Rimma Rozenberg

This is me, Rimma Rozenberg in the courtyard of the Odessa history museum, in 1961. These figures were installed around the monument to Katherine II. This monument was in the Yekaterininskaya Square before the revolution; then the Bolsheviks removed it and it was kept in the backyard of the archeological museum and then it was moved to the yard of the history museum. It was my husband's idea to take this photo, and we went there on purpose to take this funny photo. We had a lot of fun while I was posing. In 1958 I began to teach at the Conservatory. There was more freedom there at the time. They began to teach Shostakovich to students and I believed it to be a clear symbol of Khrushchev's thaw. During this period, music was more popular than literature. Theatrical life in Odessa became more active, and my husband and I were theater-goers. We attended all skit performances at the house of actors. They were rather sharp. I particularly remember the one telling how a former warden of a prison became director of an opera theater. Sometimes we participated in those performances.