Tag #144661 - Interview #97065 (Irina Soboleva-Ginsburg )

I met Andrei Sobolev at the Art College. He was born to a family of workers in Kologriv, in Kostroma region, Russia, in 1914. We liked each other, although our friends thought we were very different. There was no love between us and no love affair. We liked one another, but everybody else saw how different we were. His friends used to say, ‘Ira is a nice girl and we have nothing against her, but a dove and a crow are no match’. Andrei told me what they said but he took no notice of it. We saw each other out of boredom sometimes. We met and went to art exhibitions or to the cinema. He took me home and we perhaps kissed a few times, that’s all. We were just friends. In 1939 Andrei was recruited to the army. He had no family in Moscow, and I kept his company before he went to the army. We made no promises. From there he wrote me letters and I wrote back.