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This is a picture of me, first from right, with my friends singing on the stage of the Palace of Culture in Berdiansk on 9th May - the 30th anniversary of Victory Day. The photo was taken in 1975.
When I was young and was a pioneer, I attended a club in the House of Pioneers in Kursk where we lived then. I liked singing and got invitations to sing on the radio and in concerts. Our string orchestra gave concerts at kolkhozes and factories. I sang songs from the repertory of Claudia Shulzhenko. [Claudia Ivanovna Shulzhenko, 1906-1984, a Soviet pop singer, whose name is associated with the start of Soviet pop singing.] In 1939 I took part in the children's radio festival dedicated to the 22nd anniversary of the October Revolution where I was awarded the first prize. I still have this award. There were newspaper publications about me and I kept these articles. In 1939, when the Finnish campaign [see Soviet-Finnish War] began, our school was transformed into a hospital and we moved to another school. We gave concerts in hospitals.
In the 1970s I still took part in the amateur art club of the Epsilon plant in Odessa, where I worked for many years. I sang. Office and professional workers of the plant attended the club. We gave concerts in Berdiansk and Leningrad in workers? clubs.
