Tatiana Tsessarskaya

This is my wife Tatiana Tsessarskaya. The picture was made in Moscow on the 4th day after our wedding anniversary and on the Victory day - 9th of May 1945.

In 1937 I entered the 2nd Medical Institute, Therapeutic Department. We had a wonderful team of teachers at the institute. I was very fond of histology, the science of cells. Our teachers were great experts, professionals. They were beyond politics. Our Komsomol Committee consisted of romantic people. I joined Komsomol at the institute. It was natural. I was not involved in social work. I was fond of theatre. There was so-called peoples' theatre in the culture house of medical workers. I played some parts in the performances there and I was a success. On the 19th June 1941 I got an official invitation to the troupe of that theatre. I was in my fourth year. In three days the war was unleashed. Things were predetermined. What kind of theatres was I to think about! I ought to be in the lines.

I had a premonition that our country was imminent with a catastrophe. I was flatly against the non-aggression treaty between USSR and Germany signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov. I was really perturbed that a good Poland was invaded for no reason and a better part of it had been annexed. Poland was breathing with culture, literature, music. It was close to me. Then there was a Finnish war. I was thinking how we could have dared attacking somebody else’s country for the sake of improving our territory, but I was afraid to share such thoughts with anybody. I was rampantly against that war , but there were a lot of people who went to that war as volunteers. One of my pals perished there and I could not get why on earth did he go there?! But life went on. I was young. I had my friends, hobbies, theatre, girls.

I met my wife-to-be at the institute. Her name was Tatiana Triodina. Both of us joined scientific circle of histology. I recall when I was in the 3rd year, we were sitting at one desk in the library and reading books. The librarian came up to us with a carnation in a glass and put it between us. How could she see that we were in love with each other? It must have been noticeable. On the 9th of May 1941 we got married. I was well accepted in Tanya's family. It was a wonderful intellectual family. I loved my wife's parents. There were no talks of my nationality, wife's father did not understand what anti-Semitism was about. Wife's mother Olga Triodina was noble. She was very attached to me and we got along very well. Wife's father Peter Triodin was chief health officer of construction site out of Moscow - Volga canal. Besides, he composed music. I was moved by it. His opera ' Silver Prince' was on in Bolshoy Theatre, then it was recorded and it was broadcast on the radio. They lived in Dmitrov. We often went skiing there or to play tennis. After wedding we got a small room in the hostel on the 6th floor, facing the wall with mice.

When the war was over my wife and I lived in the hostel. Tatiana taught Histology at our Institute, then she was transferred to the Institute of Blood Transfusion and defended a dissertation there. When the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of Space was founded, she was offered a job there as a leading scientific expert. The first dogs who were in the space, were under her supervision. These were the first laboratory data showing that a man could be in the space She had worked there until retirement. Wife took after her father and was as musical as he. She plays the musical instrument and composes music. My wife and I have lived a long, hard, but at the same time very interesting and friendly life. Our house was always open for relatives and friends, no matter where we lived. My parents, sister's family often came to see us. I liked sister's husband, an intelligent and interesting man. My friends- partisans and participants of the theatrical studio very often called on us.