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I, Ludmila Pavlovskaya and my co-students, Ivanovka chemical engineering institute in 1951 Ivanovka.
My closest friend was my classmate Mary Fridman, a Jewish girl. We are still closest friends. Mary and I were the only nominates for a gold medal at the end of school. We both got good marks at the final exams (I got a "good" in geometry and she - in composition) and finished school with a silver medal. It was important to have a gold medal. Medallists were not required to take entrance exams at the higher educational institutions. A special commission reviewed all documents submitted by applicants and decided who to admit. This process was also called "the competition of line 5" . I submitted documents to the chemical engineering faculty at the Polytechnic Institute. I didn't get any response for a long time. I went there myself asking the commission to return my documents if I were not admitted. They replied that I would receive their response by mail. I was very nervous, because exams were at the same time in all institutes and I might be late with the submittal of my documents to another institute. In a week before the document submittal due date I received their response that I was not admitted. I went to Ivanovo in Russia because I understood that it was impossible for a Jew to enter the institute in Kiev. I entered the Chemical Engineering Institute in Ivanovo. There was not so much anti-Semitism in Russia People told jokes about Jews, but there was no such beastly hatred in them. They were kind and nice. I felt homesick at first. But then I got used to the new place and liked it there. People were very nice there. They drank a lot, though, but I took no notice of that. I was a Komsomol and later a trade union leader in my group and I felt equal among students. There were other Jewish students from Vinnitsa, Ukraine: Ilia Lubliner and Maya Khutorianskaya. They got married upon graduation. Some lecturers were Jews. Lecturer in our group was a prominent chemist and physicist Konstantin Yatsemirskiy. Later he moved to Kiev and worked at Kiev University. I also remember a lab assistant from the chair of organic chemistry Bella Guseva. I lived in her apartment until I got accommodation at the hostel.
I was one of the best students.
