10,000 circulation, price: 4 rubles and 50 kopecks) and ordinary differential
equations (1952, 15,000 circulation, price: 3 rubles, 50 kopecks). After the monetary reform of
1961, the prices had to be divided by 10. Petrovsky’s course on partial differential equations was
issued in the same year (22,000 circulation, cost 75 kopecks). To provide a comparison I can say
that before the reform a scholarship was about 400 rubles, and my first salary as a junior researcher
in 1960 was 980 rubles.
10
From the prewar time this was a name for perfumer’s shops which stood for “trust of fat and
bones” meaning substances used to produce perfumes.
11
In spite of this statement, methods of numerical approximation in problems of physics are
among my favorite areas. For example see the book by V. Maz’ya and G. Schmidt, Approximate
Approximations, Amer. Math Society, 2007.
Photo 4.5 My notebooks

with the solutions of 1955–
1956 student contest
problems (© Vladimir
composition, at the same time they passed all the first year tests (except, naturally,
in military training). The teachers accepted their participation in the exams and
registered their grades. After this magnificent success in the student contest, both
were admitted to the Mathmech. Afterwards, due to the fact that all the exams had
been passed, D. K. Faddeev managed to settle their difficulties with the military
training section and they were enrolled in the second year studies. I, a greenhorn,
admired Bashmakov and Zaidman who solved all the contest problems as
supermen.12
Soon, when a new list of problems appeared on the same stand, I understood: it
was a serious business at last! The list contained problems for the first and second
years separately. Many students began participating. Of course no one disclosed
solutions, but it was permissible to ask or answer such a question as “Have you
solved the third one?” In general nobody made a secret of the number of solved
problems. Gradually the heat of the struggle diminished. When it became known
that I was in a commanding lead, only Lozanovsky, also a first year student,
remained in the contest, but later he, too, withdrew from the race. At the end of
the competition, I was the only contestant who had submitted solutions.13 This
“scandalous” event induced the fifth year students Ildar Ibragimov and Vladimir
12
I am surprised at the paradoxical fact that both of them had abandoned their involvement in
serious mathematics too early.
13
In my two notebooks were present solutions of 21 – first year problems and 12 – second
year ones.
4.6 We Lead Our Life in Major Key 101
Sudakov, the jury members, not to announce the winner. Déjà vu! It was so much
like the 1951 city high school Olympiad in astronomy.
Ildar told me tête à tête that he was especially impressed by my improvement of
the polynomial root estimate that I had obtained for one of the second year
problems,14 and he returned to me both of my notebooks with the solutions.
Quite recently I happened to rummage in my archive when I saw the two notebooks,
a yellow and a blue one made by the factory “The Torch” in the first quarter of
1956. I mentally asked those notebooks: “Why did that contest have no winner?
Here he is – I myself!” But the dingy copybooks were silent. . .
It must be noted here that because of my work with contest problems I seriously
neglected mandatory lectures and practical assignments. For a certain period of
time my erudition accumulated in high school and the first semester at the univer-
sity was sufficient. But in the spring I felt that it was difficult to have merely kept
my head above water and, as a result, experienced something like depression. The
euphoria of having been admitted to the Mathmech disappeared.
At the student contest of the next year the Department managed to do without a
“scandal”. This time I was not the only participant. The promoters of the new
contest took into account the awkward experience of the past year’s competition
and allowed students to submit solutions to no more than 11 problems. Although I
did not feel my former enthusiasm, I worked on the contest materials and submitted
solutions of exactly 11 items. According to the socialist principle of egalitarianism
all the participants were mentioned, but no winners were specified.
Finally a couple of words on my improvement of the polynominal root estimate
that Ildar liked so much. I made this material a topic of my course paper on
mathematical analysis in the second semester and was given a “B”. “And why is
it a ‘B’?” I asked the assistant instructor Galina Petrovna Safronova who taught a
practical course, and then I added “I myself invented this estimate.” “That’s why
you got a ‘B’”, she answered. All the course paper topics she had offered were
based on reviewing known materials. As you see, not every instructor encouraged
independent thinking!
4.6 We Lead Our Life in Major Key
Did I have friends outside the Mathmech in those days?15 The answer is: yes, I had
them and fortunately they are still in my life. Wonderful friends!
Close to finishing school I befriended Grisha Gamer who was in a parallel class.
Afterwards, through him, when I moved up to the third year at the Mathmech, I met
14
In the next year it was published in the rotaprint edition of the Mathmech Student Scientific
Journal as a solution of a contest problem.
15
From Scene 2, Act 1 of the biological tragedy by Spitz Saint Bernard “Love Me, Love My Dog”
translated from the Dog language by V. Gutin and L. Druz, 1956.
with Lyonya Druz, Vitaly Gutin, and Sasha Shtutin who were of the same age as
Grisha and me.
Lyonka is a cousin of Grishka; Vitka and Sashka were in the same grade as
Lyonka, but not in Grishka’s and my school. I give their names in the familiar forms
(the Russian ending “-ka”) because my friends do not object and I have become
used to calling them so over the half century I’ve known them. Vitka, Grishka, and
Lyonka were students at three departments of the Polytechnical Institute, and
Sashka studied in the “Korabelka” (a Shipbuilding Institute).
Still before I got acquainted with them they issued the illustrated journal “The
Scream” and I remember some examples from it. Here is a sample of Alexander
Shtutin’s fable:
The piglet and the mole
The piglet visited the mole
And said: “My dear, eat me whole”
“I don’t eat pork,” was the reply,
“I’m pious. Go to your pigsty!”
***
We meet so many
On our way
Who in a pigsty
Ought to stay.
Some other examples of Shtutin’s creations: “The sailor walked arm-in-arm with
a girl. She paid him back in kind.” The beginning of one of his poems: “I remember
my mother’s birth pangs when she was in labor delivering me!”
But a fundamental literary work that came from the womb of that young
company was always the play written in verse by Vitaly Gutin and Leonid Druz
“Love me, love my dog” which I would not describe here because of a lack of
talent. Nevertheless, to cut short the story of the immortal play in this obviously
unsatisfactory way is not acceptable, so we will return to it a little later although in a
somewhat unexpected perspective.
Now, without Gutin’s permission, I am presenting his impromptu verse com-
posed by him in my presence on April 15, 1984.
Dedicated to the Mathematics Academician W. Masja16 and his beautiful spouse Tanya
Are they people or chaffinches?
Their fun ship – no sails, no winches –
Doesn’t fly and doesn’t float,
They gulp vodka down the throat!
Waves are splashing, winds are jinking
But the ship is still not sinking,
Vodka’s lighter (yes, Hurray!)
Than the water in the bay!
16
Gutin learned German in high school, and English in the Politechnic Institute. It can be noticed
here. As to becoming an Academician (not Soviet, but Swedish) I had an occasion to get this title
18 years later.
4.7 A Mysterious ID 103
Photo 4.6 Music School student’s identification card (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
When we met, the duet of Gutin and Shtutin turned into an inexhaustible fountain
of boffolas. The remaining three of us had no chance to imitate them and just split
our sides with laughter. Both of them, Vitka and Sashka, sang admirably, and Sashka,
with a cigarette in his mouth strummed on the piano portraying an accompanist.
Several silent comedies with subtitles shot by them have been preserved on a worn
film. In one of the movies titled “The red armband” I played a role when I was 24.
Since that time I almost have not changed. A baldy remained a baldy; also the two
hands and two feet have been kept. But I have to agree that I became a little fatter.
4.7 A Mysterious ID
I am looking at a blue leatherette cover, sized 6.5 by 9 cm, with the embossed title
CERTIFICATE that used to be of bronze color but is now a dirty yellow. A white
paper strip is pasted inside it; on its left side there is my photo of the passport format
made when I was about 20. I cannot describe it adequately – I am not a Leo Tolstoy,
but I like myself in it: a thoughtful young man wearing large glasses, with a barely
noticeable hint of a smile in the corners of the softly outlined lips, and a sad look.
Strange as it may sound, this photo did not generate anything but disgust in me, and
especially disgraceful seemed to be the well-developed baldness. It should be
admitted that in my youth I wanted to become a professor as soon as possible so
as to make the bald patch legitimate.
Trying to overcome a fit of narcissism I am shifting my gaze to the contents of
the Certificate:
MUSIC SCHOOL OF THE LENINGRAD M. I. KALININ POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
under the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory awarded the Order of Lenin
ID No. 35
Last name: Maz’ya Department: pianoforte
First name: Vladimir Valid through September 1, 1962
Patronymic: Gilelevich Valid through . . .. . .. . .. . .
Department: Mathmech Valid through. . .. . .. . .. . .
Trade Union Chairman /Signed/
Komsomol Committee Secretary /Signed/
Photo 4.7 First page of the play “Love me, love my dog”, manuscript by L. Druz (© Vladimir
The Conservatory seal is affixed to the photograph and the adjacent text. So, the
document is real although not understandable to everybody. It gives rise to a
minimum of three questions:
1. What did the Mathmech student V. G. Maz’ya have to do with the Polytechnic
Institute?
2. What is this Polytechnic Institute music school under the Conservatory?
4.8 Musical Moments (Leonid Druz) 105
3. Did V. G. Maz’ya acquire any skills at the Pianoforte Department?

This is exactly the case when the answers to these questions only start making
sense after a certain artillery preparation. Without aspiring to achieve clarity it is
easy to answer the first and third questions:
1. I had nothing to do with the Polytechnic Institute.
2. I did not learn anything at the Music School, moreover I did not plan to as I was
one of the founding fathers of that educational institution unprecedented in the
world.
At the same time I liked listening to music, which was the reason why my mother
and I bought the radio and record player “Riga” using my first Mathmech scholar-
ship. Then I started collecting my first disks: Glazunov, Beethoven, Bach, Sibelius,
Ravel. . . One record per each composer, maximum two. But I cannot deny that I
was an ignoramus in music.
As you see, my dear readers, the haze in your mind has not dissipated, it may
have become even thicker. My only hope of resolving this situation is in answering
the second question. Thus I will pass on to this task, although not independently but
with the invaluable aid of my friend Leonid Volfovich Druz.
Lyonka Druz graduated from a music school, and while passionately admiring
classical music, he decided not to continue his musical education as he did not want
to pursue a musical career.
Now I am giving him the floor:
4.8 Musical Moments (Leonid Druz)
4.8.1 Opera
I have small hands, so I was not destined to become a professional pianist. To play
decently I had to practice a lot, but I was lazy, besides, the grade school demanded
much time. I was a capable student of theoretical music, and I had good musical
memory, but I remained a musical dilettante. Still, among my friends, I had
indisputable authority in what concerned classical music, which I knew quite
well, and played many pieces from sheet music and by ear.
The tragedy “L.m. – l.m.d”17 was created spontaneously, there were no deep
ideas or painful reasoning. The play (a parody of “tragedy”) – “L.m. – l.m.d” – was
begun in the tenth grade of high school by Gutin and myself and was finished in the
first year of the Polytech (Polytechnic Institute) in 1956. We were young, joyful,
played the fool and trivially thought that this life would last forever.
“L.m. – l.m.d” was a play with characters having human faces and animal
muzzles. Those with faces were HE and SHE (husband and wife), the muzzles
17
“Love me, love my dog”, see the chapter entitled “We lead our life in major key” above.
Photo 4.8 The beginning of Senka’s aria (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
belonged to dogs of various breeds and nationalities. The main conflict of the play is
expressed in the remark of the husband:
Each day you wanna fight me
Of this I have a log.
And if you say you love me

Be sure to love my dog!
In this play all are in love with each other, but inopportunely; as a result all die
except for one dog.
The text of the tragedy (it was written in verse) used different configurations and
rhythms which made it essentially ready to be used as a libretto for a musical form.
Almost every evening our company gathered in the house of one of us. Most
frequently, everyone came to my apartment or Shtutin’s who had a piano at home
too (a beautiful Blüthner!). Those evening gatherings turned into lively improvisa-
tions, both poetic and musical, etc. One night, in 1956, “cantillation” of the texts
from “L.m. – l.m.d” occurred. Previously I practically had not composed anything. I
was only able to improvise a little on the themes similar to the creations of the
Vienna classics.18 Then I imagined I was a real composer. Such thoughts only
appeared when I was surrounded by my friends who were absolute laymen in music
compared to me; so, I did not feel shy before them. If I was in the company of
professional musicians with whom I was not acquainted, I wouldn’t touch the
instrument. In those years I was sure that to compose poems, prose or to make
paintings was something that could be achieved by many people, but to compose
Music – it was a destiny for the humans of genius! I did not even try to come up with
a melody, I thought it was impossible. But suddenly, when reading Act 2 of “L.m. –
l.m.d” a melody emerged based on the words “Wow, this summer’s stifling”. I sat
down at the piano, played the melody together with the accompaniment, and felt
that it was quite funny – a jolly parody of a classical aria. By the way, it definitely
smacked of the theme from Part One of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto. I
introduced that piece to my friends who were beside themselves with delight. Thus,
the work began.
It was all haphazard. I chose separate parts from the “tragedy” and set them to
music. But the whole composition fit the idea of a parody on a classical opera. The
main task was to entertain my friends who knew how to appreciate jokes. The music
turned out quite melodic and could be easily remembered, all the more so because
the whole company was gifted in music: Sashka, himself, was able to “play jazz” on
the piano, Vitka had a beautiful tenor, I was aphonic, but had a fine ear for music.
The newly composed parts were usually sung at my home, then rehearsed at
Shtutin’s. His sister was a flutist, and her husband a bassoonist who worked in
Mravinsky’s orchestra. They liked our opera and I was not shy in their presence
because they had known me “from the cradle”. But I could not set to music the
whole of “L.m. – l.m.d”: the tragedy was too long. Therefore I limited myself to
several acts and certain arias. I based the musical contents on student’s folklore,
some classical quotations with hints and operatic clichés. According to the tradi-
tions our opera had arias, choruses, ensembles, and even a fughetta. The whole of
that music was in my head and had never been put down on paper.
18
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven.
Photo 4.9 Archeologists

Lenya Druz and I (©
collection)
4.8.2 Maz’ya Joins Us
In the summer of 1957 a question emerged where to go on vacation: Sashka and

Vitka were fixed up, while Grishka and I wanted to travel to the South. At this
juncture, the daughter of my parents’ acquaintance decided to go with her two
friends to the village of Lazarevskaya near Sochi on the Black Sea. They suggested
that we should go there too. At that time Maz’ya had not yet chosen his vacation
plan. I was not acquainted with him then. My brother Grishka told me Maz’ya was a
talented guy, a mathematician, although somewhat eccentric, so to say a bit out of
sorts. My aunt (Grisha’s mother) knew Maz’ya’s mother, and, as a result he was
matched up with us and joined our company in the trip to the South. I learned this
news with apprehension, but did not object, and we hit the road.
Already on the train Maz’ya turned out to be an excellent guy who did not show
off his mathematical achievements, had a good feel for humor, and was jestful
himself. Thus our mutual creative work began. The thing is that our friends from the
Photo 4.10 Druz and I next

to a dolmen (© Vladimir
Polytech were travelling in the same train. One of them, B. B., a cultivated and
culturally well-grounded young man, but morbidly proud, started a discussion of
painting and particularly of the Renaissance period. We began talking about
Leonardo da Vinci. In order to reduce the bombast of discussion, I blurted out
that Leonardo was gay. In those times that was an audacious statement. Maz’ya,
without any collusion, actively supported my judgment, accused the great artist of
pedophilia, and, in every detail spoke about a boy who had lived with Leonardo.
B. B., being dead serious, began proving the absurdity of our pronouncements, but
Maz’ya put into effect the heavy artillery blaming Michelangelo for the Sodomite
sin together with the entire Renaissance epoch. Additionally we reminded B. B. of
Tchaikovsky. He could not stand such a sacrilege and returned to his carriage in
frustration. As to Maz’ya and I, we doubled up with laughter and right away
composed a brilliant poem about B. B., Leonardo and the dissolute Renaissance
period. Unfortunately that masterpiece has not been preserved. Several fragments
are still in my memory, but they cannot be reproduced here because of their foul
language. After that occasion Maz’ya and I became bosom friends.
4.8.3 Life in the Village of Lazarevskaya
It deserves a separate story, but in brief our rest can be characterised as follows.
Swimming in the sea. Trips to the market for the “Izabella” grapes. Hiking in the
mountains. One day we lost our way quite seriously. We tried to find the road back
for almost half a day. It was already getting dark when making our way through a
dense thicket of burs, covered with bleeding scratches we saw a path with goat
droppings. Our rejoicing was limitless: “Hurray! These are fresh tracks of people!”
We were right, moving along the path we reached a big road.
On another occasion we decided to excavate an ancient burial place (there were
many dolmens there). But nothing came out of this: the ground was as hard as a
stone and our equipment was primitive: picks and spades. The girls whom we
allegedly had to accompany during the vacation were found by us not too attractive,
or rather unsightly, nevertheless they (impudent girls) neglected us. We, by the
way, were not too inflamed either. Therefore we went to the beach separately from
them. There Maz’ya and I built “offices” for ourselves with flat stones for tables and
seats, and worked there. Maz’ya at least did real business – his mathematics, while I
was kidding around – wrote down from memory the clavier of our opera on music
paper.
It was here that Maz’ya became acquainted with the opera mentioned above –
text and a little of music. Already after we returned to Leningrad he was able to hear
it in a concert performance so to say. Afterwards, the opera was sung and played on
all our birthdays and every state holiday drunken feast (Mayday, November 7, and
the New Year etc.) practically with the same cast.
At that time too, a pseudonym Leon Covallo emerged that I applied to the
signing of the clavier. The idea wasn’t too bad: on the one hand, it brought a direct
association with the great opera composer; on the other, the pseudonym was a
reminder of my own name while the surname Covallo sounds funny in Russian. It
took root, and I signed with it all my further experiments in musical composition.
4.8.4 Conservatory
In 1958 the student council of the Polytechnic Institute with the participation of my
brother Grisha put forward a plan to establish a direct contact between the “phys-
icists” (that is future engineers) and “lyricists” (the students of the Leningrad
Conservatory). The idea was quite timely: in 1958 the First P. I. Tchaikovsky
Contest took place. The St. Pete (colloquial for St. Petersburg) conservatory
students stood little chance to take part in the Contest in comparison with the
Muscovites, but, anyway, quite a few of them were in preparation and dreamed of
succeeding even if the success was just in the first round. The Polytech offered its
remarkable assembly hall to be used by the Conservatory contest participants; in
exchange, they demanded that the conservatory students familiarize the future
Photo 4.11 Gabi Talroze

private collection)
Photo 4.12 Larisa

Lindberg (© Vladimir
engineers with music and give lessons to the Polytech enthusiasts. This stone killed
several birds at once. The conservatory people gained the possibility to play their
programs publicly and music tutoring given to the Polytech students was registered
as field experience. As for the Polytech representatives, they enjoyed true art. It was
decided to hold evening classes in unoccupied classrooms of the Conservatory. To
assure unrestricted access to the Conservatory special passes were printed (one of
them is reproduced by Maz’ya above), and presented to the future students of the
so-called “Conservatory School”.
A question arises: what did Maz’ya have to do with all that? He was neither
musician, nor a Polytechnic student. The answer is quite simple – how could we
exist without Maz’ya after Lazarevskaya! So, Maz’ya got a pass too.
My visiting the Conservatory for the first time was like coming to a sacred
place – didn’t divine beings study there? And weren’t the Music courses taught by
the Gods?
The first girls who decided to tutor us were Gabi Talroze19 and Larisa Lindberg.
Neither were Leningraders, Gaby was from Riga, Larisa – from Kharkov, likeable
girls, giggly, and quailing before us, third year students already. Plus there was
Maz’ya for good measure: with impressive baldness, his gaze piercing his specta-
cles with a lot of diopters, speaking brilliantly with a checked through and through
logic, sometimes talking about completely incomprehensible things, a great con-
noisseur of painting. He made an impression of being unattainable. In general, he
kept you in awe, but was respected very much. On my part, I had a similar attitude
to the Conservatory people – I simply feared them, was timid and inwardly
constrained, I felt shy before them. How they played! In this respect I was a
complete nonentity to put it mildly.
But gradually everything returned to its proper place. With Larisa Lindberg I
began studying anew Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata (all the three parts), and
Chopin’s Phantasy Impromptu. In the process of that work it suddenly became
clear that the Conservatory girls and boys were not divine beings at all.
It turned out that their musical abilities were limited to the contents of the
studied pieces – both in mastering the instrument and erudition. Besides the fact
that they had not heard or learned a lot of things, they did not know how to
improvise, transpose, and fantasize on the piano. My reputation began to
gradually rise.
The professional level of our pianists was not the same, but Gabi’s gift in piano
performance stood out against the general background. Her playing riveted every-
one’s attention and did not let go, which is the most valuable quality of a performer.
I remember how she played the First Scherzo and Etude 24 by Chopin; it was
magnificent. Since that time we have called these pieces: Gabi’s scherzo, and
Gabi’s etude.
Our Conservatory girls lived near Avtovo subway station in a dormitory. There
was a more or less well-maintained piano in every room there. Once they invited us
to their place. We, Maz’ya, Grisha, and I came to the dormitory and here the first
public performance of my opera occurred. In the beginning I was very shy to play
before the girls, but after a while got carried away playing and singing at full swing.
The whole room trembled with laughter. Other Conservatory people came. Several
encores were played and sung. As a whole the success was complete. Bizet would
have exploded in envy.
Half a year of studies in the Conservatory passed and there was a final concert. I
had to play the Sonata Pathetique. I had been preparing for that event under the
careful supervision of Maz’ya. On a player, we listened to Sviatoslav Richter’s
recordings of several sonata fragments, and Maz’ya gave his estimates of the playing
quality (my playing of course). To say that my performance was far from perfection
was to say nothing. But on the whole, the sonata could remind us of a real one.
19
Gabriela Talroze for many years had been a soloist of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the
Leningrad Philharmonic Society and taught at the Conservatory. At the beginning of the 1990s she
emigrated to Israel and plays in the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and chamber ensembles.
Photo 4.13 Valery

Maisky, shortly before
emigrating (© Vladimir
The concert was organized in a class auditorium of the Conservatory. Quite a

few spectators gathered: Conservatory people and our Polytech students. Of course
Maz’ya was in that auditorium too.
My playing was middling, but what was important, without mistakes: I did not
jump to wrong phrases or strike extra notes. When I finished the finale a loud cry of
“Bravo!” thundered. This was Maz’ya who shouted and clapped his hands.
4.8.5 Maisky
Valery Maisky20 was a student in the Riga Conservatory simultaneously with Gabi.
He was very talented in music, and his whole family consisted of musicians: he was
a violinist, pianist, organist, and theoretician, his brother Mischa is now an out-
standing cellist, and his sister is a pianist. At the time of the described events Valery
Maisky succeeded to be transferred to the Leningrad Conservatory. We had heard
many stories about him and we looked forward to his arrival. After Maisky was
introduced to us we were a bit disappointed: there was some kind of parochialism in
him, he did not fit into our style and humor at once. But soon came an adjustment,
and we became good friends. He found our opera interesting. Without attaching
great significance to it, he appreciated its humor and liked it. I gave him the clavier
and he edited it carefully having found heaps of mistakes. Probably he felt that my
heart was devoted to music, and caught my predilections because he asked me to
lend him my clavier. I know that he showed it to someone in the Composition
Section as he wanted to know whether it was worthwhile for me to continue writing
20
V. L. Maisky (February 22, 1942–June 2, 1981.)
my opuses. I also know that they told him: not really worthwhile. Not that I hadn’t
known it before Maisky.
Maisky was a businesslike person and a connoisseur of music. He immediately
organized a “Bach Society” at the Conservatory. What was that “Society”? Valery
set himself the task of playing and hearing all the works by Bach: instrumental,
organ, and choral. In those years an important part of Bach’s works was not wide
spread even among the musicians. His choral pieces (passions, cantatas) were not
performed, and there were no recordings. The Society met once a week, and the
piano students played Bach’s musical compositions that they had prepared for that
day. Maz’ya and I often attended these gatherings and, one evening, I played the
Prelude and Fugue from the second volume of WTC21 and other works. After my
performance Maisky said: “I did not know that Bach had pedals.” That was said
because I constantly pressed the right pedal. We celebrated one of the New Year’s
Eves at the Conservatory dormitory. Shtutin loudly announced all the arriving
guests. When Maisky appeared with a girl friend who was unknown to Shtutin he
solemnly declared: “Maisky with Maisky’s girl”. In my presence Maisky often
hummed the music from the opera, he knew it practically by heart.
4.8.6 Down with Chopin!
A short time elapsed. Maz’ya and I already talked to the Conservatory students like
equals. My musical tastes at the time were limited to the Vienna classics (especially
Beethoven) who were the objects of my most meticulous studies. And I had a half-
hearted attitude to Chopin. Maz’ya shared my preferences. Then, all by itself, a
slogan appeared: “Down with Chopin!” This was a kind of a prank. We started to
actively promote it among the Conservatory people. Of course nobody took it
seriously. We even wrote a Manifesto (not unlike the one written by Marx and
Engels) devoted to this appeal; at dormitory gatherings we hung “Down with
Chopin” posters. When the next year admission of Polytech students to the popular
“Music School” began, the acceptance committee included Maz’ya and me too
(such was already our authority). The first question we asked the applicants was:
“How about Chopin? Do you like him?” The answer was of course positive, and we,
in a demonstrative manner, crossed out the delinquent’s name from our lists. This
did not influence anything though, because the School accepted all applicants.
21
“The Well-Tempered Clavier” – a collection of Bach’s works (V. M.):
Photo 4.14 Vladimir

Maz’ya visiting Y. B.
Golitsynsky (© Vladimir
Photo 4.15 A concert at

the Capella. February, 1960.
Carl Orff. Carmina Burana.
Cantata for choir, soloists,
and symphony orchestra
private collection)
4.8.7 Another Musical Moment
In the early 1960s, only few people possessed tape recorders, they were simply not
for sale, and even if they could be found in a store sometimes the price was
exorbitant. I wanted to listen to my playing to say so on the outside: I wondered
if it was like the playing of genuine masters. I began looking around trying to find
an acquaintance who might help me with my problem. Suddenly I learned that
Maz’ya’s school teacher of English had a tape recorder and even a piano!22 In brief,
one fine day Maz’ya, Grisha and I came to this teacher’s place. He turned out to be a
nice young-looking man who received us quite amicably. I played the Pathetique
and the host recorded it. This was how Maz’ya helped me immortalize my name: I
22
This teacher is Y. B. Golitsinsky (see above “The teacher of English”). We had already finished
high school, but continued our friendly meetings with Y. B. He lived in a little room on Sadovaya
Street near Nevsky Avenue and was not yet married. I remember that he regularly watched the
Argentine film “The Age of Love” that appeared in movie theaters in the summer of 1955. He fell
in love with Lolita Torres and picked out her tunes by ear and played them on his piano. (V. M.):
liked the recording although in some parts of it only where it really resembled a
professional performance. The record was not preserved.
4.8.8 The Trashcan
Maz’ya and I lived close to each other, a 10 min walk: my house was on the corner
of Nevsky and Vladimirsky Avenues (there was the movie theater “The Titan” in
my building), and Maz’ya’s – on the corner of Marat and Kolokolnaya Streets. In
those years we met almost every day. In the evenings a telephone call would sound.
It was Maz’ya who wanted to know if I was free. Then he either came to my place or
we met not far from my house and hung about Nevsky or other innumerable
fabulous sites in St. Pete. Oftentimes, almost every week, we went to the Philhar-
monic Society as the entrance tickets cost a pittance. By the way, in February 1960,
we were present at the first Soviet Union performance of Carl Orff’s oratorio
“Karmina Burana”, and that music struck us. I tried to memorize as many of its
melodies as I could (unfortunately I was not a Rachmaninov). Afterwards, I often
strummed on the piano at home what I could recall for Maz’ya. After some 10 years
I was lucky to buy in Moscow the whole score of the oratorio. In general, at that
time Maz’ya was not very much versed in music, and I really enjoyed familiarizing
him with it. I consoled myself with the idea that it was not only he who gave me
something I needed, but I as well could give him something useful.
After the concerts we always felt it was a holiday, and Nevsky Avenue flooded
with lights was a holiday in itself. In this mood we came to my house. Here, one
day, we began talking of justice! We were near my house, and I was ready to take
my leave, but Maz’ya vehemently protested and demanded that we move in the
opposite direction, that is towards Marat Street.
We had always parted after these meetings at different points. But Maz’ya, being
a real mathematician, did not want to take a laissez-faire attitude towards that
choice. We decided to calculate the distance from my entrance door to his, and then,
dividing the distance in two, to determine the parting point. That was an example of
a strictly mathematical solution of the problem! And that solution was found: first,
we silently counted the number of steps from my house to his and compared our
findings; then that number was checked in the opposite direction. As a result, the
parting point was a trashcan near one of the doors on Vladimirsky Avenue, almost
on the corner of Kolokolnaya Street. After that we always parted at that historical
place of St. Petersburg.
4.9 Valery Maisky 117
Photo 4.16 Ira

Taymanova’s note (©
collection)
4.9 Valery Maisky
Now that Leonid Volfovich Druz, the leading specialist of a Moscow Research
Institute, has finished his story about the wonderful days of our youth, I, Vladimir
Maz’ya, will have to add something about my own participation in our Musical-
Polytechnic Society.
How could you, Druz, forget who delivered the general education lectures for
the Society members? Of course Maz’ya! Here are the titles of two of them: “What
is mathematics?” and “Impressionism in painting”. As evidence of success I include
here a note received from Ira Taimanova.23
Volodya, forgive me for this question, but. . .
when will your lecture take place at the
Conservatory? Tanya Bibikova told me that
this lecture would be presented.
Is that right?
At any rate, by my word of honor,
there are musicians
who are interested in your field!
Both Ira and Tanya were among the first instructors of the Music School.
I have another memory of those distant times that I’d like to share with my
readers, and I’ll do it exactly here, not in any other place.
With his absolute pitch and a phenomenal musical memory Valery Maisky
(he was 4 years younger than Gamer, Druz, and I, and we called him simply
Valerka) was constantly humming something or other. We knew he was
23
Irina Evgenyevna Taimanova, born in 1941, is a stage director, journalist, music commentator,
professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Meritorious Artist of Russia, a sister of the famous
chess player Mark Taimanov.
Photo 4.17 Maisky at the

piano (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
reproducing J. S. Bach’s melodies whose immense number of works he knew by

heart. Having graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory as a clavecinist and
organist in the class of the outstanding pedagogue Isaiah Braudo24 as well as a
theoretical musician, he soon defended a Candidate dissertation entitled “Bach’s
Voice-leading”, and in the second half of the 1960s gave many concerts. His
repertory of organ and harpsichord music was huge, larger than any other musi-
cian’s in the USSR in that period. But in spite of the unusual number of perfor-
mances his income was low as it was in compliance with the ridiculously beggarly
wage-rates established by the Government Administration “Lenconcert”.
On Thursday, September 21, 1972 a solo performance of harpsichord music was
to be held at the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic Society; the program had
works of Bach, the performer – Valery Maisky. In the first part the Italian Concerto
in F-major was presented and the Sonata in D-minor; the second part had the
Toccata in E-minor and the French Overture25 in B-minor. The applause was
24
I. A. Braudo (1896–1970).
25
Here is a program of the concert bought by me in that evening for 6 kopecks at the entrance of
the Big Hall of the Philharmonic Society.
4.9 Valery Maisky 119
Photo 4.18 Program of

Maisky’s concert in the Big
Hall of the Philharmonic
Society (© Vladimir
loud and Maisky’s encores were generous; one of those was “Ground” by Purcell.26
This short, delicately beautiful musical piece will be the main theme of this
particular recollection of mine.
I’ll start by saying that in the morning I had already heard this piece but instead
of the concert hall I listened to it in the Red Room behind the stage where the
harpsichord was placed. Valery had to rehearse his playing and took me along. I
was sitting next to him, on the left, having moved aside of course so as not to
interfere with his performance. But I could see his fingers. I had already been in this
type of situation when, next to me, Lyonka or someone else from the Conservatory
played the piano. On the occasion I am describing now something unusual hap-
pened to me. Having finished “Ground” Maisky glanced at me and saw that my face
was all in tears. This was how he turned me on with his playing! While we were
walking towards Nevsky Avenue I could not say a word, so much I was shocked.
We only began talking when we got to the subway. He told me that while playing he
felt that my excitement inspired him by a feedback reaction.
26
Henry Purcell (1659–1695), Ground in C-minor.
Later on, I heard that wonderful music many times performed by other musicians
and with different interpretations, but it had never produced such a powerful effect
on me as on that morning. Before leaving for Israel in 1973 Maisky promised to
record this “Ground” for me and send it to my Leningrad address. I don’t know if
he did.
At that time, emigrants made their farewells forever, and did not count on a
meeting. Nevertheless I was able to see some of my departed buddies after about
20 years, but not my friend Valery Maisky. He died in 1981 when he was 39 years
old in a car accident on a highway in West Germany.
4.10 The Authorities Did Not Like Me
“What does it mean ‘did not like’? – the reader may ask – the title is ambiguous:
they did not have the feeling of liking me or was it a dislike?” I will give the
following answer to this interesting question: “Up until the middle of the second
year or, more exactly, before December 1956, the authorities’ attitude to me was
according to the first meaning, and afterwards – according to the second one.”
I’d like to mention three events of that year: on February 25 – Khrushchev’s
speech about Stalin’s cult at the 20 Congress of the Communist Party, in November –
invasion of Budapest by Soviet military forces, and in December – the exhibition of
Picasso’s works in the Hermitage museum.
The first event happened when I was intensively solving problems of a student
contest. More or less at the same time I suffered from a rupture of relations with a
girlfriend and tried to forget myself by roaming about the Hermitage. I even joined
a study-group led by a gifted pedagogue Nina Alexandrovna Lifshiz, and my
memory retained the distribution of all the paintings in the European art museum
halls.27
Absorbed in my troubles, I took notice of Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin
but was not exceedingly surprised and did not have strong emotions. After the
doctors’ affair only details were new to me, and not the substance of the report. At
the Department I was just one of the successful first year students and did not
provoke any feelings in the bosses.
The events in Hungary happened when I was a member of the Second Year
“Komsomol” committee. Thus, the imprudent 18 year old V. Maz’ya, who admired
discussions and arguments, naively expressed his perplexity with regard to the
decisive actions of the Soviet army. I clearly remember the hatred the influential
Komsomol activist A. M. had while staring at me and accusing me of betraying my
country. It seems that local conflict did not result in any unpleasant consequence. I
don’t know if it was reported to the Communist Party authorities.
27
It proved very useful when 35 years later I was at last able to travel and visited most of the best
museums in Europe and America.
4.10 The Authorities Did Not Like Me 121
On the other hand such a harmless event as a Hermitage exhibit of paintings

strained my relations not only with the Mathmech leadership, but also with the
Party Committee of the whole University. Any explanations needed? Here they are.
In those days, the right to an unworried existence was only provided to those
artists who toed the “socialist realism” line. The art policy makers looked down
their noses even at the French impressionists as their class enemies to say nothing of
the fauvists, cubists, expressionists, and surrealists. In the museums all Russian and
Soviet art violating the official limits collected dust in storerooms.
Then, quite unexpectedly, a Picasso exhibit was opened in the section of Modern
Western Art on the third floor of the Hermitage. Sensation! Pandemonium and noise
in the exhibit halls. The people started discussions, someone was ironic: “My son
can draw better!” I of course visited the exhibition several times, took part in the
arguments, and offered some of my observations. I had confidence in my own
expertise!
Soon, the socially oriented part of my temperament vividly showed itself at the
Department too. On the second floor I hung a wall newspaper entitled “We and the
Art”. There was nothing criminal in it, even according to the standards of that time.
For example my articles about ukiyo-e, a Japanese school of cherry wood engraving
and graphic works of Favorsky.28
In a word, it was a general education newspaper. Its beautifully written title and
article headlines were done by my friend Misha Danilov, an astronomy student. On
the same day, after lectures, we held a discussion in classroom 66 about the Picasso
exhibit. It was based on pure enthusiasm and by no one’s permission. The discus-
sion was heated, but decent and with no anti-Sovietism. However, on the next day I
did not see the newspaper on the landing of the second floor and did not find it
anywhere afterwards. It was removed by the order of A. A. Nikitin, the Department
Party secretary and a little later I was summoned to the Party Committee of the
University. A polite gentleman sat at the table and asked me about certain details. I
told him everything, emphasizing the fact that I was a member of the second year
Komsomol Bureau and was responsible for the general cultural work. It seemed to
me he believed I had no evil purposes and added with regard to the wall newspaper:
“So, you are active in the Komsomol work? Wonderful! But everything that is
publicly displayed on the walls must be coordinated with the authorities.”
A long time afterwards, I understood that, without any idea of possible danger, I
could seriously burn my fingers. On the 21 of December 1956 the Militia units were
sent to the Arts Square with only one task: to prevent any discussion of Picasso. As
Revolt Pimenov29 wrote in his trial statements, it was exactly at that time that he
realized the impossibility of fighting the Soviet regime by legal means, and began
organizing a secret opposition group. He was arrested on March 25, 1957 and
condemned to 6 years of prison.
28
Vladimir Andreevich Favorsky (1886–1964).
29
Revolt Ivanovich Pimenov (1931–1990), a dissident and mathematician. Memoirs: v. 2/Infor-
mation and Expert group “Panorama” – M.: Panorama, 1996.
It is probable that the Mathmech authorities had problems caused by me and the
animosity on the part of the bosses appeared right at that time and lasted for another
30 years of my presence at the University.
4.11 How I Did Not Become a Dissident
I swear I did not have any interest in the political struggle at the time I am
describing or later; besides I did not believe in the possibility of overthrowing the
Soviet regime. I can’t say I liked that regime and as the years went by I already
hated it, but being engrossed in mathematics, I did not want to waste my time and
spiritual force on something else.
It was not by chance that I mentioned Revolt Pimenov in the text above. I did not
know him at that time, but I heard that in 1949, when he was in his second year at
the Mathmech, he officially asked to be dismissed from the “Komsomol”.
Consequently he had to spend some time in a psychiatric clinic and a year before
I was enrolled in the Mathmech he graduated from that Department specializing in
geometry. In November of 1956, during a discussion at the Department of Filology
devoted to the recently published book “Not by Bread Alone”30 by Dudintsev, the
floor was taken by R. I. Pimenov who addressed A. D. Alexandrov31: “You behave
‘conformably to villainy’!”.32
I got acquainted with Pimenov much later after he was released from prison in
1963. He worked at “LOMI”,33 and his desk was in the same room where my
co-author of those days Yura Burago’s desk was too. In Leningrad I came to
Pimenov’s home several times as his wife Vilya34 was a niece of Aunt Mariam,
the wife of Uncle Syoma. Vilya had an aptitude for literary work, and, it seems to
me, published children’s fairy tales. When I still was a little boy I, with bated
breath, listened to her improvised adventure stories.
Revolt himself made a strong impression on me. I don’t know if he tried to
interest me in his revolutionary struggle, but my Mother, terrified at the thought that
I could try the taste of jail, rushed to Aunt Mariam and demanded that I should not
be drawn into any illegal activity. The demand was obeyed, and I can say truthfully
I am glad it happened that way. It was not a good idea for me, a Jew, to be busy with
30
V. D. Dudintsev (1918–1998).
31
A. D. Alexandrov (1912–1999), Leningrad University rector in 1952–1964.
32
From the fairy tale “for children of fair age” entitled “The Liberal” (1885), by M. E. Saltykov-
Shchedrin (1826–1889).
33
LOMI a Russian abbreviation for The Leningrad Division of the Mathematical Institute, USSR
Academy of Sciences.
34
V. A. Shrifteylick (Pimenova) (1931–2005).
4.12 Misha Danilov 123
a political “arrangement of Russia”,35 the country which made it clear many times
that I was an alien in it. The state discrimination against USSR Jews flourished on
the background of popular anti-Semitism.
4.12 Misha Danilov
Danilov and I were born in the same year and entered the Mathmech at the same
time, but he joined the Astronomy Section while I chose mathematics. I don’t
remember how it happened but we became friends and I began visiting his house. In
those days he lived alone, without his parents, and we could chat freely, spending
evenings in his cluttered up but cozy room with the windows facing the Moika
river. I was often surprised by his hedonistic attitude to leisure, something abso-
lutely incompatible with my character.
“You know,” he once told me, “I like most of all to spend an evening sitting on
the sofa in semidarkness, to turn on the “Telefunken” radio, watch the little green
light, and listen to music.” All objects surrounding Misha Danilov turned into
something unusual, the best, and according to him, all his friends had talents and
were the most interesting persons.
But Misha was not mad about astronomy. He felt that his real calling was for the
theater. Even at high school he took part in amateur theatricals and was noted by
Zoe Karpova, an actress at the Gorky Big Drama Theater. She advised him to
continue his studies at the University theater studio headed by her. Misha did not
conceal from me that he had entered the Mathmech just to be admitted to the studio.
He was accepted right away and immediately felt quite at home and respected by
everyone.
When we were second year students he suggested that I should memorize and
declaim Mayakovsky’s poem “Shallow philosophy in deep places”. Do you remem-
ber: “I’ll turn if not to a Tolstoy, then to a fatty”.36 Having listened to my recitation
he laughed and persuaded me to take an entrance exam to the studio group, junior of
course, not to the senior one where he had been from the very beginning.
Why did he decide to persuade me? Did he really discover a talent in my acting?
No, there was nothing to discover. Most likely he was persuading me because
covering the distance between the 10th Line and the Main Building of the Univer-
sity was more interesting when you had a partner, than alone. To put it shortly: just
for company.
Why did I agree? Did I really want to become an actor?
Certainly not. I did not want to, I agreed out of acute curiosity.
35
Quotation from A. Solzhenitsyn “How we should arrange Russia”, published on September
18, 1990 in “Literary Gazette” and “Komsomol Pravda” simultaneously.
36
In old Russian “Tolstoy” literally means “fat”.
The remarkable fact was that I was accepted, though not without Misha’s
patronage. In those days the junior group was run by young Igor Gorbachev,37
himself a former studio participant under Karpova. At first I attended a couple of
times the so-called “exercises”. They were for example as follows: in your hands
you have neither a threaded needle, nor a sock, but you pretend that you are darning,
etc. Soon I quit attending those “exercises”, but because the studio was an
immensely interesting place and I was already known as Misha’s friend I continued
coming there. As I’ve already mentioned, Misha always emphasized that his friends
belonged to an elite, so he recommended me to the studio people as a mathemati-
cian of genius.
I happened to see theatrical performances of the studio and its parody shows.
Standing behind the wings I could see the actors’ nervousness before entering the
stage as well as their feelings while exiting; I saw how they make themselves up and
remove the grease paints. I heard their discussions of blunders, both their own
and others’. When, after a performance, they arranged nighttime feasts with vodka
and simple snacks, I roared with laughter, together with everybody else almost
falling off my chair, listening to the jokes told by real masters of the genre. An
additional charm was naturally assured by the presence of representatives of the
opposite sex with alluring exterior.
I knew that all of that was essentially not for me and would soon end; all the
more so, I appreciated the exotic impressions presented to me by life.
Now several words concerning the above-mentioned vodka. Recently I came
across a popular science article stating that Jews had a particular gene that inhibits
its bearers from drinking too much. Maybe I have the gene too, but in that young
jolly company of theater people it sometimes forgot its “responsibilities”. Then, I,
barely keeping my balance, had to walk across the Palace bridge, along Nevsky
Avenue, Marat Street up to my home where Mother nursed me into normalcy after
fits of nausea. Feeling giddy I fell asleep and in the morning I suffered from
hangover. But soon my “savior” gene stopped shirking its work – I learned how
to drink vodka, well cooled, and always drink it in moderation.38
Misha Danilov had numerous talents: he drew remarkably, was busy with artistic
photography, and was uncommonly gifted in music. Already at a mature age Misha
learned how to carve smoking pipes, and Alexey Borisovich Fedorov himself, the
great pipe maker, singled him out among his pupils. Misha gave his pipes as
presents to friends. He himself smoked “Amphora” only; his apartment was always
pleasantly saturated with its aroma and none other.
When Danilov graduated from the Mathmech our meetings became less fre-
quent. Now I’ll tell you about one of my visits that happened maybe by the end of
1960. I was at his apartment on the Moika when there was a call from Yursky.39 He
37
I. O. Gorbachev (1927–2003) an actor of the Big Drama Theater.
38
In this connection I’d like to caution inexperienced readers: don’t mix Cognac with Champagne.
The resulting beverage is tasty but quite poisonous.
39
Sergei Yurievich Yursky, born in 1935, Leningrad, a famous actor, stage director, and writer.
said he and Sasha Belinsky wanted to drop by. “Come, please come” answered
Misha.
I had seen Yursky on the stage of the BDT (Big Drama Theater) and a couple of
times in the studio where Misha introduced me to him. But I was not at all sure that
he had remembered me. As to Alexander Belinsky, he is now a famous stage
director, but in those days he was 32 years old and was only known among theater
people. So, he was coming with Yursky, but his name did not mean anything to
me. In general I started to feel shy and was ready to leave. But Misha dissuaded me:
“Don’t go. They won’t be here for long,” he said. I stayed and even now, after half a
century has elapsed, I still retain the impression of their visit. I’ll try to explain why.
The guests came half an hour later and began discussing Belinsky’s affairs. If I
am not mistaken, he staged something in the Rubinstein Street theater and was in
search of a permanent job in Leningrad.
But afterwards the topic changed. They started talking about a performance with
the participation of actors and actresses known to everyone present except me. On
the whole the guests did not approve of either the play, direction or actors’ playing.
Their criticism was expressed by each one in his own manner, using speech as well
as imitation. Misha hardly took part in the conversation, and I did not say a single
word, feeling myself to be in something like a trance or stupor. I was literally struck
by the brilliant dialogue improvised by the genius of two theater masters. Their
speech seemed to me a more imaginative, logical – more flexible – perception of the
world, more colorful and multifaceted than mine. The comparison prompted my
perception that the habit of logicizing my speech and my actions of everyday life,
developed spontaneously as a consequence of working in mathematics, had
impoverished both my speech and my life.40
In 1965 Danilov graduated from the Institute of Theater, Music, and Cinema,
having been persuaded to enroll there by G. A. Tovstonogov, the celebrated artistic
director of the BDT. Afterwards, for a short time, he worked in the Leningrad
Pushkin Drama theater, and in 1966 Tovstonogov enrolled him in his theater
(BDT). There Misha got small character roles. He repeatedly acted in films and
on television, in particular in productions staged by Belinsky.
One day, in the fall of 1975, Misha called me and promised to show me
something interesting. He took me to the University Main Building back yard
door locked up with a padlock. While the key was being sought somewhere about
ten people gathered in front of the door. I did not know most of them, but I
recognized Yursky, Tenyakova, Strzhelchik, and Retsepter. Behind the door we
saw a room with several rows of chairs and a movie projector. There we were
shown “The Fiesta”, a brilliant movie produced by Yursky in 1971 on the basis of
Hemingway’s novel. Some of the actors present in the room, including Misha
Danilov, acted in the film. I am not going to relate the dramatic fate of “The Fiesta”.
I will only say that in 1974 the Party authorities ordered destruction of all copies of
the film, in which the part of the Matador was splendidly played by Michael
40
I never took any practical measures in this respect.
Photo 4.19 Article about M. V. Danilov in the “Leningrad Pravda” newspaper (© Vladimir
Baryshnikov,41 but a way had been found to preserve one copy. We were secretly
shown that saved copy.
In 1987, the Leningrad television studio was preparing a broadcast dedicated to
the 50th birthday of Danilov. The hero of the anniversary was asked to name three
friends who would be able to speak about his life. He gave the name of the stage
director A. Belinsky, the Leningrad Tass photojournalist Y. Belinsky and mine. I
was thunder stricken, proud, and terribly excited! I prepared the text, and learned it
by heart, at least so it seemed to me.
Then, on April 30 I went to the Central Television Studio. Before the shooting I
was powdered for the first time in my life in order to prevent my forehead and bald
patch from shining under the Drummond lights. They seated me at a table before the
cameras. They would start the shooting any moment, but I suddenly felt that my
head was empty and I did not remember a single word. Nevertheless I somehow
pulled myself together and there was no emergency. That was my first unforgetta-
ble, and unique life experience of performing on Leningrad television. It’s a pity
that in that destitute “pre-computer” time the recordings of this type of broadcasts
were not preserved with the purpose of saving film.
Next follows a translation of the facsimile of an article from the “Leningrad
Pravda”
Experts in Arts Michael Danilov
April 30, 19:35, Leningrad television
Theater admirers definitely know well the creative work of Michael Danilov, an actor of
the M. Gorky Big Academic Drama Theater (BDT). He plays in many performances in his
theater. He is popular with movie buffs too: Danilov acted in nearly 30 films. The diversity
of characters he played in the theater, movies, and telecasts allows us to speak of him as an
actor of talent and amazing versatility who can be equally convincing in classical and
modern art roles, he also has a great sense of humor.
Now, a display of Michael Danilov’s photographs is shown in the lobby of the Big
Drama Theater. It testifies to another side of his talent. He had made these photos over
many years and in many countries the actor had visited when on tour with his theater. The
pictures reflect their author’s power of observation and his peculiar perception of the world
and people. As everything created by a talent his works are unique.
But probably there are few people knowing that before he made his final choice – to
become an actor – Michael Danilov had graduated from the Leningrad University where he
acquired the profession of astrophysicist. He could also become an artist (took classes in an
art school which later allowed him to make sketches of the stage sets that were used in the
University theater performances he played in). Danilov has another avocation – to make
smoking pipes; they are of excellent quality. Evidently he did not have time to become also
a musician, but he has perfect pitch (he once substituted for a sick percussionist in the
student orchestra). All these characteristics prove that Michael Danilov is a man of many
talents and that he succeeds in everything he undertakes.
The Chief Editorial Board for Leningrad Television Art Broadcasts prepared a video
with the participation of those people who know Michael Danilov very well: Doctor of
Physical and Mathematical Sciences Professor V. Maz’ya, who used to be a student of the
41
In 1974, while on a tour of Canada, Michael Baryshnikov, the leading dancer of the Mariinsky
Ballet and member of the Komsomol Central Committee, became a “defector”.
Leningrad University simultaneously with Danilov; photojournalist of the Leningrad Tass

agency Y. Belinsky, and the television director A. Belinsky. The video includes fragments
from some films with Michael Danilov’s participation.
In the photo: M. V. Danilov playing the part of Wardle (“Pickwick Papers”)
end of the facsimile

In 1988 Danilov was awarded the rank of Meritorious Artist of the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. The reader can find some information about
him on the Internet. On my part, it would be presumptuous to characterize his
creative work. My unprofessional opinion about Danilov (isn’t it my right to have it
without imposing it on anyone?) is that he, in a certain sense, was a victim of his
own modesty. Not looking like a hero in his appearance, he put up with character
roles on the sidelines from the very beginning in spite of his brilliant talent. His was
a masterly performance! A valuable acquisition for a stage director, but not the
most rewarding dramatic type for the actor. It’s also a pity that Tovstonogov had
waited too long to accept Danilov to the BDT. Probably he could not have done it
earlier because Misha had not yet acquired a higher theatrical education.
Danilov died in 1994 from cancer after surgery in Boston. I read that the urn with
his ashes was buried in the St. Petersburg Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery.
About a year ago, here in Sweden, I saw Danilov on TV. He played Berlioz in the
movie “Master and Margarita” filmed in 1994, but first shown in 2011. I saw him
living on the screen and over my eyes “that had long been dry, a tear ran like a
spark”.42
42
These words are from a popular old song “The bell rings monotonously”.
Chapter 5
Mathmech Life
5.1 The Mathmech Cafeteria
Life at the Mathmech on Vasilyevsky Island 10th Line continued until late at night,
and I often stayed there the whole day, like many other students. If lectures ended at
3 o’clock, seminars usually began at six to allow people from other schools to arrive
on time for them.
That is why the Mathmech cafeteria could not but play an important role in my
life. Due to the fact that I gave away almost all of my scholarship to Mother, I was a
bit hard up for pocket money and preferred the department cafeteria to the two more
expensive neighboring ones (on Middle Avenue and the 8th Line) where they
served better food.
Our cafeteria was on the first floor in the left wing of the building. Shortly before
receiving my monthly scholarship the semi-communistic character of the cafeteria
became important: you could satisfy your hunger for free because on each table
there was sliced bread. What a wonderful taste a chunk of rye bread had with
pungent mustard spread on it and strewn with some salt! I am imagining all that
now and my mouth is watering, although this type of food did not fit every stomach.
But “Man shall not live on bread alone”,1 so the Department cafeteria could
allow you, without going bankrupt, to treat yourself to beetroot salad or a hard-
boiled egg. Even the stewed fruit would cost you kopecks. Quite a few students
loved it, and I was one of them. At the same time the meat patties filled with bread
were terrible. I clearly remember it.
My student years were flying, the deans, Party secretaries, and their deputies
were changing. The atmosphere in the country and Department was changing too.
I changed as well. Only our Mathmech cafeteria remained the same.
1
A quotation from the New Testament. Mathew, 4:4.

130 5 Mathmech Life
5.2 Fractional Derivatives
Although even at high school my greatest dream was to come up with something
new in mathematics I was unable to do it in those days. But at the beginning of the
second year in Mathmech there was a moment when it seemed to me that I made a
discovery in mathematical analysis: I invented fractional derivatives. (The next
paragraph can be omitted by a lay reader.)
The idea was simple – to define a real parameter dependent operator which
coincides with the differentiation of integer order for natural values of the param-
eter. Omitting the details, I acted in the following way: I expanded a function into
Taylor series, replaced the sum with an integral, and the factorial with the Gamma
Function. Thus an integral operator was obtained which gave the required result
after an inversion.
Previously I had not come across anything like that.2 In answer to my question
Professor S. G. Mikhlin sent me to the associate professor V. M. Babich.3 He
looked at my calculations and said: “Because of exactly the same fractional
derivatives, Liouville nursed a lifelong grudge against Gauss. He invented those
derivatives and sent his formulas to the Great Gauss who said the following:
‘Young man, don’t engage in rubbish!’” That was how V. M. Babich immediately
destroyed my youthful illusions. As a consolation he added: “If you lived in those
days they would believe you were a good mathematician”. These words, to a certain
extent, made up for my injured self-respect.
5.3 Something New at Last!
From the second through the fourth year I devoted little attention to the obligatory
course program. I would not say no attention at all, and even if I said that you would
not believe me as I got a diploma cum laude with only one “B” for “theoretical
mechanics” that I hated.
But what can explain my irresponsible behavior that complicated my life and
made me nervous, thus causing uncertainty? The answer is simple: I am absolutely
unable to work under the lash. I suspect that this trait of mine was inherited by my
2
I should have looked through the “Trigonometric series” by A. Zygmund, 1939 edition; but it did
not occur to me.
3
That advice was given me not by chance. In 1956, V. M. Babich and L. N. Slobodetsky published
a short paper in “Doklady of USSR Academy of Sciences”, v. 106, pp. 604–606, where they spoke
about spaces of functions with fractional smoothness. This was not at all what I had invented,
(in other words, that was not Liouville fractional derivatives), but, as it was found out later, it,
too, had been known since the 1930s (see pp. 350–353 in the book mentioned in Footnote 11 in
Chap. 4).
5.3 Something New at Last! 131
Photo 5.1 V. M. Babich

(before 1967) (© Naukova
Dumka, reproduced with
kind permission)
daughter and poet Gali-Dana Singer. Here is her answer to a question posed in an
interview about her life.4
“. . .This is a very interesting observation. Probably this effect is caused by my
general inability to study within educational systems. I played truant almost the
entire ninth and tenth grades, then dropped out of the Institute. . . I could continue
the list, but its gist is that having escaped from the pedagogical trap at least partially
I had voluntarily doomed myself to the fate of “eternal student” who is in search of
his lessons in the most unfitting places. But on the other hand, my poems lack
exams, and I have lessons incomparably more numerous than teachers”.
I, too, desperately tried to find an occupation that would suit my taste. As I’ve
already written above, still in high school I wanted passionately to introduce to
mathematics something that was mine and new. . . In the late fall of 1957 a case like
that presented itself at last. In one of the rooms of the Main Building Library there
was open access to journals including mathematical ones. When visiting the library
I made it a rule to look through them. I could not wait to see what real mathema-
ticians were doing at that time.
One day, turning over the pages of the American journal “Quarterly of Applied
Mathematics” of October 1955 I stumbled on a three page article by Hartman and
Wintner “On the oscillation criterion of de la Vallée-Poussin”. For second-order
ordinary differential equations the authors improved a condition of solvability of
the first boundary-value problem, which was proposed in 1929 by the famous
Belgian mathematician mentioned in the article’s title. It was a matter of a few
minutes to read the article after which I suddenly understood how it was possible to
further strengthen de la Vallée-Poussin’s result. The discovery inspired me and I
began developing the theme. It turned out sufficiently benign, though not so much
from my present day point of view as according to the understanding of V. Maz’ya
4
See Footnote 16 in Chap. 2.
132 5 Mathmech Life
as a third year student in 1957. This is how my first scientific work appeared, it was
even “quasi-published” which I am going to describe a little later.
5.4 Student Scientific Society (SSS) and Tseitin
After the Picasso story my Komsomol work came to an end. Would Vladimir
Maz’ya ever be revisited by the optimistic impulses that drove him to come to
the damp basements in the vicinity of the Mathmech? He had to campaign among
the residents for voting during elections in exchange for a promise of repairs.
Would he, as before, enthusiastically organize cultural outings or sweat over
student wall newspapers? The answer is negative. My activity of this type was
never renewed afterwards – my character is that of a maximalist, either I completely
give myself up to a business or abandon it.
However, rejecting social work entirely was a bad idea because it hampered my
chances to enter the graduate division. Fortunately, the Mathmech offered an
alternative to the Komsomol bureau called the SSS Council (see the title of this
chapter). In it, at that time first violin was played by Gera Tseitin5 whom I would
describe first of all as a child prodigy. Even his oddities fit this characteristic: for
example, he never shook hands with anyone so as to avoid infection.
Gera, just 1 year older than I, was admitted to the Mathmech in 1951 when he was
15 years old. In the fall of 1957 when I, a third-year student, became closer
acquainted with him, he already was a second-year graduate student and worked
in the theory of algorithms and in constructive mathematics. Gera seemed to me a
god – I was sure he knew the whole of mathematics. As a confirmation, having barely
leafed through my above-mentioned opus, which I was going to submit to the contest
of student works, Tseitin, with good precision, advised me to use Schauder’s6 fixed
point principle. This fundamental topological theorem was not included in any
lecture course of that time and I had not the slightest idea of its existence. But I
coped with it quickly and used it. (Tseitin’s role is certified in my paper.)
Gera’s hobby was foreign languages.7 He was even studying Chinese seriously,
but our first point of contact was Esperanto. It is no secret that this is a simple thing.
According to Leo Tolstoy he “after no longer than two hours of studies was able, if
not to write, but to read fluently in that language.” Tseitin knew Esperanto to
perfection – I don’t know how long it took him to learn it. My achievements
were not so impressive, but I, too, after some time, was able to communicate with
Gera fluently in Esperanto.
Under the aegis of SSS, Tseitin and I organized the “English Club” which fact is
confirmed by a notification in the Department wall newspaper. I preserved it and
reproduce it here:
5
Grigoriy Samuilovich Tseitin, born in 1936.
6
Julius Pavel Shauder (1898–1943).
7
In 1960, he became the chief of the Machine Translation Experimental Laboratory at NIIMM
(Scientific Research Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics).
5.5 “Quasi-publication” and S. M. Lozinsky 133
5.4.1 The English Club
Introduction
The English Club is known to have been founded recently by some students of our
Department. Of course, the organization of this club as that of any unusual enterprise
caused a certain distrust. It is its novelty that accounts for the hesitation which this
undertaking has occasioned. The diversity of opinion about the cause shows that this
initiative is new, difficult and vital. We write this article with the aim of dispelling all the
doubts and indecision by throwing light on the tasks and methods of the English Club.
Our goal
We have only one aim. It is mastering English. What the clubmen want is to prove that
English is not a luxury but a means of communication. Most of the pupils graduating from
secondary schools cannot speak foreign languages, and all of us are victims of unproductive
teaching methods. The members of the club are bent on improving these methods starting to
work on a system described by a single word “conversation”.
Rights
Any member of the club may speak Russian with anyone who is not a member yet.
Duties
The duty of a member of the Club is to speak English with other clubmen and not to
understand when they speak Russian to him/her.
Methods
The general method is the absence of special methods
We speak English. That’s all!
ENTER THE ENGLISH CLUB!!!
Next an additional text followed:

Announcement
The honorary member of the English Club Mr. A. D. Alexandrov, DSc, Corresponding
Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences will deliver a lecture about his impressions
from a trip to India.
This wall newspaper was issued in the fall of 1956. Did our Club last for long? Who
were the participants? Alas, I don’t remember. All that was left are two yellowed sheets
with the just quoted enthusiastic statements and two signatures: Maz’ya, Tseitin.
Today, Grigoriy Samuilovich Tseitin works at Stanford University, and in all
probability has mastered English. As to his achievements in mathematics, I cannot
ascertain them, being a complete ignoramus in mathematical logic, constructive
mathematics, mathematical linguistics.
5.5 “Quasi-publication” and S. M. Lozinsky8
In those years the SSS ran student contests in solving difficult mathematical
problems, arranged popular lectures by professors for the students and Mathmech
circles for grade school students. Recently, Tolya Slisenko9 reminded me of his
8
S. M. Lozinsky (1914–1985).
9
Anatoly Olesyevich Slisenko, born in 1941.
134 5 Mathmech Life
Photo 5.2 A. D.
Alexandrov (about 1967)
(© Naukova Dumka,
permission)
participation in the Mathmech circle that I headed in the 1957–1958 school year
when he was in the tenth grade.
We began to issue the “Student Scientific Journal”, a rotaprint edition. There
appeared two booklets, one in May 1958 and another in October 1959. From the
technical point of view both issues were quite mediocre, especially the second one.
Many pages in it were impossible to read, but it is interesting to examine as a
curiosity and a relic of that time.
The first issue of our journal contained two articles. One was “On the least
number of multiplications for raising to a given power” by Rafa Valsky, a first-year
student, with a supplement by the second-year graduate student Gera Tseitin, and
the other was my article “On de la Vallée-Poussin’s criterion”. There was also an
attachment presenting a talk by Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin10 with a review of
results obtained in geometric topology. At that time the students were not
acquainted with this subject. Rokhlin began working at the Mathmech 2 years
after his talk, and before him it was N. A. Shanin11 only who gave a semester-
long course on set-theoretical topology.
I did not send my first article, just mentioned, to a more solid journal as it was
rather naı̈ve. But I received the University’s highest prize of 100 rubles for it at the
contest of student scientific works.
It was Professor S. M. Lozinsky who recommended it, head of the Chair of
Mathematical Analysis in 1956–1960. At the end of his response it was written:
“The results can be used as an excellent diploma thesis in any of the chairs: analysis
or ordinary differential equations”.
10
V. A. Rokhlin (1919–1984).
11
N. A. Shanin (1919–2011).
Photo 5.3 My article in the first issue of the Mathmech Student Scientific Journal (On the
criterion of De La Vallée-Poussin) (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
136 5 Mathmech Life
Photo 5.4 V. A. Rokhlin’s paper (Survey of some results of the geometric topology) (© Vladimir
Photo 5.5 S. M. Lozinsky

(about 1967) (© Naukova
kind permission)
Sergey Mikhaylovich was the son of Mikhail Leonidovich Lozinsky12 who had
died 2 years before the events described here. Mikhail Leonidovich was a remark-
able poet and translator of whom I heard significantly later. After his death, his son
Sergey Mikhaylovich, a man of high humanitarian culture, wrote magnificent
reminiscences describing his father’s work on the translation of “La Divina
Commedia” by Dante Alighieri.13 His attitude to students was respectful but a little
dry, with, I would say, a condescending smile, although barely visible. He was
especially demanding with regard to formatting scientific works and even gave a
lecture to the students on rules of writing papers. By the way, in his commentary to
my article he included a compliment: “The work is written much better than you
can expect from a third-year student.”
In order to inform me of his remarks on my paper S. M. Lozinsky invited me to
his home. So, I came to his apartment on Kamennoostrovsky Avenue which was my
first visit to a professor’s home. He took me to a huge study with bookcases lining
all the walls from floor to ceiling. That was a library belonging to at least three
generations – Sergey Mikhaylovich’s grandfather, a defense attorney was a famous
bibliophile. Having entered the study I saw, on the right side of the door, a huge
mahogany desk covered with green cloth and a big table lamp on it having a green
shade. I have forever retained a reverential memory of that study. A real professor
should perform his creative work in such a temple!
In 1960 S. M. Lozinsky left the University, which was his second job.14 In that
year, working in more than one place was forbidden by Khrushchev who thus struck
a blow against the material well-being of the scientific and technical elite. The
12
M. L. Lozinsky (1886–1955).
13
Readings from Dante, 1987. General editor: Igor Belza. M.: “Nauka” (Science), 1989.
14
S. M. Lozinsky’s main job was at the Leningrad Air Force Academy.
138 5 Mathmech Life
Photo 5.6 S. M. Lozinsky’s review of my first student scientific work (© Vladimir Maz’ya,
private collection)
5.7 My Doubts and S. G. Mikhlin’s Advice 139
Mathmech, too, suffered a notable damage having lost Lozinsky, a person of high
moral standards. In the same year, the great mathematicians Y. V. Linnik,15 L. V.
Kantorovich16 and A. D. Alexandrov quit the chairs they headed: “Probability
Theory”, “Computational Methods”, and “Geometry” respectively. Besides,
G. M. Fichtenholz passed away in 1959. In this way, the Mathmech grew poorer
literally during a year.
5.6 The Mathmech Choir
Here is a document that characterizes another aspect of my life when I was a third-
year student. This is a certificate issued to
Maz’ya V.
participant of the Leningrad University Mathmech Department Choir
who took an active part in the VI Traditional
“SONG FESTIVAL”
at the S. M. Kirov Palace of Culture
on Saturday, May 11, 1957
Of course a Department choir was not like the Big University choir conducted by
G. M. Sandler and famous in the whole country. Not everyone was admitted to it. In
our Matmech choir I was a baritone. My voice quality was modest, but if only you
knew what a felicity it was to participate in polyphonic singing! It grips me at the
heart even now: “On the little river, on a steep bank Marusenka washed her white
feet. . .” or “Dear little wind, take my boat to the Kurland girl. . .”
5.7 My Doubts and S. G. Mikhlin’s Advice
Coming back to mathematics. In spite of my locally limited success in the work on

the de la Vallée-Poussin criterium, I thought of myself as lagging behind. For
instance, Yura Burago, a year older than I, had chosen geometry long ago. He
came to the lectures and attended the seminar headed by A. D. Alexandrov. Rudik
Yasnogorodsky, a student of the same year as mine, took part in Professor D. K.
Faddeev’s algebra seminar. Both of them generously shared their impressions with
me. At that time Yura lived on Pravda Street and we went home in the same
direction. So, when we walked home on foot from the 10th Line he talked about
the geometric theorems he had learned at the seminar. I understood not too much
because I grasp unfamiliar mathematics by ear quite poorly. In general neither
algebra, nor geometry attracted me.
15
Yury Vladimirovich Linnik (1915–1972).
16
Leonid Vitalyevich Kantorovich (1912–1986).
140 5 Mathmech Life
Photo 5.7 Honorary diploma for singing in choir (Leningrad S. M. Kirov Palace of Culture.
Issued to V. Maz’ya, participant of the choir of the Mathematics and Mechanics Department at
LSU, for active participation in the VI Traditional “Celebration of Songs” at the S. M. Kirov
Palace of Culture. Directorate, 1957) (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
5.7 My Doubts and S. G. Mikhlin’s Advice 141
Photo 5.8 S. G. Mikhlin in

early 1970s (© Vladimir
The third year started. At that time I was solving problems from the two volumes
by G. Pólya and G. Szegö17 and tried to cope with the magnificent book “Inequal-
ities” by Hardy, Polya, and Littlewood. But because of a lack of definite plans for
the future I began feeling nervous.
At that time, unexpectedly, I was helped by Professor S. G. Mikhlin. On a rainy
autumn day I happened to stand with him at a streetcar stop on Middle Avenue next
to the 10th Line. I felt it was improper to speak first, but Mikhlin asked me: “Which
specialization would you like to choose?” Having answered that no decision had
been made yet, I added that my hesitation concerned the choice among analysis,
complex function theory, and ordinary differential equations. Then he gave me
advice: “Take mathematical physics. With this choice you would be able to
research into anything: partial differential equations, ordinary differential equa-
tions, and even number theory.”
Using this opportunity I told S. G. Mikhlin of my suffering from doubts
concerning my mathematical illiteracy, to which he answered: “I never studied
anything just for the sake of erudition. And I don’t advise you to do it either. Choose
a problem and study the materials related to it. Then you would look upon your
studies from your own standpoint, and your knowledge would grow like a
snowball.”
Solomon Grigoryevich was a wise man. In five minutes he described a strategy
for the whole of my further scientific work. I was a new person when leaving the
streetcar stop compared to the one who had come there!
17
“Problems and Theorems in Analysis”.
142 5 Mathmech Life
5.8 A Few Words About Mikhlin
S. G. Mikhlin knew that I had grown up without a father, and, I would say, he
looked after me in a fatherly way for many years. He often invited me to his place,
talked about his life and answered most diverse questions. It was from him that I
heard, still being a student, that Lenin was no less cruel a killer than Stalin, that
concentration camps were first created under Lenin’s rule in the Soviet Russia. S. G.
Mikhlin meant the Party and Administration University officials when he told me:
“They just have power, but we have theorems. Therefore we are stronger!”
He himself, son of a melamed,18 resembled a rabbi in many of his features.
When, in 1978, I told him that I was going to marry Tatiana, his former graduate
student, his comment was: “How come you did not notice her earlier?!”
He explained to me the rules of scientific ethics, in particular the importance of
referring to your predecessors irrespective of your sympathies, antipathies, and
considerations of profitability.19
A convinced atheist, S. G. Mikhlin knew the Pentateuch and, by the way,
reproached Thomas Mann for his exceedingly audacious handling of Torah in
“Joseph and His Brothers”.20 Mikhlin liked neither the latter novel nor
M. Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita”. On the other hand, I reveled in both
books, but did not dare oppose his opinion because I had not read the Bible yet,
and probably had not even seen it. My sources for biblical history were the
Hermitage museum and the popular book by Zenon Kosidowski “The biblical
legends”, published in Russia in 1963. (Note that in those years it was very difficult
to find a Bible, which was not for sale in book stores). In general it was difficult to
argue with S. G. Mikhlin on humanitarian themes because of his confidence in his
opinions, erudition and strength of argumentation.
But if we return to mathematics I can say that he did not offer me directly a
single problem and that I myself thought up the themes of my diploma thesis and
both dissertations. If I happened to develop his subject area I did it on my own
volition. In this sense he was my teacher to no greater extent than, let’s say, S. L.
Sobolev21 or O. A. Ladyzhenskaya.22 But my work is characterized by a certain
peculiarity that I undoubtedly inherited from S.G. Mikhlin. The thing is that on a
large scale S. G. Mikhlin divided his research into “works”, each of them consisting
of articles, and, as a rule resulted in writing a book. In the book he collected and
regularized the results of his “work” considering it his duty. I got an impression that
Mikhlin began his “work” impelled not so much by his own curiosity as by lofty
18
A teacher in the elementary religious Jewish school.
19
Although it seems self-evident this rule was often violated in the USSR and in the West. As
mathematics turned into a mass profession, in some countries hidden and even explicit plagiarism
reached dangerous proportions in the beginning of the twenty-first century.
20
The novel was published in Russian in 1968.
21
S. L. Sobolev (1908–1989).
22
O. A. Ladyzhenskaya (1922–2004).
5.8 A Few Words About Mikhlin 143
objective ideas about the usefulness of the corresponding theory for the develop-
ment of mathematics and its applications. Of course scientific curiosity played its
part too, but so to say secondarily. The aspect of sportsmanship in mathematics was
exceedingly alien to Mikhlin’s creativity. I confess that I don’t share this attitude
with him.
Solomon Grigoryevich Mikhlin always considered S. L. Sobolev a great math-
ematician. The latter, who had studied with Mikhlin in the same group, always
called Mikhlin by his diminutive name Zyama. Mikhlin’s other idol was
Hadamard,23 and Mikhlin proudly told me that someone found a resemblance
between him and the famous French mathematician.
Mikhlin’s monographs and textbooks are remarkable from the point of view of
pedagogics, especially those devoted to variational methods and different classes of
integral equations. Their style and accessibility to poorly prepared readers made
Mikhlin famous in the world of engineers, which was a rare achievement for a
mathematician.
S. G. Mikhlin’s highest accomplishment was creation of the theory of
multidimensional singular integral equations which was presented in a large article,
published already in the 1936 edition of “Matematicheskiy Sbornik”. Mikhlin
introduced the notion of a “symbol” of a singular integral operator which made
him the forerunner of a fundamental area in mathematical analysis of the twentieth
century, known as the theory of pseudodifferential operators.
However, some influential Leningrad experts on partial differential equations
did not admit that Mikhlin’s subject area was a part of the “main trend” and this
attitude nagged the life out of him. He was never nominated to the position of
corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Now, when you read the
names of some inhabitants of the “temple of Soviet science” of that epoch, they
sound ridiculous.
But it’s time now to change the subject and add several other features to the
portrait of an extraordinary person to whom I owe so much.
S. G. Mikhlin had an inherent sense of humor. He roared with laughter at the
compositions of the “Oberiuts”24 which in my time were accessible only through
“Samizdat”.25 He remembered by heart “Plisch und Plum” translated by D. Kharms
from the German poem by Wilhelm Busch, and many poems by Edward Lear
translated by S. Marshak, such as “The Cat and the Owl”, “In the country of the
Jumblies”, “The Pobble who has no toes” and others.
Mikhlin never came to concerts, saying only that he perceived music as noise.
Self-critically he said that he lacked capabilities for foreign languages, although
I happened to hear him speaking German and French.
23
See Footnote No. 11 in Chap. 4.
24
“Oberiuts” (Society of Real Art). A Leningrad literary group in the 1920s and 1930s. Many
Oberiuts were subjected to repression.
25
“Samizdat” a Russian abbreviation of the words “self-publishing” which was persecuted by the
Soviet regime.
144 5 Mathmech Life
He never prompted answers to poor achievers among the graduate students, and
liked to repeat after Ilf and Petrov: “Saving drowning people is their own problem”.
His speech was logical and aphoristic, although not every one of his statements,
as I understood later, was true to fact, e. g. “in a joint authorship one contributes his
talent and the other his labor”, or “You don’t quit the Leningrad University, they
carry out your body from it”. I myself violated the latter postulate by leaving the
suffocating atmosphere of Leningrad University in 1986 – and never regretted that
action.
In July of 1981, S. G. Mikhlin was elected a foreign member of the Italian
National Academy (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei26). When he was not allowed
to travel to Italy to receive the title, the Italian mathematician Gaetano Fichera and
his wife brought to Leningrad the small gold lynx – a badge of Academician. They
handed it over to Mikhlin in his apartment on October 17, 1981. Tanya and I were
the only guests at that “ceremony”.
Towards the end of his life Solomon Grigoryevich Mikhlin dreamed of leaving
for Israel but, for family reasons, could not achieve that dream.
5.9 In the Fourth Year
From the fall of 1958 I was permitted to have a “flexible schedule” at the Mathmech
and practically stopped attending lectures. After Mikhlin advised me that I should
study in accordance with a concrete problem, I decided to find a multidimensional
extension of my one-dimensional results of the de la Valée Poussin type, consid-
ering the solutions of second-order elliptic partial differential equations. The
Russian translation of C. Miranda’s27 monograph published at that time gave a
vast picture of the theory of these equations, and I soon became familiar with the
book from cover to cover. In a short time I was significantly advanced and the new
results with regard to unique solvability of the Dirichlet problem for linear and
quasi-linear elliptic equations were presented in the second issue of our Student
Scientific Journal. A brief statement of my results became my first real publication.
It was a note in the “Doklady of the Academy of Sciences” submitted by Acade-
mician V. I. Smirnov on July 3, 1959.28 The detailed proofs never went beyond the
Student Journal as I did not value that work too highly.
At that time and later two thick red volumes of “40 years of Mathematics in the
USSR” were extremely useful to me. The first contains very well written reviews in
all the areas of mathematics, and the second one is a collection of references. Those
26
The Academy of the Sharp-Sighted (literary expression in Italian “lynx-eyed”), founded in
1603, the oldest Academy in the world. Galileo Galilei became its member in1611.
27
Carlo Miranda, Partial Differential Equations of elliptic type. M, 1957.
28
On the solvability of the Dirichlet problem for elliptic equations, USSR Academy of Sciences,
129, 2, pp. 257–260.
5.9 In the Fourth Year 145
Photo 5.9 My first “real” publication, 1959 (V. G. Maz’ya. On the solvability of Dirichlet
problem for elliptic equations)
146 5 Mathmech Life
books allowed me to be in the know of all that was done by Soviet mathematicians
in the theory of functions, functional analysis, and the theory of differential and
integral equations. I went to the library and looked through the articles I was
interested in. For example in this way I found out what O. A. Ladyzhenskaya had
had time to do. A regular student would experience difficulties when listening to her
lectures in the special course on second-order partial differential equations, but I
attended the lectures fully prepared and understood every nuance, which resulted in
nothing but pleasure on my part. O. A. Ladyzhenskaya only spoke about her own
works and I had already read them! I did not like the special courses given by S. G.
Mikhlin on multidimensional integral equations and M. S. Birman29 on operator
theory, but in the future their subject matter influenced me no less than
Ladyzhenskaya’s special course.
The library just mentioned above belonged to LOMI (see Footnote 33 in
Chap. 4) and was located on 24 Fontanka River not far from Marat Street. Starting
from the fourth year I began going there regularly. The library had a huge stock of
journals, a remarkable display of arriving supplies was renewed every 10 days, and
close contacts with the Library of the Academy of Sciences allowed readers to be
informed of the mathematical literature from the whole world. Customer service
was fast, professional, and benevolent. I never stopped admiring the enthusiasm of
the library workers who were ready to help everyone! I came there once or twice a
week without fail, looked for new releases in the theory of partial differential
equations, read, and took notes. After some time I began thinking that I knew all
that had been done in the field.
In the spring of 1959 success came my way. The story started in the beginning of
my second year at the Mathmech. By that time I had been keeping notebooks where
I wrote down mathematical questions, thoughts linked to the materials I had read or
my own ideas, and references to articles and books. I still have all of these
notebooks. So, in the first one of them I see the words: “to study the growth of
functions by the behavior of their level surfaces.” This was a vague presentiment of
a fundamental idea that I was lucky enough to come across in the early part of the
fifth year. This is how it happened.
I, like everybody else who graduated from the Mathmech specializing in math-
ematics, had a diploma which certified that its bearer was “a mathematician and
teacher of mathematics in high school”. The last reference was not just words; in the
fall-winter semester of the fourth year we had lectures on pedagogics and had field
training in high schools. Each one of us had to conduct a lesson in a senior grade. At
the same time other students from our group were present in class and afterwards
discussed the lesson, speaking of its negative and positive features.
Once I was sitting at a desk in the last row during one such lesson, and, trying not
to be bored, thought about a certain inequality between the norms of a function and
its gradient. The above-mentioned idea of studying functions suddenly exhibited
concrete outlines. That was a flash of inspiration! Unexpectedly I understood that I
29
M. S. Birman (1928–2009).
5.10 The Virgin Soil 147
had just obtained a new proof of S. L. Sobolev’s classical theorem. Besides, the
great inward rejoicing I felt at that moment showed something that my subcon-
sciousness had already perceived: it was far from over. Indeed, within a few days it
became clear to me that the case in question was not just a new proof of a well-
known fact, but a powerful, and in a certain sense, comprehensive approach to an
important area of functional analysis. This is of course not the place to explain the
mathematical essence of this development.30
Psychologically, the decisive factor was that, having once dived to the maximum
depth, I liked the taste of doing so and subliminally made it my sine qua non to
continue in the same manner. In a certain sense, that field training high school
lesson determined the level of my future scientific work. I always try to cope with a
mathematical problem to the very end.
5.10 The Virgin Soil
In August, between the fourth and fifth years, a large group of Mathmech students
was sent to the virgin soil in the Kokchetav Region. I went because of enthusiasm
and did not regret it afterwards. We lived in the middle of the steppe in huts we
made ourselves. Above us was the cloudless bowl of the sky, and in the evenings –
strikingly beautiful sunsets. Water was brought to us in barrels from the closest
settlement, and food was prepared right in the field by students on duty. Wheat was
planted in gigantic areas. That is why, in spite of low crop productivity, grain was
harvested in great amounts. Some of us helped the combine drivers, but we mainly
worked on the threshing floor, loading grain or shoveling it to prevent it from
rotting. Closer to the fall we built sheds, installed casings and filled them with
adobe. By the end of the day we naturally were worn out, but after supper we sat
around a campfire, sang songs, told jokes, and baked potatoes.
We were young and the physical exertion did not seem intolerable. What I
cannot remember without disgust was the self-made toilet. It was a shallow pit
(the ground was too hard) that was quickly filled; it was covered with boards all
dirty with crap. Around it there buzzed myriads of dung flies and the stench was
unbearable. There were no walls, and not too far away another toilet was set up with
the same design, it was for women. We did not go to our toilet without making sure
the ladies’ analogue was unoccupied and vice versa.
Your humble servant composed the lyrics to the tune of “I remember that
Vaninsky port”.31
30
Those who would like to have a deeper understanding of this issue may turn to V. Maz’ya’s
Sobolev Spaces with Applications to Elliptic Partial Differential Equations, Grundlehren der
Mathematischen Wissenschaften, vol. 342, Springer, 2011.
31
A famous Gulag prisoners’ song given here in the book author’s version.
148 5 Mathmech Life
You shall willy-nilly get crazy

While taking the fork and the spade.
Damn Virgin Soil, we’re too lazy –
For with death our work will be paid.
We live without food, without sleeping
By the will of Nikita Khrushchev.
Oh, why Virgin Soil are you keeping
Poor students until they die-off?
And so on in the same pessimistic vein.

When I was still at home I decided to spend all my free time at the Virgin Soil in
studying French and got myself a textbook and some French texts. I woke up two
hours before everybody else got up, learned new words, and read in French. My first
book was a French translation of “Sherlock Holmes” which I had recently read in
English; it was of great help. I did not have a dictionary except for the small one
given at the end of the textbook. Therefore I read the same pages repeatedly, moved
forward in the text, then returned and read it again until a more or less tolerable
understanding was achieved. As a result I practically did not have unknown words.
After Conan Doyle I switched to Maupassant and mastered “Bel Ami” in a
similar way.
That linguistic activity adorned the monotonous existence at the Virgin Soil
which unexpectedly took longer than planned. Because all transportation was used
to carry grain urgently, we were kept in the steppe until the first frosts came. When
we were at last leaving, the water in the barrels began to be covered with a thin layer
of ice.
Back at the Mathmech I enrolled in a French elective class for beginners as I had
never had a teacher of French. The class instructor on the one hand was terrified by
my pronunciation and on the other was surprised by the fluency of my translation.
This situation remained in the future: I am shy to speak French but can read fluently
without a dictionary.
5.11 In My Fifth Year
All during the fifth year I enjoyed freedom and did whatever I wanted. From the
elliptic equations I moved to the parabolic ones and, relying on a certain idea of my
“elliptic” work, quickly obtained something interesting: a necessary and sufficient
condition for the validity of the maximum principle in an arbitrary Banach space.32
At that time Professor Mark Alexandrovich Krasnoselsky33 came to Leningrad
and gave a talk at Vladimir Ivanovich Smirnov’s seminar. In those years
Krasnoselsky was a recognized head of the Voronezh mathematical school.
32
I understand that even this simplified formulation may be obscure for a non-specialist, but it is
sufficient here to just indicate the result.
33
M. A. Krasnoselsky (1920–1997).
5.12 Bakelman’s Special Course 149
Photo 5.10 M. A.
Krasnoselsky (Berlin, 1995)
private collection)
S. G. Mikhlin showed Krasnoselsky my theorem and the latter told him that a
similar one had just been proved by Pavel Sobolevsky,34 his graduate student. It
was suggested that Sobolevsky and I should write an article as coauthors which was
duly carried out. The expanded version of that article became a basis of my diploma
thesis.35 And completely different things with which I constantly was busy as well
(they originated from the memorable lesson during the high school field training in
the fourth year) were left to be used in my Candidate dissertation36 on S. G.
Mikhlin’s advice.
5.12 Bakelman’s Special Course
Among other impressions of my last year at the Mathmech (1959–1960) I would

like to single out the special course offered by I. Y. Bakelman.37 It was devoted to
the geometric methods of investigating elliptic equations. He described the results
of his doctorate dissertation38 that had just been defended at the Pedagogical
34
P. E. Sobolevsky born in 1930.
35
On July 12, 1960 we submitted the article “On operators generating semigroups” to the Editorial
Board of the “Uspekhy of Mathematical Sciences”. But it was issued two and a half years later, in
November-December 1962. Meanwhile, in 1961, a similar result of Lumer-Phillips was published,
and the theorem became textbook material.
36
See Chapter “Defense at the Moscow State University”, pp. 191.
37
I. Y. Bakelman (1928–1992).
38
I. Y. Bakelman. “The First Boundary Value Problem for Nonlinear Elliptic Equations”. Doctor
of Physical and Mathematical Sciences dissertation. Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. 1959.
150 5 Mathmech Life
Photo 5.11 Article on semigroups (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)

5.12 Bakelman’s Special Course 151
Photo 5.12 P. E.
Sobolevsky (about 1967) (©
Naukova Dumka,
permission)
Photo 5.13 I. Y. Bakelman

kind permission)
Institute where he worked. Although the title of my first paper in DAN USSR39
looks similar to Bakelman’s dissertation, our results and methods have nothing to
do with each other.
Of course my theorems were new, and their proof was based on some method-
ological finds, but speaking seriously, my work was traditional. I was still in the
process of learning while trying to cope with technical difficulties. The modest
experience accumulated by me caused my interest in Bakelman’s course and
allowed me, as Mikhlin taught me, to see it in my own way.
39
DAN USSR “Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR” (Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences).
152 5 Mathmech Life
The methods invented by I. Y Bakelman turned out useful for further develop-
ment of the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations. The evaluation of a
solution of an elliptic equation with a nonzero right-hand side, independent of the
continuity moduli of the coefficients, proved to be the most important. In Russia
they call it Alexandrov’s maximum principle, and in the West – the Alexandrov–
Bakelman–Pucci maximum principle.40
Near the blackboard, I. Y. Bakelman behaved in a temperamental way, laughed
loudly, enjoying the theorems, and in general acting like a big child. In spite of the
difference in age and position we at once befriended each other. Sometimes we
returned home together after his lecture. Once he suggested that I develop the
theory of the following nonlinear equation: the sum of squares of all second order
derivatives of a solution is equal to one. Unfortunately, I was not interested. I don’t
know whether this problem attracted anyone’s attention afterwards.
Bakelman left for America in 1979, worked for 2 years at the University of
Minnesota and after that got a professor’s tenure in Texas. He died in a car accident
on August 30, 1992. In 1994, the Springer publishers issued his fundamental
monograph Convex Analysis and Nonlinear Geometric Elliptic Equations.
5.13 Job Placement
At the very beginning of my fifth year at the Mathmekh, S. G. Mikhlin and V. I.

Smirnov discussed the question of my future. The prospect of Graduate School was
more or less real, but was it possible to be given a position in the University?
Evidently it was a difficult question because of the so-called “fifth item”.41 V. I.
Smirnov willingly supported the idea and promised to help. But the task proved to
be difficult even for Academician Smirnov. He fought the system for several
months and at the end of the school year had to acknowledge defeat.
At that time, the Mathmech Research Institute at the Leningrad University was
headed by S. V. Vallander,42 a specialist in aerohydrodynamics who by the end of
the war was a flag navigator of an air regiment. He was not only a scientist but also a
strong administrator and Party official (in different years he was elected a member
of the Leningrad City Party Committee, was the dean of the Mathmech, and deputy
rector of the Leningrad University). According to S. G. Mikhlin, S. V. Vallander
admired V. I. Smirnov. So, he personally was not expected to cause any problems.
40
Carlo Pucci, Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. (4) 74, 1966, 15–30. The fact that the results of this article
were long known in the USSR was learned by Pucci from me at the International Congress of
Mathematics in Moscow in August 1966. He had time to include the corresponding note during the
proofreading.
41
Soviet citizens had internal passports where Item 5 indicated ethnicity. The phrase “someone
has a problem with the fifth item” meant the person was a Jew.
42
S. V. Vallander (1917–1975).
5.13 Job Placement 153
For many years V. I. Smirnov’s presence at the Department purified its atmo-
sphere and in general he exerted great influence in the University. In 1956, V. I.
Smirnov “pushed” M. S. Birman through and he was accepted to the Physics
Department in spite of his Jewish nationality. When fighting the university admin-
istrators Smirnov said: “Either you take Birman or I am leaving the Leningrad
University”.
No doubt in my case the difficulties emerged in the Main Building which
contained the Party Committee and the powerful deputy rector on personnel affairs
Sergey Ivanovich Katkalo, “a specialist on the Jewish question”.
I myself did not regard the Graduate School as a dramatic perspective, an
attitude unlike S. G. Michlin’s who thought about the future. He knew that after
finishing Graduate School it would be impossible for me to stay at the University.
Literally a week before the job placement procedure V. I. Smirnov, with a conspir-
atorial look, took S. G. Mikhlin and me to an empty classroom, and, chuckling, said
that everything was all right and I would be accepted. He warned me: “You would
be given a choice: Graduate School or Scientific Research Institute of Mathematics
and Mechanics at the Leningrad University (NIIMM). Don’t take it into your head
to choose the Graduate School.”
In this way I entered the NIIMM or, more exactly, became a junior researcher at
the Mathematical Physics Laboratory headed by Modest Mikhaylovich Smirnov.43
Although not a prominent mathematician, he was an exceptionally well-disposed
person. In 1968 I was transferred to the laboratory of computation methods under
S. G. Mikhlin. During all the years I stayed in the NIIMM I did whatever I wanted.
“Maz’ya works for himself” were the words with which the administration branded
me, but they were not quite correct. For many years I gave lectures to students and
supervised those working on their diploma theses. Here is an excerpt from my
character reference of that time:
In different years V. G. Maz’ya gave courses without pay. They included: a course of
mathematical physics at the Mathmech Department, courses of mathematical analysis at
the Economic and Geographic Departments of the Leningrad University, as well as various
special courses such as ‘Embedding theorems for function spaces’ and ‘Additional chapters
to the theory of elliptic equations’. Together with S. G. Mikhlin he headed the seminar of the
Chair of Mathematical Physics on the theory of general partial differential equations.
The just mentioned seminar began in early March 1967 and continued every
Tuesday on 10th Line. The first was V. A. Solonnikov’s44 talk on elliptic systems.
Other speakers included: M. A. Krasnoselsky, I. T. Gohberg, A. I. Koshelev, N. N.
Uraltseva, G. Anger, G. M. Vainikko, A. Langenbach, G. Wildenhain, L. I.
Hedberg, M. I. Freidlin, I. B. Simonenko, S. Prössdorf, N. L. Vasilevsky, G. S.
Litvinchuk, M. I. Vishik, O. A. Oleinik, and B. Silbermann. I think that not
everyone is mentioned, but do not remember those who were omitted.
43
M. M. Smirnov (1921–1990).
44
V. A. Solonnikov, born in 1933.
154 5 Mathmech Life
Photo 5.14 Siegfried

Prössdorf (in 1990)
private collection)
5.14 Siegfried
What was self-evident to the school children and University students of my young
years may require an explanation today. In the Soviet Union, our generation was
brought up in compliance with “the spirit of proletarian internationalism”. This
spirit forbade one to feel hatred based on someone’s nationality. Hatred based on
class consciousness was OK, but hatred of a nationality was a taboo. Even though
my father died in the war against the Germans, and that, as a result of that war, I lost
many of my relatives, I never had enmity against the Germans as such. Only the
fascists were guilty of all the horrors of the war.
Thus, there was nothing unnatural in the fact that in my young years Siegfried
Prössdorf45 became one of my close friends. I got acquainted with him in 1958 at
the beginning of my fourth year at the Mathmech when he enrolled in first-year
studies, though he was just 1 year younger than I.
Siegfried came from the GDR46 with a rather weak knowledge of Russian, but
soon began speaking at a normal speed and had a barely noticeable accent similar to
the Balts’ pronunciation. We did not meet too frequently when he was a junior
student but undoubtedly took a liking to each other. I learned from him that he also
had grown up without a father who died at the Eastern front in the beginning of
the war.
In 1963 Siegfried defended his diploma thesis under the guidance of S. G.
Mikhlin, after which he left for Leipzig. There he received permission to enroll in
the Leningrad University Graduate School – S. G. Mikhlin’s recommendation
enjoyed great prestige among the GDR mathematicians. Siegfried was a graduate
student for 3 years.
45
Siegfried Prössdorf (1939–1998).
46
GDR, German Democratic Republic; Deutsche Demokratische Republik in German (DDR).
5.14 Siegfried 155
As if it was yesterday I remember our first meeting at V. I. Smirnov’s seminar in

the fall of 1963. After that we began seeing each other quite regularly either at S. G.
Mikhlin’s seminar or at his home. In those years I was in close contact with S. G.
Mikhlin, who was Siegfried’s scientific advisor. The topic of his future dissertation
was going to be one-dimensional singular integral equations with degenerating
symbol, and I was interested in a similar subject matter but with respect to the
fundamentally different multidimensional case. As a result, Siegfried and I had a
mathematical theme to discuss.
The life in the dormitory on Detskaya Street where he spent 7 years was not very
comfortable, to say nothing of the irregular diet in the canteen. The latter factor
might have been the cause of Siegfried’s ulcer for which he was operated in
Leningrad. After surgery he was nursed into recuperation by his wife Roswitha
who was a student of a Leningrad medical institute at that time. Because the
surgeons removed half of his stomach he never felt healthy afterwards. Neverthe-
less it was impossible to suspect this problem when looking at him. An elegant and
handsome man, he looked the same the whole of his life.
After he defended his Candidate dissertation he returned home and our encoun-
ters became infrequent. We only saw each other when he and Roswitha came to
Leningrad. As for me, I was not allowed to go abroad on business trips while I
worked at the University. But private visits to the “People’s Democracies”47 were
restricted less drastically. So, when the Prössdorfs invited me and my wife Tatiana
to pay them a visit we were let out. We spent 2 weeks in the GDR giving talks in
Berlin and other cities, which was forbidden to do for those travelling on a private
visit. In the good old days before the Internet, information on our criminal activity
did not filter into Leningrad and we got away with it.
We took delight in the trip. In addition to the museums and places of interest the
life in the GDR seemed to us flourishing and liberal unlike under Brezhnev in the
Soviet Union. They had (who could imagine!) a multiparty system; their stores,
both selling food and manufactured goods could not be compared to ours with their
near-empty shelves. Among the stores and workshops we even saw privately owned
ones where they started to serve you the moment you opened the door and treated
you as their good friends. In one of the little shoe shops they selected soft shoes for
me produced by the firm “Salamander” which saved me for several years from the
pain in a deformed joint of a toe that I inherited from my mother. To put it shortly,
we felt we had found a paradise. By the way our Deutsch grew by leaps and bounds,
especially Tatiana’s.
On July 27, their wedding anniversary, Siegfried, in his new blue Citroen, took
Roswitha, Tatiana, and me to the town of Caputh 6 km from Potsdam.48 He wanted
to show us Einstein’s summer house where the great physicist spent a lot of time in
1929–1932. Unfortunately the gate was closed and had a notice “Astrophysical
Laboratory”. The owner of a neighboring cottage (we soon found out that he
47
Officially accepted shortened name for Soviet satellite countries.
48
Potsdam, a city 20 km south-west of Berlin.
156 5 Mathmech Life
possessed an electric goods shop in Magdeburg) having noted the four of us on the
street invited us to his garden where he, lying naked in the swimming pool, treated
us to some wine. Later, as we forgot the name of that bon vivant, Siegfried called
him “Zweistein”. On that day we descended to the lake and swam; then rented a
boat, and, caught in the downpour with thunder and lightning, got drenched to the
skin and moored to a tiny restaurant. There, the ladies warmed themselves with
Cognac, but Siegfried and I abstained. He – as the driver, and I – out of solidarity.
On our way to Potsdam we saw perennial trees blown down by gusty winds. We
were lucky to have found shelter.
We had other meetings: in the USSR, Germany, and Sweden. For example, we
went together to Schwarzwald and Bodensee in June, 1997, and discussed plans of
joint research work.
For the last time we saw each other in February 1998 in Darmstadt at a
conference dedicated to our mutual friend Erhard Meister.49 On our way back,
driving in a car, we noticed a stork’s nest in tree branches, a sign that brings
happiness according to a German popular belief. But, alas, the belief did not
come true. Soon Siegfried was killed by cancer. He died on July 19, 1998 before
he was 60.
Prössdorf was a warm and very kind person. My Italian friend, the mathemati-
cian Paolo Emilio Ricci, once in talking to me called him “a real gentleman”. This
characteristic, sounding unusual for a Soviet citizen, suited Siegfried perfectly.
I do not intend to describe his life and work.50 But I would like to mention that in
1980 for his mathematical research Prössdorf was awarded the GDR National Prize.
In Berlin he headed a laboratory at the Mathematical Institute of the GDR Academy
of Sciences.
At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s he used his influence to help
publish my articles and books in the GDR when it became difficult to do it in the
USSR. For example thanks to him the Leipzig publishing house Teubner Verlag
printed a three book issue in German of my first version of “Sobolev Spaces”, which
had been declined by the Soviet “Nauka” publishers with no explanations.51
49
Erhard Meister (1930–2001).
50
See Problems and Methods in Mathematical Physics. The Siegfried Prössdorf Memorial Vol-
ume, Editors: J. Elschner, I. Gohberg, B. Silbermann, Birkhäuser 2001.
51
This book was published by LSU as late as 1985, and simultaneously, without the Soviet
authorities’ permission it was issued by Springer-Verlag International Publishers..
Chapter 6
Dissertations and the Years After
6.1 Steel Sheets and YMS
By the fall of 1961 the results of my Candidate dissertation were obtained. The next
steps were: to print it, insert formulas into several copies, add binding, and what
was the most important and necessary – pass qualifying exams for the Candidate’s
degree: in one’s specialty, a foreign language, and philosophy. Passing the math-
ematics exam was no problem: S. G. Mikhlin gave me an “A” without asking any
questions. That was the wondrous time (which was nearing its end) when a
professor had the right to decide how he would conduct an exam, without bureau-
cratic supervision.
The English exam did not bother me at all, but philosophy was another matter.
There was no chance to wiggle out of it, so I was registered to take the exam at the
very beginning of the school year.
Suddenly a misfortune struck: in the beginning of September, the Department
bosses decided to send me together with other NIIMM Komsomol members to work
in the potato fields.1 Because these prospects were extremely unwelcome I went to
see A. A. Nikitin,2 the Party organizer of the Department or maybe NIIMM, and
said that I could not go to the collective farm because of the philosophy exam. He
answered: “If you cannot go to the farm – work in the city,” and charged me to carry
steel sheets along one of the stairs leading to the Mathmech backyard. The sheets
were brought on a truck and dumped in the yard. My task was to take them up to the
fifth floor and stack them in the attic. Exhausting myself I worked like that for a few
days and, having completed the task, was given freedom.
A. A. Nikitin, with his arm in a sling because of a wound he received at the front,
the leather cap he wore in those years, and his entire bearing, looked like a devoted
Bolshevik proletarian of the 1917 Communist October Revolution epoch. Judging
1
Students were often sent to work in agriculture to help the peasants in harvesting crops.
2
Professor A. A. Nikitin (1918–2003).

158 6 Dissertations and the Years After
by his comments it was clear that he, as the chairman of a Party Committee, trained
me, a shirker, to engage in manual labor.
After approximately a year, when I had already defended my Candidate disser-
tation, A. A. Nikitin appointed me the voluntary director of the YMS (Young
Mathematicians’ School).3 I agreed and worked in that post until the beginning of
the 1963–1964 school year.
Here, it is proper time to recall that under Khrushchev there was a propaganda
campaign of singing praises to “Its Majesty Working Class” and of humiliating the
“intelligentsia”. In particular they waged war against the self-reproduction of that
“rotten” stratum. Inasmuch as it was impossible to do without it completely, it was
necessary to restrict its contingent mainly to the intellectuals of the first generation.
Thus, before the next YMS admission process Nikitin4 charged me with collecting
data on the social background of the applicants, so that mainly the offspring of
workers and peasants would be accepted.
The admission was widely advertised, even over the radio, and about 300 people
came to take the exam. The questionnaires were filled out, but afterwards, without
paying any attention to them, I fully disregarded the Party policy. The thing is that
YMS exams were practically a formality – I took on everyone who solved at least
something.5
But the subversive director (V. Maz’ya) did not get away with it. Having
familiarized himself with the admission statistics A. A. Nikitin summoned me
and explained that the October Revolution had been carried out exclusively in the
interests of the working class and laboring peasantry, and sadly concluded that due
to my lack of understanding of this truth he is compelled to dismiss me. I had to turn
over my business to a successor.
6.2 Possibility and Reality
As for social sciences I kept getting my “A” grades when I was a student, but at the
same time my attitude to all that talking shop was a dreary hatred. To interrupt the
delightful feelings I had when solving mathematical problems just because of an
exam in philosophy was a torture. That is why I prepared poorly, and, in spite of a
fortunate exam question card, I failed and solely because of my own foolishness.
I think it is my duty to relate the whole story for future generations’ education.
First, the reader should learn the official perfect answer to the question about the
3
YMS, unified mathematical circles at the Mathmech for senior high school students.
4
There was a rumor that in 1968 A. A. Nikitin wrote a letter to Party authorities expressing his
disagreement with the invasion of Czechoslovakia carried out by Soviet military forces in August
1968. As a result he was nearly expelled from the Party and fell into disgrace.
5
Experience had shown that the natural dropout of those who entered the YMS happened after the
very first classes.
6.3 Defense at the Moscow State University 159
correlation between possibility and reality which was the one I got. Please don’t
think that I reproduce that answer from memory – I simply found this excerpt from
a Philosophic Dictionary on the Internet:
‘Possibility’ and ‘Reality’ are categories which reflect the development of the material
world. The ‘Possibility’ category determines the objective tendency of the development of
existing phenomena, the presence of conditions for their emergence or, as a minimum, the
absence of circumstances preventing this emergence. The category of ‘Reality’ concerns
various things (object, status or situation) which already exists as a realization of a certain
‘Possibility’. The change of ‘Possibility’ into ‘Reality’ is based on a causal link between
objects of the material world. They distinguish a real and an abstract ‘Possibility’. The
abstract (or formal) ‘Possibility’ reflects the absence of some conditions which give rise to a
certain phenomenon, but at the same time also the absence of conditions preventing its
emergence. This notion also designates a weakly expressed tendency in the development of
a phenomenon. The real ‘Possibility’ implies the presence of a sequence of necessary
conditions for the realization of this phenomenon (changing into ‘Reality’). The abstract
‘Possibility’ may become real or the other way around in certain circumstances.
What you have just read was a part of the stock of knowledge more or less
familiar to me, and I rattled it off to the philosophy Professor S. G. Shlyakhtenko,6 a
bright and well-wishing person I must say. He was blinded at the front during the
war. S. G. Shlyakhtenko was evidently satisfied by my answer and asked me a very
natural additional question (at least one such question was included in the game
rules). He just asked me to give an example of “abstract possibility”. “Because I
have answered the main question completely, the ‘Possibility’ of your giving me a
“D” grade is abstract,” I said, and even before ending this utterance, but unable to
stop, I understood that a terribly foolish thing was being done and that it was a
failure. Shlyakhtenko grinned. “Well,” he said, “let’s take a look at how you have
mastered the basics”, and asked me to give definitions of some philosophic princi-
ples. Naturally I began to flounder. When he understood the infinitesimal amount of
my knowledge he gave me a “D” and added ironically: “Here is an example for you
of an abstract possibility turning to a real one.” Being a humane person and having
learned of the approaching time of my dissertation defense he allowed me to take
the exam again and then, without any additional preparation, I earned a “C” –
“Satisfactory” which satisfied me too. Afterwards, during the defense, no one was
interested in the grade for philosophy. The minimum Candidate examination
requirement was fulfilled – that was OK!
6.3 Defense at the Moscow State University
I had no right to defend my Candidate dissertation at the Leningrad University

because at that time there was a campaign against string-pulling and they forbade
defending one’s dissertation at the alma mater Scientific Council. It was no problem
6
Professor S. G. Shlyakhtenko (1925–1999), a specialist in ontology and gnoseology.
to me. According to S. G. Mikhlin’s advice I submitted my work to the Moscow

State University (MSU).
The defense took place on April 6, 1962 in Auditorium 14–08. It began at half
past three presided over by Academician P. S. Alexandrov.7 My opponents were
O. A. Oleinik8 and V. A. Kondratiev,9 and the comments of the “parent enterprise”
were signed by M. A. Krasnoselsky and S. G. Krein. All four of them proposed that
I should be awarded the Doctor’s degree.10 One of the visitors at the defense was
S. G. Mikhlin who spoke in my favor. The Council voted unanimously for confer-
ring on me the Candidate degree, then voted again to recognize my work as an
outstanding one (in those days such conclusions sometimes happened, but they
were never reflected in any documents). Another vote – for the Doctor’s degree –
had to take place, but they did not have time to do it. At 4 o’clock some Council
members had to deliver lectures, and it turned out that there was a lack of quorum
for the third vote. Another voting day was assigned, exactly 2 weeks later. Before
returning to Leningrad S. G. Mikhlin asked G. E. Shilov11 to see to it that
everything would go swimmingly.
At the appointed time I came to the MSU Mechmath (Mechanical and Mathe-
matical Department) and modestly found myself a nook in the back row of the
auditorium for the sessions of the Scientific Council. A simple vote did not work
because among the Council members there appeared those who had not been
present at the previous session. Discussion began. They asked G. E. Shilov to
voice his opinion as a specialist, but he, while complimenting the dissertation,
could not explain its contents as he had never seen it. I waited for an invitation to
come to the blackboard, but that did not happen. Then they distributed the ballots
and I got two votes short of the necessary number. Right after the voting results
were announced I came up to G. E. Shilov and he clutched his head saying: “Why
didn’t you tell anyone you were here? You could explain your work yourself!”
But as the saying goes “the train has left” and, on April 12, 1962, I returned to
Leningrad empty-handed, but not too upset. And two days later my daughter
Galya12 was born.
Seeing me at the Department A. A. Nikitin said without beating about the bush:
“If you had been given your Doctor’s degree right away we could have helped you
to receive a new apartment, but now we can’t.” The housing problem at that time
and somewhat later stood its gigantic full height.
7
P. S. Alexandrov (1896–1982).
8
O. A. Oleinik (1925–2001).
9
V. A. Kondratiev (1935–2010).
10
It was extremely unusual. A Doctor’s degree instead of Candidate’s was given to A. A. Kirillov
only, also in 1962, but the rising stars of those years, Y.I. Manin, V. I. Arnold, and S. P. Novikov
defended two dissertations.
11
G. E. Shilov (1917–1975).
12
I mentioned her name in the Chapter “Poetry”.
6.3 Defense at the Moscow State University 161
Photo 6.1 G. E Shilov

kind permission)
Photo 6.2 O. A. Oleinik

kind permission)
Well, it looks like I have told the readers everything about the defense of my
Candidate dissertation. Wait a minute. . . I forgot a trifle. What was that dissertation
about? And why did it cause the events described above? I’ll try to explain now.
The work was entitled: “Classes of domains and embedding theorems for
function spaces”. For a specialist, its gist can be expressed in one phrase: “Sobolev
inequalities for functions given on a domain are equivalent to isoperimetric or
isocapacitary inequalities for arbitrary subsets of this domain.” Being gibberish for
a non-specialist, the above formulation seemed tautological to most of my acquain-
tances in mathematical physics too. When I demonstrated the effectiveness of my
conditions on concrete domains with irregular boundaries they told me that, in
applications of mathematics, this exotic stuff is not encountered. Once S. G.
Mikhlin said: “Volodya, your examples are interesting, but no mother would let
her child walk in such ravines.”
Photo 6.3 P. S.
Alexandrov (about 1967)
(© Naukova Dumka,
permission)
Photo 6.4 S. G. Krein

kind permission)
However, in the same year of 1962 for my work on embedding theorems I

received a newly established prize of the Leningrad Mathematical Society called
“To the young mathematician”. In that contest I was lucky to outrun Osya
Romanovsky13 by one vote.
13
I. V. Romanovsky, born in 1935, at present a Professor of the Mathmech.
6.4 Defense at the Leningrad University 163
Photo 6.5 V. A.
Kondratiev (about 1967) (©
Naukova Dumka,
permission)
6.4 Defense at the Leningrad University
I decided that I should urgently defend a Doctor’s degree dissertation and did it on
October 28, 1965. As a result, my failure to become a Doctor of Sciences in 1962
even helped me, because a stimulus was created to write a new big work quickly. In
that period I understood the universal role the capacity of a set played in the theory
of elliptic equations, and concrete results poured down as if from a cornucopia. The
title of the dissertation was: “The Dirichlet and Neumann problems in domains with
irregular boundaries”.
This time the ban to defend my dissertation at the Leningrad University did not
exist and I had to go no farther than the 10th Line of Vasilyevsky Island. The dean,
S. V. Vallander presided over the Scientific Council session. My opponents were
O. A. Ladyzhenskaya, M. S. Birman, and V. P. Ilyin,14 the “parent enterprise”
comment was written by L. N. Slobodetsky15 and a supporting letter of E. M.
Landis16 came from the MSU. I am going to quote V. I. Smirnov’s speech
according to the shorthand record of the defense:
In order to emphasize the significance of the work I would like to refer to the history of the
theme.
The studies into the solvability of the Dirichlet and Neumann problems have continued
for more than one and a half centuries. This issue became classical long ago. Here in Russia
it was studied in particular by A. M. Lyapunov, V. A. Steklov, and N. M. Günter who
widely developed the methods of the potential theory to achieve that goal. In general the
subject matter chosen by the author of the dissertation continues the traditions of the
St. Petersburg University.
14
V. P. Ilyin (1921–2001).
15
L. N. Slobodetsky (1914–1974).
16
E. M. Landis (1921–1997).
Photo 6.6 O. A.
Ladyzhenskaya (about
1967) (© Naukova Dumka,
permission)
Photo 6.7 M. S. Birman

kind permission)
By the way, already four years after Steklov gave us his lecture course in mathematical
physics where these questions were examined, N. Wiener, using other methods, found a full
solution for the problem of regularity of a boundary point using the notion of capacity.
Today I reread Lyapunov’s comments on Steklov’s dissertation. By that time the two
main directions in the studies of boundary value problems had already been developed.
This is the so-called “Methode de balayage” of H. Poincaré and the theory of the single and
double layer potentials. Naturally, in those days the methods of functional analysis had not
yet been developed.
In his comments Lyapunov emphasizes that although Poincaré’s method creates a
possibility to solve the Dirichlet problem practically for any domain, it does not provide
an explicit analytic expression for the solution (at that time, as is known, mathematicians
tried to achieve not only the existence theorem but also to build an explicit algorithm).
The study of domains attracted close attention and was considered exceedingly difficult.
This is exactly the reason why the dissertation under discussion is, one can say, close to the
6.4 Defense at the Leningrad University 165
Photo 6.8 V. P. Ilyin

kind permission)
Photo 6.9 L. N.
Slobodetsky (about 1967)
(© Naukova Dumka,
permission)
classical works in a certain sense. On the basis of modern methods, Vladimir Gilelevich
Maz’ya has been able to achieve a solution of a number of classical problems.
By all means I salute this work as it crowns those efforts which were made in earlier
times, and provides a final result to a number of problems.
Here is the summary of the voting: “ays” – 23, “nays” – none, “invalid” – 2.
Photo 6.10 E. M. Landis

kind permission)
Photo 6.11 V. I. Smirnov

private collection)
6.5 About V. I. Smirnov
After the defense of my dissertation the stenographer invited me to her place to

check the text prepared by her. I did that on the appointed day. She turned out to be
a cousin of V. I. Smirnov. I was offered a cup of tea and she told me about him. I
learned that he was one of the ten children of a Russian Orthodox priest, that from
early childhood he distinguished himself by his good conduct, and that the Reds
hacked his wife to pieces in 1918 near Odessa while he was in St. Petersburg.
Before the war V. I. Smirnov was a member of the “Church Twenty”. All his life he
helped people, and that included donating money.
6.6 An Order: Scatter the Composed Type 167
At my home, in the study, I have a lithographic portrait of V. I. Smirnov made in

1961 and signed by G. S. Vereisky.17 In the portrait you can see Smirnov’s kind
half-smile which reminds me of another man with as great a soul – Alexander
Men.18
Several times I had the good fortune of visiting V. I. Smirnov’s home on the
Petrograd Side and his summer cottage in Komarovo.19 Each time I left him with
the feeling of lucidity. I don’t want to sound grandiloquent, but lucidity is exactly
the word that described my condition. So marvelous was that man.
6.6 An Order: Scatter the Composed Type
It was on business that I visited V. I. Smirnov’s place. An example of such business

was the preparation of a review article devoted to “Mathematics in the USSR,
1958–1967” that was in the works at that time. That publication was going to be a
continuation of the afore-mentioned “40 Years of Mathematics in the USSR”. V. I.
Smirnov was responsible for the enormous topic “Partial Differential Equations”. It
was not only his own research that he had to describe. He also had to include the
materials from the Leningraders, Muscovites and colleagues from other cities.
Several participants of his seminar enthusiastically helped him, and I was among
them. At last V. I. Smirnov’s article was ready and was brought to Moscow together
with review articles by other highly respected people active in mathematics. Soon
we found out that the review articles were already in the composed type form, but
after that a barbarous event happened which was a good illustration of the saying
“fish stinks at the head”.
Some influential mathematicians who were members of the Academy were
displeased with the way the picture of mathematics in the Soviet Union was
presented in the articles. It seemed to them different from what they wanted to
see. So, they ordered the composed type to be scattered, an action that was carried
out. The volumes with review articles were not issued by the Moscow publishing
house “Nauka” (Science) and the two-volume bibliography on Soviet mathematics
in 1958–1967 published by the “Nauka” without the review articles suggested that
this unique work had been destroyed.
That was exactly what I thought until the four volume “History of Mathematics
of Homeland” fell into my hands. It was issued in 1968 by the Ukrainian publishing
house “Naukova Dumka” (The Scientific Thought). The review articles (with an
17
G. S. Vereisky (1886–1962), a famous graphic artist and painter.
18
A. V. Men (1935–1990), a Russian Orthodox priest, an outstanding theologian and preacher who
was brutally killed. I only had a short conversation with him in 1978, but I will never forget
his eyes.
19
Komarovo is a municipal settlement in Kurortny (Health Resort) District of the federal city of
St. Petersburg, Russia, located on the Karelian Isthmus on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. Many
scientists had their summer cottages there.
Photo 6.12 V. I. Smirnov.

Autolithography by Georgy
Vereisky (© Vladimir
incomplete bibliography but with mathematicians’ photographs) were printed in the

last two volumes; a part of the article by V. I. Smirnov, in particular, can be found in
the first book of the fourth volume. I do not know in what way the manuscripts
intended for Moscow turned up in Kiev, but, anyway, it was a happy ending. Now,
turning over the pages of those old review articles I look with sadness at the young
faces of my contemporaries. “Some are no more, dispersed the others”.20
6.7 About the “Big Seminar”
I mentioned a couple of times V. I. Smirnov’s seminar at the Mathmech, that is the

Leningrad Seminar in Mathematical Physics which was held regularly on Wednes-
days at 6 pm on the second floor in auditorium 72. Here I will say a few words about
“Big Seminar” as we called it in the years of my youth.
Vladimir Ivanovich Smirnov, who contributed significantly to complex function
theory, the theory of wave propagation, and also authored a comprehensive five
volume text A Course in Higher Mathematics,21 possessed a huge erudition in the
theory of differential equations and its applications to Mechanics and Physics, and
ran the chairs of Mathematical Physics both at the Mathmech and Physics
20
From A. S. Pushkin’s novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” (Chap. 8, Stanza 51), translated by Walter
Arndt.
21
Pergamon Press, Reading Mass., 1964.
6.7 About the “Big Seminar” 169
Photo 6.13 At the “Big

Seminar” (© Vladimir
Departments. All this explains his role as the head of the seminar I am talking about.
Professors Mikhlin and Ladyzhenskaya helped him with the program.
All the Leningraders interested in partial differential and integral equations
gathered at the Seminar systematically and guests from other Soviet cities and
sometimes foreigners spoke about their achievements. At the first meeting in the
beginning of every semester, themes of certain papers published recently in the
USSR and abroad were distributed among younger participants as topics of their
forthcoming talks. No one refused because this task was considered an honor for a
beginner.
Starting from my fourth year at the Department I usually did not miss the
Seminar and in 1959 I spoke there twice on my own work. Together with the
names of Smirnov, Mikhlin and Ladyzhenskaya the list of permanent participants
of the Seminar who were older than I included V.M. Babich, M.S. Birman,
E.B. Bykhovsky, D.M. Eidus, N.K. Golovkin, A.I. Koshelev, N.F. Morozov,
A.P. Oskolkov, L.N. Slobodetsky, H.L. Smolitsky, M.Z. Solomyak,
V.A. Solonnikov, and N.N. Uraltseva. That was a major part of the Leningrad
school of mathematical physics in the late 1950s – early 1960s.
The three organizers of the Seminar sat in the front row, before the blackboard.
Other people just mentioned occupied the second and third rows. The back rows
were for assistant professors, junior researchers, as well as graduate and undergrad-
uate students. In a way, places in the room corresponded to positions in the
mathematical hierarchy.
I confess that as a rule my understanding of the Seminar talks was rather vague.
The combination of my a priori ignorance and poor presentation of the speakers was
a reason. Naturally, interrupting a lecturer with remarks and queries was a privilege
of the elite, so that I had to keep my questions to myself. Besides, as “a small fish”, I
was sitting in the back of the room and could not see clearly what appeared on the
blackboard. (At that time, unlike the first D class in 1945, no change of my
“geographic” position was admissible.) However these drawbacks did not prevent
the Seminar to enlarge my horizons.
Photo 6.14 S. M. Nikolsky

kind permission)
6.8 After the Defense of the Doctor’s Degree Dissertation
I return to my Doctor of Sciences dissertation. Its fate turned out to be fortunate.

They did not send it to the “black” opponent at HAC22 and it was approved almost
immediately: April 16, 1966. I was informed of that decision by Academician S. M.
Nikolsky23 in a personal letter. Why did he do it? Perhaps he wanted to thank me: a
short time before that I helped one of his graduate students with mathematical
advice.
That year 1966 happened to be quite interesting to me from the point of view of
my profession as there were two conferences. On May 26 the Symposium on
Embedding Theorems started in Baku, and at the end of August I gave a brief
talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Moscow.
The embedding theorems state that certain spaces of differentiable functions are
parts of other function spaces. They were first proved by S. L. Sobolev in the 1930s
and since that time they have been developed in different directions turning into a
vast area of mathematical analysis. Because my Candidate dissertation was directly
related to that area, I was invited to the Symposium. The Baku people organized
that event with oriental hospitality. I remember, for example, that we spent a couple
of days at the health resort “Bilga” on the Caspian sea shore lying in the sun and
swimming. After my report I was introduced to S. L. Sobolev and S. M. Nikolsky.24
I note that in the future from time to time my work was connected with S. L.
Sobolev’s research. During the 1930s, when he was quite young, he was phenom-
enally productive. In particular, it is not generally known that simultaneously with
22
HAC “High Attestation Commission”, officially awards scientific degrees.
23
S. M. Nikolsky (1905–2012).
24
In 1987, S. M. Nikolsky recommended that I be elected full member of the USSR Academy of
Sciences. S. L. Sobolev supported this proposal. However I got only eight positive votes.
6.8 After the Defense of the Doctor’s Degree Dissertation 171
Photo 6.15 Letter by S. M.

Nikolsky. (Esteemed
Vladimir Gilelevich: I
would like to congratulate
you on the confirmation of
Doctor of Physical and
Mathematical Sciences
degree conferred to you. My
sincere regards,
S. Nikolsky) (© Vladimir
embedding theorems, in 1935 he was the first to introduce distributions (generalized

functions) and applied them to the Cauchy problem for hyperbolic equations. He
had a brilliant career, becoming the youngest member of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences as early as in 1939.
When I got better acquainted with Sobolev and visited him in his Moscow
apartment at Academician Petrovsky Street, he happened to be rather open with
me. I remember he once said with regret that his postwar involvement in the Soviet
nuclear program had drastically hindered his research in mathematics. He was
traumatized by the fact that his priority in distributions and the theory of embedding
of function spaces was not acknowledged in the West. “The French do not recog-
nize me” – he complained.
Now I turn to the ICM (International Congress of Mathematicians) 1966 in
Moscow. There was a crowd, countless numbers of unfamiliar faces, participants
sitting on the stairs of the MSU. I remember I translated into English and into
Russian the conversation between M. S. Birman and K. Friedrichs,25 I remember
A. Douady26 barefoot and wearing torn jeans, my talk with Carlo Pucci mentioned
above about the Bakelman-Alexandrov maximum principle, and the beginning of
friendship with the mathematician Hans Weinberger which continues now too.
Those were fine summer days. I was full of optimism and at the age of 28 years I
had already become a Doctor of Sciences. I believed that every theorem proved by
me would not be the last.
Additionally, at the beginning of the next year I was given a two-room apartment
in the Grazhdanka district in answer to the letter of three Leningrad academicians
V. I. Smirnov, Y. V. Linnik,27 and V. V. Novozhilov28 sent to G. I. Popov, the
Secretary of the Leningrad City Party Committee. The initiator of that letter was
V. I. Smirnov.
25
Kurt Otto Friedrichs (1901–1982).
26
Adrien Douady (1935–2006).
27
Y. V. Linnik (1914–1972).
28
V. V. Novozhilov (1910–1987).
Photo 6.16 S. L. Sobolev’s distributions of 1935 (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)

6.8 After the Defense of the Doctor’s Degree Dissertation 173
Photo 6.17 S. L. Sobolev’s first paper on embedding theorems (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private
collection)
Photo 6.18 At the

“Akademgorodok” with
S. L. Sobolev. Beginning of
the 1970s (© Vladimir
In the 1970s G. P. Samosyuk,29 an active administrator but no scientist, tried to

make me “useful”. It did not occur to him that there was some use in what I did
without his interference. Once he offered me the position of head of a chair at the
Kaliningrad University which was under the sponsorship of the Leningrad Univer-
sity. That would mean to me isolation and loss of time. To his displeasure I refused.
On another occasion he summoned me and recommended that I take up machine
translation in G. S. Tseitin’s laboratory. Fortunately that attempt of the Adminis-
tration to place me failed thanks to V. I. Smirnov. Having learned about
Samosyuk’s initiative he said: “I know of some cases when a young man sharply
changed the direction of his research work not by his own motivation. Such an
action never resulted in anything good.” In 1965 Samosyuk made another attempt at
my “utilization”, attaching me to the work of the machine image recognition at the
laboratory of professor V. A. Yakubovich.30 For a certain period of time I honestly
worked on this subject and even received a non-trivial result: an estimate of the size
of the receptive field on retina sufficient to guarantee the possibility of
recognition.31
The good intentions of the Mathmech authorities aimed at compelling me to
work on concrete applied mathematics were close to destroying my theoretical
work, but after all, V. I. Smirnov, of blessed memory, interfered and they left me
alone.
29
G. P. Samosyuk, Director of the Computation Center LSU from 1961 to 1979., Director of
NIIMM LSU from 1963 to 1981.
30
V. A. Yakubovich (1926–2012).
31
“On Some General Principles of Building Self-learning Recognition Systems”. In Collection of
Papers “Self-Learning Automatic Systems”, M., 1966, 9–20.
6.9 One Hour Late, Lose the Whole Year 175
Photo 6.19 G. P.
Samosyuk (© Vladimir
Photo 6.20 My photo after

the Congress in Moscow (©
collection)
6.9 One Hour Late, Lose the Whole Year32
I was quite on time with my Doctor’s dissertation. After a short while Jewish
dissertation authors began to be failed in Scientific Council sessions and the HAC
or, at best, their attestation was delayed for years. After the Six Day War33 and
rupture of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Israel in 1967, the half-
concealed anti-Semitism among the Soviet mathematics community became
explicit. The argument “we should not prepare scientific personnel for Israel”
32
A Russian proverb.
33
The third war between Israel and Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq) lasting from
June 5 to 10 of June 1967.
enriched the habitual unofficial principle: “Jews should not be fired, nor hired or
promoted.”
6.10 A Similar Topic
In those years the American Mathematical Society had just started regular trans-
lations of Soviet journals into English. (The “Doklady” of the USSR Academy of
Sciences were translated in 1959 and “Izvestia” of the USSR Academy of Sciences
– in 1964).34 The fact that the Americans paid royalties to the authors resulted at the
end of the 1960s in an interesting phenomenon. The mathematicians having the fifth
Item35 were not given an easy access to the “good” journals, that is those which
were translated in the USA. Later even the “clean” (without the fifth Item) scientists
who did not belong to the academic mafia were in the same difficult position. One of
the reasons for the stir: the Americans paid authors for their translations with hard
currency. That money was exchanged for certificates (coupons) for which one could
get goods at special stores. Thus, the articles printed in the “Mathematical Sbornik”
or “Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences” increased the well-being of the
authors, and, as a result, access to the feeding trough was limited. Another reason
for the discrimination was reluctance to popularize Jewish mathematicians abroad.
6.11 Non-Travels to Foreign Countries
“Now he would start complaining,” the experienced reader may think, “So what! In
those years many people were not allowed to travel abroad.”
I agree with the latter words. In the West they even used the term “the Russian
hour” which denoted a break between talks in Conferences because unexpectedly
the Soviet speaker was not allowed to go abroad. Many people were in a worse
situation than I, but I am writing about myself only. Some individuals from the
Mathmech and LOMI went abroad even without any invitation. In my case, when
repeatedly and after months of uncertainty I was not allowed to go outside of the
Soviet Union even when the trip was to be paid by the inviting side, I was filled with
disgust.
Let the thick pile of discarded invitations collect dust in my archive, I will not
tire the reader enumerating them. But with regard to a couple of forbidden trips I’ll
34
Unfortunately, Volume 28 of “Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences” of 1964 with my
article “On the Theory of the Multidimensional Schrödinger Operator” happened to be among the
last untranslated ones, and for many years was unknown to foreign specialists on the spectral
operator theory.
35
See Footnote 41 in Chap. 6.
6.11 Non-Travels to Foreign Countries 177
cry on my reader’s shoulder. They were the very first ones and, because of that,
especially painful.
Jena. For the first time in my life I prepared myself to go abroad in the summer
of 1963 when I received an invitation from the GDR to give a course of lectures in
the Jena University. There were no objections on the part of the Mathmech
administration. I collected the necessary documents and, in particular, submitted:
Work plan of junior researcher of the Scientific Research Institute for Mathematics and
Mechanics under A. A. Zhdanov Leningrad State University Maz’ya, Vladimir Gilelevich
during his business trip to the city of Jena
1. Getting information on the educational process at the Jena University.
2. Familiarization with research in mathematical physics and functional analysis at the
Jena University.
3. Participation in the seminars on mathematical physics at the Jena University.
4. Delivering lectures in the course of “Partial Differential Equations” or in the course
“Bounded and Unbounded Operators in Hilbert Space” (with the concurrence of the
University of Jena administration).
Next follow the plans of the two special courses mentioned above.
My mother and all of my friends knew that I was going to travel to the GDR! I
had just to wait a little, and I was waiting. The school year began. I continued
waiting. When the New Year came I stopped waiting. Then, unexpectedly, I was
approached by B. M. Makarov.36 He drew me aside and said: “Vladimir, I recently
gave lectures at Jena. They had been waiting for your arrival and were disappointed
because I came instead of you. But I did not know anything in advance of your
invitation. Please forgive me.”
The thing is that I was asked to visit Jena because the people at the German
university were interested in my work on potential theory and wanted to cooperate
with me. Lecturing to the students would have allowed payment for the trip.
Naturally Boris Makarov was not guilty of anything. As to those who arranged
the dishonest substitution, was it possible to expect their apology?
Minneapolis. I mentioned the name of Hans Weinberger when describing the
International Congress of Mathematicians at Moscow in 1966. At that time, simul-
taneously and independently of each other, we began applying similar research
methods to elliptic equations and followed each other’s works. We met in Moscow,
but in the bustling atmosphere of the Congress it was impossible to discuss
mathematical themes seriously. So, Hans asked me: “How should I formulate an
invitation in such a way that you would be allowed to visit the States?” I answered
that I did not stand a good chance, but things could be facilitated if the request to
allow my trip were sent directly to the rector. In approximately a year I received a
copy of the following letter from America:
University of Minnesota
Institute of Technology
School of Mathematics
36
B. M. Makarov, born in 1932, professor of the Mathmech, LSU.
Minnesota 55455
September 8, 1967
To: Professor K. Y. Kondratiev,

Rector of the Leningrad State University,
Leningrad, USSR.
Dear Professor Kondratiev,
The goal of this letter is to ask you to allow V. G. Maz’ya, Professor of the Leningrad
University Mathematical Institute, to visit the Mathematical Department of the University
of Minnesota during the winter quarter of 1969, approximately from January 1 till March
15, 1969.
We intend to pay Professor Maz’ya a fee of $ 4000 for the period of his stay which
includes his travel expenses. We expect Professor Maz’ya to give one course and to take
part in our seminar on partial differential equations.
Many of my colleagues including Professors Serrin, Littman, Meyers, Fife, Jenkins,
Fabes, Nitsche, Rivière, and I too are deeply interested in partial differential equations and
variational calculus. That is why Professor Maz’ya’s visit can be quite useful for us and for
him, and, consequently for your and our universities.
So, I would be really grateful for a positive answer to this request about a permission for
Professor Maz’ya’s visit. If it is not completely within your control to make Professor
Maz’ya’s visit possible I would be very appreciative if you could inform me what other
letters and documents may be necessary.
Respectfully yours
Hans Weinberger,
Head of the Department of Mathematics.
Now I waited for the rector’s reaction. Time went by, but nothing happened.
Weinberger sent me another letter in which he informed me that Kondratiev37 did not
answer him. “I assume he is still Rector” Weinberger wrote. Then I showed his letters
to Vallander, our dean. “Is it really so necessary for you to go to America?” he asked.
6.12 Counterexamples to a Hilbert Problem
It was May 1967. A scheduled session of Vladimir Ivanovich Smirnov’s seminar

came to an end. As always in such cases when I gave a talk I was covered with chalk
dust and was in the process of wiping remnants of my formulas off the blackboard
with a piece of cloth. At that time V. M. Babich came up to me: “Are you in a
hurry?” he asked. I did not have any urgent matter anywhere and we stayed in the
auditorium alone. Then he spoke straight from the shoulder: “It was an interesting
talk, but I noticed that you take on problems about which you know in advance that
you will be able to solve them.”
This point of view did not please me. I hemmed indistinctly, and, with presence
of mind, got ready for the worst.
37
K. Y. Kondratiev (1920–2006), LSU rector from 1964 to 1970.
6.12 Counterexamples to a Hilbert Problem 179
Photo 6.21 Hans

Weinberger in the 1960s
(© H. Weinberger,
permission)
Photo 6.22 H. Weinberger’s second letter (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)

“Don’t think that I consider your work a weak one,” he continued, “It would suit
another person. But if God gave you talent, you should not squander your gifts on
trifles.”
My talents had always been an arguable point to me, thus the last phrase of V. M.
Babich somewhat sugared the pill. On the whole, his demarche meant that I had
urgently to take on something shockingly impressive. I timidly asked him what he
could advise.
“Well, they talked a lot here about Hilbert’s 19th problem, but everybody only
analyses the variational problem of the first order.38 However there are no results
for higher orders at all. This is what you may try to generalize.”
We came out of the building. The evening was quiet. The weather was marvel-
ous. “What is your destination?” asked V. M. Babich. “To Bolshoy Avenue trolley
stop,” I answered and it turned out we were going the same way. “Let’s run,”
demanded Babich. “I always run here.”
I had never jogged at all, at least in that period, but what could I do? We ran up to
Bolshoy Avenue. I was short of breath, V. I. Babich – fresh and strong. “Make it a
rule: jog,” he suggested. “You’ll be healthy”.
After these words we parted, but a couple of months later I came to see him in a
hospital: he had just had surgery for an ulcer (it was a success!).
In my life some dramatic events happened too. Whatever I did to justify
analyticity of solutions of variational problems of higher order, nothing worked. I
was stealing up to the problem in various ways, but the solution sneaked off. The
problem did not want to be solved for the life of me!
But one day, feeling desperate I decided to consider concrete examples in order
to understand at least something, and almost at once found that the hypothesis of
analyticity was wrong – this was not expected by anyone! Nina Nikolaevna
Uraltseva was the first whom I showed my counterexamples. She frowned saying
“It’s impossible!”, but took my manuscript home and promised to check it. A week
later she announced for all to hear at the Big Seminar that I was right.
I rejoiced. That was a real gift. A gift from heaven! That was the unexpected
result of V. M. Babich’s advice.
As for the abovementioned talk I gave at V. I. Smirnov’s seminar I am afraid
V. Babich criticized me too strictly. When choosing the topics of my research I,
undoubtedly, was sure that success would be achieved because I applied to the
boundary value problems my own new methods of investigating functions in
domains with irregular boundaries. Was it wrong for me to harvest the results?
38
In the 19th problem the task is to prove that all the solutions of “regular” variational problems
are analytic functions of independent variables. About the history of this problem see the book
“Hilbert’s Problems”, “Nauka” publishing house, Moscow, 1969, p. 204–219. Active in the
solution of this problem were mainly S. N. Bernshtein (two-dimensional case, 1904), indepen-
dently: Ennio de Giorgi (1957) and John Nash (1958), (multidimensional case and canonic
nonlinearity), O. A. Ladyzhenskaya and N. N. Uraltseva (1964, multidimensional case, general
nonlinearity).
6.13 Talent 181
Photo 6.23 Jules Renard’s book. (selected works) (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
In the West they obtained analogous results after several years. Their own
prophets appeared there, but my works (because of the hard-to-reach Soviet
journals and the language barrier) were not noticed. Some of them remain relevant
even now, that is 40–50 years after publication.
6.13 Talent
I’d like to say it honestly, my self-esteem was flattered by the fact that Babich had
mentioned my talent. Without a shadow of doubt he stated what I myself was not
sure of. Still at high school I read the following words in Jules Renard’s “Journal”.
Talent is an issue of quantity. It is not in the fact of writing one page, but in writing 300 of
them. There isn’t a novel that could not be conceived in a mediocre mind; there isn’t a
beautiful phrase that could not be thought up by a beginner. Then all that is needed is to take
up the pen, place a piece of paper in front of you and patiently cover it with writing. Strong
people do not hesitate. They sit down at table and sweat over their work. They would carry
through what they do. They would use up all the ink, and would cover with words all the
paper. This is the difference of talented people from the faint-hearted ones who would not
start anything. Literature can only be made by oxen.
People of genius are the most powerful oxen, those who toil 18 h a day without fatigue.
Glory is uninterrupted effort.
To substitute mathematics for literature was easy. The idea prompted by the writer
sounded inspiring for Vladimir Maz’ya who discovered it in the eighth or ninth
grade. In comparison to the rigid postulate offered by Sholom Aleichem “Talent is
like money: if you have it, you have it, but if not – then not”. J. Renard’s maxim
kept one hopeful.
In the 1960s, already after the Mathmech, Grisha Lozanovky and I once had a
stroll while discussing our capabilities: “Are they specifically mathematical?” To
my great surprise, Grisha, whom I believed to have unconditional talent in math-
ematics, thought a little and said that if we seriously took up literature from the very
beginning we would have been successful in it too. “Are you sure?” was the only
question I could ask.
Am I ready to agree with him today? Is it sufficient for success in both literature
and mathematics to have a keen interest in the subject, clear mind, and ability to
work? It would be worthwhile to run an experiment on one-egg twins of the
same sex.
I can state only one thing firmly: neither the graduation diploma from the
Mathmech, nor the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical sciences, or
even membership in the USSR Academy of Sciences would allow an answer to the
question “Are you a mathematician?” with the words of the hero of Michael
Bulgakov’s novel: “I am a master”.
6.14 Farewell, My Young Years!
The high galoshes and boots of the time of my childhood were jokingly called
“Farewell, young years”. But I don’t have the goal of advertising them. I simply feel
that enough has been written in this book. It’s time to put an end to it. The question
is: how to choose the time of that end? Let it be a volitional decision: it would be on
December 31, 1968. By 23:45 of that day I had lived exactly 31 years. Not that on
the first of January, when I woke up, I felt some kind of transition to maturity, but
almost everything in life is eventually fuzzy and relative.
6.14 Farewell, My Young Years! 183
Photo 6.24 The book

coauthored with Y. D.
Burago (© Vladimir
Meanwhile, my highly esteemed readers, when you think over the last sentence
trying to find counterexamples, it would seem to be timely for me to refer to the
afore-mentioned counterexamples of my own:
V. G. Maz’ya “Examples of irregular solutions of quasilinear equations with analytic
coefficients”, Functional Analysis and its Applications, 2:3 (1968), 53–57.
Let this article, which was not the worst one among my works, be a mathematical
borderline between the author’s youth and his maturity.
By that time I came significantly closer to my dream of becoming a profes-
sional mathematician, a real master of my craft. Looking through a list of my
works (on the order of 30) in the period of 1959–1968, I again experience the
emotions accompanying the appearance of each of them.39 In most of my articles
of that time I was the only author. Therefore I could use them in my two
39
According to MathSciNet I have produced around 500 works and over 20 different books
presenting mathematical results obtained by me and my coauthors.
Photo 6.25 With V. P.

Havin, in 1980 (© Vladimir
dissertations where it was not advisable to include results obtained with coau-
thors. (Later on, the HAC administrators went as far as ordering dissertation
authors to provide certificates from coauthors indicating the percentage of their
contribution. Like in a bank!)
Then I see in the list a 150 page rotaprint book written by my old friend Yury
Burago and myself. In its first part we solve the problem of potential theory posed in
1963 by F. Riesz and B. Szökefalvi-Nagy, and the second one contains non-trivial
results in the theory of functions whose derivatives are measures, which was new at
that time.40
Among the 1967–1968 articles I see three on approximation by analytic and
harmonic functions. They were written together with Viktor Petrovich Havin, my
new friend at that time. He was 5 years older than I and, when a student, I called
him by his first name and patronymic. When we began working together our
formal treatment of each other disappeared on his initiative.41 A little later, but
already in my mature years, Viktor’s and my joint articles were published: on the
40
Y. D. Burago and V. G. Maz’ya, “Some Questions on Potential Theory and Function Theory for
Irregular Domains”, Zapisky of Scientific Seminars of the Leningrad Division of the V. A. Steklov
Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Leningrad, 1967.
41
V. P. Havin described the beginning of our work in the article “On some potential theoretic
themes in function theory”. The Maz’ya’s Anniversary Collection, Vol. 1, 99–110, Oper. Theory
Adv. Appl., 109, Birkhäuser, Basel, 1999.
6.15 How Many Medium Range Rockets Were There? 185
Photo 6.26 N. N.
Bogolyubov (about 1967)
(© Naukova Dumka,
permission)
Cauchy problem for harmonic functions42 and on “the nonlinear potential

theory”.43
Friendship and mathematical cooperation with remarkable men and mathemati-
cians, Yury Burago and Viktor Havin has always been a great joy and a gift of fate
in the days of my youth. That friendship remains unclouded now as before.
6.15 How Many Medium Range Rockets Were There?
The first refusals I suffered in my plans to go abroad when I was in the NIIMM were
described in the chapter entitled “Non-Travels to Foreign Countries”. Why not
depict the last event of this type in my Leningrad University life? In 1985 I was
invited to Warsaw by Bogdan Bojarski, director of the Institute of Mathematics of
the Polish Academy of Sciences and my present day friend. He offered me a chance
to give lectures at the International Banach Center. Knowing that I was not eligible
to travel abroad, Bogdan requested Academician N. N. Bogolyubov himself for
support. The Academician was the director of MIAS USSR44 in 1983–1989. He
wrote a letter to the Rector of LSU. But even that move did not help. I was not let
out because I did not satisfy the LSU Ideological Commission. I shamefully did not
know how many medium range rockets were installed in the European part of the
USSR. “The number was published in the unrestricted press. And you? Do you
mean you don’t read newspapers?”
Soon after that bullying I left the University.
“Is it possible that the last straw broke the camel’s back?” You may ask.
“Only partially so,” I would answer. “There were other causes too.”
42
V. G. Maz’ya and V. P. Havin, On Solutions of the Cauchy Problem for the Laplace Equation
(Uniqueness, Normality, Approximation), Trudy Mosk. Mat. Obshch., 30 (1974), 61–114.
43
V. G. Maz’ya, V. P. Havin, Nonlinear Potential Theory, Uspekhy Mat. Nauk, 27, 6 (1972), 67–
138.
44
Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
6.16 Under Close Surveillance?
Someone must have slandered Vladimir M., for one morning, without having
done anything truly wrong, he wound up being watched by the KGB.45 It was by
chance that I found out about it thanks to the following combination of
circumstances.
Right before my thirtieth birthday, intensive preparations were going on for the
celebration of the 150th anniversary of the University. Naturally the Mathmech
participated in those activities and assigned an auditorium for materials on its
history and achievements. A young astrophysicist Seva Ivanov46 was to assume
responsibility for the anniversary display. After the display was ready it had to be
approved by A. I. Buravtsev,47 a Party Bureau member. The approval had to be
given but it did not happen right away because the vigilant eye of the Party official
discovered a certain honor roll plaque on the wall.
“Remove it,” Buravtsev ordered.
The thing is that on the plaque, in bronze letters, were names of the winners of
the Leningrad Mathematical Society annual prize entitled “To the young mathe-
matician”. The first name on the plaque was V. G. Maz’ya who had received that
prize in 1962.
Seva Ivanov was surprised. “Why?” he asked. “Forbidden. Maz’ya is under the
KGB surveillance.”
Somewhat later Seva gave that information to Yura Burago, who passed it to me
in his turn.
I was. . . (I am quoting here an excerpt from the first chapter of Kafka’s
“Process”) “very surprised but when you’ve been in the world for thirty years
already and had to make your own way through everything yourself, which has
been my lot, then you become hardened to surprises and don’t take them to
heart.”
That was how Vladimir Maz’ya’s existence a la Kafka began at the Mathmech.
Nevertheless the end of my story, unlike Joseph Kafka’s, was not tragic.
Even nowadays I haven’t the slightest idea as to what made me interesting to the
KGB, because I wasn’t an anti-Soviet activist, or an agent of foreign intelligence
service. I was only busy with theorems and no mountains of gold could deflect me
from my chosen path.
The authorities demonstrated vigilance. When I had sometimes (rarely) to enter
the Dean’s (Z. I. Borevich’s) office for, let’s say, a signature he never invited me to
sit down and talked to me in a scornfully suspicious tone like the investigator during
an interrogation.
45
The first phrase from F. Kafka’s “Process” “Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one
morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.”
46
V. V. Ivanov, born 1934, now a Professor of the Chair of Astrophysics, LSU.
47
A. I. Buravtsev, born in 1923, Party secretary of the Mathmech in 1971–1976.
6.16 Under Close Surveillance? 187
Photo 6.27 N. N. Bogolyubov’s letter to the rector of LSU (Esteemed Valentin Borisovich, from
February 26 to May 27, 1986, at the S. Banach International Mathematical Center for profes-
sional development of scientists (Poland, Warsaw) a semester devoted to the approximation theory
will be organized according to the plan of scientific work. The Division of Mathematics of the
USSR Academy of Sciences has concluded that it is advisable to send V. G. Maz’ya, an employee of
your University, on an official assignment to take part in the Semester for 2 weeks as a lecturer.
Could you please consider the possibility of appointing Comrade Maz’ya to participate in the
Semester of S. Banach International Mathematical Center in Poland; in case of a positive decision
please arrange for sending his exit documents to Administration of Scientific Cooperation between
Socialist Countries (ASCSC) of the USSR Academy of Sciences before December 20, 1985. Local
expenses in Warsaw will be paid by S. Banach International Mathematical Center. Travel
expenses will be paid by the invitees or LSU. The exit formalities will be carried out by the
USSR Academy of Sciences Secretary Academician of the Mathematics Division of the USSR
Academy of Sciences Academician N. N. Bogolyubov) (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)
Photo 6.28 N. N.
Uraltseva (about 1967)
(© Naukova Dumka,
permission)
Once, much later, I agreed to Nina Uraltseva’s offer, without a moment’s

hesitation, to take the post of Professor of Mathematical Physics at the chair
which she headed. But Borevich did not like the idea, and the transference proce-
dure stopped without having started. I must observe here that I enjoy teaching, and I
gave lectures for 20 years quite decently and guided many Ph.D. students in
Sweden, USA, and England, but turned out unfit for my alma mater the Mathmech.
***
Here I am finishing my story. . .
The year 1968 is a distant past, and, needless to say, the whole world has
drastically changed during these 45 years. In that period of time, my life was filled
with feelings, thoughts and events, both sad and happy, as everyone else’s. It would
be natural, and I confess that it is tempting, to try to continue these reminiscences.
However this extension problem seems to be too complicated for me at the moment.
I can’t say if I would ever change my mind.
Index
A D
Alexandrov, A.D., 122, 133, 134, 139 da Vinci, L., 109
Alexandrov, P.S., 160, 162 Danilov, M.V., 121, 123–128
Alexeev, A.A., 87–89 de Giorgi, E., 180
Anger, G., 153 de La Vallée-Poussin, J., 131, 135, 139
Arnold, V.I., 160
H
B
Haydn, J., 107
Babich, V.M., 130, 131, 169, 178, 180, 182
Hedberg, L.-I., 153
Bach, J.S., 105, 114, 118
Hemingway, E., 125
Bakelman, I.Y., 149–152
Hilbert, D., 177–181
Balmont, K.D., 78
Balzac, H., 95
Baryshnikov, M.N., 127
I
Bashmakov, M.I., 99, 100
Ibragimov, I.A., 100
Beethoven, L., 105, 107, 112, 114
Ilf, I., 78, 144
Belinsky, A.A., 125, 127, 128
Ilyin, M., 34
Belinsky, Y.G., 127, 128
Ilyin, V.P., 163, 165
Birman, M.S., 146, 153, 163, 164, 169, 171
Ivanov, V.V., 186
Blok, A.A., 78
Boex, J.H., 34
Bogolyubov, N.N., 185–187
J
Bojarski, B., 185
Jenkins, H., 178
Borevich, Z.I., 188
Jerome, J.K., 78
Braudo, I.A., 118
Jung, C.G., 76
Bulgakov, M.A., 142, 182
Burago, Y.D., 80, 183–185
Buravtsev, A.I., 186
K
Busch, W., 143
Kafka, F., 186–188
Bykhovsky, E.B., 169
Kalinin, M.I., 30, 103
Byron, G.G., 78
Kalman, I., 95
Kantorovich, L.V., 139
C Karpova, Z., 123, 124
Charskaya, L.A., 57 Katkalo, S.I., 153
Chernyshevsky, N.G., 68 Kharms, D., 143
Chopin, F., 112, 114 Khodorkovsky, M.B., 80

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01809-6, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
190 Index
Khrushchev, N.S., 43, 83, 120, 137, 148, 158 Men, A.V., 167
Kirillov, A.A., 160 Meyers, N., 178
Kiselev, A.P., 75 Michelangelo, 109
Kogan, S.D., 70 Mikhlin, S.G., 130, 139–144, 146, 149,
Kondratiev, K.Y., 178 151–155, 157, 160, 161
Kondratiev, V.A., 160, 163 Miranda, C., 144
Koshelev, A.I., 153, 169 Morozov, N.F., 169
Kosidowski, Z., 142 Mozart, W.A., 107
Krasnoselsky, M.A., 148, 149, 153, 160 Mravinsky, E.A., 107
Krein, S.G., 160, 162
Krylov, I.A., 69
Kuhn, N.A., 65 N
Nadson, S.Y., 78
Nash, J., 180
L Natanson, I.P., 97, 98
Ladyzhenskaya, O.A., 142, 146, 163, 164, Nechay, A.I., 58
169, 180 Nikitin, A.A., 121, 157, 158, 160
Landis, E.M., 163, 166 Nikolsky, S.M., 170, 171
Langenbach, A., 153 Nitsche, J., 178
Lear, E., 143 Nordqvist, S., 35
Lebedev, P.L., 80 Novikov, S.P., 160
Lebedev-Kumach, V.I., 41, 56 Novozhilov, V.V., 171
Lenin, V.I., 11, 42, 59–62, 71, 103, 142
Levitan, Y.B., 19
Lewis, S., 32 O
Lifshiz, N.A., 120 Oleinik, O.A., 153, 160, 161
Lindberg, L., 111, 112 Orff, C., 115, 116
Lindgren, A., 35 Oskolkov, A.P., 169
Lindgren, B., 35
Linnik, Y.V., 139, 171
Liouville, J., 130 P
Littlewood, J.E., 141 Papanin, I.D., 22
Littman, W., 178 Perelman, Y.I., 64
Litvinchuk, G.S., 153 Petrov, E.P., 78, 144
London, J., 35, 69 Petrovsky, I.G., 99, 171
Lozanovsky, G.Y., 80, 100 Picasso, P., 120, 121, 132
Lozinsky, M.L., 137 Pimenov, R.I., 121, 122
Lozinsky, S.M., 133–139 Pinsker, A.G., 83, 84
Lyapunov, A.M., 163, 164 Poincaré, H., 164
Polya, G., 141
Popov, G.I., 171
M Prössdorf, S., 153–156
Magomaev, M., 87 Pucci, C., 152, 171
Maisky, V.L., 113–114, 117–120 Purcell, H., 119
Makarov, B.M., 177 Pushkin, A.S., 22, 76, 77, 168
Manin, Y.I., 160
Mann, T., 142
Marshak, S.Y., 143 R
Marty, A., 8 Rachmaninov, S.V., 116
Marx, K., 43, 114 Rapoport, E., 99
Maupassant, G., 148 Ravel, M., 105
Mayakovsky, V.V., 33, 123 Reed, W.M., 34
Maz’ya, G.L., 9, 10 Renard, J., 181, 182
Maz’ya, M.G., 1 Retsepter, V.E., 125
Meister, E., 156 Ricci, P.E., 156
Index 191
Riesz, F., 183 Szegö, G., 141

Rimsky-Korsakov, N.A., 103 Szökefalvi-Nagy, B., 183
Rivière, N., 178
Rokhlin, V.A., 134, 136
Romanovsky, I.V., 162 T
Rustaveli, Sh., 78 Taimanov, M.E., 117
Rybakov, A.N., 61 Taimanova, I.E., 117
Talroze, G., 111, 112
Tchaikovsky, P.I., 109, 110
S Tenyakova, N.M., 125
Safonov, G.F., 71 Tevosyan, I.F., 53, 54
Safronova, G.P., 101 Tolstoy, L.N., 77, 103, 123, 132
Saltykov-Shchedrin, M.E., 122 Torres, L., 115
Samosyuk, G.P., 174, 175 Tovstonogov, G.A., 125, 128
Sandler, G.M., 139 Truman, H., 32
Savichev, O.P., 61, 62 Tseitin, G.S., 132–134, 174
Schmidt, G., 99 Tsinger, A.V., 34, 35, 64
Segal, E., 34
Serrin, J., 178
Shakespeare, W., 77, 78 U
Shanin, N.A., 134 Uraltseva, N.N., 153, 169, 180, 188
Shaposhnikova, T.O., 35, 90
Shauder, J.P., 132
Shilov, G.E., 160, 161 V
Shlyakhtenko, S.G., 159 Vainikko, G.M., 153
Shrifteylick (Pimenova), V.A., 122 Vallander, S.V., 152, 163, 178
Shtutin, A.Y., 102 Valsky, R., 134
Sibelius, J., 105 Vasilevsky, N.L., 153
Silbermann, B., 153, 156 Vereisky, G.S., 167, 168
Simonenko, I.B., 153 Vern, J., 63, 65
Sinclair, U., 21 Vishik, M.I., 153
Singer, G.-D., 67, 131
Slisenko, A.O., 133
Slobodetsky, L.N., 130, 163, 165, 169 W
Slutsky, B.A., Weinberger, H., 171, 177–179
Smirnov, M.M., 153 Wells, H., 65
Smirnov, V.I., 43, 144, 148, 152, 153, 155, 163, Wiener, N., 164
166–168, 171, 174, 180 Wildenhain, G., 153
Smirnova, N.V., 45, 52 Williams, V.R., 64
Smolitsky, H.L., 169 Wintner, A., 131
Sobolev, S.L., 142, 143, 147, 161, 170–174
Sobolevsky, P.E., 149, 151
Sokiryanskaya, E.N., 80, 81 Y
Solomyak, M.Z., 169 Yakubovich, V.A., 174
Solonnikov, V.A., 153, 169 Yasnogorodsky, R.M., 139
Solzhenitsyn, A.I., 123 Yursky, S.Y., 124, 125
Stalin, I.V., 32, 40–43, 78, 83, 120, 142
Stark, U., 35
Steklov, V.A., 163, 164, 183 Z
Sternfeld, A., 34, 65 Zaidman, R.M., 99, 100
Stowe, B., 61 Zhdanov, A.A., 78, 177
Strzhelchik, V.I., 125 Zoshchenko, M.A., 78
Sudakov, V.N., 100–101 Zygmund, A., 130

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Vladimir Maz’ya

ISBN 978-3-319-01808-9 ISBN 978-3-319-01809-6 (eBook)

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer Basel is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

This autobiographic book by Vladimir Maz’ya, an outstanding mathematician of

1 Family and Early Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

6 Dissertations and the Years After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

1.1 The Beginning

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) on December 31, 1937 at a quarter to

V. Maz’ya, Differential Equations of My Young Years, 1

Photo 1.1 I am about

Photo 1.2 With

Photo 1.3 Uncle Aron in

Photo 1.4 I can recite a

1.2 The Time of Peace Is Over

1.3 My Mother’s Story

Photo 1.5 Mother, about

Photo 1.6 Grandfather

Photo 1.7 Gilya and Gita

Photo 1.8 Mother as a girl

Photo 1.9 Lusya in 1936

1.4 My Father’s Story

Photo 1.10 Grandfather

Photo 1.11 Grandmother

Photo 1.14 My father at a

Photo 1.15 My father

Photo 1.16 Grandmother

Photo 1.17 Uncle Grisha

Photo 1.18 Uncle Syoma

I vaguely remember our journey in a heated freight car from Leningrad to

Photo 1.20 With my

Photo 1.21 My first school

1.6 Back to Leningrad

were ruins of a residential building. Sometimes, weather permitting, school chil-

1.7 Postage Stamps

1.8 Crime Without Punishment

1.9 From the Kiosk to House No. 19/18

Photo 1.26 The window of

1.10 Life in the “Small Room” on Marat Street

In 1947 Mother was an outworker in a lampshade shop – she sewed lampshades

Photo 1.29 Lamp shade

Mother retired and began receiving an old-age pension in 1963 – 52 rubles a

1.11 Aunt Rita and Lusya

Photo 1.30 Lusya in

Vova Maz’ya listened to the song and felt he was in bliss.

1.12 Lusya, Ella and the Sinclairs

1.13 Uncle Aron, Bathhouse and Chess

Photo 1.31 Uncle Aron,

1.14 Mother and My First Library

Photo 1.32 My father’s Certificate of Achievement, 1934 (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private

1.16 Our Room

Photo 1.33 Why don’t you

Photo 1.34 Our room

Photo 1.35 Little house

Photo 1.36 Mother’s

Photo 1.37 “Kolizey” (Coliseum), 2012 (© Vladimir Maz’ya, private collection)

1.17 The Kitchen and the Toilet

1.18 Life Has Become Better35

Photo 1.38 Portrait of I. V.

1.19 Even the Sun Has Spots

2.1 It Is So Difficult to Become an “A” Student

V. Maz’ya, Differential Equations of My Young Years, 45

Photo 2.1 (continued)

Vladimir Maz'Ya (Auth.) - Differential Equations of My Young Years-Birkhäuser Basel (2014)

Vladimir Maz'Ya (Auth.) - Differential Equations of My Young Years-Birkhäuser Basel (2014)