Alexander Tsvey at a meeting of the chair of Moscow Road Transport Institute

This is a meeting of the chair of Moscow Road Transport Institute. This is I, Alexander Tsvey at the end of the table, the second to the right. Next to me, the last to the left is a teacher Evgeniy Rabinovich.  The picture was made in Moscow  in  1980.

In 1951 I graduated from the Moscow Engineering and Construction Institute, mechanics department. I got a mandatory job assignment to the trust 'Stroitel' as a mechanic. It was a small-scale plant. It looked like a construction site, where automobile plant named after Stalin, later Likhachev was being build. I did not get along with the director of the plant. He was a semiliterate man and an inveterate anti-Semitist to boot. In 1952 I was transferred to the construction trust to the department of the chief mechanics. After Stalin's death I got an invitation letter to the post-graduate department of my dear Engineering and Construction Institute. In 1954 I was admitted there and in 2 years I brilliantly defended my dissertation. In 1959 I began teaching at Moscow Road Transport Institute, Construction Mechanics. I had worked for that institute all my life. I am still employed there. I was promoted rather rapidly. Soon I became senior teacher. Then I defended doctorate theses and became a professor. I am respected both by my colleagues and peers in spite of my reputation of being strict, reserved and a man of principle. There were cases when my colleagues asked me to put good marks either to their children or acquaintances and I had to refuse them as those students knew hardly anything. My reputation was important for me and I could not prevaricate. Pro-rector of our institute did not want to talk to me when I refused him in one of those requests. In spite of that when there was a secret vote of the academic council for conferment the title of the senior staff scientist, there was a unanimous vote. The vote had taken place for 4 times and I was elected unanimously all the time. My jubilees are always celebrated in our chair. People always sincerely greet me. I am keen on poetry. I compose my own verses, write recollections about war. The Institute assists me in publishing my books and prints them in its typography. I never came across anti-Semitism at work.

I met my wife-to-be Inga Kisina during my studies at the institute. Inga and I got married in December 1951. We got registered in the marriage registration office and in the evening we had a wedding party for our kin and friends. Mother and I had a room in a communal apartment, and wife's family also lived in communal apartment in the center of Moscow, in 3 poky rooms. My wife and I moved in one of them after wedding. Later on, when we had two children, we still lived in that room. Soon doctors found out that Inga had a diabetes. She was a very good person, beautiful, smart and intellectual. She was a giver rather than taker. She has worked for scientific and research institute all her life, but still she found time to take care of children. As for material side, life was hard on us. We constantly had debts and could not only afford luxury, we could not even afford to go on vacation to the suburb of Moscow. Children often went to pioneer camps. My wife and I were atheists and raised our children soviet. We even bid not break the subject of religion in our family. We gladly marked soviet holidays - 1st of May, 7th of November [October Revolution Day], Soviet Army Day, Victory Day. We invited our friends to come and share potluck with us no matter that we could not afford a feast.