I am not sure what to make of the fact that one year anniversary of this blog falls on the 90th anniversary of Komsomol – Communist Union of Youth which I joined at the ge 14 back in 1983. Komsomol was a third step in the Soviet brainwashing pyramid after the Little Octobrists and the Young Pioneers. Knowing that the big 90th anniversary is coming up I was trying to think what do I remember about being in Komsomol and couldn’t come up with anything. By 1983 joining all the communist organizations while still mandatory, became more or less a formality. People who refused to join were constantly harassed by Komsomol leaders appealing to their non-existent communist spirit; on the other hand, “troublemakers” and openly religious people weren’t easily accepted, which could have had a negative influence on their future lives and chances of getting into college.
In order to join one had to fill out an application and be recommended by two members of Komsomol and/or Communist Party and also by a local Young Pioneer Organization. To make it look even more serious the candidate had to study the Komsomol Bylaws and be able to answer specific questions. If I remember correctly “specific” questions were supplied to us ahead of time. An artist’s depiction of the ceremony in 1962 looked like this:
For your homework find a difference between the painting above and its previous version from 1949. Discuss amongst yourself.
In my case it didn’t look anything like that; several people got accepted at once after answering some questions with prepared answers. A member of Komsomol had a membership ID like this
and a pin like this
On the right side of the membership ID you see one of the pages where a payment of membership dues was marked with a special stamp. Komsomol was the first of the Communist Organizations that had actual dues. Since the Soviet kids didn’t work (unlike poor exploited children in the West) the monthly dues were two kopecks, pretty much a pocket change but multiplied by millions of members it added up to huge amounts of money.
I continued to pay membership dues throughout the technical school and in the army. It increased a little but was always a small amount.
One could stay in Komsomol until the age of 28. Some joined the communist party before that, some just let their membership run out. For my generation Komsomol slowly dissipated without a trace and no memories. When I was leaving the country in 1992 I didn’t even know where my ID was. Many Komsomol leaders used their positions, connections,probably some of the dues and other property to acquire huge amounts of wealth and become oligarchs. The rest of us just moved on…
Just like many other attributes of the USSR Komsomol is now fondly remembered by some. Big celebrations were held this week to commemorate the 90th anniversary. Years are like beer-goggles of history, they make even the ugly past look better.
I don’t make New Year Resolutions, but I start every year hoping to interview an Old Jewish Person®. Then I realize that I have no interviewing skills, or patience or determination to actually do it, and soon another year rolls around. So this is probably as close as it gets to having a narrative on this blog. This text is translated from an older gentleman’s blog I’ve been following for many years. He lives in Israel and seems to be retired after a long career as a physician. His stories are always fascinating, honest, and told from an old Jewish doctor point of view I find so relatable. If you read Russian you will find his blog to be a unique personal account of the long-gone era, mixed with tragic and funny stories he encountered in his latter years while working in Israel with ex-Soviet immigrants. And if you are Russian-impaired, you have to rely on my crude translating and editing skills. Translating takes a long time and there only so much of it I can do at work so this is only the first part. I also edited out an episode that cannot be possibly explained to a non-Russian reader without writing a small book. Part 2 that covers WWII and the years after is coming up sometime in the future.
In the early sixties, after three years of working in a rural area, my family came back to Minsk. I got a job in a TB clinic; my wife was hired as an ambulance doctor.
Soon I’ve met an interesting man in the clinic.
It was our consulting thoracic surgeon Grigory Semenovich. He was a distinguished man, a veteran of WWII, a PhD. Actually, when he was born in the beginning of the 20th century he was named Hirsch, his father was Simha, so his full name was listed in the passport as Hirsch Simkhovich. Not willing to pronounce such a tongue twister, people at his Worker and then Medical school called him Grisha, and later Grigory Semenovich. His last name was Obershmukler, which is translated from Yiddish means “chief smuggler”. It’s hard to say how his ancestors got that name, but in the early 19th century by the order of Tsar Alexander I all the Jews in the Empire were required to produce last names. And then it all depended on the imagination of barely literate clerks and happy owners of new names.
When I met him, he was an old man of sixty, small in stature around 160 cm (5’2’’), with a large bald spot surrounded by a narrow rim of gray hair. Thick black mustache streaked with gray, barely concealed a rough scar on his upper lip – a reminder of a childhood surgery. He had nasal and slightly hoarse voice. During surgeries he had to stand on a step-stool.
All this combined – a tiny height, baldness, big mustache and a voice – made for somewhat of a strange impression , although he was a good surgeon , very well-read and educated .
Grigory Semenovich had his habits.
During surgeries, when complications and difficulties arose, he did not yell at nurses or scolded assistants; did not throw tools like many venerable surgeons I’ve observed in my many years of study and work. He calmly and quietly muttered some unintelligible words in his nasal voice, and if all went well, even tried to sing something totally unfamiliar. When asked what it meant, he replied –
– Do not worry, I am commenting on the progress of the surgery to myself in Latin…
Once at the front, after a complicated and successful surgery, a higher-ranking doctor who was there with an inspection, said in Yiddish after a modest dinner and a “front-line hundred grams” (*of vodka):
– Hirsch, you need to be more cautious with your cursing , special agents (*of NKVD) may know what “mome loshn” means but may not understand who it’s directed to …
Colonel inspector also grew up in a shtetl , went to a heder and was able to understand all the terrible curses on the heads of Germans , crappy instruments, war, dumb commanders , bleeding and this lousy life …
Once when I was present with my electrocardiograph during a heavy thoracoplasty surgery performed by Gregory Semenovich, I was also able to make out the words of an indecent song that I heard as a child from my father .
In my translation of an arbitrary and totally outrageous pronunciation (after all , the last time I heard this song seventy years ago !) One verse of this specimen of folk art translates roughly as follows:
Jew has sex with a Jew , goy has a goy ,
Rabbi has a rebbetzin and all enjoy …
It is known that in the USSR from NKVD to kindergartens people disgruntled with someone or something wrote anonymous complaints on a variety of subject to different organizations. Grigory Semenovich didn’t escape his. Clinic received a directive from the regional party committee with the request to verify the facts, investigate the matter and report back to the regional committee. The attached anonymous letter stated that the operating surgeon Obershmukler writes off a lot of valuable medicinal alcohol, but in reality he drinks the alcohol with no zakuski, while getting drunk with other physicians and operating nurses but the junior staff is never invited, as if they are not human… and these drunken parties cause harm to the Soviet state in general and all of medicine in particular.
Everyone knew that Gregory Semenovich cannot drink more than one shot during the evening. When they showed him the letter, he grinned into his mustache and said –
– Tomorrow is my surgery, send the commission, they will see for themselves …
The next day, Gregory Semenovich came to work with a large portfolio. Commission gathered soon – assistant director of the hospital Anna Artemovna, secretary of the local Communist Party organization, the chairman of the local union and chief nurse. Surgeon Obershmukler dumped a few thick monographs with bookmarks and a pile of printed instructions on the table.
– Please verify that I am following the guidance. This is a monograph with existing hand sanitizing methods, and these – he pointed to the printed sheets – are the latest instructions of our ministry. Now I’m going to wash my hands, and you will observe … Nurse, are you ready? Begin!
They began the long process of hand sanitizing while Gregory Semenovich explained.
– We are using the Fyurbringer’s* method with modification by Alfeld*. Sometimes we use Spasokukotsky* – Kochergin* method (*all these names could be medical-sounding gibberish). In all three methods the last stage is rinsing of the hands with a 70 % alcohol solution for 2 to 5 minutes; we will use 2 minutes. Nurse, give me a sterile napkin, start the stopwatch and slowly pour the alcohol on my hands!
Alcohol started trickling down on his palms, and then to the sink …
What are you doing! – screamed the Chairman of the Union, retired paramedic and a no stranger to drinking.
Last drops emerged from half-liter bottle.
– Now have to leave, patient is waiting, – Gregory Semenovich raised his clean hands and looking like a surrendering prisoner, shuffled over to the operating room …
Few more episodes.
In those years, our clinic expanded, changed staffing and simultaneously recruited several young graduates of medical school. One of them, Valya, came the first time to work in a mini-skirt. Minis were just beginning to come into vogue and assistant director Anna Artemovna stated that the Soviet young people and members of Komsomol cannot appear at work dressed like this. Reprimands did not help, and Anna Artemovna used every possible way to find fault with a young girl.
Anna Artemovna was a partisan nurse and after the war she married a former guerrilla commander, barely finished college and once admitted that after the college has not read a single book.
Once she burst into the staffroom, where doctors spent their free time and in a raised voice began berating Valechka for her transgressions. Valya didn’t have to look for words and said loudly –
Why are you attacking me like a Fury?
Assistant director froze for a few seconds.
– Girl! What did you say to me? I am an honest woman! I have a husband! It’s you who is shaking her tail, flashing your panties and bare hips to everyone, be ashamed! I would never put on skirt like this!
-Of course, at your age you have nothing to flash and have nothing to show, and no one wants to see it anyway!
From the far corner came a hoarse voice nasal voice of Gregory Semenovich –
-Anna Artemovna why are you boiling so much? Fury is not a prostitute, as you though. In Greek it means an evil vindictive woman and it may not be too far from the truth.
– You are and old man and on her side…
Anna Artemovna left the room and slammed the door.
Grigory Semenovich didn’t have a lot of work in our hospital. He dealt mainly with adhesions after the placement of artificial pneumothorax, occasionally performed therapeutic thoracoplasty and some others. For several days after a surgery, even on weekends, he visited his patients, punctured the pleural cavity, changed wound dressings and made new prescriptions.
During those years he lived with his wife in a small two- story Khrushchev-style apartment building, she was often sick, and he felt lonely. I often picked up duty hours in the therapeutic ward to make extra money. Grigory S. came to me in the duty room and we had long conversations …
Grigory S. was born in the early 20th century in a small shtetl near Minsk , and as all the local kids went to heder – elementary school at the synagogue. Since the childhood he started helping his father who was a cobbler, but always wanted to study and become a doctor.
The boy was born with a small genetic defect – a slight cleft lip and had surgery in his childhood to repair it. For the rest of his life he remembered the majestic figure of the surgeon in a long white coat and mask with clean hands raised up in the air…
After the revolution, Grisha went to Minsk and began working as a mechanic at the depot at the railroad station, while attending a night school. After 2 years local Communist cell, the trade union committee and the director gave him a referral to the technical school. Grisha successfully graduated and enrolled in medical school.
Student years were difficult – Grisha worked nights as a nurse in a hospital, then as a surgeons’ assistant and studied hard. He often participated in simple surgeries …
Then graduation. He, a Jewish guy, son of a shoemaker – a medical doctor! Joy knew no bounds!
But he was yet to become a surgeon …
Initially he worked in Polesia, in a remote village in a forsaken district hospital with 10 beds. He worked alone, treating all diseases, delivering babies. Queues at the reception were huge, and after a day at work – night house calls …
The following year they hired a midwife, and then came a paramedic – life became a little easier. Grisha set up an operating room, started performing minor surgeries. The village had no electricity so he arranged for a power generator near the hospital. When the old steam generator started huffing and puffing at night – the whole village knew that there was a patient or a birth.
After three and a half years he was sent to a surgical residency.
Gregory never came back to the village, he was sent to the district center to work as a general surgeon. At the age of almost 30 his lifelong dream came true!
At the new job young surgeon met a charming female colleague, an obstetrician -gynecologist, who started working there a couple of years prior.
Her name was Rachel. She was a tall, stout, pretty blonde. Her face had a disproportionately large nose that made her embarrassed …
Her path to medicine she was easier than Grisha’s – her parents were able to get medical education during the Tsarist years and escape from the Pale of Settlement – her dad was a pharmacist and her mother a midwife , and they were allowed to live in big cities .
Rachel was three years younger Grisha, 16 centimeters taller without heels and 15 kilos heavier …
Grisha always liked big women. He realized that it was his destiny and started a proper siege.
Fortress did not especially resist, Rachel liked miniature men and, in particular, Grisha. After a few months a simple wedding took place in the yard of a small house, where young people found an apartment – just a friendly dinner. Toward the end of the event happy and tired groom took a nap in the corner. Rachel took him in her arms like a baby, and carried him into the bedroom next to her powerful chest to the applause of the remaining guests.
Gregory S. and Rachel worked at the district hospital for a few more years, when they encountered the first trouble – they did not conceive. Pregnancies ended in miscarriages, doctors’ advice did not help, and to get the advice they had to go to the regional center or to Minsk. And the young family decided to move to Minsk, the capital.
In the early 1930’s, doctors were needed in all hospitals. Without much difficulty and patronage Rachel and Grisha got jobs in their respective specialties, and moved into an apartment with Rachel’s aunt.
Finally, nature took its course, Rachel became pregnant and in 1936 and delivered a healthy girl.
In the fashion of those years she was named Svetlana.
Time passed quickly, maternity leave has ended. Not so young mother-doctor knew that to send the infant to the nursery meant to put the long-awaited child in danger. A thought to leave work did not cross her mind. They had to find a nanny. One of the former patients suggested his distant relative – Alesya – a 16-year-old girl, an orphan from a distant village, almost illiterate , but familiar with young children , decent and clean .
They took the girl took into the family and she raised Svetlana from the age of 8 months! They even looked similar, both were round-faced blondes, only Svetlana had green eyes and Alesya’s were blue …
When friends asked the Alesya where she works, she nonchalantly replied “I do not know, some surgeon” …
Few more years passed. Svetochka started in kindergarten. Alesya helped around the house and attended night school. Grisha and Rachel worked hard and taught Alesya all they knew themselves – from cooking to nursing care. They took care of her future – Alain finished seven grades, passed the entrance exams and in the autumn of 1941 was supposed to go to nursing school.
Grigory Semenovich didn’t have a lot of work in our hospital. He dealt mainly with adhesions after the imposition of artificial pneumothorax, occasionally performed therapeutic thoracoplasty and some others. For several days after a surgery, even on weekends, he visited his patients, punctured the pleural cavity, changed wound dressings and made new prescriptions.
During those years he lived with his wife in a small two- story Khrushchev-style apartment building, she was often sick, and he felt lonely. I often picked up duty hours in the therapeutic ward to make extra money. Grigory S. came to me in the duty room and we had long conversations …
Grigory S. was born in the early 20th century in a small shtetl near Minsk , and as all the local kids went to heder – elementary school at the synagogue. Since the childhood he started helping his father who was a cobbler, but he always wanted to study and become a doctor.
The boy was born with a small genetic defect – a slight cleft lip and had surgery in his childhood to repair it. For the rest of his life he remembered the majestic figure of the surgeon in a long white coat and mask with clean hands raised up in the air…
After the revolution, Grisha went to Minsk and began working as a mechanic at the depot at the railroad station, while attending a night school. After 2 years local Communist cell, the trade union committee and the director gave him a referral to the technical school. Grisha successfully graduated and enrolled in medical school.
Student years were difficult – Grisha worked nights as a nurse in a hospital, then as a surgeons’ assistant and studied hard. He often participated in simple surgeries …
Then graduation. He, a Jewish guy, son of a shoemaker – a medical doctor! Joy knew no bounds!
But he was yet to become a surgeon …
Initially he worked in Polesia, in a remote village in a forsaken district hospital with 10 beds. He worked alone, treating all diseases, delivering babies. Queues at the reception were huge, and after a day at work – night house calls …
The following year they hired a midwife, and then came a paramedic – life became a little easier. Grisha set up an operating room, started performing minor surgeries. The village had no electricity so he arranged for a power generator near the hospital. When the old steam generator started huffing and puffing at night – the whole village knew that there was a patient or a birth.
After three and a half years he was sent to a surgical residency.
Gregory never came back to the village, he was sent to the district center to work as a general surgeon. At the age of almost 30 his lifelong dream came true!
At the new job young surgeon met a charming female colleague, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who started working there a couple of years prior.
Her name was Rachel. She was a tall, stout, pretty blonde. Her face had a disproportionately large nose that made her embarrassed …
Her path to medicine she was easier than Grisha’s – her parents were able to get medical education during the Tsarist years and escape from the Pale of Settlement – her dad was a pharmacist and her mother a midwife , and they were allowed to live in big cities .
Rachel was three years younger Grisha, 16 centimeters taller without heels and 15 kilos heavier …
Grisha always liked big women. He realized that it was his destiny and started a proper siege.
Fortress did not especially resist, Rachel liked miniature men and, in particular, Grisha. After a few months a simple wedding took place in the yard of a small house, where young people found an apartment – just a friendly dinner. Toward the end of the event happy and tired groom took a nap in the corner. Rachel took him in her arms like a baby, and carried him into the bedroom next to her powerful chest to the applause of the remaining guests.
Gregory S. and Rachel worked at the district hospital for a few more years, when they encountered the first trouble – they did not conceive. Pregnancies ended in miscarriages, doctors’ advice did not help, and to get the advice they had to go to the regional center or to Minsk. And the young family decided to move to Minsk, the capital.
In the early 1930’s, doctors were needed in all hospitals. Without much difficulty and patronage Rachel and Grisha got jobs in their respective specialties, and moved into an apartment with Rachel’s aunt.
Finally, nature took its course, Rachel became pregnant and in 1936 and delivered a healthy girl.
In the fashion of those years she was named Svetlana.
Time passed quickly, maternity leave has ended. Not so young mother-doctor knew that to send the infant to the nursery meant to put the long-awaited child in danger. A thought to leave work did not cross her mind. They had to find a nanny. One of the former patients suggested his distant relative – Alesya – a 16-year-old girl, an orphan from a distant village, almost illiterate , but familiar with young children , decent and clean .
They took the girl took into the family and she raised Svetlana from the age of 8 months! They even looked similar, both were round-faced blondes, only Svetlana had green eyes and Alesya’s were blue …
When friends asked the Alesya where she works, she nonchalantly replied “I do not know, some surgeon” …
Few more years passed. Svetochka started in kindergarten. Alesya helped around the house and attended night school. Grisha and Rachel worked hard and taught Alesya all they knew themselves – from cooking to nursing care. They took care of her future – Alesya finished seven grades, passed the entrance exams and in the autumn of 1941 was supposed to go to nursing school.
Muslim Magomaev, one of the most popular Soviet singers of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s died today. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that 100% of the Soviet population knew and loved him. He was a huge star with a wide range of musical talents – from pop to opera, performing in many languages and winning many well-deserved international awards. Many times when Magomaev was on TV my Father would record his songs on our reel-to-reel tape recorder and little 6-year old me would sing along.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply…
Genesis 1:28
Evolution is a great thing. In a world without evolution only beautiful people would be able to reproduce and the Earth would be populated with the clones of Fabio (or as someone admitted – John Edwards) and Julia Roberts. Enter an unfortunate side-effect of the looks-based-reproduction, namely a gradual lowering of the worldwide average IQ. Here is where the evolution came up with an ingenious solution of supplying the below-average-looking fat males with small genitalia with a an amazing tool-set for seducing beautiful women of their dreams who otherwise wouldn’t even grant such males a second look.
My non-existent love life automatically makes me an expert perfectly qualified to write the following article. If you are a good-looking male, with a perfect body and an award-winning penis, this is how far you should read. I am pretty sure you are starting to get a headache from all the big words I’ve used so far. You’ve won in the genetic lottery and your existence assures that all of the mankind doesn’t look like me. Thanks for being there for us, go do a few crunches or something.
We can now continue without that one douche-bag who just left. Males of many species have different ways of attracting the most beautiful and unavailable females; from peacock’s tails to the giant deer antlers, the natural world is full of examples of males getting what they want when otherwise they wouldn’t have any chance. Just like our smaller brothers we have some things we can use to inject our ugly but smart DNA into the human gene pool. These do not require any special effort, like exercise or diet; you probably already have some or all of them as you read this.
1. A foreign accent. Contrary to popular belief, a foreign accent is not a handicap. In the love game it’s probably one of the best assets you can have. Accents drive women crazy and sometimes just after a few words she will do anything to hear more of your randomly swapped v’s and w’s or, even better, a whole word in your native tongue.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6QUFqiJx9k
Few words of warning on the accents: two similar accents cancel each other out. If you are both from Australia, all the talk about shrimps and barbies will not turn her on. On the contrary, the other person’s accent becomes annoying and embarrassing. Another note of caution: if your accent makes you sound like Larry The Cable Guy, you better have his kind of money to be able to seduce the woman of your dreams unless it’s Nancy Grace.
2. Learn to cook something from scratch. To impress a woman you don’t need to be a Wolfgang Puck, you just need to be able to cook something she’ll like preferably without using any recipes you got from watching Semi-Homemade Cooking show on the Food Network. Whether it’s a steak, a hamburger, fried chicken or borscht, it’s the process and your skill that will fascinate her, so Shake’n’Bake wouldn’t do the trick. Cooking may also include baking or cocktail making. Anything that only you know how to make will get you closer to the target. However, don’t go too wild unless you know who you are dealing with; she may not appreciate your Coq Au Vin but may be pleasantly surprised with Chicken and Dumplings.
3. Get a pet, and by a pet I mean a cat. Dog will not allow you to leave for those romantic long weekends and will interfere with you enjoying your morning together. Other pets may be scary, disgusting, annoying or smelly. On the other hand, virtually every woman loves a cat, and will come back to your house repeatedly just to scratch your cat behind the ear. Placing a cat photo such as this anywhere in your dating profile pretty much guarantees you a constant stream of “icebreakers”.
4. Poetry. That’s right, a poem will make your woman’s heart melt. You don’t need to be Walt Whitman, start with something simple and romantic like:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I am here naked.
Where the hell are you?
If you want to impress her even more, haiku is the way to go. I am at a disadvantage in this department since I can’t count syllables, but it doesn’t prevent me from faking it. Just make sure you always have three lines:
Writing haiku is hard,
but I try
for the hell of it.
5. Get some title or an achievement, for example you can become the Best Blogger ever or get a PhD in some obscure subject. Published works, books, photos in the local newspaper, sex tape, whatever it takes to pique her interest.
6. Impress her with your knowledge. Be careful not to bore her with a discussion on pros and cons of various Linux distributions, comic heroes and their superpowers, or some special maneuver you use to beat a game on X Box. Instead you can impress her by knowing the capital of New Hampshire, or pointing out the difference between a crocodile and an alligator.
To summarize, if you are short in all the wrong places, fat and ugly, not all is lost. Just use your accent, skills and pets to seduce the woman of your dreams and remember: it’s survival of the fittest, not necessarily better-looking.
