Tamara Koblik in the house of pioneers with friends

This is me (first row in the center), in the house of pioneers with friends. This photo was taken in Rybnitsa in 1948. We were given musical instruments just to make this photo look more interesting. Director of the house of pioneers Vera Nikolayevna Beliayeva is in the center in the upper row; once she was a ballerina, and she was our dancing teacher. I attended a dance group and an embroidery group.  

In 1944 I went to the second form at school in Rezina, but I didn't know or understand anything. A week later I was assigned to the first form where there were other overgrown children studying, according to my birth certificate, I was born in 1933. I remember that my classmates were big boys and girls. I was the youngest and the tiniest one. I was told to sit at the first desk.  We were studying multiplication by 'three' and the teacher asked: 'How much is 3 multiplied by 5?' I raised my hand and said: '3 x 5 is 15, and 15 divided by 5 is 3'. 'Look, a little body often harbors a great soul!' - somebody exclaimed from the rear. So I excelled at the very beginning. Later bigger children went to study in an evening school [secondary schools for working young people in the USSR]. I caught up other children in my class soon. I studied well. I was particularly good at mathematic. I also attended an embroidery and a dancing groups in the house of pioneers [pioneer club].  I liked dancing. I took an active part in school activities. I was a member of the students' committee at school. I remember that we listened to the pupils who had bad marks. My schoolmate Vilka Kogan (a Jewish boy), whose father was director of a plant, had all bad marks. I remember having a strong position against him: 'Let's vote to expel him from school! Why making so much fuss about him?' Then I joined Komsomol. At first our school committee admitted me and then, when it was time to go to district committee, I got scared all of a sudden: 'I don't know much. I lack education'. And I ran away from there. Later they admitted me anyway. I finished the 7th form, when Senia Uchitel, my stepfather's younger son, returned to Rybnitsa. He was to get married in autumn. I didn't have a dress to wear at his wedding and I decided: 'I shall enter a medical school, receive my first stipend and have a new dress made for me'. [students of higher educational institutions and vocational schools received monthly stipends in the USSR]. Of course, this was a very 'reasonable' idea!

When I picked my documents from the school, our teacher of mathematics came to see my mama: 'Tamara is very good at mathematics, the  best of all in her class, don't do this', but I was so eager to go to the medical school that mama decided to leave things as they were.