Maria Zabozlaeva with her husband Georgi Zabozlaev and students

My fellow students at Saratov Medical College. Our group: from left to right: I, Maria Zabozlaeva, Antonina Gordeeva, my husband Georgi Zabozlaev, Valentina Krasovskaya, Natalia Diakova, Svetlana Petrovich, Gennadi Petrov, Anna Ponomaryova and Tamara Tokmantseva. This photo was taken in the park near the Saratov Medical College after the parade on 1 May 1951.

When a senior pupil I attended a history club in the House of Officers. Boys from a school for boys attended it, too. In  1945, when I was in the 8th form I met my future husband Yuri (Georgi) Zabozlaev. He was born in Saratov in 1929. I finished school in 1947 and entered the Pediatric Faculty at the Medical College. I passed my entrance exams and got all excellent marks. My Jewish identity didn't play any role I finished this college in 1953.

After finishing the 10th form Yuri was sent to a pilot school in Balashov [over 800 km from Moscow] in Saratov region. We got married after I finished my third year in college. This happened in summer 1950, though he had proposed to me few years before. We had a very cheerful wedding. There were relatives on both sides and my co-students.  We had a wedding party and tables set in Michael's house that was bigger than ours. My relatives helped with cooking. We had teyglakh, Gefilte fish and forshmak made. There were also lots of pastries.  We had a civil ceremony in a registry office. We didn't go to synagogue and didn't have a chuppah. It was out of the questions! Actually, my mother-in-law and her relatives were not quite happy about me as Yuri's wife, I don't know why. My husband was really nice and kind, there are no such husbands now. He told me that what they wanted was their business and we should do what we thought was right. My parents liked Yuri. One couldn't help liking him! It happened so that we took a decision to get married on the sour of the moment. Yuri was a 3rd-year student and I wasn’t quite prepared to get married. We enjoyed the wedding party. Yuri gave me brown amber necklace. Our guests had fun and danced a lot. They also danced 'seven forty'.

My husband and I lived separately for many years. I was finishing my studies in Saratov and he studied in Balashov. He finished his military school with honors and worked there as pilot-instructor for few years. Upon graduation from Medical College I worked as a doctor in a children's hospital, nursery school and was a district doctor. We rented an apartment in the outskirts of Balashov.  In 1952 our daughter Sophia was born.

I had a happy life with my husband. We liked going to the cinema, theaters and concerts in the Philharmonic. We had a car and went to Mineralnyie Vody in the Caucasus on vacation.  In 1968 we traveled to the Baltic Republics and Leningrad.  In 1977 we made a tour of Western Ukraine and Moldova. We visited Kishinev, Yassy, Morshansk and Lvov. We had few friends and celebrated Soviet and family holidays with them. We had parties and sang Soviet songs and Russian folk songs. We didn't sing any Jewish songs.