Arnold Fabrikant

This is me. This photo was taken in Odessa in 1975. One of my colleagues photographed me during a lunch break in the yard of the liqueur and vodka factory. In the 1960s and 1970s, during the Brezhnev regime, there were numerous thefts at the liqueur and vodka factory. I was chief of the steam and power maintenance department at the factory. This was a responsible position and the department was often inspected by state authorities: power inspection, records inspection, maintenance, boiler, trade union audits, and sanitary inspection. We had to bribe all inspectors. They particularly came before holidays and each of them was to be given a bottle of alcohol or there would be problems. I went to the shop superintendents asking them for bottles of alcohol. Finally the director of the factory ordered them to supply the products to me for this purpose. But those people were stealing and had cars and dachas [summer houses], whereas I received a salary of 240 rubles. For additional earnings I worked part-time at the college starting in 1965, and did extra work preparing diploma theses and course theses for students. We bought our first TV set and furniture with the extra money I made this way.