Tag #147820 - Interview #78423 (Mikhail Plotkin )

I went to the institute. The Scientific Work pro-rector jumped on me, ‘Where have you been?’ ‘I came as soon as I heard you were looking for me.’ ‘Go to this room, there is a commission. The Defense Ministry has assignments for all those who graduated from this institute, without defending a diploma. Go there and they will tell you what to do.’ I went to the commission and told my name. ‘We have been looking for you. Here is an assignment from the Ministry. Where would you like to go? Pick a place. There is Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Sverdlovsk, Izhevsk and another dozen of cities. Pick any plant you want – a firearms plant or an artillery plant…’ All graduates were already drafted to the People’s Volunteer Corps, so there were a lot of free assignments. I started to think, ‘What plant would be farther from the frontline?’ These ministry assignments were for the whole Soviet Union: central regions, Siberia, the Far East, the Urals. I read, ‘Kaluga, Ryazan, Voronezh… that’s bad, the Germans are close there… Izhevsk.’ I counted quickly that it was 1,500 kilometers to Izhevsk. ‘I choose Izhevsk.’ ‘Fine. You will go to Izhevsk and work at an arms plant. Sign here, take the ticket and go.’ I was assigned to the Izhevsk arms plant as an engineer-researcher to work with CME – control and measurement equipment.