Ronny Sheyn-Kuznetsova and her daughter Margarita Kasper

My husband Alexander took this picture of me and our daughter Margarita at home. The photo was taken in Tomsk in 1969.

Our daughter Margarita was born in 1968. In the same year I got an offer from the construction institute to teach resistance of materials, construction mechanics and the theory of resilience.

During my work at the institute I wrote a candidate thesis and defended it. I understood that they might put a spoke in my wheel. There was a chance to defend a dissertation without post-graduate studies, if the work was excellent. I was used to being independent and wrote my dissertation myself, without a supervisor, without post-graduate department.

In 1972 I defended my thesis in the Moscow Engineering and Construction Institute and got a unanimous vote of the board. I chose that institute myself. I knew if my work was good it would be approved there, if I did it in some hick places, there would be one or two unskilled specialists and the result couldn’t be predicted.

There were true, excellent, fair professor of the old school. I was conferred a degree of the candidate of science. I hadn’t changed my job and obtained the title of assistant professor. That was it, there was no new fear for me; I had just improved my educational level.