Roman krasnovsky. An unkosher instrument Notes fro

                Roman Krasnovsky
 


                Jerusalem ; 2023
An unkosher Instrument
NOTES from AN ISRAELI ORGANIST
Jerusalem ; 2023
Roman Krasnovsky
An unkosher Instrument
NOTES from AN ISRAELI ORGANIST
© All rights reserved by the author
ISBN 978-965-7672-53-2
Contact the author: krasn@012.net.il
"Dostoyaniye" Publishing House, Jerusalem, 2023
"Dostoyaniye": Tel: (972)77-424-6165, (972)522-403117
a.dostoyaniye@gmail.com | kniga-book.com
Video Journal: youtube.com/dostoyaniyedotcom









            
 Dedicated to my children, Irina and Dmitry Krasnovsky

               



















This wonderful book was written by a world-renowned organist, Roman Krasnovsky. He has performed at Notre-Dame de Paris, the grand Cologne Cathedral, and in numerous countries across Europe, Asia, and America. Yet in Israel, he worked as a garbage collector—a worker on a truck that gathers the waste of urban life. This, by the way, amused him greatly and contributed quite a bit to his international fame. He wrote this book about his life with humor, never overemphasizing his close acquaintance with the world's prominent musicians, and never boasting about his obviously extraordinary talent.
I highly recommend this amazing work to everyone.
                Igor Guberman
















Before the Prologue
Dear reader (if there even is one)! I started writing this book in 1995. Then I abandoned it, and now, in 2022, I decided to continue. Over these years, a lot has changed. And not for the better. My homeland consists of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (later in the book, I’ll explain why there are two regions). What is happening today in these regions, in Crimea, and in Ukraine is a quiet horror to me. I am with Ukraine with all my heart, even though Ukraine often votes against Israel in the UN. But I will write (and almost everything has already been written) as if these terrible events never happened. I am writing about the past, and I ask you not to judge me: this book is about my life, and today I am 67 years old. (Though now, while rewriting, I did make a few corrections and additions across the span of those years. It couldn't be helped otherwise.)
Today is August 15, 2022.












Prologue
In an interview I gave to the Russian-language Israeli newspaper Novosti Nedeli (News of the Week), I carelessly declared that I wanted to write a book called An unkosher Instrument. I said it—and almost forgot about it, though the idea crossed my mind from time to time, and I kept looking for an excuse to start. But playing into my laziness, no excuse could be found.
And then finally, on March 14, 1995, at around 8:30 AM, pulling onto the shoulder of a road that had suddenly turned into a sharp hairpin bend—while driving slightly over the speed limit—prompted me to make a fatal press on the brakes. Experienced drivers say you should never do that. My car did several fouett;s (thankfully not thirty-two), and I ended up in a small ditch just beyond the shoulder of the oncoming lane. Moreover, mid-flight, I managed to smash into a Mitsubishi that was peacefully rolling toward me. I did it so professionally that after everything was over and the other driver came to his senses, we exchanged insurance details. He even let me call my job at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance from his car to tell them I probably wouldn't make it to work today. As he left, he said to me: "Yihye beseder" and "Al tid'ag – yesh bituach" ("Everything will be fine. Don't worry, there's insurance"). After that, he actually started his not-quite-demolished car and drove away on his own. As for me, I stayed behind to wait for a tow truck with my aggressive little Renault, which had severely lost its looks, sporting a crumpled hood... In short, my car resembled a feisty cat that had suffered a major fiasco.
Fewer than three hours later, the rescue service arrived. We were loaded onto the flatbed of a truck and taken for repairs. By the way, I wrecked the car on an anniversary: it had been exactly one year since I bought it.
Life in Israel is grand! You can smash cars as much as you like because "yesh bituach." Mind you, it’s best to do it carefully so you don't cripple yourself or someone else, otherwise even insurance won't feel sweet. Though my insurance agent, Sashenka, used to say that insurance is the foundation of all living things: the movable, the barely movable, and even the completely immovable. So my car was in safe hands.
After feeling myself all over and moving all my movable body parts, I made sure that everything that was supposed to move did move, and everything that wasn't supposed to move didn't move. Well, not bad at all. My mom even lit a candle to God.
To make a long story short... I decided that all of this was a highly significant reason to write the promised book: after all, it was my second birthday.




















Chapter 1
But I had a first birthday too.
I was born on January 10, 1955. Most likely, that is exact! It was the last day of the winter school holidays. But there was a bit of a hitch regarding my birthplace. My birth certificate states that I was born in the city of Stalino, which, after the denunciation of the cult of personality, became Donetsk. The same was written in my USSR citizen passport.
But that is not true. In reality, it went like this: my mom traveled from Stalino to give birth to me at her parents' house in Krasny Luch, located in the Voroshilovgrad, then Luhansk, then Voroshilovgrad again, then Luhansk again, etc., region. And only later was I, a newborn, brought back to Stalino and registered there. So all my conscious life, while filling out countless forms, I didn't suffer as much from the infamous 5th column—which was labeled "nationality"—as I did from the "place of birth" column. I was condemned to an eternal lie.
My grandmother Ida and grandfather Isaac moved from Krasny Luch to Stalino. And that is where my memory of myself begins.
Stalino, in case anyone forgot, is the capital of the Donetsk coal basin, and the main landmark of this city was the slag heaps—huge mountains of waste coal rock that resembled the Egyptian pyramids from afar, only black. Apparently, that's why I have no desire to visit Egypt today: after all, I already saw all of that in my childhood.
The building where we occupied one room in a two-room communal apartment was special. First of all, it was located in the very center of Donetsk, on Pushkin Boulevard (by this time, Stalino had been renamed Donetsk).
I am certain that if one of the central streets in Donetsk was named Pushkin Boulevard, then all was not yet lost. But Pushkin Boulevard was nothing! When Grandmother Ida's blood sister, Grandmother Raya, moved to Donetsk—again from Krasny Luch—the street she settled on was, for reasons entirely beyond my comprehension, called Rossini Avenue. You couldn't even call that a Zionist provocation—it was some kind of Rossini-Zionist provocation.
Secondly, our building was entirely populated by musicians, singers, dancers, ticket collectors, and cleaning ladies from the philharmonic and the opera and ballet theater. Who didn't live in our building... I even knew Yury Gulyaev, a singer famous throughout the USSR, not from the television, but as a neighbor.
A question naturally arises: what connection did I have to this building? The thing is, my dad, Mikhail Isaakovich Krasnovsky, worked in the symphony orchestra of the Donetsk Philharmonic. Back then, he played the trombone. Though my memories of his trombone career are vague. I only remember him playing the themes of various marches for me when I was throwing a tantrum. By the time of my first visit to a symphony concert, dad was no longer playing the trombone. He was playing percussion instruments.
It happened like this. Having graduated after the war from the music college in his hometown of Dnepropetrovsk, dad lived there with his parents—consequently, my other grandparents, Manya and, again, Isaac. My grandfathers shared the same name.
They say that when you find yourself standing between two people with the same name, you must quickly make a wish, and it will come true. Either I didn't know about it back then, or I was never positioned between both grandfathers Isaac at the same time... Whatever the case, I didn't make a wish, and that, as I am now convinced, is the root cause of many of my problems.
So, dad lived in Dnepropetrovsk and played peacefully at dances and in movie theaters before screenings. He lived his life and had no worries. When suddenly, the chief conductor of the Donetsk Symphony Orchestra, Solomon Feldman, invited dad to join the orchestra as a bass-trombonist. Feldman accepted dad, but the position turned out to be occupied.
In the USSR, women rarely played wind instruments—except for the flute, of course. There is a superstition among musicians that flutists are slightly gloomy because they blow out too much air. A flutist's airflow doesn't enter the instrument entirely, unlike other wind players. Therefore, compared to an oboist or a clarinetist, a flutist's air consumption for the exact same phrase is fundamentally different, and a flutist requires an immeasurably larger reserve of air in the head, which, naturally, pushes out everything else that, according to anatomy, should reside in the head. That's why the flute, like nothing else, suits a woman. This is a joke, of course. If you look at the rest of humanity, aside from flutists, and see how much grief, suffering, and war exist on earth, making fun of flutists for having too much air in their heads is simply vile. After all, all the misfortunes on earth certainly do not stem from flutists.
Occasionally, there were women who played the oboe or clarinet, but... for a woman to play the trombone! That was too much! So, let's take it in order.
In the Donetsk orchestra, the bass trombone part was played by “aunt Sonya”, whose last name was Nedelkina. (In the Soviet Union, small children would address adult strangers and acquaintances as 'Dyadya' (Uncle) and 'Tyotya' (Aunt), despite having no family relation.)  She grew up in an orphanage, and that's where she learned to play the trombone. So, at the exact moment dad was invited to the orchestra, aunt Sonya the trombonist was on maternity leave, and dad had no idea he was stepping into a non-vacant spot. When aunt Sonya gave birth and returned to work, the conductor moved her to the second trombone position, which was less prestigious and paid about three rubles less.
While her indignation was entirely justified, it must be said that aunt Sonya had a fierce temper. And so it began... Feldman proposed a competition between aunt Sonya and dad, but aunt Sonya refused to compete because dad played significantly better. This conflict stressed dad out so much that whenever he brought the trombone to his lips, his nerves caused him to lose sensation in one of his lips. In short, he had to give up the trombone.
And on the advice of that same Feldman, dad urgently mastered percussion instruments. This wasn't too difficult for him, because in his childhood he had studied the xylophone and even performed at various olympiads and festivals.
Generally, dad grew up as a musical child, but choosing a musical instrument wasn't so simple. Buying a piano was out of the question. Once, someone advised dad to study the violin, so he came to his father—that is, to one of my grandfathers Isaac—and stated that it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy him a violin. To which Grandfather Isaac, a professional balagula (that is, a coachman), said, putting his arm around his son: "We'd do better to buy a little piglet with that money." It seems that kashrut was not observed in this Jewish family.
Later, dad played the clarinet and saxophone, but he returned from the front missing two fingers on his right hand (though carrying the Order of the Patriotic War, First Class), and the trombone became the most suitable instrument because a trombone slide can be moved even without two fingers. And now—percussion instruments.
At that time, it seemed to me that playing a musical instrument couldn't be a "job." When dad said in the morning that he was leaving "for rehearsal," I understood that he was going to play in the orchestra. But when he said he was leaving "for work," I had no inkling that "work" and "rehearsal" were the exact same thing in dad's case. I was certain that "at work" dad would sit at a desk with an abacus and office supplies, writing something down. Like most ordinary folks, I thought playing in an orchestra was not real work.
And so, when I was four years old, they finally took me to a daytime symphony concert. It was a lecture-concert for children dedicated to the work of Georges Bizet. Before that, I assumed that bize was merely a pastry (which is spelled beze in Russian), and here suddenly it was a composer.
When the orchestra musicians walked onto the stage, to my delight, I saw that most of them were my neighbors.
Some lady came out and began to talk at length about Bizet. It was torture for me. Apparently, she thought all the children in the hall, just like me, believed Bizet was a pastry, and she was trying with all her might to convince everyone that Bizet was also a composer.
And then the orchestra began to play. The first number in the concert was the overture to the opera Carmen. And that very overture begins with a powerful clash of cymbals. And it was my dad playing the cymbals! What's more, the orchestra plays sitting down, but a strong clash of cymbals is usually done standing up. The sight of dad, visibly towering over the entire orchestra and parting his arms with the cymbals in a spectacular gesture after a powerful strike, filled me with such awe that for a long time afterward, I considered the cymbals to be the primary instrument in the orchestra, and, of course, dad to be the most important musician. Later, an aria from the opera The Pearl Fishers was sung by ‘uncle Misha Shcherb’, the husband of the harpist ‘aunt Maya Slonim’ and, accordingly, the dad of Yulka, with whom I ran around the yard, since they were all my neighbors. Many years later, ‘uncle Misha’ would sing in the Tel Aviv Opera, but that would be later. For now, I sat at the concert, bursting with pride for my building.




                Me and my parents

Chapter 2
My mom, Faina Isaakovna Khavkina, was not a musician, but quite the opposite—she worked at the Donetsk Construction Technical College and taught structural engineering. And none of her colleagues lived in our building.
However, I spent most of my time not at the philharmonic, but at the construction college. Dad's evening concerts ended late, and mom had evening hours at the college that also ended late, though still earlier than dad's concerts. Because of that "still," mom would take me to the college in the evening, and to keep me from wandering around, they would place me with the secretary, Maria Pankratyevna, where I entertained myself with a typewriter. Mom never allowed me near her classes and strictly made sure I didn't sneak in illegally.
Once, some students led me into a classroom and sat me down with them. When mom walked in, everyone stood up, and I stood up with them. A single glance from mom made me pop out of the classroom like a cork from a bottle, landing right back with Maria Pankratyevna and her typewriter. But the students loved me anyway. Once, a student put me on his shoulders and said, "Wow, a Cossack!" I corrected him, clarifying that I wasn't a Cossack, but a Jew...
That was the first triumph of my life.
And what incredible people taught there! I knew everyone. For example, Evgeny Prokofyevich Bazilevich. He limped on one leg and was constantly cracking jokes. All his colleagues and even the students called him Basil. He had connections at various wholesale trade depots, and if any scarce goods appeared in our home, Basil was the one who got them for us. He was a great friend of our family. True, when management needed someone to write a denunciation against mom and other colleagues of Jewish nationality stating that they were Zionists, he did so with pleasure.
If such a letter had been written about mom in Israel, she would probably have received an award named after someone or other. But in Donetsk back then, they didn't hand out awards for that. And mom had to resign. The only upsetting part was that she was never a Zionist, neither in the USSR nor in Israel.
When many, many years later my European debut took place in the Swiss city of Basel, I suddenly remembered our "friend" Basil, even though the city is spelled with an "e" and not an "i".
Vladimir Ivanovich Yanovsky and his wife Zoya Pavlovna were mom's colleagues, and Vladimir Ivanovich was also the director of studies. We often visited each other's homes, and I ate very delicious cakes there, which, I was told, were baked by Vladimir Ivanovich. Later, though, it turned out they were baked by his wife Zoya Pavlovna, but... if possible, let's just pretend they were baked by Vladimir Ivanovich, alright? That's how I prefer it. Their idol was Academician Sakharov—at a time when he was being persecuted. This family hated the acronym "CPSU." You must admit, for a Soviet administrator, that was very bold.
Many years later, I even lit a candle for him in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
But I especially remember the November and May Day demonstrations. Mom always took me along. I only disliked two things: when the brass band abruptly started playing and when balloons popped. Today, I feel calmer around orchestras, but I still try to steer clear of large gatherings of balloons.
At mom's college, the parades were always commanded by a teacher named Tyshlek. He was a respected man and a great lover of life. But for me, the most appealing thing about him was that he was completely bald, like the legendary Kotovsky or like Fantomas. I, on the contrary, was a very curly-haired boy. And so, Tyshlek's bald head was an object of my white envy. I always said, "I want a haircut like Tyshlek's." I said it and said it—and got my wish. Now I can bear witness that envy is a bad thing, even if it's white.
When dad wanted to obtain some category of disability in the USSR for benefits (since he had lost two fingers in the war), they kept refusing him, arguing that two fingers were not enough. You needed to lose a minimum of four, or even all five (the more, the better). Once, we met Tyshlek on the street and shared this problem with him, to which he said to dad: "You're a country bumpkin, Misha. You can't even achieve such a trifle. Look at me, I have a first-category disability and a medical commission report stating that I can only be carried on a stretcher. Yet look at me."


            Dad with a trombone. Clearly a historical photograph.





Chapter 3
So we couldn't take much from life. It was the same with the apartment.
The main dream of a Soviet family was to have a separate apartment. As I already noted, we had one room in a communal two-room apartment. It wasn't the worst case scenario—people lived with 10 or more families in a single communal apartment. Our neighbor was the artistic director of the Ukrainian Folk Ensemble, Anatoly Fyodorovich Ushkaryov. He lived with his wife and his son Yurka. The family was intellectual and quiet. The only inconvenience for me was that during the day you had to make no noise, because Yurka was sleeping. (Putting me to sleep during the day was impossible. I finished with daytime naps when I was two years old and only resumed them just now).
But the quiet life did not last long. The Ushkaryovs received a separate apartment and moved out. Later, Anatoly Fyodorovich became the rector of the Astrakhan Conservatory, and later even a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR.
And then, a new little family came to replace the Ushkaryovs. That's when everything hit the fan. The main tenant was a ballerina from our opera and ballet theater. Her name was Ekaterina. As it later turned out, at the theater they called her “Katka Gouge-Your-Eye”. Co-workers rarely make mistakes when handing out nicknames. She lived with her infant son Vovka and an elderly Jew named Sashka, who was Vovka's father and lived with Katka constantly, even though he had his own family.
From that moment on, our life turned into hell. Mom was simply terrified to enter the apartment and tried to sleep over with me at my grandparents' house, where they had a small home with a garden and an orchard. Dad heroically spent his nights there. The moment we appeared in the apartment, Sashka would immediately rile Katka up, and she would start a row. It happened every single time. When Vovka started talking, one of the first words he uttered was the word "fools," naturally addressed to us. I think to some extent he was right. We really were fools for allowing ourselves to be treated that way.
I didn't waste time either, actively expanding my vocabulary. For instance, such a mysterious and enigmatic word as "prostitute" I memorized back then. Sashka used to reproach Katka with this word during their domestic arguments.
As it turned out later, Katka had won Sashka in a card game. He had been courting the costume designer Ida, and Katka set her sights on him. But since simply stealing Sashka from her friend was beneath Katka's high moral standards, they had to play a few games of Durak (Fool). Katka won, and Sashka automatically transferred to her.
Oh, cards! Oh, cards! Oh, cards! (A quote from the opera The Queen of Spades.)
During the day, Katka left for rehearsals, and in the evenings for performances—usually at six o'clock in the evening, since she still needed to put on makeup. And then, at 7:30 PM, our Katka appeared before the public in the form of a swan, a bird, a fish, a mouse, a rat, etc. But sometimes she left at ten in the evening. This meant that Charles Gounod's opera Faust was running at the theater that day. And in the final act of this opera, there was usually the ballet scene Walpurgis Night, and Katka would run out of the house for the last act to portray some evil spirit in female form. Mom used to say that for this role, Katka could appear on stage completely without makeup—and leave the house even later that day.
Rumors were afloat that Katka was supposed to get a separate apartment from the theater, and we waited for this moment with intense longing.
One morning, we heard some noise in their room but didn't attach much importance to it. However, upon stepping out into the kitchen, mom saw some people carrying out something resembling a sofa. Returning to our room, she whispered the long-awaited news to us. But... it was too early to rejoice. It wasn't Katka moving to a new apartment, and they weren't carrying out a sofa. They were carrying out Sashka. He couldn't think of anything more absurd than to suddenly die the night before.
When Katka returned from the funeral, she immediately spoke to us so amiably, as if we had always shared close family ties. And our life suddenly became quite tolerable. Katka ordered Vovka not to call us fools anymore. You could say that by executive order, she promoted us from fools to smart people.
By the way, at Katka's request, my mom later arranged for the reckless daughter of the deceased Sashka from his main family, with whom he didn't live, to enter the construction technical college where mom worked. And she watched over her afterward.
Now they started leaving me with Vovka sometimes, and we played very well together. Vovka was terribly proud of his father's death. To all the children in the yard, he would say: "I bet you have a dad, right? Yeah? Well, my dad died!" He pronounced the last phrase with such a joyful intonation that the children couldn't help but envy him and regret that their dads were alive and hadn't passed away like Vovka's.
Once, he and I were throwing two beautiful colored cushions at each other, and Vovka dreamily uttered: "When I have two dads and they die, one will be laid on this cushion, and the other on that one."
Exactly two days after Sashka's funeral, a very young ballet dancer named Vitalik appeared in our apartment and faithfully served Katka in the role of a husband.
Once, Vitalik's parents came from Petrozavodsk to visit their son. They brought a huge amount of beze—the pastry kind, not the composer Bizet. I managed to score some too in all the commotion.
It must be noted that during this period in the USSR, ballet dancers were somehow exempted from the army. Apparently, they believed that the development of Soviet ballet art was more important than the defense capacity of the country.
And Vitalik's dad was a colonel.
When Vitalik's unfortunate parents saw whom their young creature was living with, they made an unambiguous decision: Vitalik could only be saved from his connection with Katka by the "invincible and legendary" army. And the colonel-father had to use all his connections to get his son drafted, even though he was a ballet dancer.
When a draft notice suddenly arrived for Vitalik to report to the military registration enlistment office for a medical commission, Katka was very upset and decided that Vitalik must fall ill. No sooner said than done. She made him drink ice-cold milk, opened the window, and forced him to lean out with his mouth wide open, turning his head into the wind, and stand like that for just a couple of hours.
I think that was Vitalik's first guard duty.
And Katka's idea worked: Vitalik fell ill. This happened a couple more times until they came from the military office and said he must report dead or alive, or even arrive in a hearse. And he had to comply.
Vitalik's parents turned out to be right: after his army service, we only saw him in ballet performances, but he no longer lived in our apartment.
Many years later, when we and Katka had long been living separately in different apartments, mom met Katka on the street. Katka wept for a solid hour, telling her that her Vovka had grown up to be such a hooligan that after finishing school, they didn't even give him a letter of recommendation for the vocational school. And that says a lot. Soon Katka retired—after all, a ballerina's career is short—and they moved to another city, apparently to a place where Vovka wasn't known yet.
In the future, my life often intersected with ballet, but Katka was the first Terpsichore in my life. And the first is never forgotten. Goodbye, aunt Katya.















Chapter 4
The moment arrived when my parents decided I was already big and it was time for me to go to kindergarten. And then came that terrible day when I wasn't driven, walked, hauled, or dragged—dad carried me high above his head like an Olympic torch, and I kicked and wailed so loudly that people opened their windows to see what had happened. From the first to the last day, I made my parents give me their word of honor that they would come back for me, and all day long I waited only for that moment. Once, I broke my arm there and, naturally, howled in pain, disturbing the teacher. She said that if I didn't shut up immediately, they wouldn't let me go home today. And I had to endure the pain of a broken arm in silence. That's how they built masculine character in kindergarten. There, I also learned to eat crumbs off the table and to swear.
When I turned five, they decided to teach me music. It so happened that Grandfather Isaac, mom's father, suffered a head injury at work, which resulted in a concussion. And since he was insured, he received a sum of money with which they bought me a "Ukraina" piano. (At this point, my insurance agent Sashenka would say in a triumphant tone: "See!!!"). Be that as it may, the concussion passed, and the piano still stands in my Israeli apartment to this day. Though it has worn out a little bit.
I was taken to the Donetsk Music College to study as a guinea pig for some student undergoing teaching practice. When they auditioned me, they asked whom I inherited such talent from: mom or dad? To which I said that my mom didn't understand a damn thing about music, thereby hinting that I took after dad.
The supervisor of the students who taught me was Naum Markovich Brodsky. The very same Brodsky who was a student of Goldenweiser and later, while living in Germany, wrote the book Nuances of Musical Moscow, popular in musical circles. So my foundation is the Goldenweiser school. What they taught me there, I remember vaguely. Most likely, nothing. I only remember that at some evaluation concert I played Bach's Polonaise and performed terribly: forgetting, stumbling, getting confused. At the end of my disgrace, to top it all off, as I was descending from the stage into the auditorium, I tripped on a step and tumbled down. So it was a downfall in the figurative sense, and then also in the literal one.


Chapter 5
As is well known, a person truly lives only for seven years before school and a few years after retirement.
Donetsk Secondary School No. 1 was located on Pushkin Boulevard, just a few buildings away from ours. From the very first days of studying, I immediately rose to a leadership position. At the first class meeting, they were electing a class monitor, and the teacher, Lidia Trofimovna, said: "We need to choose Roma Krasnovsky." They voted unanimously. True, the period of my power did not last long, as I messed up the very first important assignment, and they dismissed me early from office with the phrasing "failed to cope with duties. I studied well enough, only my handwriting was poor.
To any student who didn't understand something during lessons, Lidia Trofimovna always said: "What a Turk!", from which I concluded that Turks were very slow-witted, and that the USSR had the best education in the world.
I don't know how it was in other schools, but in ours, after-school meetings—or rather, show trials—were practiced. Lidia Trofimovna would select the victim, choosing some negligent student. The things we poured over the head of the poor victim, who just three minutes ago had been our comrade! True, this lasted for about 10–15 minutes, and then the victim became our comrade again. We bore no grudges. Once, we were discussing my friend Seryozha, with whom I always walked home from school. The whole class, under the guidance of Lidia Trofimovna, dismantled poor Seryozha down to his molecules. Well, I was the most active of all. He's my friend, after all! The things I said about him, the things I accused him of... When it all ended, I walked home with him as always. He was upset about something. We walked with our arms around each other, and I comforted him: after all, I was his friend.
And when I was being condemned for something, my other bosom friend would shout, sticking his arm out like Lenin in paintings: "Zhid! Zhid! Zhid!" (Kike! Kike! Kike!). I didn't take offense. I simply didn't know that one was supposed to take offense at that. To Lidia Trofimovna's "credit," she never once stopped him or said that talking like that was bad. After this show trial, we were bosom friends once again.
And then finally, I fell in love for the first time with my classmate Marina Eryomenko. She was a quiet, calm girl. A straight-A student. She behaved very passively at the class show trials, and most importantly, her long underwear never peeked out from under her dress, which distinguished her very favorably from the other girls. My infatuation was not encouraged by our class, and I was told that with my handwriting, one shouldn't fall in love with a straight-A student.
Mom's father, Grandfather Isaac, practically never fell ill, except for the concussion that resulted in my piano. True, he was once hit by a car, after which he limped and used a single crutch. And suddenly, he suffered a heart attack. This was the period of Khrushchev's corn experiments, and white bread disappeared from the stores. But at school every day after the second lesson, they gave us a glass of milk (apparently for hazardous working conditions) and a white bun. Of course, I brought this bun to my grandfather every day. But alas, the buns did not help defeat the heart attack, and on March 3, grandfather died.
And on March 8, the USSR celebrated International Women's Day. Women are given gifts on this day, but only in the USSR. In other countries, this day is not celebrated, or if it is celebrated somewhere, it isn't done so grandly.
Personally, I am in favor of celebrating March 8th. It is very practical. There is a special day in the year when a man can buy a sprig of mimosa and some trinket (the price isn't what matters), hand it over to the nearest women with a smile, and then not bother them with his attention for a whole year.
So, in that sad March for us, and especially for mom, the students presented her with a bas-relief of V. I. Lenin for March 8th. And rightly so. Lenin is our common father, and since he is "more alive than all the living," he certainly won't kick the bucket.







Chapter 6
As soon as I finished the first grade, I was taken to the entrance exam for Music School No. 1. At that time, getting into a music school was not simple at all. There was stiff competition. Be that as it may, I got in without any problems.
I don't really believe that a person who didn't study at a conservatory can teach proper skills for playing an instrument. But in the First Donetsk Music School, there was such a person: Elena Abramovna Kopeliovich. In my opinion, she never studied seriously anywhere, and no one ever heard her play. Elena Abramovna was the Donetsk version of Odessa's Stolyarsky. From her piano class emerged Pavel Gililov—a laureate of the Chopin Competition and professor at the "Mozarteum" in Salzburg, and Mikhail Rudy—first prize at the Marguerite Long Competition in Paris. Many other remarkable pianists came from her as well. Yet, when I entered the music school, I... did not study with her. At home, they decided I was a nervous boy, and Kopeliovich possessed a fierce temper. After a lesson, she could lock a student in the classroom with a key so they would practice, and not let them go home. They said she could also "lay a hand on you." So I was not fated to sit locked in a classroom.
I was assigned to a teacher named Larisa Borisovna Lepeta. Lepeta had graduated from none other than the Gnessin Institute in Moscow, though by correspondence, and had studied with the famous professor Theodor Gutman. For Donetsk at that time, that was very prestigious. However, apparently, the softness of her character in alliance with my laziness did not yield the result that might have come about had I studied under E. A. Kopeliovich.
Nevertheless, I had to practice a lot at home. My guiding star was the name of Emil Gilels. I even thought that Emil Gilels was not a first and last name, but a single word: "Emilgilels." It was drummed into me that I needed to practice a lot to play like Emil Gilels (or Pavlik Gililov, who was making waves all over Donetsk back then).
As it happened, I wasn't the only martyr in our building: many neighborhood children studied music, ballet, or painting. But that didn't make it any easier for me. The toilet saved me. I would lock myself in there and sit until someone desperately needed to get in. Even Katka and Sashka would enter into a temporary truce with me just to gain access to that coveted little room. (Vovka was still managing with a potty.)
But despite my dislike for the process of practicing, I loved music very much. Dad began taking me to concerts more often, but only for the first half. By the intermission, mom would arrive from the technical college and take me home. But sometimes I still managed to win the second half. Once, the pianist Lev Vlassenko played at the philharmonic. Not long before that, he had won second place at the First International Tchaikovsky Competition, yielding only to Van Cliburn. And so Lev Vlassenko was performing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto with the orchestra. Of course, I was allowed to stay.
Many years later, Lev Nikolaevich Vlassenko—a leading professor at the Moscow Conservatory—would give me nearly 10 valuable lessons, completely free of charge. We would walk with him through Donetsk and Kharkiv during his concert tours. We would sit with him, full of cold, in the restaurant of the Donetsk airport during non-flying weather, even with a flight cancellation, where we treated ourselves thoroughly with vodka. Later, I would lead him to my home and, losing my head from the significance of the moment, serve him tea that my mom had forgotten to pour out in the morning. But that was many years later; for now, I was listening to and seeing him for the very first time in my life.
Once, I was taken to the first half of an author's evening of the Georgian composer Otar Taktakishvili. He conducted the orchestra himself. Unusually imposing. With a mustache! By the intermission, mom was nowhere to be seen, so I went to the artists' dressing room to find dad and clear things up. And here I ran face-to-face into Taktakishvili and froze out of fear. He asked, "Boy, what are you doing here?" I said I was looking for dad. "And what does your dad play?" And when I told him that dad played the cymbals, his face lit up completely, he picked me up, kissed me, and said with a typical Georgian accent: "Oh! Genatvale, so you and I are friends." That was a compliment to my dad.
Many years later, the orchestra of the Kharkiv Philharmonic (where I worked) performed at a festival of Georgian music in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. And Otar Vasilievich Taktakishvili, the famous composer and Minister of Culture of Georgia, came out before the orchestra to greet us. The entire orchestra gasped: it was impossible not to admire his picturesque stateliness, his handsome, masculine face with a gray lock of hair, and his manner of speaking. Our wind players, stunned by him, joked: "Ye-e-ah! Taktak-ishvili indeed!".
Once I chanced to hear Lev Oborin, and once even the world-famous Emil Gilels. I wrote earlier that in our apartment, this name was pronounced like the name of a deity. I didn't perceive him as an ordinary human, but imagined some kind of Terminator. And when a short, stocky man stepped onto the stage, I was very surprised. He played Beethoven's Fifth Concerto. Well, what can one say!
Once, Aram Khachaturian came to Donetsk with author's concerts. This was, of course, an extraordinary event out of the ordinary. He conducted himself. The success was fantastic. Khachaturian showered the musicians with compliments. To my dad, he said that nowhere else in the world had he seen or heard such a wonderful cymbal player. That was pleasant, though personally Khachaturian wasn't discovering America for me with this. I knew it before him. After the concert, I went to the dressing room to see him closer. And he wrote me an autograph, which brought great joy. Khachaturian left a deep impression on my soul back then.
During this period, a very important event took place in the musical life of Donetsk: an organ was installed in the philharmonic hall. Getting into organ concerts was impossible. The first organist I heard was the Lithuanian Leopoldas Digrys. He was playing some Handel concerto with the orchestra. My first reaction to the organ was: so huge, yet it sounds like an accordion. So the organ did not find a worthy place in my heart back then. Many, many years later, already an organist myself, I was walking around Kharkiv with L. Digrys and told him this. He said that he had a similar sensation when he first heard an organ.
My musical abilities and large erudition for a childhood age found no approval only from my school singing teacher. Her last name was no more, no less... Arkhipova (the name of an outstanding opera singer). But that precisely meant nothing at all. I knew music much better than she did. Plus, I behaved badly in her lessons, made fun of her, and purposely sang incorrectly. When I played the piano at school morning performances and everyone liked it very much, Arkhipova pretended nothing was happening. And she acted as if she didn't notice that it was me playing—the most untalented student in the subject of "music and singing."
The strongest memory from the period of studying at the music school, which was the second half of the 1960s, was that they kept telling us about an upcoming war with China. I was playing Kabalevsky's 3rd Piano Concerto. I liked it terribly back then, and I dreamed of playing it at an evaluation concert, with the accompaniment of a second piano—before the war with China started.


Chapter 7
While I went to concerts, mastered the basics of pianism, and teased the singing teacher Arkhipova, mom went to see the college director almost every day. Every time, he promised her that tomorrow she would receive the keys to a new apartment. We were already sitting on our suitcases, planning "tomorrow's move." And so it went almost every day for two years. We didn't even go on vacation because every day we expected the housing assignment order. After two years, it suddenly dawned on mom that she was simply being fooled. All this was not out of malice or a desire to torment, but simply out of irresponsibility. Fine. It happens.
At that time in Donetsk, one could join a housing construction cooperative, which we did. And after some time, we moved into a new separate three-room apartment. Grandmother Ida moved with us, having sold her house. At first, our new street was called Maloneftyanaya (Little Oil Street), but then, apparently, someone decided that for a country of developed socialism this name was unsuitable, and Mnogoneftyanaya (Much Oil Street) didn't sound very poetic. And Maloneftyanaya Street suddenly turned into Shakespeare Street.
It never rains but it pours! Pushkin Boulevard and Rossini Avenue weren't enough for them. And now Shakespeare Street! It wasn't just the city of Donetsk, but an encyclopedia of world art.
When many years later I got married in Kharkiv, I lived there in the apartment of my wife Lyudmila, also on Shakespeare Street. During my army service, I received another letter either from mom from Donetsk or from my wife from Kharkiv. In any case, from some Shakespeare Street. A sergeant, noticing the return address on the envelope, said with awe: "How interesting! A composer yourself—and you live on a composer's street!". The funniest thing is that this sergeant wasn't entirely wrong. Of course, in relation to Shakespeare, he displayed flagrant ignorance, but in relation to me, on the contrary, he displayed intuition and soldierly wits.
At an early age, I realized that one could spend the required time at the piano without endlessly playing scales and etudes that I had grown to loathe. One just had to find a sensible alternative option, and I found it. I began to compose music. My first composition was a song to my own verses:
Beautiful spring has come to us.
The greenery has bloomed in the field.
The little bear came out of his den
And the fox out of her hole.
The little bunny runs free.
The starlings have flown to us.
Well, it wasn't just a song, but a musical intro for two television programs at once: The Rural Hour and In the World of Animals.
So I started with a light genre, but after that, I made a sharp turn and set about writing an opera based on A. S. Pushkin's plot The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights—to my own libretto. True, I never finished it. But I clearly remember pestering dad to go to the opera house to arrange with the management about staging my opera. I even figured out who would sing the main roles from among the opera soloists—my former neighbors from Pushkin Boulevard. (I planned to give one of the main roles to Yury Gulyaev, but he had already moved from our building to the city of Kyiv, becoming very famous.) But dad didn't go to negotiate, and the idea collapsed at its roots.
Later, I composed three or four concertos for piano and orchestra, but again, not to the end. Only the first movements.
And once, I composed a piece for xylophone and orchestra, and at a rehearsal of the philharmonic orchestra, they allocated 10 minutes for my piece and played it twice (dad's colleague Oleg Sokolov played the xylophone). After all, I did the orchestration myself and was flattered by the opportunity to hear my work performed by an orchestra, even if only at a rehearsal. Indeed, many real composers never had the opportunity to hear their creations. Schubert never heard a single one of his symphonies.
Later, I wrote the ballet The Fly-Tsokotukha and assumed that the role of the Fly would be danced by our former neighbor, the ballerina Katka, but the staging again did not take place. In this ballet, there was a number called The March of the Cockroaches, written under the influence of Prokofiev. Imagine that I still like The March of the Cockroaches even today.
It must be said that everything I composed for the piano, I couldn't play myself. I recorded my creations in a completely insane texture. Being under the influence of Liszt and Rachmaninoff, I wrote some horrific third passages. Avalanches of octaves and unplayable leaps filled my creations. The music paper turned black from the number of musical signs I recorded. Today it's hard for me to believe that I covered so much paper with writing, being lazy to the point of impossibility.
Once, I composed a suite called Summer in Artek. I thought I would send it to Artek and, of course, out of gratitude, they would invite me there to rest. Wishful thinking! One movement of the suite was called The Sea. And suddenly, an all-Ukrainian competition for young talents was announced for V. I. Lenin's anniversary. I took this Sea, pasted over the title, wrote a new one: The Dreams of Ilyich—and sent it to Kyiv. And what do you think? Soon word came that I had won third place.
Considering that first place was taken by the son of the competition's organizing committee chairman (his piece for some reason was called The Rider), and second went to the daughter of the deputy chairman of the organizing committee, for me, a modest Jewish boy from Donetsk, this was a great victory. Later, I was summoned to Kyiv at public expense, and the well-known Ukrainian composer Arkady Filippenko presented me with the prize.
After my return to Donetsk from Kyiv, they began inviting me to perform on Donetsk television. One mustn't forget that in Donetsk back then there weren't two hundred programs like we have now in Israel, but only one program. So missing me was impossible, especially since these programs aired on Saturday evenings. Suddenly, I became very famous. Girls from school swooned from knowing me, and I boosted some metrics for the school itself. In general, I was on top of the world. Around this time, due to the move to the new apartment, I changed schools. Now it was School No. 14. I ended up in the same class as my milk brother, Borka Khvalabov, and his mom, Aunt Liza (my mom's friend), taught us botany, zoology, and anatomy.






Chapter 8
In our new cooperative building, there wasn't a large number of musicians anymore: just a few people, including me and dad. Or rather, dad and me. On the other hand, there were many Jews. According to the list of residents, there were actually more non-Jews, but to the eye, of course, there were more Jews. They somehow flicker before your eyes more often.
The most important person in our building was Galya the janitor. A woman of about forty, not entirely mentally stable. But Galya kept the yard in ideal cleanliness. She planted all the flowerbeds with grass and flowers, but how: she planted her birth date out of flowers. And on another flowerbed—the date she took office as a janitor. And she watched very strictly that running children didn't alter her birth year, or rather, that they didn't trample the flowers. Her lexicon was also very instructive. Once, another janitor from a neighboring building, conferring about something with our Galya, reported to her that she had personally seen residents throwing condoms out of some window. To which Galya, sighing dreamily, uttered: "May they eat and consume those rubbers."
Someone once asked Galya when her workday begins. "When the kikes wake up," Galya answered clearly. Short and crisp.
Generally, our building was cheerful and mysterious; for instance, in my entrance, it was written on the wall for many years: "Roma's is hooked,"—and what exactly was "hooked," I still don't understand to this day.
While Galya the janitor decorated the yard with "important historical dates," I fell in love. Rather, I wouldn't have even thought of falling in love if I hadn't been provoked.
Once, I received a love letter from another class, written moreover in red ink (a sign of love). The letter read: "I love you like a buttered bun. You are dearer to me than two cutlets." This agitated me, since I loved buttered buns too. Attached to the letter was a faux little rose, which my mysterious bun-lover had doused so heavily in cologne that I could always find it by scent. Many years later, when we were packing our baggage for Israel, mom, digging through old junk, exclaimed: "What smells so bad?". I looked—the rose! It hadn't even thought of fading away.
And I started receiving letters every day, and no longer about cutlets and buttered buns, but hotter ones, sometimes even in verse. Finally, the day came when the unknown girl wrote that I must stand near the "Roll of Honor" during the next break, and she would walk past.
She walked past! I was stunned. She seemed a beauty to me. So curly, with a pioneer scarf and sad Jewish eyes. Once, I was ordered in a letter to wait for her after school around the corner so no one would see. When we met, she quietly commanded me: "Let's go!". And I trudged along to walk her home. And this happened quite often. We walked circuitous routes so that no one would see us. We barely spoke.
Once, I saw from afar that our neighbor Revekka Vladimirovna was walking toward us, and saying "stand clear!", I dropped her backpack, which I faithfully carried, and ran away. Later, Larisa (that was her name) suddenly stopped loving me, which she notified me of in a letter, and even called me a "sleek mug." Well, how about that! I actually suffered. Then a letter arrived in which she begged me to forgive her madness and return to her once again those blissful days (blissful, apparently, because I carried her backpack).
I returned everything to her, but somehow things didn't work out anymore. Although we saw each other even when I was already studying in Kharkiv and came to Donetsk on leave. Once we even kissed, but...
Once my first wife Lyuda and I were vacationing in Mariupol, then still Zhdanov (today it's terrifying to write these words), and we met Larisa, who had married and lived there. She invited us over and arranged such a feast for the two of us, as if she were receiving the British Queen with her retinue. I decided she threw us such a banquet out of joy that she had another husband: tall, slender, handsome, and not me. But during this evening, she spoke so viciously and rudely to her husband and looked at me so tenderly, with moist eyes, talking to me and Lyuda, that my wife said to me afterward, clapping me on the shoulder: "Roma, she loves YOU!".
Many, many years later, I suddenly found her in New York and flew to her, having played a concert in Baltimore along the way. We spent not the worst week of my life together, but again, there was no continuation.
Another ten years later, I was playing an organ concert in New York, and she unexpectedly appeared. But I already had my second wife, Olya, and a little son. We spoke for three minutes. She wept a bit and that was it. Not meant to be.

Chapter 9
But why did I, while walking with Larisa, "bolt" from Revekka Vladimirovna? I was afraid she would tell mom. She lived a floor above and was mom's friend. And her sons, Adik and Marik, were my buddies. We didn't have a telephone, and for every necessity, we ran to make calls at their place. When someone called them and asked to fetch someone from our family, they would strike the heating radiator with a spoon, and we would urgently rush up a floor higher. And they tolerated us like this... for 15 years. It must be said that for many years they courageously endured my endless piano playing, which was also not at all simple.
Today I realize that these were holy people.
Fifteen years after moving onto Shakespeare Street, we finally got a telephone. Once, the Kushnirs (their last name) had their phone disconnected or broken, and Revekka Vladimirovna rushed to us in terror and asked... to make a call from our place. Mom said that for 15 years, she could call from us as much as she liked. Well, and then we would extend the subscription. So I think. Revekka Vladimirovna was a doctor and always wrote me sick notes for colds when I wanted to linger in Donetsk while studying in Kharkiv. With Adik and Marik, we also endlessly hung out at each other's places or ran around in the yard.
The most colorful figure in their family was the head of the household, Revekka Vladimirovna's husband, Mikhail Moiseevich. He was a research chemist and worked at a plant in a laboratory. Moreover, many of his inventions were implemented, and his articles were published in scientific journals. Sometimes under another name. He was a peculiar man. When once on television they showed an episode of the working people's demonstration on November 7th on Lenin Square in Donetsk, the camera suddenly accidentally caught Mikhail Moiseevich walking in the same row with the workers of his plant. And it had to happen that exactly at this instant he yawned, and across the whole screen at that. This was the most wonderful festive gift for all his acquaintances. Everyone who crossed his path, he campaigned to go to Israel, and it wasn't as important to him whether it was a Jew or not. For such a zealous attitude toward the State of Israel, they nicknamed him Moshe Dayan at work. Let me remind you, this was the end of the 1960s.
He had a whole theory about the dangers of assimilation. He said that if a Jew marries a non-Jew, then as a result of assimilation, Hitler, Heydrich, Goebbels, and other bad boys might appear. In short, he was categorically against assimilation between peoples.
We, already living in Israel, received a letter from Mikhail Moiseevich from America—their family lives there. In this letter, he clearly developed a program for reconciling Jews with Arabs. He proposed that Arabs must move away from Islam. Doing this is as simple as pie. Arabs must assimilate. Jews must intermarry with Arabs, and the Arab halves of these unions must convert to Judaism or at least to Christianity. Thus, Islam will die out as a religion as a result of assimilation, and the long-awaited peace will arrive! That's it!
He even asked us to forward this letter to the Knesset, but we just haven't gotten around to it.
Mikhail Moiseevich passed away not long ago, having lived to a ripe old age. Revekka Vladimirovna passed away earlier. May they rest in peace, and to Adik, Marik, their families, children, and grandchildren—health and prosperity. This is a holy family!












Chapter 10
Mikhail Moiseevich, as we already know, was a chemist. And a person who understands chemistry was an object of my admiration. Although I studied chemistry at school, I neglected it to such an extent that I myself shuddered with terror. My chemistry teacher told me: "Well, let's say I give you a four just so it doesn't ruin your report card for the eight classes. But what if you don't get into the music college and go to the ninth grade, what will you do with chemistry?". I reassured her, saying that my admission to the music college was beyond doubt, which meant there was no need to worry. She sighed heavily but believed, or rather, wanted to believe. In physics and mathematics, I did almost well. Botany, zoology, and anatomy I simply didn't open, since they were taught by Borka's mom, Aunt Liza. As soon as her lesson began, I immediately depicted agony from a horrific headache on my face. She looked at me with a terrifying gaze, but out of favoritism didn't quiz me.
Literature wasn't my trump card either. Rather, I liked reading the literature on the curriculum, but I didn't know how to discuss what I read during lessons. And I didn't know how to write essays on a given topic. They turned out very short for me. But I found a way out. I wrote essays in verse. This was very practical: no matter what nonsense you wrote, it still got the highest grade. The teacher praised me, but then caught onto my trick and asked me to write in prose.
My classmate Lena came to the rescue. She possessed a literary gift, and I copied everything from her, only replacing some minor words. But Lena always received a "five," while I got a "three" for the exact same thing. Apparently, the replacement of a few words greatly influenced the grade.
During my love cataclysms with Larisa, when I wanted to spite her and prove that other girls loved me too, Lena, on my order, wrote me such letters (as if from another girl) that my blood ran cold while reading them, and I began to believe that someone had actually written this to me. I passed these letters to Larisa.
Sometimes similar letters were written for me by a neighborhood girl, Natasha Knishevitskaya. She lived above Adik and Marik and also ran with us in the yard. Once during a quarrel with Adik, in a fit of rage, she almost deprived him of his male dignity—as a result of a successful hit with a stick. (But it looks like she didn't deprive him after all.) She wrote for me in a different style, as if from yet another girl. She wrote less poetically, but on the other hand, more sensually.

Chapter 11
The Donetsk Symphony Orchestra for many seasons every summer went out for a month to Zhdanov—the current Mariupol (today, in the autumn of 2022, it is terrifying for me to pronounce these names). And dad always took me along. Those were wonderful days: the sea in the morning, and symphony concerts in the park in the evening. In the sixties, during the winter months, the Donetsk Philharmonic shuddered from telephone calls. People called from Zhdanov to find out in which month the orchestra would be there. People built their plans for the summer taking into account the arrival of the orchestra. When I was little, on the summer stage in the Zhdanov park, two hours before the concert, there wasn't a single free seat left. Symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich were performed. Famous soloists and conductors came. Of course, many musicians had their own female admirers among the Zhdanov music lovers. They waited a whole year for the arrival of their idols. But if a wife suddenly came to visit her idol in Zhdanov—to see him so he wouldn't dry up in loneliness—the idol fell into a highly awkward position, and sometimes it ended in a big scandal. And yet, it was beautiful.
Later, when I grew older, there were no longer any idols or admirers. No one occupied seats two hours in advance. And the orchestra joylessly played through waltzes by Dunayevsky, Strauss, The Sabre Dance, and The Dance of the Little Swans for casual passersby who might sit down for five minutes to listen.









Chapter 12
The day came when my chemistry teacher could finally rest easy: I entered the Donetsk Music College. I entered without any problems. The only thing I was slightly afraid of was the exam in Russian literature. But I memorized Gorky's The Song of the Stormy Petrel by heart and decided: no matter what I drew, I would read this—and everything would be OK. But I drew Lermontov's poem The Death of the Poet. I happened to know it purely by chance, and I didn't have to resort to my trick.
In the Donetsk Music College, there was a married couple of piano teachers: Galina Davidovna Sladkovskaya and Yuly Fyodorovich Vakhranyov. Studying with them was considered highly prestigious. Mikhail Rudy had even studied with Vakhranyov, after which he entered Ya. Flier's class at the Moscow Conservatory and became a first-prize laureate at the Marguerite Long Competition in Paris.
I wrote an application for G. D. Sladkovskaya's class. (Y. F. Vakhranyov had already begun teaching at the Kharkiv Institute of Arts, and worked in Donetsk on periodic visits.) Sladkovskaya's class was elite in its own way. The other students envied us and disliked us, well, and we felt special and looked down on them with condescension and pity. (This was a big mistake.)
As it happened, the Donetsk Music College was located 100 meters from my house. After classes, I, like everyone, went home. But my house was right opposite, while others' were not. And they didn't reach their homes right away like me, but over the course of many hours. All day long they hung around the city and amused themselves as best they could. They climbed slag heaps and so on. Later I saw their photographs: in one was Volodya (Vovochka) Samokhvalov, crucified on a cross at the top of a slag heap; in another—Zhenya Pukhlyanko, lifeless on a dissecting table in a morgue, and Vovochka Samokhvalov in a white coat is about to perform an autopsy on him. That's how they amused themselves. But everyone was fanatically devoted to music. They went to concerts, played four hands. With my classmate Sasha Gorin (now he leads the organ class at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music), we played through a huge amount of symphonic literature four hands and knew everything by heart. And if the Donetsk orchestra messed up at a concert, we would exchange triumphant glances with each other.
Now, various musical impressionists and comedians perform on television and the internet. The public dies of laughter. But all this doesn't compare to what we did on breaks with the piano: we played under the grand piano, lying on the grand piano, from the back, with our backsides, and in mittens—and no one paid us money for it. A shame, you know!
Vovochka Samokhvalov had a prolonged voice mutation at that time, and he spoke in a very high-pitched, squeaky, and very quiet falsetto, like a hopelessly cold castrato. But for some reason, he laughed in a thick, booming bass. This allowed us to believe that he was not a castrato. Vovochka himself was a quiet boy, and this quiet boy would suddenly start laughing in a bass voice on the sly during lessons. The teachers didn't even entertain the thought that it was harmless Vovochka laughing, and kicked out not him, but one of us—we were already on the verge. This caused a new burst of laughter and joy.
We had a subject called "folk creativity," in which we had to sing Russian folk songs from memory (why Russian songs in Ukraine?). Once they called on Vovochka, and he, poor guy, couldn't even speak, let alone sing. And it fell to him to sing the Easter folk song Dololyn, dololyn along the little egg... It was a triumph! We were all immediately kicked out into the corridor and finished laughing there. Once we were all sent straight to the directress's office for a serious talk regarding our behavior, but we giggled so much there that the talk didn't work out, and the directress waved her hand at us.
We were a little bit afraid of the subject "History of the USSR." Once our history teacher, Nelya Petrovna, called me to the board, and I was supposed to say that the USSR supplies raw materials to Czechoslovakia. Instead, I uttered that the USSR is a "raw material appendage" of Czechoslovakia. In the classroom, something unimaginable was happening. For that time, my statement was very bold and too far-sighted. The saliva got stuck in Nelya Petrovna's throat, and she quickly returned me to my seat, without even giving me a grade. Her crowning threat was: "Only your own funeral will save you from an F in history."
But the most stunning was the foreign language teacher, Valentina Nikolaevna Shlapak. She was also the librarian. She was an eighty-year-old single woman, apparently from a noble family. Tall, stately. She always wore long black dresses, fastened up tight. (I associate her with the pianist Maria Yudina.) Valentina Nikolaevna taught three languages: English, German, and French. Her manner of speaking was very refined. We had a guy named Kolya Limansky, who suddenly became Ponomaryov. He had a nationality rare for a pianist—Gypsy. (Although great Gypsy pianists did exist, as it turned out: Gy;rgy Cziffra, Pavel Serebryakov.) And Valentina Nikolaevna would call on him in lessons roughly like this: "Dear youth Ponomaryov-Limansky! Would you not deign, highly respected sir, to conjugate the irregular verbs?". Poor Ponomaryov-Limansky not only didn't know how to conjugate irregular English verbs, but didn't know a single word in Gypsy either. "Very sorry, but I am forced to give you a stimulating grade, my dear friend." "Stimulating grade" was her term for an 2.
Our new directress she nicknamed The Headless Horseman.
In her time free from lectures, Valentina Nikolaevna sat in the library and translated foreign newspapers into Russian for students from all over the city. Moreover, she would take a newspaper in English, German, or French and immediately read it in Russian into a switched-on tape recorder. For an hour of translation, she took 2 rubles. So she was a godsend for loafers from various institutes.
During the period of her management in the library, we carried off whole suitcases of sheet music and books to our homes.
Once, fifth graders, two boys and a girl, came to her apartment and asked to translate a text. She kindly let them in and prepared to translate, but these sweet children brutally murdered her.











Chapter 13
My long-held dream was finally fulfilled: I played Prokofiev's First Concerto with the philharmonic symphony orchestra. Not long before that, I had heard it for the first time performed by Victoria Postnikova at the Fourth P. I. Tchaikovsky Competition. The first theme of the concerto made an impression on me comparable only to a child's first nocturnal emission, when you don't understand what happened, and you feel so good and strange, as you never have before. And I urgently learned it (so that the "emissions" would repeat frequently).
I remember being very nervous when I played. It's a responsible matter, after all, and the whole orchestra has known me since childhood. But everything went well. I was already playing the piano quite well, but thoughts of studying composition did not leave me.
In the music college, there was a composition club led by the "main" composer of Donetsk with the romantic name of Albert Vodovozov. He wasn't a stellar composer, although he could give some competent advice. Of course, I attended his club, but this was not enough for me, and once upon a time, I wrote a letter to my idol Aram Ilyich Khachaturian. I informed him that I was a long-time admirer of his and requested him to schedule a meeting for me in Moscow at a time convenient for him. No more, no less. I wrote it and sent it to the address of the Moscow Conservatory. When I informed my parents about this, they were horrified and threw a wild fit at me. Saying how could I not consult them. What if I wrote with grammatical errors or put a comma in the wrong place. What would Khachaturian think of me then? We argued and forgot about it. And one day, I pull an ordinary 4-kopeck postcard from Khachaturian out of the mailbox. Incredible!
He wrote that it was still too early for me to go to Moscow. That I must work on myself and... my time to come to Moscow would arrive. Be that as it may, it was a shock. I still keep this postcard today.
A little time passed, and dad's colleague from the orchestra, the harpist Maya Slonim, was supposed to go to Moscow for a harpists' rally held by Vera Dulova, and she offered to take me along to show my music to one of the greats. Of course, I went. In Moscow, we came to the conservatory to find out which of the greats we could show ourselves to. And whether Khachaturian happened to be working today. When we uttered the word "Khachaturian," they looked at us in the academic department as if we were completely out of our minds, saying that they themselves had seen Khachaturian at the conservatory maybe once or twice in their lives. Besides, he is currently abroad. But they suggested that I audition for the composer Lehmann. He was supposed to come to the conservatory by 2:00 PM, and Maya and I went for a walk. Just as we stepped onto Nezhdanova Street, suddenly... around the corner appeared Aram Ilyich Khachaturian. Behind him walked some lady with bags. As it turned out later, she was carrying several thermoses with hot Borjomi in the bags. Aram Ilyich, due to his state of health, had to drink hot Borjomi every 10 minutes. Maya Slonim recovered quickly and stood in the middle of the road, blocking the path of the great composer with her chest. Just like Alexander Matrosov. She solemnly declared to Khachaturian, who stood terrified by such an onslaught, that he simply must listen to this boy, meaning me. Khachaturian needed to pass, and he was forced to agree. The maestro invited us to come to the conservatory in half an hour. He left, and we also quietly followed him so he wouldn't run away with his Borjomi. I was neither dead nor alive, and Maya's facial expression at this moment resembled the face of the unique Maris Liepa as Crassus in the scene The Triumph of Rome from the ballet Spartacus by that same Khachaturian.
At the appointed time, we entered the coveted classroom. The maestro wasn't there yet, but the room was already filled with some people, correspondents, students. In the corner of the classroom, a group of students could be discerned, with whom Khachaturian was apparently supposed to study today. They were trembling like an aspen leaf, and it felt like they saw their great teacher more often in pictures and portraits than in the classroom. And then He entered, holding a glass of Borjomi in his hands. The crowd froze. He greeted everyone, and told me that he would start not with me, but with his students. We weren't upset, since listening to Khachaturian's lesson was more than enticing for us. As I understood, he saw his students just as often as he saw me. (Me even more often, after all, I took an autograph from him once in my childhood.) The lesson began. Some girl sat at the piano and began to play her composition. During the lesson, Khachaturian addressed other students, activating their participation in the lesson. A question arose about modern and non-modern harmonies, and suddenly Khachaturian turned to me: "And what do you think, is a dominant seventh chord a modern chord or not?". I rather boldly answered him with a question of my own: "And how can a chord be modern or non-modern?". This answer did me credit in his eyes, and he already looked more favorably in my direction. Then Khachaturian, with sadness in his eyes, complained to the audience that next week he was forced to fly to Paris to deliver a speech in defense of Mikis Theodorakis. Well, and since there is apparently a problem with hot Borjomi in Paris, he didn't want to fly there at all. Finally, Aram Ilyich invited me to the piano. He sat nearby, staring into my sheet music, and even turned the pages for me. Suddenly, during my playing, he whispered in my ear: "I apologize. Continue playing, and I must stand up to drink some hot Borjomi." Khachaturian's reaction to my music was very flattering. He said that I simply must enter the Moscow Conservatory in the composition class and study with him personally. There were no bounds to my joy. We said a very warm goodbye and left in high spirits. After that, Maya and I went in the evening to a performance of the Bolshoi Theatre's Faust, of course, with the Walpurgis Night, only without our neighbor Katka. (Read chapter number 3.) Boris Khaikin conducted. Thus ended this wonderful trip.
In Donetsk, my trip to Khachaturian was met enthusiastically by everyone. Someone even told me that now I should shorten my last name, that is, instead of Krasnovsky become Krass. They decided that the shortened version of my last name would please Khachaturian more. And, contrary to the expectations of many, after such a promising trip, I completely finished with composition. (But many years later, I started again.)
In all my biographies (in concert programs, etc.), it is written that I am a student of A. I. Khachaturian. This is nonsense.
Upon my arrival in Israel, I wrote in my autobiography about the meeting and audition with Khachaturian (what is in this chapter), but they reshaped it so that I am his student. It is impossible to get rid of this. I was angry (I don't like lies and exaggerations), but I resigned myself.









Chapter 14
And what wonderful New Year's kapustniks (skit nights) we had at the music college. Preparing for them began two months in advance. I was an active participant. For each skit night, we made a short feature film. Once we shot a film in which I played the main role. It was called Roman Krasnovsky Changes Profession. The plot was simple: I became disillusioned with the profession of a pianist and went to work as a salesman in the neighboring grocery store. And suddenly my idol of that period, the pianist Dmitry Bashkirov appears (we found one person very closely resembling Bashkirov from afar), and he persuades me to return to the true path, into music. The action took place in the neighboring grocery store where I became a salesman. The grocery workers were so happy that they even closed the store, hanging a sign "Inventory," and gave us the whole shop to tear apart.
The plot was simple. For example, I am standing behind the counter in the fish department, and our music literature teacher asks me to weigh her some trout. I obligingly ask: "Which Trout do you want, Schubert's?". And she answers irritably: "No, fresh." Or I am standing in the confectionery department and handing out free candies to girls. Alas, the candies had to be returned to their place afterward.
During preparation for the skit nights, classes stopped, and we lived only for this. At one of the skit nights, I was supposed to play Gluck's Melody from the opera Orpheus on the tuba, moreover on the one that is put over the head onto the shoulder, as in marching bands. It is called a helicon. Zhenya Pukhlyanko was supposed to accompany me on the piano, and so he and I took the helicon and went to my house to rehearse. Zhenya decided that going the direct way to my place was very impractical. After all, I lived only 100 meters from the music college. He put the helicon on his shoulder, and we went to my place a roundabout way to lengthen the route. Naturally, Zhenya furiously blew into the giant brass horn, emitting sounds resembling the roar of a wild animal. At the same time, Zhenya marched with a completely unperturbed face. I was suffocating with laughter and walked to the side so my neighbors wouldn't think I had any relation to this spectacle.
In that same period, I composed parodies for the skit night on the theme of the song A Little Spruce Tree Was Born in the Forest, which now, many years later, turned out to be very popular on the internet.
A few years later, I came to visit my parents in Donetsk from Kharkiv precisely for the New Year. In the music college (which was 100 meters from my house) there was another skit night—naturally, already without me. And… they didn't let me pass to it, citing that the hall was overcrowded. And it was precisely that teacher who didn't let me in, with whom we had together made skit nights in the past with my triumphant participation.
Maybe it's silly, but this resentment still sits inside me to this day.

















Chapter 15
18 years old is the time for love. But I didn't have a beloved girl. And generally no girl at all—not an unloved one either. I am sure that love didn't come to me because I lived too close to the music college. I didn't have the opportunity to meet it, since I went straight home after classes. My classmates succeeded in love immeasurably more than I did. After all, they hung around the city all day long and could pick up love somewhere along the way. I even came up with a mathematical formula: the probability of meeting love is directly proportional to the distance to the house.
Of course, many girls flickered before my eyes, but for any kind of chance, one had to walk them home at least once. And I was so reluctant to go somewhere else when my house was right nearby.
And generally, I wasn't "sexy." I was a plump guy. Jeans and all sorts of cool clothes I didn't have, and they didn't interest me. I didn't listen to the Beatles, didn't go to youth gatherings. I was even often turned down at dances in the music college. What kind of "beloved girl" could there be.
The most modest guy on our course got a woman who even... gave herself to him. When I asked him about his impressions, twisting his face into a sour expression, he said to me: "You know, Roma, there's nothing to strive for."
Well, how about that!
And another classmate of mine fell in love with a girl who lived opposite his house. Every evening they strolled, conversed, and behaved very chastely. He touched only her palm. And so it continued for some time. One evening he walked her to her house, kissed her hand, and they agreed to meet tomorrow evening as always. The next day during the day, he walked up to the window and saw a multitude of people with flowers and decorated cars with dolls. It was a wedding. Naturally, he lingered at the window to look at the groom and bride. And suddenly, to the joyful screeching of the crowd, his girl came out of the car in a veil and with a groom.
But still, I did have one romance. Mom's brother, Uncle Yasha, lived in Kirghizia, not far from the city of Frunze, and once mom and I flew there. He took vouchers for everyone to a boarding house on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, and we went to this boarding house with mom, my cousins Lora and Lena, well, and, of course, with Uncle Yasha and his wife Aunt Anya. It was a wonderful rest on a beautiful lake. There I met a girl, Tatyana, from Alma-Ata. Of course, we fell in love with each other. We walked a lot with her, swam, even kissed when no one was looking. But the vouchers ended, and we parted: she to Alma-Ata, and I to Donetsk. About 4,000 km.
We corresponded for a whole year. She kept writing that she wouldn't endure it and would come. And, imagine, a year later, in the summer, being in Kyiv for some reason, she showed up at our place in Donetsk. I met her by all the rules: showed her our city, played the piano for her. Once when we were walking not far from our house, we met our neighbor Mikhail Moiseevich. He right then and there, right in front of her, read us a lecture on the dangers of assimilation, since Tatyana was, oh horror, a non-Jew, and he spotted this immediately with his sharp eye. A few days later, Tatyana left. We still corresponded, but soon everything ended. Of course, not because of my neighbor's lecture, but just because. It didn't work out.
And here I came up with a new mathematical formula: although the strength of love is directly proportional to distance—namely, the further, the stronger—the results of love are inversely proportional to distance, namely: the closer, the more use there is from love.
So I reduced all love to mathematical formulas and can with full justification say of myself: in love, I am Einstein.









Chapter 16
One day, joyful news swept through Donetsk: Sviatoslav Richter was expected to arrive at the philharmonic. It was a sensation! Everyone waited for this day with impatience and feared that something would prevent Richter from coming. I was a familiar face at the philharmonic, and they always let me into concerts without tickets, but here I realized that the situation was extraordinary and asked dad to buy me a ticket. The philharmonic was taken by storm, and I was carried inside in the crowd, of course, without a ticket. I shoved the ticket to someone through the door later. And then finally, the long-awaited moment arrived. Richter came out and began to play Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words and pieces by Chopin. He played well, apparently, but I still couldn't understand where that genius playing was that everyone talked and wrote about. After all, other pianists coming to us play not a bit worse. After the intermission, there was Scriabin: the 2nd Sonata, etudes, and the 5th Sonata. On the etudes and the Fifth Sonata, I began to lose my head. It was genius! I wasn't a big fan of Scriabin, but then it seemed to me that except for Scriabin there was no more music in the world. I realized that I too wanted to learn Scriabin's Fifth Sonata and perform it, if not quite like Richter, then at least within the limits of my capabilities.
The final year was already visible on the horizon. It was necessary to think seriously about the graduation program and entering the conservatory. It was very important to select a program in which I could show myself from the best side. And Galina Davidovna Sladkovskaya and I decided that Scriabin's Fifth Sonata could become the highlight of my program.
In Sladkovskaya's class, the study and performance at the graduation exam of a large part of Bach's preludes and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier were sometimes practiced. And I began quietly learning the first 12 preludes and fugues from the first volume of the WTC. I must say that this is a very fascinating and, most importantly, useful activity. Of no small importance was also the fact that the presence of such a Bach cycle in the program was a significant trump card for entering a good conservatory.
In the class of Galina Davidovna Sladkovskaya, it had already become a pleasant tradition that her students entered the Leningrad Conservatory, into the class of the outstanding master of the piano, Natan Efimovich Perelman. Just where they became such close friends, I don't know, but as soon as Sladkovskaya's students arrived at the Leningrad Conservatory, they were granted huge attention and care by this outstanding master.
It reached the point of absurdity. My classmate Valera Semykin was entering the Leningrad Conservatory two years earlier than me. Before the entrance exam, famous professors give consultations to applicants. Imagine a huge queue of those hungering to receive a consultation from Natan Perelman. And then finally Perelman appears, carefully leading Valera Semykin, with his arm around his shoulders. And, naturally, draws him into the classroom to listen to him before the entrance exam. The whole queue stirred at the appearance of the famous professor, and someone from those waiting tried timidly to say to Perelman that, you see, the whole queue has been waiting for a long time, and you are leading someone into the classroom out of turn. To which Perelman, depicting anger and fury unnatural for him on his face and pressing poor Semykin to himself even harder, declared to the huge number of applicants: "Nothing tegrible if you sit for a while. Mediocgities can wait!".
My friend Sasha Izbitser also studied with Perelman after graduating from the music college in G. D. Sladkovskaya's class. Sasha was a great friend of mine and came to my place almost every day. He was a great connoisseur of operas, and the two of us arranged whole opera performances. My grandmother Ida loved him very much, and they could converse for hours. Once, when grandmother felt completely unwell, already before her passing, Sasha came to us and advised her to take up running to improve her health. Grandmother looked at him with a smile and said: "I not only can't run, I can't walk." Sasha thought for a second, then said: "Well, if you can't run, then jump." When Sasha's mom had some extremely heavy surgery and Sasha came to her on the first postoperative day, the hardest for her, he drove her to such hysterical laughter that all her stitches immediately burst. Sasha was kicked out with a bang from the ward and ordered not to appear in the hospital until his mother's discharge.
So Sasha and many other guys from our class of Sladkovskaya continued their studies in Natan Perelman's class at the Leningrad Conservatory. I, of course, also aimed for the Leningrad Conservatory.
But it turned out differently.
To Donetsk sometimes came my favorite pianist, professor of the Moscow Conservatory Yakov Flier. His playing always admired me. Once, during another of his visits, a meeting with him was arranged at the music college, and he agreed to listen to a few of the best students. They chose Kolya Ponomaryov-Limansky and me. I was to play Haydn's two-movement C major sonata. One need not explain how nervous I was, but everything went well. He praised me and Kolya, and then we were photographed together with him and they placed this photograph in the newspaper. And they also wrote an article that began like this: "Yesterday, students R. Krasnovsky and N. Ponomaryov-Limansky were applauded by the outstanding Soviet pianist Yakov Flier." Understandably, this caused a surge of pride in me, and I began to think about the Moscow Conservatory, but realized that getting into Yakov Flier's class was a hopeless business.
At this time, Andrei Gavrilov came to Donetsk—to perform before the Fifth International P. I. Tchaikovsky Competition. A meeting was also arranged with him at the college, and I was tasked with delivering him from the hotel. We walked. The frost was minus 20 degrees Celsius, and he was without gloves. And right after such frost, he immediately, without warming up, sat at the piano and before a full hall of students and teachers brilliantly performed Liszt's La Campanella. This amazed me, and I realized what mastery of technique meant, and wanted even more to study in Moscow.
And then a pianist arrived in Donetsk on tour with whom I immediately wanted to study. This was Lev Vlassenko. The very same one I had listened to in childhood. Lev Vlassenko, the favorite student of Yakov Flier and a professor at the Moscow Conservatory.
What a beautiful woman was—I understood since childhood, but what a beautiful man was—I didn't understand. I didn't understand why Alain Delon or the actors Igor Kostolevsky and Nikolai Eryomenko were considered handsome men. This was incomprehensible to me. But when Lev Vlassenko stepped onto the stage, I immediately realized what a handsome man was. His whole appearance, his wonderful playing evoked extraordinary sympathy.
And here I caught fire completely. We somehow found out his telephone number in Moscow. Sladkovskaya called him and arranged for me to come to Moscow to play for him. Our relatives from Voroshilovgrad sent us a marvelous box of chocolates from the Voroshilovgrad confectionery factory. The chocolates were called Appassionata. The box was made of plastic in the shape of a grand piano, and we decided that with such a gift it wasn't shameful to go. And so, with heightened nervousness, I entered Lev Vlassenko's class. He met me as if we were old acquaintances. We really were old acquaintances. After all, I had seen and listened to him in deep childhood. Although he didn't know about it.
I had to play not only before the professor, but also before his students. I played not very well, although I successfully performed the C-sharp minor prelude and fugue by Bach from the WTC. When my teacher called Vlassenko again to find out what he thought of my playing, he told her that, apparently, I wasn't in the best form, but a person who plays Bach like that must study at the Moscow Conservatory. The Appassionata chocolates were eaten in a single second by everyone who was in the classroom. Vlassenko suggested that I come to Moscow a few more times to study with him, but warned that he would not sit on the admissions committee, and that was already bad. I, of course, came to him several times in Moscow, and he gave me very valuable lessons. A total of ten. When I timidly offered him money, he refused and said that he did it free of charge and wanted to see me as his student.
At this very time, state exams at the music college were approaching, along with my first solo concert in two halves, where I played 12 preludes and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach from the 1st volume of the WTC and Scriabin's Fifth Sonata. I played well—naturally, within the limits of my capabilities. Posters hung all over the city, so there were many people and I was well received.
The only difficulty was when going out onto the stage to the piano not to look at the first row. In the first row, of course, sat my classmates, already prepared to burst into laughter. God forbid encountering their eyes when going out onto the stage. They were already, naturally, choking from silent giggling, and this could be transmitted to me during the performance. This had happened before. Laughter was an infectious disease of our class.
Once, the wife of one teacher died, and two of my classmates had to go to the funeral. At the most sad and final minute of this joyless process, the two of them suddenly began to laugh so much that they had to pretend that they were weeping so hard, and urgently remove themselves further from the crowd. Forgive us, Lord, our childhood.
In short, my concert went off safely.
The state exam itself took place for me somehow in passing, in a routine manner. I played in the morning as the second number, that is, somewhere around 10 AM. Mom tasked me on this day to go visit Grandmother Raya, who lived on Rossini Avenue (if anyone remembers, this is from the 1st chapter), and bring her some groceries. I put on a white shirt and trousers, took the bags with groceries and went to Grandmother Raya, along the way dropping into the music college and playing my state program there before the committee. Of course, I got a five.
We must give credit to all the teachers of the music college: everyone who had once given me a four at the completion of some subject changed it to a five so that the diploma would look better. And not only to me. Thanks to them for this!



















Chapter 17
In 1991, exactly one year after we arrived in Israel, I received a notice from the military enlistment office.
"It has begun," I thought. When we were preparing to leave, I, of course, knew that every man in Israel up to a certain age is subject to military service. But it seemed to me that all this was not about me, but about someone else. And here suddenly a notice. There was nothing to be done—I went to Tiberias, to the enlistment office. There in the lobby I had to sit and watch some detective movie on television until being called over the loudspeaker. True, one had to be very attentive, because my last name is pronounced with great difficulty in Israel and they can distort it beyond recognition. Every last name ending in "sky" makes you flinch, and sometimes even run to the office to find out if it was you who was called. Among those who arrived in Israel from the USSR, there are many men with a last name ending in "sky." Finally, when I heard something resembling "Karasanovsky," I realized it was me.
In the office sat several girl-soldiers, and one of them began to ask me questions and record my answers in a folder with my last name. When she found out that I was a musician and played none other than the organ, she immediately wrote down the dates of all my upcoming concerts in Israel and swore that she would definitely come to all my performances, and not alone, but with friends who are fanatical admirers of the organ. The funniest thing is that I believed this and several times before concerts looked out for her with friends. When I began going to the enlistment office frequently for medical commissions, I saw her several times, but she didn't even react to me. Of course, she forgot about me as soon as I stepped out of the office. In Israel, they can promise you everything you want and even more than that, but heaven forbid hoping that the promiser remembers this for more than a second.
This is called the Israeli mentality. One has to get used to it. But the point is not that this soldier-girl forgot about my concerts, but that she created an atmosphere of comfort and tranquility for me. I stepped out of the office happy and stopped fearing the threat of army service. Several times more they dragged me to medical commissions.
At this moment we changed addresses, and I immediately reported this to the enlistment office. They crossed out my old address, wrote the new one, but I continued to receive notices at the old address. Several times more I reminded them. They would routinely record my new address and cross out the old one, but notices stubbornly arrived at the old one.
Suddenly I completely stopped receiving notices, and this even worried me, since I hadn't passed the medical commission to the end yet. One day I dropped by the post office, and they handed me a whole bunch of notices, written already in red color. This means that I failed to report several times, and for failure to report on a notice with red color there will already be some punishment, maybe even criminal.
But what is good, in our Israel there exists some invisible connection of events. For example, if you are terribly late somewhere and worry because of this, you can not worry, since no one is waiting for you or meeting you there yet. Or if the post office doesn't bring you notices to the enlistment office and you receive already red ones with a threat, this does not mean at all that at the enlistment office they are very offended by you and want to put you on trial. I explained everything to them over the phone, then arrived there, and the conflict was resolved.
Suddenly a few days later, neighbors told me that the police had come looking for me. Ooh-la-la! Like a true Soviet person, I rushed to the police station, and there the duty officer with a kind smile explained to me that I, it turns out, was not reporting to the enlistment office by notice and the police must lead me there under escort. I explained to them that it was the post office's fault and that I had already been to the enlistment office and settled everything. At the police they said that they didn't care, as long as the enlistment office didn't complain. It turns out that when I didn't report by notices, the police of my city were informed about this, but when I finally reported to the enlistment office and settled everything, they forgot to warn the police about this, and it had to perform its duty. After this, I realized that in Israel one needs to worry less! A unique country!
Finally came a notice for a two-month service in the miluim (annual reserve duty), exactly when I was supposed to perform at a chamber music festival. With bitterness, I refused participation in the festival. As soon as I refused the festival, a new notice came to me, informing that the past dates were invalid and I would have miluim for only one month in a time already convenient for the festival. I urgently reported to the organizing committee of the festival that I could already participate, but there they said they had found a replacement for me. In Israel, just like in the USSR, no one is irreplaceable. I was upset, and while I was being upset, a new notice came, informing that the past dates were invalid and miluim lay before me for only 12 days. Then a new notice came, informing that the past dates were invalid and miluim lay before me for one day somewhere in the area of Greater Tel Aviv. I went. There they only issued me a military ID. I still continued to worry and asked what to do if I were suddenly called to miluim and I happened to have a European tour exactly at this time. An officer in a kippah and with sidelocks told me to go where I needed to and not to take nonsense into my head.
For three years they didn't touch me, and suddenly a notice came to report to the city of Acre to some military base. Here I got scared in earnest.
When I arrived at this base, I saw there the entire male 35–45-year-old population of my city. Everyone was somewhat agitated. When I finally entered the office, a woman officer explained to me there that in case of war, I must help carry the wounded into the hospital of the city of Nahariya. I, naturally, with readiness agreed, although, by my concepts, in the army they don't ask for consent. The officer-girl said that in September I would be called for three-day studies. I told her that in September I had a European tour. And before I had time to recover, this military lady exempted me from these drills. When I, completely dazed, began to coo and babble that this was, apparently, ugly on my part, she told me not to take nonsense into my head and wished me success.
Right here I realized what the slogan "The people and the army are one" means!
I must add 25 years later that for a whole 10 years, once and sometimes even twice a year, I went to military drills—miluims, and when at forty-something years old I received an exemption from the army, I was terribly upset.
Everything I described above would happen many years later, but now, in 1970, before me was the threat of service in the Soviet army. And the mutual understanding between the Soviet army and the people is not so democratic as in the Israeli one. Namely: if I don't enter the conservatory on the first try, I will immediately buzz into the "invincible and legendary," moreover for two years. If in the Israeli army soldiers come home for the weekend, and even on weekdays, in the Soviet one grand luck if over two years you go home once for 10 days. Besides, there was a threat of losing qualifications. I am a pianist, after all.
And so I set off for Moscow to enter the conservatory.
The Moscow Conservatory is the dream of all young musicians from the Soviet Union and not only. Entering there is very difficult.
At this very time, the 5th International P. I. Tchaikovsky Competition was taking place in Moscow.
A few days after arrival, I met Andrei Gavrilov in the corridor of the conservatory. He informed me that he had passed to the third round and exactly today was supposed to play. At the same time, he regally, but very lightmindedly, gave me his participant ID for the Tchaikovsky competition, with which I could freely get into the auditions in the Great Hall of the Conservatory and even sit in a special box. I passed unhindered into the conservatory and sat down in the box, when suddenly some man appeared and asked me on what basis I was sitting here. I naively showed the ID in the name of Andrei Gavrilov. He went all purple and said that now they would disqualify Gavrilov from participating in the third round. I realized that a great mission had fallen to me—to save a major pianist for the world, and I right away popped out of the ill-fated box like scalded and rushed to run.
And Gavrilov was playing at this moment and didn't know what passions were playing out around his ID and what role I played in his career. He did win first prize then, after all! (And the ID I shoved into his jacket pocket backstage after his performance.)
Having submitted my documents, I settled in the dormitory of the Moscow Conservatory on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street.
As I quickly figured out, it's better to communicate less with applicants. They won't advise anything smart. Especially their moms and dads. Parents of applicants only look for a weakness in others to undermine them with at least something. One girl, who also had 12 preludes and fugues by I. S. Bach from the WTC in her program, walked up to me and defiantly said that if I had 12 preludes and fugues in my program, she would now enter 24 preludes and fugues into her program. But I didn't lose my head and said that in that case I would go and enter all 48 preludes and fugues for myself. (Just recently I had watched the movie Bluff with Celentano.)
Thank God that Bach has only 48 preludes and fugues in the two volumes of the WTC.
Exactly at this moment, musical Moscow was experiencing a joyless event: Rostropovich was leaving the USSR. One day, coming to the conservatory, I heard that yesterday they had seen Rostropovich off. He flew to London alone. Here remained his wife Galina Vishnevskaya and two daughters. And so on this day, when everyone was talking about yesterday's send-off of Rostropovich at the airport, I, stepping out of the building of the Moscow Conservatory, ran into Rostropovich in the doors. Those were, indeed, his last days in Moscow, but not yesterday, after all...
I realized that here gossip grows like mushrooms and generally one mustn't listen to anyone.
Rostropovich's daughter, Olga, was indeed entering the conservatory with us. One day I met my acquaintance Borya, who was entering the cello class. He was walking along with some girl. Seeing me, he abandoned the girl alone and rushed to me, hotly whispering in my ear: "That's Olya Rostropovich! That's Olya Rostropovich!". Borya was extraordinarily agitated. And Olya, standing to the side and, naturally, guessing what Borya was whispering to me, said loudly: "Borya, that could have been said aloud." Olya did enter the conservatory, but in a short time they all left to join Rostropovich.
I continued to practice every day and once visited a consultation held by the famous pianist Evgeny Mogilevsky. I played successfully, and Mogilevsky greatly encouraged me, saying that he didn't doubt my admission, and even later walked me to the trolleybus.
In the Moscow and Leningrad conservatories, entrance exams are a bit earlier than in other cities. Thus, having failed exams in Moscow and Leningrad, a person can enter another conservatory.
Before the exams, my mom arrived in Moscow and bought plane tickets to Gorky just in case. There is a good conservatory there.
And so the day of exams arrived. I had burnt out to such an extent that I went to play without any nervousness, but also without mood. That's how I played. I played without visible blunders, but also without a divine spark. In Scriabin's sonata, at the beginning, I smeared a few times in difficult chord leaps, but thought that now I would make such a climax for them that they (the committee) would fall from their seats. And exactly at this moment resounded the voice of the chairman of the committee, Evgeny Malinin: "Thank you. Sufficient." So the climax didn't work out.
When they posted the lists of those who passed the first and most important exam, I wasn't in them. Only 40 people passed the exam: almost as many as were supposed to study on the course. I found myself in other lists. Out of the huge number of those who didn't pass to the second exam, 10 people were singled out whom the conservatory recommends for taking exams at the Gnessin Institute, despite the fact that entrance exams were already in full swing there. And from us ten, as an exception, they were supposed to accept documents. Falling into this list was considered very prestigious, and everyone congratulated me, although I was distressed. The dream had collapsed.
Along with me were entering Eteri Andjaparidze, Mikhail Pletnev, and I didn't get into the same clip with them. Pity.
Lev Nikolaevich Vlassenko was very distressed by my failure and tried to comfort me, saying that in a year one could try to transfer to Moscow from another place. But I knew that this was it.
Generally, our room in the dormitory of the Moscow Conservatory turned out to be not very lucky. With me also lived a guy who was entering symphonic conducting. Entering symphonic conducting was generally impossible. Suffice it to say that on the committee sat Boris Khaikin, Kirill Kondrashin, Gennady Rozhdestvensky. These were only those whom I remember. There were other outstanding names too. And this guy, his name was Volodya (I specifically don't want to call his last name), passed through an incredible sieve and by the last exam remained the sole contender for two places, that is, his admission did not evoke doubts. And suddenly at the last exam on the history of music, he began to explain to the examiner why he didn't love Tchaikovsky. And the examiner exactly loved the work of Pyotr Ilyich very much (in which I support him) and gave Volodya a grade of "2" (an F) for his principledness. And Volodya flew off. Kirill Kondrashin, who sat on the committee, rushed to rescue Volodya, but in the grade sheet there was already a two. And what is written with a pen can't be chopped out with an axe, and two conducting places remained unclaimed.
This story I found out only later and was shocked. The next year Volodya entered the conducting faculty of the Kyiv Conservatory.
Well, and I decided that I would go to enter the Gnessin Institute, and returned the plane ticket to Gorky. When the guys and I brought our documents there, some cleaning lady shouted at us for something. This didn't please me. I declared to mom that I didn't want to enter there. What was to be done? There are no tickets to Gorky. We even, unclear why, called Leningrad, straight to Natan Perelman's house. He said that exams were underway and it was already late. Of course, this we knew ourselves.
Many years later, I was at the Leningrad Conservatory on an organ internship and, meeting the famous professor Natan Perelman in the corridor, told him who I was. He answered: "Ah, didn't enter Moscow... Serves you right." And right there he forced me to sit with him on the examination committee at the exam of a female student who was playing none other than Prokofiev's Eighth Sonata. I began to coo and say that I am not a teacher of the Leningrad Conservatory, etc. But to him this was all the same, and he insisted that I sit with him on the committee and give a grade. Mind-boggling!
But that was later, and now we called Donetsk to Galina Davidovna Sladkovskaya, and she said that we should go to Kharkiv. Tomorrow is the last day for submitting documents.
Y. F. Vakhranyov, her husband, worked at this moment already as a teacher at the Kharkiv Institute of Arts and was supposed to wait for us tomorrow. Fortunately, there were plane tickets at the box office, and the next morning at 6:00 AM we flew to Kharkiv. It was necessary to hurry, since this was the last day for accepting documents. The plane for some reason needed to make a landing in Voronezh. This took another two hours. Finally we reached Kharkiv and managed to submit the documents. After this we, dead from fatigue, arrived at our Kharkiv relatives, and when I finally sat down on the sofa, I thought: that's it! I have already entered, and everything terrifying is behind.

Kharkiv!
Just now for the umpteenth time I called Kharkiv from Israel. Yesterday evening, May 12, 1995, my daughter Irochka played her first solo concert in the great hall of the Kharkiv Special Music School. One could go out of one's mind! It seems recently we brought her from the maternity hospital, and here in a few days, May 30, she will turn 12 years old. She joyfully informed me that the concert went off successfully and she is very satisfied. Properly speaking, I wasn't very nervous. I was sure that she would play excellently.
Last summer she and my former wife Lyuda were visiting us in Israel. Irisha played the piano for me repeatedly. I was admired. She played completely "adult" things: Schumann, Mozart. She played for real. Somehow she played me one very difficult Czerny etude. Lyuda, seeing my admiration, made a sign to me with her eyes so that I wouldn't express my awe aloud. No praises. That's how it should be. But still I admitted to myself that I won't play this etude like Irochka for ever and ever. Well, and thank God!
Kharkiv is the city where I became a musician, where I fell in love and got married, where Irochka was born, where our family suddenly broke up. From this city I went into the army and returned from it. To this city my parents moved when Irochka was born. From this city we left for Israel. Finally, in this city I acquired my most important quality—the ability to be nervous. I became a Kharkivian. Donetsk moved to the background, although in Kharkiv I lived less than in Donetsk. Everything main in my life at that moment had occurred in Kharkiv. It is impossible to imagine what would have happened to me if I hadn't managed to submit documents to the Kharkiv Institute of Arts on that day.
















Chapter 18
Where I got such self-confidence from, I do not know. But I was absolutely certain that I would get into the Kharkiv institute without any problems. I went to the major audition as if it were a holiday, fully aware, of course, that the committee would be thrilled by the inclusion of a major Bach cycle in my program. And so it happened. The chairman of the committee could not believe that I could play any prelude and fugue on the spot and from memory, so he suggested I play any one—of my own choosing. I proudly declined and asked him to make the choice instead. For a few minutes, he and I competed in nobility like Chichikov and Manilov, but in the end, I won out, and he cautiously named one of the preludes and fugues. I performed it very well. The chairman asked me to play another one. He still couldn't believe that I knew them all by heart, and another scene out of Dead Souls ensued, though shorter this time. Again, I played his choice, and again, I did well. They asked me to play something else (I remember it wasn’t a Scriabin sonata), and with that, the exam was over. I was sure I had received the highest score. The other applicants were pacing around nervously, while I strutted about like a rooster, eyeing the female applicants and sizing up a potential flame—provided she got in, of course.
Most of the applicants had gathered around one piano teacher, who had apparently been tasked with fatherly mentoring and keeping them entertained while they waited for the grades to be announced. He was absolutely massive. Incredibly fat, with a high, effeminate voice. His name was Viktor Alekseevich Siryatsky. Later on, he taught us the history of pianism. Siryatsky was a Baron Munchausen of sorts. During lessons, he could drop a line like: "When I recorded Beethoven’s 32nd Sonata on a Golden Disc in Vienna last year, Vladimir Horowitz said it was the best recording of the 32nd Sonata and that he (Horowitz) could now die in peace." Or there was this story: when Glenn Gould was playing in Leningrad, he supposedly asked to find Siryatsky so that Siryatsky could advise him, Gould, on what articulation to use for a certain passage in a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Siryatsky gave his advice, and Gould allegedly said, "Thank you, Vitya. I also suspected it should be played that way." The most interesting part was that Siryatsky wasn't maliciously lying; he was simply voicing his fantasies and desires.
Once, Siryatsky got into trouble at the institute because of his long tongue. He blabbed something inappropriate and almost lost his job (we knew who had ratted him out). And then Siryatsky’s grandmother, a tiny old lady, rushed to the institute to defend her gigantic grandson. She marched right into the office of the head of the piano department, Professor Khazanovsky, under whom Siryatsky had once studied, threw up her hands, and said: "Why didn't you call me earlier and warn me that Vityun was misbehaving?!" Anyway, this very Vityun asked me my last name in the corridor. When I told him, he said meaningfully, "Well, you will get in, of course—unless you withdraw your papers after finding out you didn't get an A." Ooh-la-la!
He blurted it out and forgot all about it, but back then I didn't know Siryatsky and took every word seriously. For the next half hour, my mother and I nearly lost our minds. After all, if they didn't give me an A, it meant I was being artificially failed. Finally, the grades were announced, and I got an A. Nobody was failing me. Later it turned out that Yuri Fyodorovich Vakhranyov had approached the director of the Institute of Arts to make sure I wouldn't accidentally get sabotaged because of the "fifth line" (the nationality section on Soviet IDs indicating Jewish origin). There was, after all, a certain acceptable quota for admitting Jews into higher education institutions, even though the Kharkiv Institute of Arts was crawling with Jews. Only two were accepted into our year. (Six months later, others began trickling in—transferring from other universities or returning from academic leaves.) But let the reader not think that this request was the deciding factor in my admission.
Then came the exams in solf;ge and harmony. I knew these subjects inside out and got A's in them too. My exams were over. Since I had received straight A's in all my major subjects, I was exempted from the history and literature exams. Very convenient.
My mother and I got on a train and returned to Donetsk.
A new life was beginning.







Chapter 19
The Kharkiv Institute of Arts, named after Kotlyarevsky, was formed by merging the conservatory and the theatrical institute. Naturally, neither the music students nor the acting students liked this. Everyone wanted their own independent institute. We had to console ourselves with the fact that Kharkiv also had an Institute of Culture. It was considered lower in rank, which made us feel very superior. Ours, on the other hand, was supposedly aristocratic. Well, fine.
As freshmen, we were immediately warned by the upperclassmen that playing your instrument wasn't the most important thing here. What mattered was how you performed in the political disciplines. In Soviet educational institutions, there was a heavy emphasis on political subjects, but at our place, it was extreme. Our rector was a professor of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, Vasily Stepanovich Kornienko. He kept the institute in a state of perpetual fear. Kornienko tried with all his might to instill patriotism and love for Soviet ideology in us. Whenever someone from our familiar musical world emigrated to Israel or America—which happened occasionally—Kornienko would later speak of them contemptuously during his lectures, staring intently into the eyes of the Jewish section of the audience. Apparently, he wanted to see who would be next. Recently, I learned that after Perestroika, his son, a pianist, immediately moved to Vienna. I believe that Vasily Stepanovich, as a decent man and a patriot, should have hanged himself. But, as far as I know, he didn't.
Aside from the political disciplines, the most crucial subject in our institute was the Civil Defense course. This course was taught by a man named Garkushin. On our very first lesson, wishing to introduce himself to the class, he announced: "Hello, dear comrades. I am Kharkushin. To avoid any misunderstandings between us, I want to tell you right away that I have a minor speech de-fect: instead of the letter 'F', I say 'Khv'. But I write correctly, as I have graduated from two institutes and hold a higher education." As he said this, he wrote the letter "F" on the blackboard, which is supposed to be pronounced normally, but he couldn't manage it, so he then wrote "Khv"—the way it came out for him. "But that's nothing. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin couldn't pronounce his 'R's either," he continued. Then he proclaimed: "I am the second-in-command here after the rector. When the war comes and the rector is killed, I will automatically take his place." He didn't say, "If the war comes." No. He was certain: "When the war comes." (Regrettably, he turned out to be right. — 2022 amendment).
That was the kind of teacher we had. As it turned out, he delivered this exact monologue every single year to every new class. At first, we were baffled by the fact that Garkushin would call home every 15 minutes (Civil Defense was so important that there was a phone right in the classroom) and ask, presumably his wife: "Manya, well, is it standing?" And after a short pause, he would put down the receiver with satisfaction. We couldn't for the life of us understand what of Manya's was supposed to be standing. It turned out he was just worried about his Moskvitch car parked under the window. The upperclassmen clued us in on that.















Chapter 20
Whenever I mention the name of my university friend, the violinist Mikhail Parkhomovsky, everyone immediately reacts the same way: "Ah, the one who was the artistic director of the Violin Ensemble of Siberia and now lives in Israel? Right?"
Let me say right off the bat: no, that's a different person. Despite sharing the exact same profession, first name, and last name, they are different people. What's more, these two violinists named Mikhail Parkhomovsky have almost identical patronymics. Why "almost"? Let me explain. The Siberian-Israeli Parkhomovsky is Mikhail Izrailevich—meaning the son of Israel, as it should be—while the Kyiv-New York Parkhomovsky described below is Mikhail Izyevich, meaning the son of Izia.
My Parkhomovsky’s dad was just Izia. Even in his passport. He worked as a plumber, which initially surprised me greatly; until then, I believed that "Jew" and "plumber" were entirely incompatible concepts. A Jew was either a scientist, a musician, a doctor, an accountant, or, at the very least, the manager of a dairy store. But a plumber... (It was only later, in Israel, that I realized every plumber is a Jew. Sometimes an Arab.) I couldn't imagine what a Jewish plumber was even supposed to look like. But when I visited Misha in Kyiv during our first winter break and met his dad, Izia, I realized right away that nothing in this world happens by chance. It was a bullseye. You couldn't imagine a more perfect match between a nationality and a profession. He was a small, thin man with a sad face. He wore a simple shirt, the kind made by the "Volodarsky Factory," and it felt like if he just picked up a pipe wrench, he’d already be at work. He was the sweetest, quietest man in the world. During the week I stayed at Misha's place, aside from saying "hello" at the beginning and "goodbye, come again" at the end, he only asked me one thing, looking sadly into my eyes: "Roma, maybe you want another cutlet?"
Instead of Izia, it was his wife, Misha’s mom, Aunt Lyuba, who did the talking—and she did it without drawing breath. When Misha brought his fianc;e, Eda, to the house for the first time, and she nervously introduced herself, Misha’s mom wiped her right hand on her apron, extended it to Eda, and said solemnly: "Very nice to meet you. Aunt Lyuba!"
Misha and I lived together in a student dormitory room for several years. He was a very interesting, slender guy. He was a hit with the ladies. But his main grievance was that he just couldn't find a good Jewish girl to marry, and he kept wishing someone would set him up with one.
For Misha and me, the ideal Jewish bride was the fianc;e of our friend and classmate, the cellist Sasha Sinelnikov. Her name was Stella Barskaya. When Sasha was courting her, he frequently invited Misha and me to tag along to the Barsky home for company. Misha and I got so used to this that we honestly thought Sasha wouldn't know what to do there without us. Misha often said: "Romik, look at Stella! What a girl! She’s exactly what’s needed! First of all, an yiddishe (a Jewish girl), second, a beauty, smart, charming, from an intellectual family. And what a figure—it drives you crazy. Sinelnikov is so lucky! Where does one find a girl like that?"
In the building where Stella lived, a Jewish family resided on the top floor, and they had a daughter our age. One day, Stella brought me up there. I was treated with undivided attention, especially by the mother and father. After that, whenever I came to the Barskys' with Sasha just to keep him company, Stella would say to me: "Romik, just pop up and see them. What does it cost you?" Out of politeness, I would drop by, and the father would immediately yell to the mother: "Roman is here! Hurry, bring out the cake!" With my characteristic shyness and affectation, I tried to dampen their enthusiasm, saying: "Oh, please, you shouldn't... I can't stay long... Why the cake?" The father always replied: "What do you mean, why the cake? For the belly!" And so, it began and ended with cake. Although the girl was pleasant to talk to, she didn't spark any desire in me to date her. I advised Misha to go up to the top floor next time he was at the Barskys'; maybe they'd give him some cake too. At least she was an yiddishe, I thought. Maybe she’d be just right for Misha. But Misha returned from there with his illusions extinguished as well.
But one day, Misha returned from Kyiv ecstatic. He declared that he had finally been introduced to the one he had dreamed of his entire life. She was an yiddishe, a Kyivan, beautiful, smart, a violinist, and so on. Her name was Edith (Eda, for short). Misha was given her phone number, but he had no idea how to call her or what to say. Finally, he found a solution. He put a vinyl record of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto on the record player and dialed Eda's number. She picked up, and the concerto played into the receiver. The icebreaker was found. Not wasting any time, after just a few dates, Misha proposed to Eda, and she accepted. Misha told me with adoration: "You see, Romik, Eda and I were made for each other. We have an amazing alignment of desires: whatever she wants, we do." Eda really was a wonderful girl, and I felt at peace for Misha. Soon, they got married.
After we graduated from the institute, it happened that Misha and I didn’t see each other for six whole years. We only exchanged letters and phone calls. Finally, I arranged a trip to Kyiv specifically to visit Misha and Eda. My train arrived in Kyiv at 4:30 AM, and I begged Misha over the phone not to come meet me, assuring him I could easily take the first metro train. But Misha wouldn't hear of it. He ordered a taxi for 4:00 AM and came to meet me at the station. When we embraced, half-asleep, I repeated that he shouldn't have dragged himself out so early, since I could have managed on the metro. To which Misha said strictly: "Romik doesn't come to visit every day! Just wait, Eda cooked such a dinner in your honor! You'll lick your fingers."
Here I must make a small digression and confess to the reader that while I am a terrible glutton, there are a few foods I cannot stand the sight or smell of: beets (and any dishes made from them) and... gefilte fish. Usually, in such cases, Jews say: "Ohhh! That's just because you haven't tried real gefilte fish, the way my mom or grandmother makes it." But let me assure you, with no offense intended to any Jewish mother or grandmother, I wouldn't eat their gefilte fish either. So, when lunchtime came and Eda set the table, it turned out that with great love she had prepared a massive bowl of vinegret (beet salad), beet borscht, and... as the crowning achievement of creation, gefilte fish! Hooray!
The embarrassment was absolute. Poor Eda didn't know what to do or where to turn. Misha gently chided me for my pickiness, while I burst into Mephistophelean laughter, begging Eda not to take it to heart and to just give me a small sandwich with bologna—preferably "Molodezhnaya"—and a glass of tea. I needed nothing else.
Be that as it may, I thoroughly spoiled the mood for everyone, even though I hadn't meant to. Apparently, over the six years of not seeing me, Misha had forgotten my tastes and failed to stop Eda in time while she was preparing "for Romik's arrival." And yet, think of how much food we had eaten together back in the dorms.
There was another curious character living in our room—a clarinetist named Mitya Perlovich. He was from Dnipropetrovsk. The three of us—Misha, Mitya, and I—always brought various foods from our hometowns, which we would eat together. Sometimes our parents would send care packages with food via train conductors or acquaintances traveling, say, to Moscow. The trains to Moscow went through Kharkiv. We called these food packages "shara" (freebies), and we would walk to the station together to pick up the latest shipment, anticipating a luxurious feast until midnight.
Once, a "shara" from Donetsk was delivered to me by a star of Soviet pop music at the time, Tamara Miansarova. She lived in Moscow but worked through the Donetsk Philharmonic, and my dad asked her to carry a few packages of food to Kharkiv for me. Naturally, the conductor of that train car was bending over backward—not for me, of course, but for Miansarova. But when we went to pick up Mitya’s packages, it was the conductors who were bending over backward for Mitya himself.
When his parents asked a conductor to take a package to Kharkiv, they would tell her that the most handsome guy would come down to the train car to pick it up. That's the one she should give it to. And Mitya was always a hit with the conductors. To be honest, not just with conductors. He was a stunningly handsome man and an exceptional womanizer. Whenever the three of us got onto a trolleybus or a bus, Mitya would ask Misha and me to board through the back door, while he would board through the front door and walk through the aisle toward us at the back. As he did this, he asked us to watch how all the women turned around to look at him, and then report back to him whether it happened or not. Of course, it always happened exactly as Mitya predicted. Misha and I were like two Leporellos to his Don Juan.
We went to the station every Sunday for Mitya’s "sharas." The Dnipropetrovsk–Moscow train arrived at 10:00 PM, carrying Mitya's delivery. A feast followed, sometimes lasting until morning.
Our packages had distinct characteristics. For instance, Mitya's were designed for immediate consumption, still packed with warm potatoes and fresh cutlets. After dinner, nothing would be left of Mitya's "shara," but we knew a new one would arrive the following Sunday. Mine and Misha's were less regular but meant to last longer. For example, I would be sent a plastic bag of pollock roe, a stick of hard salami, and other items. Misha’s packages were of a similar nature. Misha would take the pollock roe out of the fridge—incredibly salty as it was—and spread it on bread. Then he would layer the salami right on top of it, which absolutely horrified me.
Misha and Mitya were anti-Soviet, while I still believed that the Soviet system, if not the best, was at least not the worst option. Of course, I didn't believe in the imminent arrival of communism, but I constantly argued with Misha and Mitya because they annoyed me with their frequent, typically Jewish conversations about Israel and America.
But one day, our Mitya actually believed that communism had arrived. If only for a few minutes, he believed it. It so happened that the three of us ran entirely out of money. There were about three days left until our stipends, and we had to find a way to survive. To make matters worse, the care packages had dried up too. We were practically ready to starve.
And on one of those days, Misha and I accidentally found 50 rubles. A massive amount of money back then. Dumbfounded with joy, we rushed to the grocery store and bought all kinds of sausages, cheeses (we hadn’t even heard of kosher laws back then), a bottle of vodka, and a three-liter jar of tomato juice. In short, as they say, you can picture the scene. When we walked into the room, our handsome Mitya was lying in bed—hungry, freezing (it was cold, and the heating was poor), and miserable. His usually eagle-like eyes now expressed sheer resignation. He couldn't understand why Misha and I were so excited. When Mitya saw the sheer quantity of food, he lost his mind completely and asked in terror: "Did you guys rob a grocery store?" I replied cheerfully: "What's the matter, Mityunya, don't you listen to the radio? Today is the first day of communism! You can take whatever you want from the grocery store, as much as you like, for free." Mitya jumped out of bed and gasped: "No, that can't be true." Misha calmly countered: "Mityunya, you can see with your own eyes how much grub there is. If it weren't for communism, where would we get this? You don't actually think Romik and I robbed a store, do you?"
And Mitya believed it. Simply because at that exact moment, there was no alternative. A few minutes later, of course, we told Mitya the whole truth, and you wouldn't believe it: there was disappointment and resentment in Mitya's eyes. For those couple of minutes, he had already been living under communism. As for me, I became convinced: to make a person believe in communism, you have to keep them hungry and cold, and then unexpectedly feed them and warm them up with vodka.





Chapter 21
Since childhood, I have had a passion for various wind instruments. This is probably why I later chose His Majesty the Organ. It embodied all wind instruments at once.
As early as my youth, I learned to play the trumpet. And on the tuba, I even performed Gluck’s "Melodie" on stage—granted, it was just for a spoof comedy night (kapustnik). Later, in the army, I played the tenor horn in a brass band. That was also where I learned to play the trombone. Of course, my mastery of wind instruments was very amateurish. But those were all brass instruments; as for woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon), I couldn’t play them at all, though I did play various folk pipes and recorders quite briskly. But those didn't count.
And so, Mitya Perlovich’s clarinet was a highly coveted prize for me. Mitya knew this and categorically forbade me from even coming near it. Sometimes he would leave for general education classes, and he really didn't want to drag his clarinet case along with him. But he was afraid to leave it in the room with me—and rightly so. It should be added that in his clarinet case, besides the instrument itself, there were two small boxes with reeds: one with new ones, and another with old ones, just in case. (Reeds are a crucial part of the mouthpiece.) Mitya would look me dead in the eye and make me swear an oath that I wouldn't go near the clarinet. I, of course, assured him that I wouldn't touch it. But he could tell by my arrogant eyes that the moment he stepped out the door, I would immediately start poking around his instrument. He would tell me: "Krasnovsky, if I come back and see that you, you mother-f'er, were messing with my case, I'll..." What followed was an eloquent but highly unliterary list of what he would supposedly do to me.
Then Mitya, sensing the utter hopelessness of his situation, would add in a softer tone: "But if you, you bastard, do take the clarinet anyway, then please, I beg you, don't touch the new reeds—play on the old ones, alright?" Mitya was forced to choose the lesser of two evils.
By an irony of fate, Mitya and his wife, Olya Malkina (who was also our classmate), now live in Israel, just a ten-minute walk from me.
The clarinet was all well and good, but I had to practice the piano regularly. My teacher was Yuly Fyodorovich Vakhranyov, the husband of my Galina Davidovna Sladkovskaya, my teacher from Donetsk. To put it in modern terms, they took me on as a family enterprise. This family loved me dearly, and I absolutely adored them. Thus, my relationship with Yuly Fyodorovich was not as formal as that of a student and teacher, but rather more like family. While he had to maintain a certain distance with other students, he would relax quite a bit during my lessons and drop his mask of a strict instructor. He was a powerhouse professional, and to this day, I regret that I didn't start studying with him in early childhood.
Often during our lessons, Yuly Fyodorovich tried to awaken my creative thinking using various associations that had, I would say, a sexual-toilet direction. But only with me.
After passing my entrance exams in Kharkiv, I went to visit them in Donetsk. Their family lived in Donetsk, while Yuly Fyodorovich commuted to Kharkiv for work for a few days at a time. He immediately pulled Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel from the shelf and enthusiastically read me the chapter where Gargantua invents the best way to wipe one's backside. I was somewhat shocked, but Sladkovskaya, hearing all this, shouted to me from the kitchen: "Romik, you can consider this your very first major lesson in Yuly Fyodorovich Vakhranyov's class."
Oh, my teachers, my teachers... How I loved you! I dedicated 19 years of my devoted love to you. From the age of 16 to 35. It even seems to me that I loved you more than my own parents. I obeyed you unquestioningly. I was ready to do whatever you said, at any moment, day or night. I encouraged any of your actions, even those that weren't always decent. I pretended not to see your rudeness toward other people you disliked. Like the vile Rigoletto from the opera of the same name, I would snicker and jeer at the people you humiliated. I signed ridiculous letters in your defense whenever you were in trouble.
And how hard you must have tried to turn my love for you into bitter hatred in a single minute. I might be reproached for being an ungrateful student. No, I am a grateful student! It's just that in one single flash, you managed to erase all the good you had done for me. Like a cow that gives milk all the time and then, with one kick of its hoof, spills it all.
Right now, it takes a great deal of effort to keep this suspense to myself and "not air dirty laundry in public."
But that happened much later; for now, I was happy and adored my new teacher. During lessons, Yuly Fyodorovich might drop a line like this after my attempts to play a Chopin etude: "Romik, your fingers feel in this etude like a eunuch in a harem." Once, before an exam, I played two Scriabin poems for him with excessive (external) emotion. He praised me and left. A few seconds later, he peeked back into the classroom and said: "Romik, I forgot to warn you: the chairman of the committee is blind..." From that moment on, I stopped "showing off emotionally" at the instrument and now I sit still.
Despite all these jokes, he meticulously instilled piano-playing skills in me—everything I hadn't been taught in childhood.
Vakhranyov, among other things, was the chairman of the local trade union committee (mestkom) at the Institute of Arts and had his own office with a telephone and an upright piano. For me, having a piano in his office was very convenient because, early on, there was no piano in my dorm room, and classrooms for practice were a constant problem—there were never enough of them. So, of course, I could use his office for practicing in the mornings and evenings. Yuly Fyodorovich allowed me to have my own key, on one condition: that I wouldn't bring young ladies there.
Eventually, a piano appeared in my dorm room. This was a great convenience, but I actually started practicing less, not more. It always seemed to me that the piano wasn't going anywhere from the room, and besides, I was the only pianist in our room, so there were no other contenders for it. Misha and Mitya only rarely sat down at the piano to learn something for their "general piano" course. This subject is mandatory for all non-piano students. It is believed that everyone should possess at least basic piano skills. Naturally, this subject was a burden to them.
At our institute, only one student—a vocalist—was exempted from the "general piano" course because he was missing a finger on his hand. Rumor had it that he had once chopped it off himself just to get out of "general piano." Imagine that!








Chapter 22
Although I was drawn to wind instruments, I spent most of my time at the string department.
Misha Parkhomovsky constantly kept me in the loop: who bought a new violin or cello, who sold one and for how much, why one violin was better than another, and which violin makers were crooks and which ones were slightly less so. Whenever one of our students bought a violin, I, already influenced by Misha, would worry sick that they might get ripped off or saddled with the wrong instrument. As it turned out, playing the violin well and understanding violins well are two completely unrelated things. Misha used to say (repeating what he’d heard from others, of course) that even David Oistrakh was once sold the "wrong" violin; even though it sounded almost like the "right" one, the main point was that Tsar David had shelled out a tidy sum for the "wrong" one as if it were the "right" one. Misha and I took this very much to heart and discussed it endlessly over our evening tea.
In fact, I began to feel that a person buys a violin only to sell it immediately afterward, so they can play a new one—all the while doubting themselves and trying to convince themselves that buying it was the right move. And then, before you know it, they are already selling that one and buying another new one. And so it goes, on and on.
And then, our Misha was offered a violin for 1,500 rubles. For a violin, this wasn't a particularly large sum, but for Misha, it was huge. But suddenly, it turned out that Misha’s own violin, the one he had to sell, was also worth somewhere around 1,400–1,500 rubles. A buyer was found: a student named Asenka. All she had to do was call her parents in another city and ask them for the money.
Asenka went to make the call with Misha, and when the topic of money came up, she covered the mouthpiece with her hand and asked Misha, "So, how much should I ask for: 1,400 or 1,500 rubles?" Misha, caught off guard by the direct question, answered mechanically, "Alright, let it be 1,500." Asenka got flustered too and, without bargaining with Misha, shouted into the phone to her parents, "1,500!" The parents had no choice but to agree, and soon they sent her the money. The violin was sold, and Misha used the proceeds to buy the new one. Everyone was happy: both Misha and Asenka.
A year passed. One day, Asenka asked Misha to step aside with her and said, "Misha, remember when we were discussing the price of the violin, and you said, 'Somewhere around 1,400–1,500,' huh?" Misha looked at Asenka, somewhat surprised by this sudden return to an old, forgotten topic. "So, maybe you could give me back 100 rubles now?" Asenka asked hopefully.
Misha was a very well-mannered and polite young man, so he couldn't bring himself to say everything he was thinking at that moment. He answered her only with a look, and Asenka quickly beat a retreat.
There is a very stupid proverb: "A good man wouldn't be named Adolf." It is incredibly unfair that because of one scoundrel with that name, all other decent people have to suffer. By that logic, in the Soviet Union and Russia, there should be a proverb saying that a good man wouldn't be named Joseph or Vladimir, if it comes down to that.
At the Kharkiv Institute of Arts, violin was taught by an outstanding violinist, Adolf Arnoldovich Leshchinsky.
In his childhood, he had been a child prodigy, and Lunacharsky himself had sent him to Berlin to study under the famous maestro Carl Flesch. Later, after the Great Patriotic War, it turned out that Leshchinsky technically had no higher education degree. He hadn't graduated from a Soviet conservatory, and Berlin with Carl Flesch didn't count, especially after the victory over Germany and the fall of Berlin. On top of everything else, he was a Jew named Adolf. Naturally, he couldn't make a proper career for himself in the USSR.
I had the good fortune of accompanying Leshchinsky in class a few times when students would persuade him to pick up the violin, and I must say he was a truly great violinist, even if few people remember it today. It was not for nothing that David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, and many others treated Leshchinsky with particular reverence. David Oistrakh personally sent him postcards for every holiday. We saw them ourselves.
Anyway, Misha Parkhomovsky studied under Leshchinsky, which, of course, greatly embellished his biography and gave him a lot professionally.
The fact that I hung around the string department eventually brought an unexpected result. Our Institute of Arts had a student chamber orchestra. It was conducted by Suren Garnikovich Kocharyan, a professor of the viola class. He had spent most of his life in Ukraine but spoke with a heavy Armenian accent. Behind his back, Suren Garnikovich was sometimes called Servant Garniturovich. But sometimes people said it right to his face—he still didn't catch it if it was mumbled.
And so, apparently, I had become such a fixture in his sight that he put me in the orchestra to play the harpsichord part, or, as it is often called, the cembalo. Suren Garnikovich pronounced it "tsembalo". We didn't actually have this "tsembalo," so I played on a grand piano. Of course, it wasn't the same. Kocharyan lamented endlessly that we didn't have a cembalo and kept pressuring the management to buy one.
Then, one day, I was standing quietly in the hallway when I suddenly noticed Kocharyan in a highly agitated state. Seeing me, he rushed toward me, spreading his little arms the way toddlers run to their mommy and daddy, and shouted excitedly: "Romatska! Romatska!" (meaning my name in its affectionate form, Romochka). He couldn't utter anything else from excitement. I got scared that he might have a heart attack and rushed to him, saying, "Suren Garnikovich, what... what happened?"
And Professor Kocharyan, hugging me like his own flesh and blood, his eyes flashing with unprecedented happiness, breathless from running and the rush of emotions, gasped out: "Romatska, tsembalo kupyly!" [Romochka, they bought the cembalo!] So that was it!
And as luck would have it, Misha Parkhomovsky was standing not far from this volcanic eruption, seeing and hearing it all. The phrase "Romatska, tsembalo kupyly" made such an indelible impression on him that no matter what we talked about afterward—whether something funny or sad, about classes, women, food, and so on—the final and unchanging full stop in the conversation was the phrase: "That’s how it is, Romatska. Tsembalo kupyly." Just as a prayer ends with the word "amen," we would end any conversation with this phrase.
Little did I know then that the day of this purchase would become the most important day of my life, that in the future I would play a whole series of concerts on the harpsichord—on this very one—and become a well-known musician in the city precisely thanks to this harpsichord.
Little did I know that the harpsichord would make me think about the organ, and that after going through long and amusing bureaucratic procedures, I would actually become an organist! That’s how it is, dear reader: tsembalo kupyly.
Chapter 23
When I finished my first year at the Institute of Arts, I was already twenty years old. The period of my puberty had long since passed, but as they say, I hadn't even dipped my toes in the water: I had only ever seen women on the street, in the movies, on TV, and in various public places. I was getting tired of this, so I decided I needed to be more assertive about establishing closer contact with women. That was what my buddies advised me to do. They had already been around the block and knew the ropes, whereas I hadn't even gotten off the starting line. Watching my friends' numerous romantic successes made my heart sink from envy and vexation. I began to think that something was wrong with me if women didn't want me.
So, for the summer holidays, my mother and I flew back to Kyrgyzstan to visit Uncle Yascha. Once again, he bought vouchers for all of us to Lake Issyk-Kul, to the exact same resort where I had previously experienced a strictly platonic love affair with Tatyana from Alma-Ata (see Chapter 15). In the dining hall, the tables sat three people, and a woman named Alla—also from Alma-Ata—was seated with my mother and me. During meals, she and my mom chatted like old friends, but I didn't see her as an object of interest, even though she was quite pretty and beautifully complemented by long, golden hair. One evening, I dragged myself to the resort's dance floor and saw Alla standing off to the side, looking bored.
We were unexpectedly thrilled to run into each other. Just then, a slow tango started playing, and somehow, completely spontaneously, we went out to dance. During the tango, Alla told me that she lived with her young son, was divorced from her husband, and that her father was some big shot in the Ministry of Trade of Kazakhstan. She also mentioned she was half-Russian, half-Jewish, and that she was only ten years older than me. Most importantly, she was deeply in love with classical music.
To cut a long story short, when the tango ended, we decided we had nothing left to do on the dance floor and went for a stroll through the deserted resort park. We talked exclusively about music. When Alla began telling me about how she had recently listened to Verdi's opera Aida, I decided it was time to try and put my arm around her shoulder.
I embraced her... and immediately terrified myself, fearing I might get slapped across the face. Alla's reaction to my timid advances turned out to be completely unexpected. She looked at me in surprise and said, "Romochka... wait... at least let me take off my jeans."
And just like that, without ever expecting it, I entered a new period of my life—one that was more interesting, but also far more turbulent.
Alla and I grew very attached to each other, but alas, we soon departed for our respective cities.
I suspect that it was precisely there in Kyrgyzstan, at Lake Issyk-Kul, that I acquired some miraculous qualities for seducing women—qualities that were entirely uncharacteristic of me anywhere else in the former USSR. After all, besides Alla, several other interesting girls were throwing themselves at me there—girls who were even more stunning than Alla. One of them was exceptionally beautiful. Her name was Vika. I cannot disclose her last name because her grandfather was a comrade-in-arms of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and it is a surname many people would recognize. But I resisted. I was fanatically devoted to Alla, which I regret somewhat now, as I missed a rarest opportunity to gain a much deeper understanding of Leninism.











Chapter 24
In my group at the Institute of Arts, there was a girl I liked very much. Her name was Lyuda Kholodtsova. It just so happened that during lectures, I always sat at the same desk with her and her girlfriend, driving them to hysterics with all kinds of jokes, pranks, and rhymes. In short, I was showing off as much as I could.
Lyuda and her friend were well-behaved girls, and they didn't like getting reprimanded by the teachers for laughing during lectures. However, they didn't want to give up sitting at the same desk with me either.
As it turned out, back during the entrance exams, I had given Lyuda such an arrogant look that she thought to herself, "I hope this brazen jerk doesn't get admitted." I don't remember this myself. Apparently, that is just the way I look at people.
At that time, Lyuda's parents were away working on the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), so she lived with her grandmother. She lived in a neighborhood called Pavlovo Pole, and not far from her house, there was a very beautiful mineral water spring. In the evenings, the local intelligentsia would come out of their homes to take a short stroll to the spring. I visited Lyuda every day, and we would go fetch water. We became such a fixture there together that no one could imagine us existing apart.
Lyuda's influence on me was simply invaluable: from then on, I had to shave cleaner, tuck my shirt deeper into my trousers, use deodorant, change my socks more often, and read Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. I was now forced to go to movie theaters only to watch intellectual films by Bergman and Tarkovsky. I even had to learn the difference between Claude Monet and ;douard Manet.
Once, I took the initiative and bought tickets for two consecutive parts of the movie Fantomas. Lyuda was beside herself with rage. She told me that I hadn't changed a bit, that only people like me went to see Fantomas, that a normal person only watches movies by Rossellini and Antonioni, and that she wouldn't set foot in that screening. Be that as it may, with great effort, I managed to persuade Lyuda to go. At first, she was deeply displeased, but then something wild came over her: she started laughing so hard that the audience stopped looking at Fantomas and started looking at Lyuda instead.
When the movie ended and we stepped out into the street, Lyuda was shaking with laughter for a long time. Finally, she calmed down and said that the movie wasn't as bad as she had thought, but still, only people like me would want to watch such films.
Lyuda practically forced me to study for and pass the exam on Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, which was administered by our rector, V.S. Kornienko. I was so terrified of it that I decided to play sick on the day of the exam and take it later. Lyuda told me that a real man shouldn't be afraid of such nonsense—you just have to memorize it, pass it, and forget it. Which is exactly what I did. The night before the exam, Lyuda, myself, and five other people spent the whole night right at the Institute of Arts, in the Department of Marxism-Leninism.
It was crucial to get into the first group and draw the exam tickets in the presence of the lab assistant rather than Kornienko himself. That way, you could pick any ticket you wanted. She would just pretend she didn't see anything. Naturally, we aced the exam. Next, we had to pass philosophy—Marxist-Leninist philosophy, of course. But I was a bit less afraid of that one.
Our philosophy class was taught by Nadezhda Mitrofanovna Tsitsalyuk, the wife of the famous Kharkiv composer Grigory Tsitsalyuk. He was a delightful man who wrote music in the style of proletarian culture. He composed a whole bunch of Ukrainian kazachoks and hopaks and combined them into a symphonic suite, which he titled nothing less than Symphonic Dances. Once he remarked: "I don't understand why Rachmaninoff called his piece Symphonic Dances. It's good music, but those aren't dances! Now, my dances—those are real dances."
Consequently, his wife, Nadezhda Mitrofanovna, paid special attention to the composition students. Heaven forbid if anyone composed atonal or modern-style music. Such an unfortunate composer would have a miserable time during the philosophy exam, often having to retake it up to five times. For some reason, she liked me, and I passed philosophy on my second attempt.
To give her credit, she truly saved me during the state exam on Scientific Communism in my final year. They wanted to give me a failing grade ("D"), but she fought with all her might to pull me up to a "B" (four). By doing so, she not only saved me from being drafted into the army for two years (which would have delayed my diploma until after my service), but she also preserved my stipend.
Nadezhda Mitrofanovna, I always remember this and pray for you. Thank you!
In my social circle, the ultimate ace in Marxist-Leninist subjects was Misha Parkhomovsky. He was incredibly well-versed in politics and never faced any issues in that department. Only once did he have a dream where he was standing by a window in the hallway, leaning against a heating radiator and slightly blocking it from view. Nadezhda Mitrofanovna Tsitsalyuk walked up to him in the dream and said reproachfully: "And why is it, Comrade Parkhomovsky, that you are covering up objective reality? Are you trying to hide it from the people?" But that was only a dream. In reality, everything was perfectly fine.
Lyuda also handled the political disciplines quite skillfully. Thus, with Misha Parkhomovsky on one side and Lyuda on the other, I managed to patch up my relationship with the Department of Marxism-Leninism with relatively little bloodshed.
Plus, of course, my personal charm.













Chapter 25
Good Lord, how I always envied the string and wind players because they could work in a symphony orchestra! Alas, I was a pianist, and that path was closed to me. True, the piano was occasionally used as an orchestral instrument in symphonic pieces, but this was a rare occurrence. Sometimes, symphonic scores called for instruments like the celesta, the harpsichord, or even the organ. These instruments were usually played by a pianist as well, but they weren't utilized very often either. If a performance occasionally required an orchestral pianist, they were brought in specially for a few days while that specific program was running. In short, an orchestral pianist was not typically a staff position in an orchestra, except in large capital ensembles.
During my final years of living in Donetsk, I was frequently invited to perform the piano and celesta parts in the orchestra. In this role, you don't need to be so much a brilliant virtuoso as someone who knows how to count rests and enter right on cue to play a couple of chords, and then go back to counting, counting, and counting again.
There were scores where, in addition to calculating rests, you actually had to showcase pianistic mastery—such as in Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka or Dmitry Shostakovich’s First Symphony. I can say I handled it fairly well. When I studied in Kharkiv and attended concerts at the Kharkiv Philharmonic, I used to notice a certain woman playing the piano in the orchestra, never imagining that I might one day take her place.
Once, a composition student named Misha Shukh—a friend of mine back from Donetsk who has now, unfortunately, untimely departed this world—asked me to play a rather difficult piano part in his symphonic piece. It was set to be performed by the symphony orchestra of the Kharkiv Philharmonic for the state graduation exam of composition students from the Kharkiv Institute of Arts. (The orchestra management had asked him to bring his "own" pianist, since the piano part was complex and that lady evidently didn't want to learn it.)
The orchestra's management immediately took note of me, because a pianist who knows how to count rests is a rarity, and they started inviting me to participate in concerts from time to time.
Right around that period, Vakhtang Jordania became the chief conductor of the Kharkiv Symphony Orchestra. He was a laureate of the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in West Berlin. Of course, this promised a dramatic surge in the musical life of Kharkiv. Rumors began circulating around the city that the orchestra's roster would expand and that a full-time staff position for an orchestral pianist would finally open up.
Meanwhile, musicians were advised to keep their wives under lock and key: word on the street was that the new maestro was awfully fond of the ladies. Oh well, more on the ladies later.
Naturally, upon learning that Jordania intended to hire a full-time staff pianist, I immediately grew anxious. However, it never even crossed my mind that I could land the job. There was such a crowd of pianists buzzing around Vakhtang—especially female ones—that I had no doubt this staff position had already been "rightfully earned" by someone else.
Then, one day, I was called in for a symphony orchestra rehearsal. As always, I was needed to "calculate some rests." The program was conducted by Vakhtang Jordania. Before the rehearsal began, overcoming my fear and shyness, I stepped into the conductor's dressing room and asked point-blank: "What does it take to work in the orchestra in the permanent staff position of a pianist?" "Nothing special. Just show what you can do today," Jordania replied quite amiably. And so, I was 45 minutes away from achieving my cherished dream—that being the duration of the first rehearsal hour.
During the very first intermission, the orchestra director, Nikolai Garifanovitch Khasnutdinov, walked up to me and said solemnly: "Congratulations, Roman! You will be working with us starting January 1st."
To tell the truth, there was still a month and a half left until the first of January, and I began to worry that Jordania had made a hasty decision and would ultimately hire some favored lady instead of me, or that the orchestra size wouldn't be expanded on January 1st—or ever—leaving both me and everyone else out of a job.
After celebrating the New Year holidays, on January 2nd, I dropped by the empty philharmonic building just in time, fully aware that no one would be there and I wouldn't find out anything. Suddenly—lo and behold!—I ran into the orchestra inspector on the stairs, an oboist named Misha Bogachenko. He said, "Romochka, my darling. Why are you dashing around here? Hurry up and write your application." "What application?" I asked. "What do you mean, 'what application'? For permanent employment. Here, take some paper and write," Misha commanded.
Overwhelmed with happiness, I wrote the application.
In an authoritative, managerial tone (after all, once I wrote that application, he automatically became my supervisor), Misha Bogachenko said: "Alright! Today is January 2nd. We report for work on January 20th. That’s when measurements will be taken for the white tuxedos. Your salary started running yesterday. Go get some rest, my darling!"
As the Russian proverb goes: a good job always starts with a smoke break.

















Chapter 26
I often find myself wondering: why did the KGB practically leave such an apolitical group as our symphony orchestra alone? Everyone knew exactly who the "informers" were, but for some reason, no one was afraid, and people spoke their minds out loud: telling political jokes and openly mocking Brezhnev. One musician was particularly fond of announcing to everyone within earshot that his grandfather had been a White Guard officer and never referred to Lenin as anything other than "the bald syphilitic." And, of course, almost everyone openly envied those who had emigrated or escaped abroad. All of this was happening during a period when Soviet citizens could only say such things in whispers in their own kitchens. The KGB and the high party leadership could not have been unaware of our collective’s blatant lack of political loyalty, yet I do not recall a single person being punished during my time with the orchestra.
It seemed to me that the city's high officials even flirted with us to some extent. How to explain this, I do not know. Perhaps the orchestra musicians were allowed a certain "freedom of speech" precisely so that the authorities could gauge the general mood of the populace, particularly the intelligentsia—the most unreliable segment of society.
In addition to the few monthly symphony concerts required by our quota, the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra was regularly called upon to accompany various events organized by the regional and city party committees, as well as others, such as factory anniversaries, of which there were quite a few in Kharkiv. These usually took place in one of the many Palaces of Culture. After all, every self-respecting factory had its own Palace of Culture. Because, of course, one simply couldn't do without culture.
These Palaces of Culture were massive, theater-style structures built with utter incompetence from the standpoint of acoustics or any other standards necessary for a large auditorium. The stage could be so enormous that it was fit for staging Aida or Boris Godunov, yet the orchestra pit was so small that sometimes not even a quarter of the orchestra could sit inside it. The orchestra had to spend weeks rehearsing for these concerts, accompanying various vocal, ballet, and choral numbers. A certain portion of the musicians simply sat at home for the week and didn't work, even though their salary kept running. Then, at the next such concert, someone else could rest while others worked.
So, it cannot be said that we deeply disliked these kinds of events, especially since these concerts featured artists from the opera and ballet theater, choral and dance ensembles, drama theater actors, and many, many others. And since the orchestra musicians spent less time playing and more time idling about, one could socialize with colleagues from the theaters, flirt with the chorus girls and ballerinas, who were available in a wide assortment, and hit on them.
In my 11 years of working at the Philharmonic, I don't remember these concerts ever differing from one another.
Almost every theater had an actor who played the role of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. For this, it was not enough to possess the physical traits that allowed one to be made up as Lenin and to know how to speak with his characteristic uvular "r"—one absolutely had to be a member of the Communist Party, hold the title of Honored or, better yet, People's Artist, and possess special permission from the regional party committee for the right to portray Lenin.
Once, I had to perform in an interlude alongside "Lenin," playing the role of, I suppose, Issay Dobrowen—the very pianist who had once played Beethoven's Appassionata in the apartment of Gorky's wife, Peshkova, in Lenin's presence. I received a phone call telling me to put on a tailcoat immediately and run to the Philharmonic. It turned out there was a festive concert in the regional town of Bohodukhiv, and I was to perform the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata there (thank goodness it wasn't the Appassionata, as I couldn't have played it on the spot). Right during my performance, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself was supposed to walk out and deliver some moral lecture to the people.
Naturally, this act enjoyed a fantastic success. And while I had traveled to Bohodukhiv in a shared bus with the other artists, I rode back to Kharkiv in a GAZ-69 jeep with the actor playing Lenin and his make-up artist. I realized that not only was Lenin driven in a personal automobile, but even the actors playing Lenin, their make-up artists (which makes sense: without the make-up artist, the image cannot exist), and even the Dobrowen pianists were afforded the same luxury. Admittedly, I didn't play the Moonlight Sonata again for many years after that. Without the presence of the leader of the world proletariat, it just didn't work for me. (Many, many years later, I performed it at piano recitals in China).
All of these "party concerts," as we called them, were staged by some director who had, again, proven himself reliable to the regional party committee. His entire job consisted of selecting the numbers and running them through endless dress rehearsals. There was simply nothing there to direct, but he tried with his whole demeanor to show what creative agonies he, poor soul, was enduring. For staging such a concert, the director received a massive payout along with honor and respect (and the perks that flowed from them). Therefore, creating the illusion of creative agony was well worth the effort.
In the lobby of the Palace of Culture during holiday concerts, one could buy fried beef liver and scarce books. It gave you the impression that you, too, had managed to snag something rare. After the concert, all the audience members and participants were driven home by a large number of specially provided buses heading to various districts of the city. It was simply impossible to resent the city authorities when you were being dropped off almost right at your doorstep, with fried liver in your hands and scarce books to boot.














Chapter 27
Any living organism must feed itself to sustain its vital functions. The Symphony Orchestra of the Kharkiv Regional Philharmonic was a more than living organism. And to sustain its vital functions, it fed on... conductors. Our orchestra devoured them mercilessly, savoring every last bone. Not a single conductor who led our orchestra ever made it to retirement age. Guest conductors were rarely welcomed by the orchestra either. Few wished to return to Kharkiv for another tour.
The profession of a conductor had been the dream of my life. But when I saw what they went through, I realized I had made the right choice by not dedicating myself to it.
The arrival of Vakhtang Jordania to the Kharkiv orchestra seemed to guarantee an entirely new life. He was forgiven everything. It was believed that everything Vakhtang did was genius! Most importantly, he believed it himself, and there could simply be no other opinions. And, truth be told, we didn't want to have any others.
Vakhtang was indeed a fine professional and knew how to charm musicians, and especially their wives. We wanted Vakhtang to settle down in Kharkiv so badly that when he was assigned a state apartment, almost all the musicians in the orchestra—completely voluntarily, over 2–3 days, on pure enthusiasm—renovated it for him. Today this strikes me as an anomaly, but back then I thought that was exactly how things should be. One must give Vakhtang credit: he treated almost all the musicians in the orchestra very well, in a friendly manner. And even if he disliked someone, he never showed it. In general, he elevated the prestige of the orchestra and its players. Working in the symphony orchestra during Vakhtang Jordania’s leadership became highly enviable.
Vakhtang treated me very warmly, considering me an excellent pianist. (After all, Vakhtang had personally accepted me into the orchestra, and he could not be mistaken.) When I timidly approached him with a request to let me play a solo with the orchestra, he immediately, without any red tape, placed me into several programs where I performed Schumann's concerto, and on another occasion, Bach's Concerto in D minor under his baton. Later on, I played with him many times. I was still a student during that period, and playing with the Philharmonic orchestra, and under Jordania’s baton to boot, was very prestigious. It so happened that the prominent Georgian composer David Toradze was present at my performance of the Schumann concerto, and more importantly, his son, Lexo Toradze—a major contemporary pianist who later lived in the USA but, to great sorrow, passed away recently. The father and son paid me such a grand compliment that I simply cannot bring myself to repeat it.
The concert was recorded for the radio, and one day my wife, Lyuda, while doing something in the kitchen and listening to the radio, suddenly called me over to listen to someone playing the Schumann concerto beautifully. Imagine our astonishment when, at the end of the program, the announcer stated that the Schumann concerto had been performed by Roman Krasnovsky, accompanied by the symphony orchestra under the direction of Vakhtang Jordania.
But in order to hear my own playing on the radio in Lyuda's kitchen, I had to marry her first. And so, on August 19, 1978, our wedding took place.
The wedding was very modest. We didn't register at the Palace of Weddings, but at the registry office on Rymarska Street, right across from the opera theater. During the marriage ceremony, the state lady, having declared us husband and wife, began with the utmost seriousness to lecture us on the great role of the family—the nucleus of society—in building communism, cleverly interweaving the name of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev into her speech, who, as it seemed to Lyuda and me, had very little to do with our wedding. We were choked with laughter. We knew it was "neither the place nor the time," but it was already impossible to calm down. The state lady stopped her speech and, looking at us with disdain, asked sternly: "Should we perhaps halt the process?" To which I, choking on laughter, mumbled: "Oh no, not at all, please continue. It's actually quite interesting."
It was on such a cheerful note that we joined in lawful matrimony. We held the wedding party in Lyuda's apartment. There were only 15 people: my parents, Lyuda's grandmother, the witnesses, and a few other guests. Lyuda's parents couldn't make it to the wedding from the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), where they were working at the time.
Maria Mikhailovna, Lyuda's grandmother, later told us that all the old neighbor women were very displeased with our wedding. What kind of wedding is this: no noise, no loud music, not even a single fistfight. Pfft!
Two days after the wedding, our orchestra left for its first more or less substantial tour to Yerevan and Tbilisi. We were to spend an entire week in Yerevan, followed by a concert in Leninakan, and then a transfer to Tbilisi. It was decided that Lyuda would fly to Yerevan by plane and meet me there, as I was traveling with the orchestra by train. In Yerevan, the orchestra was put up at the Arabkir Hotel, right next to the market. There, for the first time, we tasted real peaches, sweeter than any I have ever eaten anywhere since. (Many years later, I had some that were sweeter in Taiwan.) If people say that newlyweds spend a honeymoon after their wedding, it could be said of us that we spent a peach week in Yerevan—with cognac, of course.
It is difficult to stay sober in Yerevan, though the biggest sensation for us was that there was not a single sober-up station in Armenia. The Armenians were proud of this and flaunted it. (When the earthquake struck Armenia years later and rescuers arrived from Russia, the very first thing they built was... a sober-up station, and only then did they proceed with the rescue operations—but indeed, they saved many lives.)
The musicians immediately made acquaintances, and after a couple of days, they were already pulling up to the hotel in Zhigulis and Volgas. Moreover, being in a sober state was completely out of the question. Even those who had never drank before were tipsy. Additionally, the management of the Yerevan Philharmonic arranged an excursion for us to Etchmiadzin, which was not only the religious center for all Armenians worldwide but was also famous for its renowned winery. Upon entering this factory, we were each handed a mug and invited to sample wine from any barrel in any quantity.
Yerevan was fabulously wonderful. The only pity was that at our orchestra's concert in the magnificent hall of the Yerevan Philharmonic, there were only about 20 or 30 people in attendance. But we were told there was no reason for disappointment: it just so happened that there was a football match that day. The Ararat team was playing against someone.
We bought Lyuda a ticket for a night flight back to Kharkiv, while I was scheduled to leave by train for Leninakan half a day earlier. A few days prior, an elderly man named Razmik had sat down with Lyuda and me at a restaurant. He grew to love us like a father and spent whole days driving us around Yerevan in his Volga, showing us all the sights of this truly magnificent city. He was so kind that he offered to see Lyuda off to the airport at night, for which I was unspeakably grateful: I thanked him endlessly, leaned in to hug him, and patted him on the shoulder repeatedly. But as it turned out, the moment I stepped away for a minute, he immediately suggested to Lyuda that she shouldn't fly back to Kharkiv, but instead stay for a week with him while I was away in Leninakan and Tbilisi. Yes! The East is a delicate matter. We were then faced with the problem of how to shield Lyuda from his send-off, but somehow we managed to get out of that situation.
In Leninakan, our orchestra was housed in the Shirak Hotel. A few years later, the earthquake in Armenia leveled this hotel, along with much else, to the ground.
And then came magnificent Tbilisi.
I will reveal a terrible secret: in Tbilisi, we played a symphony by Giya Kancheli (I forget which one). Everyone knows him from the song "Chito Gvrito, Chito Margalito" from the movie Mimino. But Kancheli himself was not at the concert: we were told he was away. Well, as it turns out, he was at the concert, but he disliked it so much that he decided not to show his face. (Though personally, I don't recall anything terrible about our performance.) I found out about this when I was playing in Antwerp—the city where he lived—from a mutual acquaintance of ours.
After the successful concerts, our orchestra returned to Kharkiv, and I commenced my married life.











Chapter 28
My closest friend from Jerusalem, Sasha Sinelnikov, once told me: "Romik, when you describe our army service in your book, you must use my army notes." In the army, Sasha kept a diary, and in general, he remembers everything to such a degree that I even entertained thoughts of asking him to write the memoirs of our service and letting me insert them into this book under the guise of my own. But, first of all, that is improper. Secondly, his literary style is so elevated that it would be immediately noticeable that I didn't write it. And thirdly, his wife Stella, whom I previously described in Chapter 20 as the ideal Jewish bride (and I haven't changed my mind since), being familiar with the drafts of this book, told me: "Romik, just write it yourself, and come what may."
And so, my education at the Institute of Arts was completed. There was a job. There was a wife. The wife had a job. The only thing missing was separate housing, but that was something to be resolved only with time.
It would seem like a time to live and rejoice. But on the horizon loomed a year and a half of service in the ranks of the Soviet Army.
From our symphony orchestra, three of us were being conscripted into the army: two cellists—Sasha Sinelnikov and Igor Matyushchenko—and myself. In the USSR, it was impossible to serve in the same municipality where you lived; that is, you had to serve far from home, and that was the last thing we wanted.
And so, the leadership of the symphony orchestra decided to exert efforts to ensure that the three of us served in our own city of Kharkiv, and moreover, that we could go to orchestra rehearsals in the mornings and concerts in the evenings. It is obvious to the naked eye that the goal set was bold, but noble, and, between us, not all that difficult, since with the help of a few bottles of vodka, one could solve problems far greater than this.
Our managers reached out to a general named Malomuzh (this surname will appear again in this book)—a high-ranking chief at the Kharkiv Govorov Military Academy—and began negotiations with him regarding our service in the military band of this academy. It must be said that the negotiations were apparently going well. Several times we were summoned to the military enlistment office with our bags packed, only to be sent back home to the delight of our wives. They kept saying that a suitable unit had not yet been formed for us. Finally, when we were all assigned to a single team, we noticed that the lieutenant colonel who came or drove to pick us up, besides being clearly Jewish, happened to be wearing the shoulder boards of the Internal Troops. And since the Govorov Academy, in whose band we had already mentally prepared ourselves to serve, belonged to the Air Force, we immediately realized that something somewhere had fallen through. Apparently, there hadn't been enough vodka. Our wives went to the train station to see us off. The expressions on their faces didn't add much to our high spirits either.
We arrived in Vinnytsia, a lovely small city in Ukraine, not far from Kyiv.
The town is very picturesque. I remember once walking past a tram depot and hearing someone shout through a megaphone: "Comrade Garmider, report to the depot management immediately." But that is beside the point.
Having finally arrived at the military unit and seeing an even higher, even more stone-built fence right across from ours, topped with barbed wire, we realized that we wouldn't have to defend the motherland; rather, we would be defending prisoners from the outside world and, correspondingly, the outside world from the prisoners. There was nowhere to turn. Life promised new, highly sharp, and unexpected impressions. And it must be said that I didn't have to wait long for sharp impressions: I needed to use the latrine. The lieutenant colonel had already taught us on the train that if you need to use the toilet, you must march up to the commander, salute, and request permission for personal relief. If the commander decides that the soldier has earned permission to relieve himself and lets him go, the soldier must quickly "fire away," return, and report to the commander that he has "returned without incident." So, having received permission, I marched briskly up to the common military latrine... and was struck dead. Not literally, of course, but figuratively. I could not have even imagined such a stench. Describing it is impossible. I think it would only be within the power of a writer like Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. Having quickly finished my business, I bolted out of there like I'd been scalded, vowing to myself that I would never set foot in there again in my life, but upon collecting my thoughts, I realized I had vowed in vain, since our military compound had nothing else to offer and I would indeed have to keep going back. (In time, I grew so accustomed to it that I didn't even notice the smell.)
While the haircuts were underway in the company, our temporary platoon leader, Lieutenant Seryoga Petrenko, was getting acquainted with the platoon. In order of turn, each recruit had to stand up, salute, and state his surname, first name, age, and so on. Problems arose with the Azerbaijanis: almost none of them knew Russian. One soldier, with the help of a translator, said that he lived high in the mountains and his parents had sent him down to get some bread. At the bottom, he was snatched by some bravos from the enlistment office and sent into the army. His parents still have no idea where he vanished to this day, though he isn't worried about it in the slightest.
Sasha and I were assigned to the escort company, where many "connected" guys served—the children of various store managers, pharmacy directors, and other bosses. Sasha and I ended up there thanks to our exceptional musical background. Furthermore, the regiment command determined this purely by intuition, based on our imposing physical appearance, which played a fatal role in the fate of our third companion, Igor Matyushchenko, who "didn't look the part" and therefore got sent to the company that guarded the penal zone itself, so he had to pull duty standing watch on a tower alongside representatives from the friendly Caucasian and Central Asian republics. This did not exactly develop his cello technique, but one must give Igor his due: although he only touched the cello a handful of times during his year and a half of army service, he managed to stay in shape and remained an excellent cellist. Igor died very young. Blessed be his memory.
The most menacing and dangerous persona in our regiment was the head of the political department, Lieutenant Colonel Lebedev. He always looked impeccable—with an unsmiling, stern face. Even the officers tried to avoid crossing paths with him. We formed a vocal-instrumental ensemble, which Lieutenant Colonel Lebedev oversaw as part of his official duties. Sasha and I sang in it, if you can call it that. (We were, of course, "respected dead weight"—both in age, singing ability, and appearance. But we had to endure somehow until discharge.)
Lieutenant Colonel Lebedev treated Sasha Sinelnikov and me with a certain degree of trust, apparently. Every February 23rd and May 9th, the "musical soldiers" were dispatched to kindergartens for the patriotic education of small children, and Sasha and I were always sent to the kindergarten attended by Lebedev's young daughter. This was considered a great honor.
Every soldier, upon returning to the military unit from a leave back home, was summoned to Lieutenant Colonel Lebedev for a report. After I took a trip on leave to Kharkiv and Donetsk, he called me in and said: "Well... confess!" I didn't quite understand what I was supposed to confess to, and asked him about it. "Why are you playing the fool? How much did you drink, I'm asking?" I didn't even realize right away that he was talking about alcohol. "Well, I drank a shot for my birthday," I said. "And that's all?" he sputtered incredulously. And when I told him that I don't drink alcohol at all, he looked at me as if I were some bizarre curiosity and said disappointedly: "Dismissed."
Many years later, I was walking in Kharkiv with my young daughter and suddenly spotted Lebedev on the street. I walked up to him and introduced myself. He said he didn't remember me, nor did he remember anyone from the vocal-instrumental ensemble. This was strange.Oh well. But he did believe that I was from that military unit because I named other officers to him. And suddenly he asked me: "Do you know why I was demoted in rank and kicked out of the military unit?" I pretended to be unaware and very surprised, although I already knew the whole story from the accounts of the regimental band's sergeant major, Vasya Belous, whom I saw often afterward. And Lebedev told me himself (even though I hadn't asked him to) that he had gotten dead drunk, confiscated a guard's rifle, chambered a round, sat on the floor, pressed the muzzle to his neck, and began to cry... I didn't know how to react, but I thought to myself: "My God! Look who we were afraid of..." But even that isn't the main thing. What kind of fool do you have to be to willingly recount your own disgrace to a near stranger!

Sasha and I slowly began to master the art of escorting and searching. When I entered the prison for the first time, the greatest impression on me was made by a massive painting hanging in the search room. It depicted a terrifying, criminal face smiling with a toothless mouth. The bandit's coat was wide open, and in his hand, he proudly held a passport of a citizen of the USSR. Painted at the bottom of the canvas was the caption: "I have broken with my shameful past, have you?" I conducted my first search rather briskly, as if I had been doing nothing else my whole life. The only shortcoming I had was that I addressed the prisoners very politely, which drew mockery from the other soldiers. I would say: "Now, please remove your shirt, trousers, and boots. Do you have any forbidden items on you?" At the same time, I would deftly check all the folds and pockets of the clothing and rummage under the insoles of the boots. Because I didn't quite fit into that environment, and also due to my quite imposing appearance and already substantial bald spot, they nicknamed me "the old Chekist" in the company.
Many, many years later in Israel, Sasha Sinelnikov and I gave a radio interview to the prominent poet Igor Guberman, who had previously served time in a prison in the USSR. When the conversation turned to our army service, he asked me: "My dear fellow, so are you a virtuoso—or a turnkey (vertukhay)?"
Shortly thereafter, I managed to get into the regimental brass band, where I quickly mastered playing the tenor horn. Sasha Sinelnikov also got into the brass band, but six months after me. During those six months, he plunged headfirst into the escort life and, as he claims, came to know it from its most unexpected sides—naturally surpassing me in this regard. When Sasha took the place of the big bass drum and cymbals player in our band, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Firstly, I felt somewhat uneasy that I was enjoying idleness while Sasha was learning about life, and secondly, idling away is far more interesting when there are two of you. We slept in the barracks with all the soldiers, but five minutes before the general wake-up call, we would quickly slip away to the band room, where we would finish our sleep in an individual capacity. Then the other musicians would arrive—the career servicemen who lived in Vinnytsia and showed up for duty as if coming to a regular job—and rehearsal would begin. We knew the entire marching repertoire by heart, so during rehearsals, we just went through the motions. This kind of service suited us perfectly. The only unpleasant aspect was the obligation to play at funerals. But this proved unpleasant only at first. After all, it was better to leave the military compound to "carry a stiff" (as the process of playing at funerals was called) than to end up on kitchen duty. We buried various relatives of military personnel—aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers. It turned into a routine.
By the way, at one of the cemeteries, we always passed a grave with the surname Zhidovoz (literally: Jew-hauler). As it turned out, this man had been a taxi driver in life. But that is beside the point.
Sometimes we buried young guys brought back in zinc coffins—we were told they came from the Far East. The relatives were always assured that death was caused by the flu or pneumonia. Nothing was said to them about Afghanistan.
Over my year and a half of service, I "carried" about 60 deceased individuals.
After dinner, we returned to the company barracks, where we spent the night. In the company, a completely different life was buzzing: drill practices, endless cleanups, night escorts (about every other night we went to conduct searches at the prison, and then escorted the convicts to the train station. So I came to know real service, too.)
The usual hazing (dedovshchina) typical of the Soviet Army practically did not exist in our unit. Of course, the cleaning chores were handled by soldiers with less time served. At the evening roll call, the cleaners for the morning were assigned, and Sasha and I were always sent to clean outside the military compound. This suited us, but it puzzled us: why did others clean inside the compound while we only cleaned outside? The other soldiers envied us and would invariably ask upon our return from cleaning: "Well, did you catch any viewings?" It turned out that older and only married soldiers were sent to clean outside the compound, because out there on the street, not only men are walking around, but women too. And that is why the young, green soldiers were not allowed out there. Women could trigger a sudden protest in a young, unseasoned organism against one's sacred military duty and a reluctance to return to the base after cleaning. Sasha and I, however, commanded complete trust. And to "catch viewings" meant to gawk at the passing women.
Occasionally, we had to do some drill practice. They say I looked highly comical doing it. For the drill evaluation, I managed to chafe my foot so badly that marching was out of the question, and I passed the test orally! They say this was the only such case in the heroic history of the Soviet Armed Forces.
During our service, we survived two company sergeant majors. The first lasted only a very short time: he behaved rather improperly toward the soldiers, for which the senior servicemen once placed a vat of borscht over his head in the mess hall, after which the sergeant major was transferred to a different position and removed from the company. The borscht, however, was a pity. The second sergeant major was milder. I had a special relationship with him. The thing was, throughout my entire service, I was never issued the dress shoes for the parade uniform. They didn't have size 42, and then somehow it was forgotten. I had to wear someone's old cast-off shoes. And whenever the sergeant major began to misbehave, I would immediately ask him: "So when will I receive the shoes due to me?" This question would stump him, and he would instantly become gentler and somehow more human.
On the other hand, fate gifted us an amazing sergeant major in the band. His name was Vasya Belous. He played the trombone. He was a man of wonderful soulful qualities. He granted Sinelnikov and me leave every week and, of course, completely spoiled us with this. Other soldiers from the company went on leave only occasionally and envied us greatly. Later on, Vasya enrolled in the Kharkiv Institute of Culture, and we saw each other very often: he would come to visit me, and we still continue to communicate occasionally via modern gadgets. I am very glad that Vasya plays in the Vinnytsia orchestra, which was founded by my longtime acquaintance Georgy Kurkov—a magnificent organist, pianist, and conductor.
When Sasha and I went on leave, our main goal was to call Kharkiv, and for me, Donetsk as well, to speak with my parents. Back then, you could only make a long-distance call from a central telephone exchange. I got so used to calling that I called from anywhere I could, and more importantly, from places where you weren't even supposed to.
Later on, during my concert life, I always carried phone cards for various countries with me: if I found myself somewhere, I always had a way to make a call. Today, of course, that is no longer a problem at all.
If for some reason I failed to call home, I would become incredibly anxious and drive Sasha crazy with my worrying. Sasha kept a diary, and when there was nothing else to write, he would make an entry: "Roma is worrying."
Sasha and I became acquainted with the Shtromberg family, the center of which was a young, beautiful, and despite this, highly intelligent woman named Tatyana. She taught piano at the Vinnytsia Pedagogical Institute and arranged two concerts for us there. We performed a whole series of sonatas for cello and piano, since we had the opportunity to practice. In general, this family supported us greatly and brightened our army life. Our thanks to them.
But we weren't satisfied with regular leaves and ran off on AWOL strolls (samovolki) in the most brazen manner just to call home. We did this during the Saturday or Sunday movie screenings. The entire regiment would be in the club, leaving a window of an hour and a half to do whatever we pleased. But it was very risky. The band room was located right next to the fence. Changing into civilian clothes, which were stored in the band room, we would deftly scale the fence and dash into town. Several times while out AWOL, I crossed paths with our regimental commanders on public transit, but I wasn't recognized. But even if they had recognized me, they wouldn't have believed that such a disciplined soldier as Private Krasnovsky could run off AWOL. Once, Sasha was returning to the regiment from a samovolka. He climbed over the fence—and dropped right into the arms of the regimental duty officer. The officer was bewildered (likely already imagining himself in a higher rank), while Sasha, covering his face with his hands, tore himself from the officer's embrace and bolted across the entire parade ground at such speed that everyone who saw it simply froze. Sasha was not recognized in his civilian clothes, and the officer later lamented to us about the AWOL soldier he had let slip away. Sasha could barely contain his smirk.
A few years later in Kharkiv, I recounted our exploits to Vasya Belous while he was visiting me. Vasya was not just shocked—he was full of admiration for us. He hadn't expected such agility from two righteous Jewish lads.
We went to our discharge ahead of everyone else. The management of the Kharkiv Philharmonic wrote a petition to our military unit requesting that the three of us—myself, Sasha, and Igor Matyushchenko—be released as early as possible, claiming that without us, the life of the symphony orchestra had virtually ground to a halt. And that is how we found ourselves at liberty.
On our very first evening back in Kharkiv, Lyuda and I went to visit the Sinelnikovs to celebrate our return and to pick up some of my things that had been in Sasha's backpack. We transferred everything into our bag, and then we celebrated our discharge so thoroughly that on the way back, I forgot that bag on the bus. Lyuda was very displeased.
For many years after my service in the Soviet Army, I used to wonder: why didn't we have that terrible "dedovshchina" [hazing] that was the subject of such grim legends—the kind that drove soldiers to suicide or to murdering their tormentors? Even if we had some elements of hazing, it was more about observing silly traditions in a somewhat theatrical style, with an element of humor, and without causing pain or humiliation. I thought about this for many years, and finally, it hit me: we didn't have any Russians. Not a single person from the Russian Federation was in our unit. There were Ukrainians, Moldovans, a few Jewish guys, a few Caucasians, and many from Central Asia. I don't mean to say that everyone was an angel. No, of course not. But no horrors ever took place.
My apologies to anyone who might find this offensive.








Chapter 29
On the stage of the Kharkiv Philharmonic, I discovered a harpsichord. Before I left for the army, it hadn't been there. As it turned out, it was the exact same harpsichord—or "tsymbalo," as Suren Garnikovich Kocharyan used to pronounce it—from the Kharkiv Institute of Arts, the one I used to play in the chamber orchestra there. They had dragged it over to the Philharmonic hall for some concert and just never bothered to take it back. I wouldn't be surprised if it is still standing there to this day.
I began playing the harpsichord with various soloists. Together with the flutist Arkady Voynov, we performed all six of J.S. Bach’s sonatas for flute and harpsichord. It was a massive success. Voynov and I went on to play many more pieces for flute and piano.
Little did I know back then how useful this repertoire would turn out to be many, ma-a-a-a-ny years later...
Deciding that this was my finest hour, I asked the management for an opportunity to give a solo harpsichord concert. Surprisingly enough, they allowed it. Apparently, they realized that a concert of harpsichord music would draw a big crowd and bring in a large box office. And so it did. I performed Johann Sebastian Bach's Six French Suites. The success was truly grand, and from then on, I was occasionally granted solo concerts. I decided to perform a cycle of all of Bach’s clavier works. Indeed, four concerts of this cycle actually took place. One was even broadcast on the radio. It featured the Goldberg Variations.
Someone even wrote an epigram about me:
Our Roman is a man of great renown. To his concerts rushes the whole town, To hear the harpsichord play Bach's suites of crown.
When I told the famous pianist Nikolai Petrov, who had come to Kharkiv on tour, about my cycle, he said that if he were wearing a hat, he would take it off to me. But since he wasn't wearing a hat at that moment... Well, it’s a good thing he didn't, because I only managed to play four concerts of the cycle. During a stage rearrangement, our harpsichord was accidentally dropped. And that was the end of the Bach cycle.
So, as the saying goes, that was that [literally: "the matter is in the hat"].
Looking back today, I realize that giving an unknown musician—who didn't even have the official "right to hold a solo concert"—the opportunity to perform solo recitals, and in the Philharmonic hall no less, took immense trust and heroism. A deep bow to the artistic director of the Philharmonic at the time, the composer Nikolai Grigorievich Stetsyun.
The next artistic director, Vitaly Ivanovich Balabay, also never refused my initiatives, supporting both the continuation of the Bach cycle and my new ideas.
Once, during a Philharmonic staff meeting, one of our highly respected musicians suddenly turned on Balabay and completely tore him to shreds, totally undeservedly—as if every single problem in the Philharmonic was Vitaly Ivanovich's fault. And not a single soul stood up for him. I sat there on pins and needles, but I kept my mouth shut too, thinking: I'm still too young to speak up at meetings, let the orchestra veterans speak. I showed cowardice. I got scared of something. To this day, I cannot forget it or forgive myself. To Vitaly Ivanovich Balabay—my deepest bow and gratitude.












Chapter 30
And then came the day I never thought would actually arrive. On November 10, 1982, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev died.
Naturally, our rehearsal at the Philharmonic was canceled, and a funeral rally was held instead. Standing by Brezhnev's portrait were the director and the party organizer of the Philharmonic, along with some higher-ups from the city executive committee's department of culture. Mournful speeches were delivered. The deputy head of the cultural department sobbed so convincingly that it actually seemed to me like she was genuinely devastated. She was probably anticipating that she’d have to get used to losing her accustomed life, which had been so convenient and prosperous.
A few weeks before this event, Lyuda and I had decided to rent a small room and live together, away from Lyuda's grandmother. The very first thing I did after moving in was go to a radio store and buy a small TV set. It brought us joy for exactly two days before breaking down.
According to the law back then, if a television required three warranty repairs within a single year, it could be replaced. Well, those three repairs didn't keep us waiting long. Armed with a certificate from the repair shop confirming the three breakdowns, I ran to the store to exchange it.
That very day happened to be Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev's funeral. The entire store staff was huddled around the televisions turned on at the counters, watching this historic event. Working was completely out of the question. All the customers were frozen in front of the screens as well. At that exact moment, I burst into the store and rushed to the counter, demanding a replacement for my TV. The salesman was utterly dumbfounded by my audacity. He said it was simply indecent to come forward with such a petty, lowbrow request at a moment when all of progressive humanity was saying goodbye to Leonid Ilyich.
To this, I put on a steely expression and snapped back sharply that while all of progressive humanity was saying goodbye to Leonid Ilyich, there were still certain people—like you, Comrade Salesman—who were using Brezhnev's funeral as an excuse for idleness and slacking off. The TV was replaced in a matter of seconds, though it, too, broke down shortly thereafter.
The front pages of every newspaper were covered in obituaries and portraits of the General Secretary framed in black. And probably not everyone remembers that in the newspaper Sovetskaya Kultura (Soviet Culture) dated November 12, 1982—where two pages were likewise dedicated to Brezhnev’s death, complete with a massive portrait—there was a photo on page five of our chief conductor, Vakhtang Georgievich Jordania, smiling from ear to ear, accompanied by a large and, of course, highly favorable article about him. By the way, that article was written by the outstanding conductor Odysseus Dimitriadi.
That newspaper, its pages yellowed with time, is lying right in front of my eyes now, and I am taping it back together with Scotch tape.
During this period, Jordania was experiencing yet another romance. This time, his passion was the then-rising star of the violin world, Viktoria Mullova.
She was studying at the Moscow Conservatory under the great Leonid Kogan himself, but her passion for our maestro forced her to spend almost all of her time in Kharkiv.
I can’t remember who made the first move—whether it was me, Jordania, or Vika herself—but I ended up as her partner for an upcoming concert in Kharkiv. Long before the concert, while discussing the program, Mullova mentioned that among other pieces, she would be playing Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. (And among those "other pieces" was Brahms’s First Sonata.) Naturally, I spent two months practicing the Kreutzer Sonata like a man possessed. But when Mullova arrived before the concert and met with me for a rehearsal, it turned out she hadn't even intended to play it. I had practiced it all for nothing.
Vika played a Stradivarius violin on loan from the State Collection. This led to a rather specific predicament: during a rehearsal, Vika desperately needed to use the restroom. The question arose—what should she do? Should she take the violin into the stall with her, or leave it on the piano lid under my supervision? After ten minutes of agonizing deliberation, she finally trusted me to watch over the violin, even though there was absolutely no one else in the Philharmonic building and she was only gone for a minute and a half.
By the way, Vika Mullova paid 9 rubles a month to rent that Stradivarius, which in the previous century had belonged to the great Polish violinist Henryk Wieniawski.
Our concert went very well. She even gave me a sparse compliment, saying: "Well done! Everything I asked for, you did." I was already painting rosy pictures of future joint performances across the country, and maybe even beyond, when suddenly... Well, alright, more on that later.
Meanwhile, our family was expecting a baby. Naturally, we tried to protect Lyuda from everything, especially infections. But one day she came home completely covered in some kind of rash. We rushed to the doctor, who reassured us that it was just an allergy to oranges. At first we calmed down, but the oranges soon ran out, while the "allergy" only intensified. Long story short, we discovered that Lyuda had caught a disease usually contracted in early childhood—chickenpox. And this was in her fifth month of pregnancy. Exactly on cue, on the 21st day, I caught chickenpox too. We had regressed to childhood. I remember that day vividly: I was at the Kharkiv Opera House watching a performance of The Barber of Seville, where the outstanding bass Evgeny Nesterenko was singing the role of Don Basilio. I felt so terribly sick halfway through the opera that I had to go home, despite the rare opportunity to hear Nesterenko live.
Soon enough it passed, and on May 30, 1983, our little Irochka was born. Lyuda's delivery was handled by a student intern from an Arab country, a very pleasant and cultured young man named Farrukh. However, I mixed up his name and called him Kharuf. He flinched every time but said nothing. Only years later, while living in Israel, did I find out that "kharuf" means "sheep" (or ram) in Arabic. He certainly didn't deserve that name.
Maybe I am biased toward my own child, but she had such a profound, meaningful gaze that I felt like Irochka was about to open her mouth any second and say something incredibly smart. But for the time being, she opened her mouth mostly to wail, informing us in this manner that it wouldn't be a bad idea to change her diaper. Back then in Kharkiv, disposable diapers didn't exist yet, so we had to do things the old-fashioned way. To my credit, I became quite adept at dealing with the poop, swaddling, and ironing the cloth diapers. I grew so fond of the smell of Irochka’s fresh laundry that I am certain French perfume designers could have used that scent for their own purposes. It would have brought them a fortune. I, for one, would have definitely bought a few bottles.
Since my schedule didn't require me to go to work every day, I spent entire days parading up and down the streets with the stroller. The residents of nearby buildings used to say about me: "Ah, that’s the guy who is already out walking when we wake up, and is still out walking when we go to bed."
My parents in Donetsk had initiated an apartment exchange, and though this procedure was never easy, they managed to move to Kharkiv pretty quickly.
A few days before their move, the Philharmonic, the entire city, and indeed the whole country were shaken by an unforeseen event. During a tour in Finland, our maestro Vakhtang Jordania and Viktoria Mullova decided not to return to our beloved motherland. In the USSR of 1983, this was considered the ultimate betrayal. And while Jordania’s defection was an emergency of a local scale, Mullova’s defection was a national crisis. A rising star, recent winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, a delegate of the Komsomol Congress, and on top of that—ethnically Russian, not Jewish, for instance. It felt to me like with Jordania gone, life had come to a standstill. I thought they would just padlock the Philharmonic doors.
I called my parents in Donetsk and expressed my doubts: was it even worth it for them to move to Kharkiv now that Jordania had fled? My parents replied that I was panicking over nothing, and that everything would stay exactly as it was. It's just that someone else would take Jordania's place.
Shortly afterward, Lyuda, Irochka, and I moved into my parents' Kharkiv apartment.












Chapter 31
The principal clarinet in our symphony orchestra was played by Sasha Plyushch—a quiet, calm, and completely harmless man. He never participated in the scandals or intrigues that, alas, were plenty rife in our Philharmonic. During concert tours, the male contingent of the orchestra usually split into two groups: some, upon arriving in a new town, would immediately dash to the stores to buy something unavailable in Kharkiv, while others would instantly set off to "cherchez la femme"—that is, to look for women to pass the time between rehearsals and concerts.
Sasha Plyushch, however, would always head out toward the outskirts of the town and try, if possible, to walk all the way around the city along its ring road on foot. I have no idea what he got out of it, but he used to say that this was the only way to truly get to know a new city.
In hotels, Plyushch always shared a room with the violinist Arnold Liver. In everyday life, they weren't close friends, but in hotels, they could only tolerate rooming with each other. The orchestra wits dubbed their tandem "Manchester and LiverPlyushch."
Liver was also a quiet and calm person. Once, the orchestra was performing in the town of Izyum, and after checking into the hotel, everyone poured out into the street and lined up at a vendor selling pirozhki (fried pies). Liver decided to crack a joke and, rather theatrically in front of all his colleagues, asked the saleswoman: "I assume your pirozhki are with izyum [raisins]?" To which the unflappable woman replied: "Nah... with liver [offal]."
But back to Sasha Plyushch. One day, he was elected to the local trade union committee as the officer in charge of housing matters. Before Sasha, this had been a very cozy position, because the Philharmonic was practically never allocated any apartments, meaning one could do absolutely nothing while still being credited with community service. But with Sasha's arrival, the Philharmonic began receiving state and cooperative apartments on a regular basis. How exactly he managed to charm the high-ranking officials in authority remains a mystery to me, but apartments started pouring out like sheep droppings.
Before Irochka was born, we weren't eligible for an apartment because we had a sufficient number of square meters—or "cubage," as people used to call it. But once Irochka was born, that cubage was no longer enough, even though Irochka didn't seem to take up much space. One fine day, I was allocated a three-room cooperative apartment through work. Of course, we had to wait a year or a year and a half for the building to be constructed, but that wasn't so terrible since we managed to live with my parents quite peacefully, even though we were officially registered at Lyuda’s place with her grandmother.
Granted, once the building was completed, a new problem arose regarding leaving Lyuda's grandmother all by herself in a two-room apartment while Lyuda, Irishka, and I moved out. This was a major bureaucratic hurdle, but Sasha Plyushch found a way out: the Philharmonic sent an official letter to the city executive committee stating that I was a genius on par with Mozart, and that it was absolutely vital for me to separate from my wife's grandmother, while she needed to be left in her old two-room apartment where she had always lived. Remarkably, it worked, and we were finally able to register out. Thank God, and thank Sasha!
People advised Sasha to join the Communist Party to advance his public career, but it turned out his wife sang in a church choir, so the door to the Party was firmly shut for him.
Years later, while living in Israel, I learned that Sasha Plyushch had died suddenly. If God truly rewards everyone according to their merits, then Sasha must be living in a beautiful palace right now.










Chapter 32
In the USSR, religion was put to an end in 1917. A large number of cathedrals were destroyed, but credit must be given where credit is due: a few things did remain. Within these "few things," city authorities set up dry cleaners, warehouses, post offices, travel agencies, and so on. Then, in the early sixties, the USSR launched a program to install organs in philharmonic halls. And right around that time, some bright mind thought: instead of using cathedrals as warehouses, wouldn't it be better to install organs in them and use them as concert halls for organ and chamber music? For the Soviet government, this was, in my opinion, a highly progressive decision. Everything would have been fine if perestroika hadn't begun.
Religious communities rightfully began demanding the return of their cathedrals, churches, and synagogues. That is when the real trouble started. While a concert organ in a Catholic cathedral didn't ruin the scenery with its appearance—even though it was positioned where the iconostasis should be, rather than in its proper place at the back or side in the choir loft—an organ did not fit into Orthodox churches at all, as it was not an attribute of the liturgy. In some cities, this ended in tragedy: organs were thrown onto the street by newfound zealots of the Orthodox faith. Of course, I understand how their "righteous minds were boiling" at that moment, and I understand their impatience to quickly cleanse the temple of the defilement that was the organ. But for some reason, it seems to whom that if the wind had blown the other way, as it did in 1917, those very same people would have destroyed the Orthodox cathedrals without blinking an eye, even if they hadn't been defiled by organs. Oh well.
One day, I caught a rumor that the Assumption Cathedral in the center of Kharkiv was undergoing full restoration and that an organ was supposedly going to be installed there.
Honestly speaking, I had been to organ concerts a few times in my life, but they hadn't left much of an impression on me, and playing the organ myself couldn't have crossed my mind even in my wildest fantasies. Yet, something tugged at my heart, and I began to hustle. Just recently, I had given a few harpsichord concerts. I was fairly well-known and understood perfectly well that for several years, the Kharkiv Hall of Organ and Chamber Music would become a pilgrimage site for an immense number of people. An organ in the USSR was a novelty. People who had never even listened to classical music flocked to organ concerts. In the USSR, this instrument served as a mediator between a godless life and religion, which was so attractive, as everything forbidden is.
I realized that whoever played the Kharkiv organ regularly would become the number-one musical figure in the city. They would receive all-Kharkiv love and admiration. And I won't even mention the success with women. To a Soviet woman (and as it turned out, not just a Soviet one), a person who played the organ was equated to a superhuman, so success was guaranteed. It is not hard to guess how I suddenly desperately wanted to become exactly that Rambo. Therefore, today, when I spin high-minded yarns in various interviews in response to the question, "Why did you come to the organ at almost 30 years old?", it is all a lie. I wanted to become an organist solely to satisfy my ambitions, and the high-minded matters came after my first encounters with the instrument. I rushed to the director of the philharmonic, Nikolai Alexandrovich Saltovsky, and said, "I want to be an organist." He replied, "Good idea, just learn how to play it and bring me a diploma."
That, as they say, is obvious even to a horse. But where was I supposed to get one?
In Soviet conservatories, there was officially no organ department, only an elective course. But if a pianist studied the organ seriously and achieved certain success, they took exams not only as a pianist but also as an organist. Their diploma would then read: pianist and organist. There was some logic to this: the USSR did not have many organs, and, as a rule, organists were not required in large numbers. At any rate, I never saw "organist wanted" signs on the streets.
So, what was I to do? I had graduated from the conservatory a long time ago, and enrolling somewhere in the piano department all over again was out of the question. Here, I demonstrated a level of single-minded determination unprecedented for myself and arranged a one-month internship at the Leningrad Conservatory. Usually, people do an internship when they already know something. I, on the other hand, had never even approached an organ before. Soon, I found myself in the class of Professor Nina Ivanovna Oksentyan. When I produced the first sounds with my hands, and especially with my feet, I was shocked by the fact that the sound did not come from beneath my hands and feet, but from an entirely different part of the room. It was pure bliss! I realized that I would never be able to part with this magical instrument.
The question arises: what, strictly speaking, is the difficulty of playing the organ compared to playing the piano? There isn't any. A person who commands the piano can master the organ reasonably well after a short time. I learned many of the intricacies in the smoking room from other organ students. Interestingly, when two organists are together, they talk only about organs. They barely even talk about women. Later, after my wife Lyuda and I split up, I had several romantic flings with female organists who came to Kharkiv on tour, and during the breaks, we talked only about registers, trackers, organ benches, registrations, and much, much else. Being an organist is a diagnosis.
Over a month of practice, I learned to play a little bit with my hands and feet together. I watched how others played. And, of course, I gathered knowledge in the smoking room. I returned to Kharkiv with a certificate of completion for my internship. Upon seeing my certificate, the director smirked, implying that my piece of paper was worse than a diploma. I knew that myself.












Chapter 33
In Riga, they manufactured electronic organs called "Prelude." They had two manuals (keyboards), a pedalboard, and a bench, meaning one could practice organ pieces on them. The sound was poor, but in the end, that wasn't so important.
Having returned from Leningrad, I needed something to practice on. There was no organ in the cathedral yet. You could buy a "Prelude" organ, but it cost a huge amount of money—around 3,000 rubles, if I recall correctly. The salary back then was 120–150 rubles. But I found out that the Kharkiv Music College had exactly that kind of organ, so I went to see the headmistress.
By a twist of fate, the headmistress turned out to be the wife of that very same General Malomuzh, who had failed to arrange our military service in Kharkiv. After listening to me, she immediately, without any red tape, allowed me to practice twice a week from 5:00 to 7:00 in the morning. Trams usually started running at 4:30, and I would catch the very first tram to get to the music college.
As it happened, the music college was located between two stops, and at quite a distance from each. I always tried to persuade the tram drivers to let me out between the stops, considering it was still night. My cover story was almost foolproof. Entering the tram with a worried look on my face, I would nervously and quickly start telling the driver—more often a female driver—that I had slipped out of my wife's bed during the night to see my mistress and now, urgently, had to get back into bed with my wife before she woke up and noticed my disappearance. The drivers, especially the women, sympathized with my situation and drove the tram like mad so that I would make it in time. And, of course, they let me off exactly where I needed.
It is amazing what delight and sympathy a man courageously cheating on his wife evokes in women—provided, of course, it isn't her own husband.
At first, my practice sessions went smoothly: I mastered a certain number of organ pieces. But after a while, about an hour into practicing, I would start smelling a burning odor—something was smoldering inside the organ.
I would turn it off immediately, move it around, sniff it from all sides, and could not understand a thing. I was afraid to tell anyone at the music college because they might forbid me from practicing right then and there. I suffered like this for several months: until 6:00 AM the organ worked normally, and from 6:00 AM onward, the burning smell began, driving me to absolute despair.
One day, sensing the fatal smell yet again, I cursed out loud and, walking over to the window, flung it open to get some fresh air. Smoke immediately billowed straight into my face. I looked down and saw the caretaker burning branches. He began his workday with this routine at 6:00 AM every morning.
But one day, when I came to practice, I turned the organ on, and it failed to start. This time, the caretaker was not to blame.
I know that the headmistress of the music college, Margarita Petrovna Malomuzh, was not well-liked there, but that was none of my business. She helped me tremendously, and I am dynamically grateful to her for life.
Sometime later, I managed to buy myself a "Prelude" organ when it was heavily discounted in the shop. All the employees gathered to look at the madman who was buying it. It had stood there for about five years.
Meanwhile, an organ by the Czech firm "Rieger Kloss" was being erected in the Assumption Cathedral, and by hook or by crook, I tried to practice on it from time to time. The philharmonic director, N. A. Saltovsky, for some reason took to shouting whenever he saw me at the organ. The organ technician, Gena Shchetina, on the contrary, asked me to play the organ every day for at least an hour. This was highly convenient for him to detect various malfunctions, and it suited me perfectly. (Today, I am convinced that it was Gena Shchetina who made me an organist. Thank you, Gena!) Suddenly, Director Saltovsky would appear and throw an ear-splitting tantrum, but then he would abruptly change his fury to mercy and ask me to play for some people he needed to impress. I would, of course, gladly agree, but always added that in order to play for someone, I had to practice and rehearse every day. "Oh, alright, play," the director would say softly and take his leave of me and Gena. And it went on like this almost every day.
Many years later, when we arrived in Israel, I, like all arriving men, was called into a room at Ben Gurion Airport and questioned thoroughly: had I ever had any contact with the KGB? I, of course, said that I had never been in contact with the KGB. But now I remembered that I had told a lie back then: my very first solid organ performance took place at the director's request for an audience of KGB workers with their wives and children, who filled the 500-seat hall to capacity for some purpose. Thus, due to my forgetfulness, on my very first day in Israel, I deceived this state that is intolerant of any falsehood.
Soon, the House of Organ and Chamber Music was opened to the general public. Just before the opening, someone discovered an oversight in the design of the foyer: due to someone's carelessness, or maybe even on purpose (though I don't think so), the walls in the foyer were covered with six-pointed stars resembling the Star of David (Magen David—the symbol of Israel). Fortunately, this was noticed, and over the course of the day, extra points were cleverly added to the six-pointed stars, and the problem was resolved. It turned out even more playful.
A young man from Leningrad, who was ten years younger than me, was hired for the position of organist. He really played very decently, and I picked up a lot from him. Naturally, I was in a foul mood: someone else had taken the place I had dreamed of so much, even if without grounds, since I had no "organ" education.
Above, I described how difficult it was in my position to obtain an education as an organist. I wrote various letters to the Ministry of Culture of the USSR and the RSFSR, but nothing worked. (It has no bearing on the matter, but the female employee at the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR who tried to help me had a unique last name—Fishgangfin. But even that didn't give her the power to help me.)
The Kyiv organist Volodya Koshuba advised me to stop running around ministries and instead write a letter to the organ teacher at the Gorky Conservatory, Galina Ivanovna Kozlova, a very famous and wonderful Soviet organist. The reply came without delay. Galina Ivanovna advised me to come to Gorky and play for her.
I came, though I didn't quite realize why. It was the month of May, and entrance exams are not held at that time. But I had underestimated the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) and its conservatory. After listening to me, Galina Ivanovna suggested that I write an application to the director asking to be enrolled in the organ class as a second-year student.
Shortly after, I was enrolled! It felt as though I were not in the USSR, but in some separate territory where one could enroll in a conservatory—and one of the best in the country at that—without exams, based on a single application. (Without exams because I had already graduated from one conservatory, but it was unbelievable nonetheless!)
But the miracles began not even with the enrollment, but with easily securing a good hotel room, which was completely unrealistic in the USSR. My windows overlooked, I think, the Volga. Two mighty Russian rivers, the Volga and the Oka, merge in Gorky. To this day, I haven't figured out exactly where the Volga is and where the Oka is. So, I am not sure what exactly I saw from the window, but I think it was the Volga after all.
Chapter 34
Right around this time, it crossed my wife Lyuda's mind that we ought to get a divorce. If I were to write out the whole story of our divorce, this book would contend for the Nobel Prize in Literature. But since I am not going to do that, I won't see that prize any more than I can see my own ears.
I was against this brilliant decision, but Lyuda stubbornly insisted on her own way, and in the very same registry office where we once married, I soon received a divorce stamp in my passport.
I remember that on the evening after receiving the stamp, I attended a concert by the wonderful organist Sergei Dizhur, and after the concert, he comforted me all the way as we walked on foot from the Organ Hall to his hotel.
My mother-in-law and father-in-law, who had always treated me none too well, suddenly turned out to be against the divorce and took my side, though even that didn't help. Soon after, my former mother-in-law Alexandra Alekseevna and father-in-law Alexei Ivanovich literally saved my life, and this eclipsed all the negativity that had existed before. My deepest respects to them, and may they rest in peace.
Irochka reacted to our divorce in a rather peculiar way: coming to visit my parents one day, she asked my mother, "Grandma, tell me, have you ever loved anyone besides Grandpa?" To which the dumbfounded grandmother naturally replied no. Then Irochka said, "That's not good, Grandma. A woman must love someone all the time."
We exchanged our new flat, having had no time to live in it at all. Credit must be given to Lyuda: I saw Irochka almost every day. I often took her to my parents' place and... regularly took her to the opera house.
By the age of four, Irochka read completely fluently, and try as I might to sneak her past the repertoire poster of the Kharkiv Opera and Ballet Theatre unnoticed, I never succeeded. Irochka would always put on the brakes at that spot and, staring intently at the poster, pull my hand. In a tone that brooked no argument, she would declare, "So... Rigoletto on the 3rd. Aha! And what are you doing on the evening of the 3rd? Ah, nothing? Excellent! Daddy, you are taking me to Rigoletto on the 3rd, and please don't argue. And The Queen of Spades is on the 5th, and Carmen on the 8th! Un-der-stood." And so it went without end.
I was forced to go to our opera house regularly, as if to work. I even had to sit through Khrennikov's opera Into the Storm. Moreover, Irochka stubbornly sat out the entire performance until the very end, and since opera endings are usually sad, I would catch hell afterward. During the finale of Carmen, when the main character fell from the knife of the jealous Don Jos;, Irochka burst into tears, much to the amusement of the entire audience. Even the curtain call of the busty, health-radiating performer of the title role did not soothe Irochka: she disliked the very fact of it.
During this period of time, perestroika was underway in the Soviet Union. It brought with it a milestone musical event: the USSR was visited for concerts by the pianist Vladimir Horowitz—from the USA, and previously from Berdychiv and Kyiv, a living legend of music. He had left the USSR after the revolution and had not appeared in his homeland since, achieving over those decades a reputation that placed him on par with such giants as Rachmaninoff and Liszt.
His own sister, Regina Samoilovna Horowitz, worked at our Kharkiv Institute of Arts in the piano department and was not even an associate professor. Thanks to her, we had the unique opportunity to listen to the discs sent by her great brother, which no one else in the country had heard back then. Regina Samoilovna had waited for her brother her whole life. She was a few years older than him and died literally a couple of years before his arrival.
Horowitz's concert was broadcast on television, and, of course, we all sat down, anticipating something unpredictable. As soon as Irochka saw the elderly Horowitz walking toward the grand piano, she thought of nothing better than to sit down at our piano and play parallel to Horowitz throughout the entire concert, even slightly louder than the great Maestro. Any attempts to reason with her were in vain.
Many years later, while spending a couple of days in Paris, I was getting ready to go out for a night walk around the city and carelessly turned on the television in my hotel room while getting dressed. A broadcast of the recording of Horowitz's concert in Moscow was just beginning there. That very same one. The exploration of night-time Paris had to be postponed indefinitely: two great phenomena cannot be experienced at the same ti



Chapter 35
Meanwhile, I conceived a plan to perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s six keyboard concertos with our orchestra. I rushed to our artistic director, Vitaly Ivanovich Balabay, who for some reason had always treated me well. He embraced my idea immediately and even ordered the sheet music for the orchestra from Moscow, which I—take note!—completely photographed and used to create the orchestral parts for all six concertos. This was despite the fact that I didn’t really know how to take photographs. Later, when these scores were finally placed on the orchestral music stands, it turned out that the photos should have been made on matte paper instead of the glossy paper I had used. Today’s reader might not understand: why did I photograph everything instead of photocopying it? I would like to remind you that at that time in the USSR, getting anywhere near a Xerox machine was nearly impossible. They were all registered with the KGB and were not available on every corner, as they are here in Israel, and elsewhere. Our chief conductor, Alexander Alekseev, who took over the post after Jordania’s escape, was also not against me performing this cycle, but he was somewhat fearful, not fully relying on me.
To make the poster with the six Bach concertos less pompous, they decided to split the cycle into two concerts: the first evening would feature three Bach concertos and Mozart’s Requiem, and two days later, the remaining three concertos and Mozart’s Requiem again. Of course, I wanted to perform all six concertos in a single evening (I played them on a grand piano, not a harpsichord), but I didn’t resist because it was useless. Thanks for at least that much.
Then I was told that one of the concertos, namely the D minor one—the most popular—would be performed by another female pianist, apparently an influential one. She, you see, wanted to. No matter how much I tried to convince the management that this was my cycle and that she could perform in a different concert rather than within my cycle, nothing worked. In the end, it went like this: on the first evening of "my cycle," I didn’t play at all. She played the D minor concerto, followed by Mozart’s Requiem, and on the second evening, I performed two (!) concertos—the G minor and the D major—and then Mozart’s Requiem sounded once again.
That is how I "performed" the cycle of Bach's six keyboard concertos and was deprived of such a wonderful, grand poster.
After the Bach concerts, I was suddenly asked to learn Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and I played it about ten times at various intervals. Once, I performed the Rhapsody in the Gorky City Park on an open-air stage. Little Irochka was brought to the concert, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the child was experiencing the jazz inflections of the rhapsody very emotionally. But when the rumba-like section began, Irisha broke free from Lyuda’s tight grip and rushed toward the stage. There, she broke into such a "Lambada" or even a "Macarena" that the entire orchestra trembled with silent laughter, and the audience did too, of course. As for me, I had to display unimaginable restraint and self-control to play through to the very end.
In the cathedral, I began performing as an organist. At first, I was urgently filling in for organists who failed to arrive for their tours. The thing was, for 99 percent of the audience, it didn’t really matter who exactly was performing: an eminent organist or me. The main thing for them was to listen to the organ, so nobody returned their tickets upon learning that the announced soloist had been replaced by me.
I also managed to perform at the inter-republic organ competition in Kiev and even make it to the second round. The chairman of the jury was Leopoldas Digrys—the very first organist I had ever heard in my life. During a break in the competition, we met in the restroom by the urinals, where he told me that I had a brilliant creative future ahead of me, which is apparently why he decided not to let me through to the final round (and he did the right thing, because I hadn't even prepared a program for the final round, being certain I wouldn't even pass the second).
The Kharkiv organist spent most of his non-concert time in Leningrad, where he lived, so I ruled the roost at the cathedral. That was how I began performing on the most prestigious stage in Kharkiv. After some time, I was already getting my own concerts—both solo and with various soloists.
I really wanted to take a staff position as an organist, but it was occupied—when suddenly it became known that our organist was resigning and moving back home to Leningrad. I was already in my fourth year at the Gorky Conservatory (I had managed to complete both the third and fourth years in a single year) and considered myself the obvious candidate for the spot. Philharmonic vocalists, who wanted to perform with the organ, had already begun cozying up to me. I didn’t go to bow down to the director, deciding it was unnecessary: after all, he knew everything without my asking.
One day, while practicing on the organ, I saw one of our female vocalists, a Honored Artist of Ukraine and a member of the arts council. Instead of smiling at me and greeting me ingratiatingly as usual, she walked quickly past me, barely looking me in the eye, from which I correctly concluded that everything was already decided. Someone else would be the organist, but not me.
But who? Aside from me, no one else in the city played the organ. A newcomer would need to be provided with housing, which was highly problematic.
But who could have guessed that the nephew of the chairman of the Kharkiv City Executive Committee had just graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with a degree in organ?
And that was when I finally took offense.
Although, I developed very good relations with the new organist. He was a very pleasant guy. And it really wasn't his fault at all. You don’t choose your uncle.
It was after this blow that I first thought about leaving the USSR.
Suddenly, my name stopped being announced at concerts, as if by accident. And this was done by a certain host, a musicologist, who was supposedly a friend of mine. She couldn't be accused of antisemitism, as she was Jewish herself. The climax came when my last name was omitted when I played an organ solo on television. Later, following my outbursts of indignation, she begged for my forgiveness every single time.
But for the time being, I performed organ concerts regularly, enjoyed success, had female admirers—though it seemed to me there could have been more of them—and received a lot of flowers after concerts. Once, I received such a quantity of flowers that as soon as I sat down in Dzerzhinsky Square to tie my shoe and placed all the flowers beside me, people rushed over to ask how much the flowers were. I must have looked like a flower vendor whose shoelace had come undone.
Flowers are presented only in the CIS countries. Living in Israel, I have played a huge number of concerts in various countries across Europe and America. I have been treated to fantastic receptions by the audience. But today, I remember only one little bouquet of three tulips, which was presented to me in Holland, in a small town called Almelo.

Chapter 36
In the summer of 1988, an annual festival of organ music was held in Tallinn. As part of the festival, the famous German organist Leo Kr;mer conducted a masterclass. This event attracted a multitude of professional Soviet organists and students from all over the country. Anyone could sit down at the organ in turn, play something, and receive advice from the maestro. I, too, risked stepping up. I must say that this procedure is not a pleasant one, mainly not because of the presence of the famous organist, but because behind the player's back stands a good hundred organists, just waiting (deep down in their souls, of course) for the maestro to give the player a major dressing-down.
For this quite understandable reason, the venerable organists who were attending the seminar did not come out to play. I was still a student, and I didn't care, so I went up to play.
I played J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D major, which begins with a virtuous pedal solo. Leo Kr;mer, wishing to see, apparently, how I would distribute these passages between my left and right feet, thought of nothing better than to get down on all fours and stick his head under the organ bench. Just imagine it: behind my back is a "Black Hundred" of Soviet organists; beneath me is a major German organist, positioned doggy-style and examining my feet; and there I am—at the organ, as if on a throne, or rather, as if on a scaffold or even an electric chair. Kr;mer neither praised nor scolded me. He simply worked with me, just as he did with the others.
The seminar left an indelible mark on everyone who attended.
In the USSR, there was no real organ school for a purely religious reason: because the organ is not used in Orthodox services. Though, as I understand now, there were individual high-class organists.
Leo Kr;mer showed certain techniques of organ playing that helped highlight the texture and make the playing more articulate in large church acoustics, where sounds often blur into an incomprehensible mess. True, this didn't benefit everyone: some organists "refracted" his advice within themselves in such a way that their once more or less decent playing became simply comical. Now I realize that he wasn't saying anything extraordinary back then, but for us at the time, it was like the discovery of America.
Once, during a break, I called him aside and asked what he knew about organs in Israel and whether they existed there at all. He said he had no idea and had never heard anything about it. This answer did not inspire me. I had begun preparing to emigrate from the USSR and didn't really want to go to Israel, but I understood that I might end up precisely there. Therefore, the presence of organs in Israel worried me deeply. I was already beginning to guess that the organ, used exclusively as a secular instrument, existed only in the USSR. And Israel, of course, was not the best country for my specialty, since the organ is not used in Jewish services and is absent from synagogues, except for Reform synagogues in the West. But I wasn't heading West; I was heading East.
In Israel, the organ is an unkosher instrument. Although at that time, I hadn't even heard that word—"kosher"—in my life.














Chapter 37
For me, there was no country more mysterious than Israel. Leaving for Israel in the seventies was tantamount to falling into an abyss or entering another dimension. It was impossible to even imagine that you would ever see those people again. It seemed that Israel was located on a completely different globe, and surely, the Moon was closer than Tel Aviv, even though the flight from Kiev to Tel Aviv took less than three hours.
As soon as the notorious Perestroika began, this distance started to shrink drastically. People were allowed to visit Israel as guests, and former emigrants began flying into the USSR to see their close relatives. To see a living Israeli, many traveled from one city to another, and when our close friends from Donetsk informed us that their relatives, the Bilson family—whom I vaguely remembered from childhood—had arrived from Israel, my mother immediately traveled from Kharkiv to Donetsk just to look at them and, of course, to hear their stories about this mysterious country. The Israelis said that things were very good there, everyone had a roof over their head, and so on. And since the head of the Israeli family, Uncle Misha, was wearing a real leather jacket (which, as it turned out later in Israel, was Turkish), Mother realized that Israel was a highly developed, prosperous country and decided to ask for an invitation visa for our family. She asked them to time it in such a way that we would receive it around April 1989.
I thought: I will just receive my organist diploma from the Gorky Conservatory, we will submit our documents for the visa, and we'll leave beautifully. But the invitation just wouldn't come. Between you and me, I was even glad about this—after all, I had a pretty good life at the time: a separate apartment, daily contact with Irochka, a job, and recognition in the city. Following the introduction of the law on cooperatives, we began organizing cooperative tours with organ music in the Organ Hall. This started bringing me an unexpected income. In my heart, I was already hoping that the invitation would never arrive, but miracles don't happen, and it did arrive. Mind you, it arrived in November, not in April as we had wanted. If it had arrived in April, we would have been able to leave for the USA, where there would have been more opportunities for me, but soon the mass emigration to the USA on Israeli invitations was shut down, and we headed straight for Israel.
From the moment the invitation was received, my life seemingly ground to a halt: nothing pleased me anymore, and the main thing was the impending separation from Irochka. I comforted myself with the thought that Lyuda’s future new husband was also of Jewish origin and that, before long, they too might move to be with us in Israel. Unexpectedly to me, Irisha reacted to our departure with great enthusiasm, saying: "Don't worry, Papa. We will come to you soon." She really liked the very word "Israel."
At the Budapest International Airport, we waited several hours for our flight to Tel Aviv. My terrible mood was unexpectedly brightened by a girl named Tatyana, who was flying to the same place for the same reason. She and I had sat next to each other on the plane when flying from Moscow to Budapest. Actually, the seat next to her had been offered to me by her ex-husband, whom Tatyana had divorced just a few days prior, but the invitation from Israel had been issued to the two of them, and they were very afraid of bureaucratic problems in Israel: they didn't want people there to think they had divorced fictitiously for certain material benefits. And so, this former couple tried to keep their distance from each other. And right then I came along, which was very convenient for them.
Thus, I spent the night of April 25 to 26, 1990, with the wonderful girl Tatyana, sitting on a bench in the Budapest airport, looking up at the starry sky and dreaming of the beautiful things that surely awaited us in the Holy Land of Israel.
I liked Israel right away. I liked her at first because of the feeling of an eternal resort and idleness. It felt as though we had switched from a black-and-white television to a colored one. And since we were immediately settled with an apartment (thanks to the Bilson family), everything was fine. Later, true, it turned out that one has to work long and hard at this very resort, but that came later.
The town where my parents and I were rented an apartment is called Karmiel. It is located in the Galilee, right between Acco and Safed. The town is beautiful and clean enough... but more on that later.
I realized immediately that there was absolutely nothing for me to do there and that I needed to move to the center of the country. But since I had to complete a five-month Hebrew course, I decided that after this course, I would definitely leave Karmiel. Upon learning that there was a conservatory in Karmiel, I headed there.
In Israel, the concept of a "conservatory" is equivalent to a music school in the USSR. What was called a conservatory in the USSR is referred to as an academy in Israel.
It must be said that at that moment, there were over 100 pianists in Karmiel, and everyone was eager for a job at the conservatory. I went to see the director. He received me reluctantly, and without false modesty, I must say that after playing Scriabin’s Etude in D-sharp minor and some Scarlatti sonata for him, I was hired a few days later, leaving a good hundred pianists empty-handed. Though today, it is more likely I who am left empty-handed, not them.
And when the "city fathers and mothers" sometimes, enumerating their benefactions before the public, claimed that they had allegedly placed Roman Krasnovsky in the conservatory—without diminishing their help to anyone else—I must say that I got the job at the conservatory myself, without any help whatsoever.
















Chapter 38
While still living in the USSR, I had heard about Valery Maisky (blessed memory), a famous organist who had left the Soviet Union for Israel about 15 years before me. He was the brother of the outstanding cellist Mischa Maisky and had tragically perished in a car accident in the prime of his creative life. Upon arriving in Israel, I tried to find out where exactly he used to play.
And so, one day, I went to Tel Aviv. I had no place to spend the night, and I knew practically not a single word of Hebrew. In this situation, I had to find out the location of a certain cathedral with an organ. It is worth noting that even in good Hebrew, asking about a cathedral with an organ in Tel Aviv is downright laughable: first of all, nobody here knows of any cathedrals, and secondly, nobody knows what a pipe organ is either. Israelis know the "organ" as an electric synthesizer. Almost everyone has one. But a pipe organ—that is just not a question for Israel.
Yet, against all odds, I found out what I needed: first and foremost, the Hebrew word for organ is ugav, and it was located in a small Lutheran church called the Immanuel Church, right at the junction of Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Most importantly, I found out which bus number to take and where to get off.
When I entered the coveted cathedral and saw the organ, it felt like a victor's triumph. I had to explain to a sweet elderly Dutch woman named Nel, who was on duty at the entrance, who I was, what I was there for, and why. To put it simply, what the hell I was doing there. It was a theater of mimicry and gestures, but thanks to the photographs showing me seated at the Kharkiv organ, Nel understood what I wanted. She kindly escorted me to the instrument, and I pounced on it like a man dying of thirst reaching for water.
A few minutes later, a man approached me. Without taking his admiring eyes off me, he showered me with handshakes, hugs, and compliments in a Hebrew I couldn't understand. It was Juan, the cathedral organist, who possessed the billionaire surname Onassis. Juan said he had been waiting day and night for the hour when an organist arriving in Israel would set foot inside the Immanuel Church. This was translated for me by Marina Maiskaya, Valery Maisky’s widow, who by some miracle happened to be in the cathedral at that exact same time. I felt that God had brought everyone together in one place at that moment for a reason.
I walked out of the cathedral with a scheduled date for my solo concert. A debut in Tel Aviv! I hadn't even dared to dream of such a thing. Overjoyed, I headed back to my town of Karmiel. However, I failed to account for the fact that it was the second half of Friday, and Shabbat was beginning. I managed to make it as far as Haifa, but there I had to transfer to a bus to Karmiel, and they were already out of service due to Shabbat. The situation was dreadful. I had no money for a taxi, and back then, such an expense was utterly unaffordable for me. How I finally made it home—I don't remember, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that on June 16, 1990, my concert took place. The program featured works by J. S. Bach. Quite a large audience attended. After a very successful concert, Marina Maiskaya introduced me to the organ builder Gideon Shamir.
I have always been amazed by anyone who, all by himself in his own backyard, builds nothing less than a pipe organ.
Before Gideon Shamir, I happened to know one such person. His name is Yura Kryachko. He is a phenomenal organist and organ builder from Gorky, and just like me, he studied under Galina Ivanovna Kozlova. Yura built organs in the basement of his rented apartment literally out of nothing. It went so far that he cast the metal and made the pipes himself. Back then in the USSR, it was impossible to buy organ pipes from some decommissioned instrument. So Yura did this gigantic work all on his own. (Yura and I meet regularly in Braunschweig. He often organizes concerts for me on a stunning organ. There is also a magnificent organ in his house, crafted by his own hands.)
Gideon had more opportunities in this regard. He had connections with various German organ-building firms, so he could buy parts and order things, but that didn't make his work any less respectable. It was at Gideon's house that I met G;rard L;vy: during that period, Gideon was building an organ for G;rard's apartment.
Naturally, the question may arise: how can a pipe organ fit into a regular apartment? Actually, there is nothing unusual about it: you can build an organ in any room, based on its dimensions. Of course, an organ in an apartment won't sound as magnificent as one in a huge cathedral, yet there are people in this world who have organs standing right in their apartments. One of them is G;rard L;vy. He was born in France and lived there for many years. He had studied the organ since childhood. Although it wasn't his profession, he was so remarkably well-versed in the French organ repertoire that communicating with him became an integral part of my life. G;rard and his wife Rachel lived in Jerusalem at the time and always welcomed me like one of their own, almost as a member of their family.
I cannot help but recall one action of G;rard's that speaks for itself. In his apartment, he had a magnificent electronic organ made by the Dutch company Johannus—with three manuals, numerous stops, and a sound very close to a real pipe organ. It was a vastly improved counterpart to my Prelude organ, which I had brought over to Israel.
You can well imagine how I drooled just looking at that organ, let alone playing it frequently. Purchasing such an instrument was entirely out of the question. Its cost was enormous, and they weren't even sold in Israel. You had to specially order an organ like that from Holland for a huge sum, pay for sea freight, pay import tax, and so on. A hopeless situation.
Well, when G;rard got his real pipe organ built by Gideon, he sold the Johannus to me for such a small amount that I am even ashamed to name it. As they say, for a symbolic price. Furthermore, he took only half the money from me, saying that my grandchildren would give the second half to his grandchildren. He already had grandchildren, whereas my daughter was only 9 years old at the moment. It was clear that my grandchildren wouldn't be giving money to his grandchildren anytime soon. To put it simply, he hinted to me that I could just pocket that money. Of course, he didn't expect to receive it. And when, after some time, he received the remaining sum from me, he couldn't believe his eyes. In Israel, people pay back debts very reluctantly, even when demanded, and when they aren't demanded...
Returning a financial debt is a huge trauma for an Israeli; therefore, in order not to cause another trauma to the long-suffering and afflicted people of Israel over many millennia, never lend money to an Israeli.
Acquiring this organ, which was priceless to me, was an important event in my new life, but not the most pivotal one, I should say.
As I described earlier, I got a job at the conservatory right away, which delayed my move to the center of the country indefinitely. I won't describe the level of the Karmiel conservatory of that period, because I don't want to dwell on sad things. I won't describe the salary level either, as I don't want to dwell on tragic things. But since absolutely nobody in my Hebrew language class was working at all, I was still riding high, and everyone envied me.
Life in Israel seemed like a resort to me: the sun, plenty of single women, the Mediterranean Sea nearby. If it weren't for my constant thoughts about my daughter, who remained in Kharkiv, you could say that life felt like paradise. True, I didn't always sleep well because, firstly, it was hot, and secondly, every morning around 5:00 AM, I was woken up by a garbage truck and the loud, incomprehensible speech of the workers as they noisily emptied the trash bins right under my windows. I cursed them up and down, but I understood there was no way out. Other than that, everything was fine.
The director of the conservatory recommended me to the head of the office of the Karmiel Municipality, Mr. Karmi, as a private music teacher for his daughter. Mr. Karmi was pleased with me because his daughter was making decent progress. He, of course, knew about my salary at the conservatory and promised to think of something. And so one day, while driving me home after a lesson, feeling very embarrassed, he said that there was a decent job for me for the time being, but he couldn't bring himself to name it. When he finally found his tongue, I learned that I was being offered a position as a garbage collector on that very same truck that woke me up in the mornings. For the first few seconds, I was in a state of stupor, but he said it was temporary. Moreover, this job at the municipality was a government position, with all the accompanying benefits, and besides, by 9:00 AM, or even earlier, I would already be free to do whatever I wanted. As for the danger to my hands, he said I just needed to wear gloves and be careful.
I must say that Shalom Karmi helped me a lot later, and even now. I am very grateful to him for that!
There are lyrics in a certain Jewish-Russian song: "O-o-oh! Mama is glad." Well, my mama was not glad at all. Quite the contrary, in fact.
I wasn't very thrilled either, and the first time I stepped onto the footboard of the garbage truck, it was without any particular pleasure. Our town is small, and I already had quite a few acquaintances who had heard a thing or two about me not being a completely ordinary musician, and suddenly—here I was on a garbage truck.
In the USSR, a musician usually worked as a musician, an engineer as an engineer, a teacher as a teacher, and if some female engineer cleaned some premises early in the morning, she did so in deep secrecy from her acquaintances. But I had to ride around on the footboard of a garbage truck in plain sight of the entire town without any secrets. Yet it turned out that many new immigrants envied me. A mass of people were completely out of work, while others had to toil hard at factories or for some private bosses who might not even pay them for their labor. That happens in Israel.
As for me, I was in a government job after all, and the work lasted only two and a half to three hours, after which I could prepare for a global career—the very reason I had left the USSR and come to the West. Or rather, to the East.
The first, and very important, step toward a global career was that I managed to return all the money to the "Idud" Bank. That was the money given to new immigrants for the initial period, which gets written off after five years. It was believed that after five years, immigrants would love Israel so much that they wouldn't want to run away. Without a clearance certificate from this bank, an international passport would not be issued. Finally, my passport was obtained, even though there was nowhere to go. Nobody was waiting for me anywhere, except for my daughter in Kharkiv. But that is a whole different story.
I had no idea how, while living in Karmiel, I was supposed to meet that very impresario who would turn me into a world celebrity.













Chapter 39
The plane of the Israeli airline Arkia was flying the Tel Aviv – Frankfurt am Main route. I don't know about the other passengers, but one lady was very agitated, and she certainly had good reason to be. All the panels in the aircraft were rattling so convincingly that one could assume the plane was about to fall apart into a multitude of pieces.
The lady turned to her two seatmates (who were typical European women) and asked in Hebrew: "Do you think the plane will actually make it?" Fortunately, one of the European women knew Hebrew well and, of course, was charmed by the sincerity of the question. The European women began to calm the lady down and looked after her not only until the end of the flight but also helped her transfer to another plane to D;sseldorf while in Frankfurt. But that wasn't all. A few hours after arriving home, they called D;sseldorf (the lady had left them the D;sseldorf phone number) to check if she had reached her destination safely. The lady was so touched by their attention that she gave them her Israeli phone number and made them promise: as soon as they were in Israel again, they absolutely had to visit her.
Probably, this banal story wouldn't be worth mentioning if the lady didn't live in Karmiel. She was a resident of our town, Virola Mazey, the wife of Arkady Mazey, a well-known local gynecologist.
After some time, the European women came to Israel again, though this time not as a duo, but as a trio: Margrit Pfister from Switzerland, Ursula Giesen from Germany, and finally, Anneke Elisabeth Maria Paulina van de Wal from Holland. Despite the large number of names the Dutch woman possessed, this was just one person, who went by the short name of Anneke. They all lived in Germany, in a small Westphalian town called Freudenberg. So, having arrived in Israel, these women decided to visit Virola and her husband in Karmiel, and Virola threw a lavish dinner in their honor according to the not-yet-forgotten Russian custom. To my good fortune, she invited her acquaintance—a new immigrant from the USSR, Larisa Gendelman—to this evening.
Why it was "to my good fortune" will soon become clear.
Larisa charmed them so much that they invited her to visit them in Germany. Larisa gladly accepted the invitation and soon went to stay with them. While there, she told them that a certain organist in Karmiel was busy clearing the town of garbage while dreaming of performing concerts around the world. Since the European women were very drawn to everything new and unusual, during their next visit to Israel (fortunately, they visited our country often), they extended an offer through Larisa to meet with me.
As they recalled later, a man entered the room wearing a suit and even a tie, which in itself is strange for Israel, and, flushing red then turning pale with embarrassment, formally introduced himself.
I understand now how amusing it must have been for them to look at a fellow all dressed up for their sake. Of course, in Europe, my suit and tie wouldn't have made much of an impression because everyone dresses like that there. But in Israel—where it is perfectly normal to dress in a tank top, flip-flops, and short pants often sagging to such an extent that the upper part of the backside is clearly visible (along with scratching one's external genitalia)—a suit and tie had the same effect as if I had shown up completely naked.
Let me digress a bit and share how once, while in Tel Aviv on business, I unexpectedly ended up at a concert of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Zubin Mehta was conducting. They were performing the Turangal;la-Symphonie by my idol—a twentieth-century classic, the French composer Olivier Messiaen. The piano part was performed by Messiaen's wife, the outstanding pianist Yvonne Loriod. But even that wasn't the main thing. The main thing was that the great Messiaen himself was in the auditorium. For me, knowing that Messiaen was in the hall was equivalent to Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart being there. I was wearing flip-flops from the bazaar that cost 10 shekels and some sweaty tank top (it is very hot in Israel, after all). Thank goodness for my mother; she had insisted that I wear long trousers. If not for my mother's persistence, I would have been in shorts. So, not only did I go to the concert looking like that, but I also had the audacity to approach Messiaen in that state, speak with him through an interpreter, and get an autograph. And to shake his hand upon parting. After that, looking exactly the same (where on earth was I supposed to get different clothes?), I approached Yvonne Loriod, and our short conversation ended with a friendly kiss. Now I can officially state that the first Frenchwoman in my life whom I kissed (even if just a friendly one) was the wife of the twentieth-century classic Olivier Messiaen—the remarkable Yvonne Loriod.
Now imagine me, standing at attention in a suit, shirt, and tie before three women—simply because they were from Europe. Before that, I had practically no contact with foreigners, especially from countries like those, and naturally, I somewhat exaggerated the differences between people living in different systems, mistakenly failing to understand that core human values are the same everywhere, with minor exceptions.
After chatting, we all went together to visit Virola and Arkady, and over an abundant table, and later at the piano, we continued our acquaintance. My new acquaintances went back home to Germany, while I was left with new hopes.
Some time later, I was told that Larisa was looking for me to deliver some important news. Dropping by her place immediately, I learned that she had received a letter from Margrit, where she wrote that in the autumn, I had several organ concerts lined up in Europe: in Freudenberg, D;sseldorf, and Basel. It had begun!!!















Chapter 40
Having bought a Lufthansa ticket for the Tel Aviv – Frankfurt am Main route, I began to panic frantically. It wasn't because of the concerts, though; it was because I was suddenly terrified that they wouldn't let me leave the country at the Tel Aviv airport, thinking I was trying to flee Israel. Financially, I was square with Israel, but it felt as though they would present me with yet another bill at the airport. I only calmed down once the airliner took to the sky. I understood perfectly well that I was not such an important personage that they would urgently ground the plane just to deport me from it. Yet, the Soviet virus of being afraid of not being allowed abroad ran deep within me. To be honest, it stayed with me for quite a long time.
For Soviet people, traveling abroad was a great rarity. If someone had visited, say, Bulgaria or Poland, that person evoked feelings of envy and admiration in others. And if someone had been to France, the USA, or Switzerland, they were considered a being made of entirely different matter. Today, citizens of the former USSR roam all corners of the globe, but back then, in 1991, stepping off the plane onto Western European soil, I felt like a very respectable gentleman indeed.
Germany delighted me, as a professional garbage collector, with its striking cleanliness, and as a professional organist, with its sheer number of organs. In a tiny town like Freudenberg (which is even smaller than my Carmiel), there are as many as three quite decent organs. I was extraordinarily proud to be performing in Western Europe, even if it was in a town like Freudenberg. Unfortunately, the concert in D;sseldorf did not take place that time, but there would be plenty of them in the future.
There was also an upcoming concert in the Swiss city of Basel, which, naturally, made me very anxious. Firstly, it is a major European musical center, which is not a bad place at all to start a concert career. Secondly, Basel is the hometown of Margrit Pfister. She was born there, lived there, owned a house there (more than one, as it turned out), and had numerous relatives and acquaintances. Therefore, my success in Basel would give her confidence in the correctness of her purely intuitive decision to help me.
The day after the concert was free, and Margrit advised me to go for a morning stroll in some Swiss town. At the ticket office, my eyes suddenly caught the morning train to Paris. A wild thought struck me like lightning: instead of traveling three hours from Basel to, say, Geneva, I could add just another two hours and arrive in the city of universal human dreams. For a Soviet person, visiting Paris meant being immensely successful in life, to the envy of everyone around. Equipped with an Israeli passport, I could freely buy a ticket at the counter and realize the impossible dream of almost every Soviet citizen.
My Basel concert went well, though I no longer even remember which cathedral I played in (there are many in Basel). But my thoughts were no longer on the concert; they were already in Paris, which I was destined to see tomorrow.
If anyone had told me back then that I would one day be riding the Basel – Paris train, firstly, I wouldn't have believed it, and secondly, I would have imagined the highly respectable public that ought to be sitting in the carriages of such a train. They would have to be gray-haired capitalist pensioners, middle-aged men in Pierre Cardin suits carrying attaches, and, of course, beautiful women, elegantly dressed, fragrant with expensive perfumes, haughty and unapproachable. In reality, it turned out that the most respectable-looking person in my carriage was me. The rest looked far more modest. These people simply did not know how passengers on the Basel – Paris train were supposed to look in the imagination of a Soviet person.
Apparently, I did better in geography at school than in history. Taking a city map from the tourist bureau at the Gare de l'Est, I quite cleverly figured out from the pictures where Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-;lys;es, the Grand Op;ra, and so on were located. Holding the map in front of me, I set off to acquaint myself with the symbols of Paris. To be honest, when I stepped out of the station onto the street, I was left breathless for the entire day. When I approached Notre-Dame Cathedral, the first thing that immediately struck me was a huge dumpster overflowing with garbage. Only after that did I notice the cathedral. That's what being a professional means!
My rather limited knowledge of history led me into a comical situation: seeing the "Bastille" metro station on the map, I decided that leaving Paris without seeing the Bastille was simply unforgivable, and went looking for the square. I found it quickly enough, but there was no Bastille to be found on it, though an opera house graced the spot—which brought me no consolation at the time. I should have studied my history at school.
Actually, I occasionally find myself in amusing situations. Once in Rome, or rather in the Vatican, I peeked into the Sistine Chapel with the firm intention of finally seeing... the Sistine Madonna. I walked through the entire Vatican Pinacoteca and failed to find it. My anger knew no bounds. I concluded that the painting had been moved to another museum for an exhibition. I left the Vatican irritated and unsatisfied, feeling that I had wasted a considerable amount of money for nothing. A few days later, it dawned on me that the Madonna was to be looked for in the Dresden Gem;ldegalerie, not where I had been searching.
Having spent a wonderful day in Paris, tired but happy, I returned to the Gare de l'Est and took a sleeper train back to Basel, since it was an overnight journey. There were only two passengers in the carriage: myself and a pleasant Frenchwoman of about my age. We crossed paths in the corridor by the window. She smiled at me and said, "Bonsoir." I replied with the same. And that was the end of my French. It seemed clear to me from her expression that she was expecting the conversation to develop, but I disappointed her, and we went our separate ways to our respective compartments. Half the night I tossed and turned, thinking about how important it is to know foreign languages, especially French.
Having slept well (alas) on the train, and bursting with impressions, I burst into Margrit's Basel home, and we immediately drove to Germany, to Freudenberg.
This would be a good place to conclude the description of my first little tour, had we not, upon arriving in Freudenberg, immediately driven with Ursula and Anneke to Cologne to see the Cologne Cathedral. I must say, one look at this cathedral is enough to make you forget about Paris entirely for a while.
At that time, I couldn't even have imagined that one day I would play in Notre-Dame de Paris, in Cologne Cathedral, and not only there.
The way I describe the impressions of my first trip today might seem pointless. Nowadays, everyone goes there. But back then, when I first appeared there, it was a monumental event for a Soviet person. It was difficult for me at the time to digest the fact that I could simply walk up to a ticket counter, buy a ticket, and go wherever I pleased. That is why I describe it in such detail and even naively.
Upon returning to my native Carmiel, I entered a new period of my life, which I would call "pseudo-popularity." This period continues successfully to this day. It all started when a filming crew from Israel’s Channel One television, led by the well-known Israeli TV journalist Dan Smama, came to our town to shoot a report about some notable new immigrant.
And, of course, my case proved to be an absolute godsend for them.
You bet! A garbage collector with two higher degrees, and on top of that, fresh off a European tour (albeit a small one), who also plays some sort of organ. I was flattered, but remembering how my colleagues in Kharkiv used to say dreamily that people appearing on television in the West receive astronomical fees, I asked how I would be paid: by check or in cash? And since they involved our entire sanitation crew in the filming, and after work hours at that, I began demanding payment for all of them as well.
Now I can tell my colleagues in Kharkiv that it's all a bunch of lies: they don't pay a thing. The report about me was shown on the morning and evening news. By the next day, or even by that evening, the whole country was talking about me. Some people called offering me help. Honestly, I never found out what kind of help exactly: emptying garbage bins for me or assisting me at organ concerts?
I never found out because nobody ever called a second time. The main thing is to offer help, and the rest will sort itself out.














Chapter 41
A year passed quickly enough, and here I am playing in Europe again. This time, not only in Germany and Switzerland, but also in Holland and Austria. Though I must confess, I liked Austria better as a tourist destination than as a concert venue.
Who could forget the beautiful day I spent in Salzburg! And the Vienna Opera! I listened to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro there. Before that, I hadn't even imagined how an orchestra could play and how soloists could sing. It went beyond the boundaries of everything I had ever heard before, even though it was a completely routine performance and there wasn't a single world celebrity among the soloists. True, I did see one celebrity on the street near the Vienna Opera, even if I didn't hear him: Jos; Carreras dashed out to buy newspapers at the kiosk closest to the opera house, but vanished in a flash.
As for my performances in Austria, despite everything going quite successfully (in the town of Feldkirch, I even drew applause right in the middle of the concert, which is absolutely impossible for Austria—they only applaud once at the very end), I felt somewhat uncomfortable. I was accompanied by one of the women mentoring me, Ursula, who, being German, was very suspicious of Austrians, looked for a catch everywhere, and made me feel the same way.
After my concert in Graz, the concert promoter invited us to a restaurant. I was with Ursula, and there were about 8 or 9 other people with him. We were invited to order whatever we wanted for dinner. But Ursula asked me to pretend I wasn't hungry and to limit myself to a coffee and a bun. She did the same herself, even though we were starving to death. The rest of the company ordered chicken, beef stroganoff, schnitzels, and so on. And all of this, of course, accompanied by beer. After dinner, it turned out that this entire banquet was my fee for the concert. Even in Israel, they wouldn't act like that.
On the other hand, in the town of Leoben, the owner of the hotel where I was staying came to the concert and was so pleased that he allowed me every evening—and I was there for five days—to order whatever I wanted in the restaurant at the hotel's expense. That is how the law of conservation of energy worked.
The concert promoter in Austria struck me as a very strange man. He traveled to all the concerts and generally followed on my heels. During our farewell, I felt that he was displeased with me. Later I found out: it turned out that in this manner he was trying to win my affection, "and I, foolish girl, didn't understand it." Be that as it may, I never went to Austria with concerts ever again.
In Germany, I was introduced to a great connoisseur of organ music and a rather influential figure in the musical life of the city of Marburg—Peter Brusius. Marburg is a small university town. Lomonosov and Pasternak studied at Marburg University. One of the landmarks of this city is the grandiose Elisabethkirche with its magnificent organ. Concerts at the Elisabethkirche became the main highlight of my performances in Germany.
And, of course, I fondly remember the wonderful days in Marburg, where Peter and his wife Ute gave me a truly royal welcome. Since their apartment was hung, furnished, and piled high with organ iconography, paraphernalia, and literature, I was simply swimming in an ocean of CDs, books, sheet music, and countless photographs of organs. Prompted by Peter and the organ builder Erwin Althaus, I recorded my first compact disc (CD) with the "H;nssler" label—naturally, on the organ of the Elisabethkirche.
Recording a CD is both easy and difficult. It is easy because any wrong note or unsuccessful episode can be re-recorded. And that is the only easy part of the CD recording process. So, what is difficult if the most important thing is so easily managed?
First of all, it is difficult to raise the money to record the CD and publish it. Though for me, this problem was resolved relatively easily: Margrit organized a piano concert at her house, and almost the entire sum was raised. One elderly lady, Frau Kasten, laid out 7,000 German Marks. I think this fact could hold a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest price for a ticket to a piano concert, and a domestic one at that. After her gesture, I considered myself indebted to her for life, but Margrit reassured me somewhat, saying that all this money would later be deducted from her taxes, so it was no big deal. But I am grateful to her all the same.
Another difficulty is that during the recording, you must keep to the allotted time. If you overgrow it, you pay even more. And there can be plenty of disruptions and delays. First of all, there is the playing itself, when nothing goes right, and everything that passes unnoticed in live concerts suddenly becomes a stumbling block, and you have to re-record some two measures several times, concluding each failed attempt with choice Russian swear words.
It is difficult during repeated takes of an episode to play at the exact same tempo as in the previous versions. After all, the listeners at home must not suspect that the recording they are listening to, and perhaps even admiring, contains a large number of seams.
The next difficulty lies in the ability to simulate inspiration in, say, the tenth take just as you did the first time. Generally, inspiration visits a performer before a microphone rather reluctantly.
Yet another difficulty is the caprices of nature and environmental sounds: you are playing an episode, and suddenly a plane flies over the cathedral or a car starts honking, and everything goes to hell. Once it even started raining and disrupted all our plans. We had to record several loud episodes from various pieces during the rain, and then go drink beer in a neighboring caf;. The rain passed, and we recorded the quiet episodes, which my sound engineer Uwe Walter later pieced together so seamlessly that even I didn't notice it on the recording.
One can say that my first compact disc turned out to be quite successful. A year after its release, the "H;nssler" label released a compilation CD titled Majest;tische Orgel, which featured several very prominent European organists, such as Fr;schle, Haselb;ck, and others. This compact disc opened with my performance of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D Major, which had been selected from my solo disc.
True, nobody asked my permission for this, and nobody paid me for it. But it's very gratifying all the same.






Chapter 42
Once, the phone rang in my apartment. It was a call from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance with an invitation to meet the academy's director, the world-renowned conductor Mendi Rodan.
He immediately offered me a half-time position teaching the organ class. Truth be told, I didn't quite understand how one could teach organ playing in a place that didn't have an organ. There was an electronic "Johannus" organ, just like the one I had at home, but that is not an instrument for serious training.
Be that as it may, I suddenly found myself among the elite of musical Israel.
To get to Jerusalem, I had to wake up at 4:00 AM every Tuesday (just like every other day), clean the city until 7:00 AM, then rush home, shave, wash, put on a professor-like appearance, and, exceeding the speed limit, drive to Jerusalem. (Interestingly, from my home in Karmiel to the academy in Jerusalem, it is exactly 200 km. No more, no less.) I worked there for six hours, and then it was another 200 km behind the wheel to get back home. Once, I even got into a car accident, which I described in the opening pages of this book.
My colleagues at the academy were people I couldn't have even dreamed of meeting before, but now I was drinking coffee on equal terms in the staff room with Evgeny Shenderovich—a prominent and famous accompanist-pianist in the Soviet Union, partner to Evgeny Nesterenko and other outstanding singers; with the cellist Mikhail Khomitser; with the former Bolshoi Theatre star, the ninety-year-old tenor Solomon Khromchenko; not to mention the great Bolshoi ballerina Nina Timofeyeva.
Today, it is hard for me to imagine how it was possible to wake up in the middle of the night, work the grueling job of a garbage collector, rush home, tidy myself up, and race to Jerusalem in my car through traffic jams and bottlenecks, make it to work on time, work there for six hours, and return home to Karmiel! And after all that, I would sometimes still go out partying.
But that’s how it was.
A short time later, I received a call inviting me to Dan Shilon's TV show—the most popular entertainment program in Israel.
Early in the morning on the day of the broadcast, a camera crew arrived in Karmiel and filmed me working as a garbage collector, and by evening, the organ from the academy was transported to the studio. A sensation was in the making. Among the guests on the talk show, along with the others, was a prominent Israeli politician, the Minister of the Environment at the time, Yossi Sarid. It was expected that a face-to-face meeting on camera between the Minister of the Environment and an outstanding garbage collector would cause a sensation. By the way, during the program, I didn't know who Yossi Sarid was, but I understood he was someone important. Later, back in Karmiel, they explained to me who he had been.
I sat down at the organ and played Bach's "mainstream" Toccata in D minor (though without the fugue). Any other music would have been pointless there. And at that exact moment, the TV viewers were being shown the video footage of my morning work. The effect was achieved. Minister Yossi Sarid was so moved by the musical level of the Karmiel garbage collector that he kissed me right on the show. When the program went to a commercial break, he wanted to take down my phone number to help me with something, as he put it, but by the time he pulled a pen out of his pocket, the commercials ended and the show went back on the air. We never returned to that matter. He either forgot or changed his mind. It happens.

Upon returning to Karmiel, to the surprise of my colleagues, I dragged myself to my cleaning shift that very same night. After work, I gathered myself to sleep as usual, but it was not to be: my phone started ringing off the hook.
To this day, I don't understand who was calling and why. Everyone was telling me that I was "motek"—meaning "sweetheart"—and "kol ha-kavod"—meaning "kudos" or "all honor to you." But nobody said anything more intelligent than that. After the thirtieth call, I told my mom that I needed to sleep. And if anyone of lower status than some minister called, please do not call me to the phone. I was joking, of course. But before I could even lock myself in my room, my mom knocked and said: "You wanted a minister? Go to the phone." It was the "Russian" secretary of the Minister of Absorption, Yair Tzaban. She said that the minister was thrilled with me (which was natural) and he was asking what he could give me as a gift—maybe a tailcoat? I said that I already had a Cardin tailcoat. She changed her tone slightly, realizing, apparently, that cheap stuff wouldn't cut it. I tried to explain to her that I didn't need any gifts since I had everything, but she insisted, and I concluded the conversation by saying that if the minister really wanted to do something valuable for me, he should try to ensure that I worked at the Academy of Music permanently and on a full-time position. She replied that it was a good thought.
I must say that the Minister of Absorption, Yair Tzaban, did indeed come to the Academy of Music for a meeting with the new immigrant teachers, with the main goal, of course, being to see me. I even played for him privately. Naturally, he was very pleased. The director of the Academy, Mendi Rodan, was present and assured him that everything was well and wonderful with me. And so the minister decided he had fulfilled his mission, so I have no particular grievances against him.
After all, nobody assumed back then that the new director would lay me off four years later (and he would be right to do so—after all, I was teaching without an instrument and practically without students. It was an elective for pianists). But I certainly embellished my biography back then.
So, after the call from the Absorption Minister's secretary, I went back to sleep, telling my mom that I would only answer the phone if the President of Israel or Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called, no less. Before I could lock myself in my room, my mom knocked on the door again, saying: "You wanted Rabin? Go to the phone." Rabin’s secretary was calling to say that Rabin had seen me yesterday and was thrilled with me (which was natural), and she also said that in a little while I would be invited to some gathering with Rabin so that I could play something there.
After a while, I was indeed invited to the office of Prime Minister Rabin. The organ was transported from the Academy of Music, and for the first time in the entire history of the Holy Land and the people of Israel, Bach chorales—which were arrangements of hymns based on Gospel narratives—were performed in the office of its leader. Granted, just to be safe, I did not announce the titles of the chorales. First things first. If I had announced, for example, that I was performing the chorale "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ", I am not sure that some of the listeners wouldn't have had a stroke. For those who don't understand, let me explain: in the Jewish religion, Jesus Christ is not the Son of God.
Once, I went to a concert by Zinovy Gerdt, a very famous Soviet actor, who is regarded as an intellectual. During his performance, he kept emphasizing his Jewishness, came out wearing a kippah, and at the end, encouraging the Jews who had recently arrived in Israel, said: "Everything will be fine for you! Don't despair! I pray to Christ God."
After my performance, Rabin thanked me very warmly, saying that he knew me well because he had listened to my concert on the radio. At that period, I had never performed on the radio even once, but... if he said the radio, then the radio it was. I didn't argue. I gave him my new CD, and he handed me a certificate of honor stating that it was intended for Roman Krasnovsky—a distinguished employee of the Prime Minister's Office. How about that!
Apparently, they didn't have any other blanks.
Yitzhak Rabin was very popular among Russian-speaking immigrants from the USSR because it was under his leadership that Victory Day on May 9th began to be officially celebrated. Before Rabin's rule, local Israelis did not know about this date. And when on May 9, 1990, for the first time, "Russian" grandpas, covered in medals and orders, marched out onto the streets in an organized manner, all the locals couldn't understand what on earth it was and, just in case, ran home. When it was explained to them what was going on, they didn't understand what the USSR had to do with the victory over Nazi Germany—after all, it was America that defeated fascism. When that too was explained to them, they didn't understand why everyone was covered in medals—Israel is in endless wars, and almost everyone has fought in them, yet nobody has a single medal or order, and nobody brags about it. And it was Rabin who tried to sort this out.
If you compare the Prime Minister's Office in Israel to the Central Committee of the CPSU in the USSR, the Israeli leadership is undeniably closer to the people. I have never been to the Central Committee of the CPSU, of course, but I had the chance to perform twice at the Kharkiv Regional Party Committee. Everything there sparkled like a palace: stunning carpets, luxurious doors, exquisite finishes. The committee workers were gloomy and unapproachable. After my performance there, I was allowed to buy a box of chocolates in the cafeteria, the kind that was nowhere near available in public sale. When my daughter, who was still very small, performed as part of a children's choir at a concert in the Kharkiv Regional Party Committee, they were all presented with the highly scarce "Kurochka Ryaba" (Little Flint Hen) chocolates. She was so proud that she spoke to me with obvious condescension that evening. Even a child understood that she had been to a place where not everyone is allowed.
In the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, there are no special differences from an ordinary Israeli institution. Everything is like everywhere else. People are not arrogant: everyone shook my hand and asked "ma nishma?", meaning "what's new?". Everything was just like on an Israeli street. As for the food, there was a buffet after my performance. I am generally not a fan of Israeli food, but it seemed to me that they had deliberately brought in all the most tasteless things. You really had to try hard to prepare such nonsense. In all of this, I see the closeness of the Israeli government to the people and the superiority of Israeli democracy over Soviet democracy. I should add that when I was driven to the Prime Minister's Office in a ministerial car, we stood in a traffic jam for about forty minutes. The fact that it was a ministerial car made no difference whatsoever. There was no police with flashing lights. Just like everyone else.
Soon, I was invited to Dan Shilon's talk show once again. This time, I sat there lounging casually in my chair, giving the impression of a successful "Rusi" (Russian) who didn't give a damn about anyone or anything and spent all his time abroad (in Israel, this is an object of special envy).
The next morning, I began glancing at the phone, expecting a huge number of useless calls. But this time, nobody called me. "Successful" people are of no interest to anyone here.












Chapter 43
In the opening chapters of this book, I wrote that after Aram Khachaturian praised my compositions, I stopped writing music forever. But it turned out otherwise. Yitzhak Rabin, whom I had met not so long ago, was assassinated.
I, like the rest of the world, was in shock.
For a long time, I had wanted Jewish intonations to be heard on a "non-kosher instrument"—the organ, and I deeply regretted that I was not a composer and could not fill this gap (although such works did exist—I just didn't know them).
Rabin's murder awakened in me a desire to compose a sad melody with Jewish intonations, which became the basis of my first organ composition titled "Trauer um Jitzhak Rabin" (Mourning for Yitzhak Rabin).
The premiere took place in Frankfurt am Main at the Katharinenkirche. I had been anxiously waiting for this concert for a year and a half, and I flew to Frankfurt with a cane, limping on one leg, because exactly a week before the concert, I tore a muscle in my right leg by overexerting myself at my "garbage" job. This concert could not be canceled, and I decided that in the worst-case scenario, they would give me an injection, like they do for athletes, and I would play anyway. Let me remind you that the organ is played with the feet just as much as with the hands. Fortunately, by the day of the concert, the pain in my leg had almost vanished on its own.
My piece was well received by the audience and critics, though I understand: this is such a sensitive topic that it would have been simply impossible to receive my piece negatively, especially in Germany. In Israel, however, it was possible: many of my compatriots told me that I was an opportunist and, generally, questioned who I had found to write about and mourn for.
Nevertheless, a beginning had been made. I mean my composing career.
Around the same time, I had to play the organ at the funeral of Ursula's Aunt Gertrude. At the wake, Margrit Pfister pitched an idea to me: to compose something on this occasion for Ursula. That is how the piece "Ursula, von ferne her begleitet" came about—something like "Ursula, Guarded by Heaven." (I'll say right away that I didn't come up with all these titles myself.)
Then I composed a piece for Margrit, which I called "Auf dem Velo durch Basel"—something like "On a Bicycle Through Basel." A rather unexpected title for organ music, because Margrit, like many residents of Basel, moved around the city only by bicycle. By the way, I was well acquainted with the Mayor of Basel. She (a woman) often came to my concerts, and always on a bicycle. She didn't have Mercedes cars with an escort.
Finally, I composed a piece that I dedicated to Anneke: these are comic variations on a famous Dutch theme, which I titled "Auf der Suche nach Hollands 'Bergweg'"—something like "In Search of Holland's Bergweg." "Bergweg" in Russian means a mountain road. In my piece, "Bergweg" is merely the name of a trolleybus stop near which Anneke's aunt lived, which I, once while in Holland, painfully struggled to reach alone on a trolleybus, not knowing where to go, where to get off, or how to explain to the driver what I needed.
For the Dutch, the humor also lies in the fact that there is not a single mountain in this country, and one can search for a "mountain road" indefinitely. There is no mountain, but the trolleybus stop exists.
I collected all three pieces into a single cycle, which I called "Europ;isches Triptichon"—something like "European Triptych." Later on, I recorded two pieces from the "European Triptych," dedicated to Margrit and Ursula, on new CDs. I haven't recorded the piece dedicated to Anneke yet. We are waiting.
But with "Mourning for Yitzhak Rabin," things turned out interesting: I recorded this piece on a CD as well, and everything was quiet and peaceful. A few years later, my friend Peter Brusius called me and informed me that this piece had unexpectedly been included in a set of discs under the general title "Musica et memoria". To put it simply, in the Anthology of World Mourning Music, or even more simply—in World Funeral Music.
I was flattered, but didn't attach much importance to it.
Exactly ten years later, I remembered this and asked my daughter Irochka, who by that time was already living and working in Basel, to track down these discs and buy them for me. Soon enough, I received the set of these "funeral" CDs. When I saw them with my own eyes, and most importantly, when I opened the accompanying booklet with commentaries, in which I read my biography in different languages alongside the biographies of my colleagues—Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Penderecki, Saint-Sa;ns, and a few others, well... my mind was blown. Think about it: I became a classic of world funeral music! Well, at least that's something.
During my travels, I repeatedly found myself in various comical situations, often due to absentmindedness, and often due to a poor command of languages. Let me share a few of them.
In Europe, many people say a prayer before eating. While staying at Margrit’s, I wouldn't start breakfast, lunch, or dinner until she said the prayer, which always ended with the word "amen," as it should. After this "amen," she always said ";guete", which means "bon app;tit" in Swiss German. I got so used to this combination of "amen – ;guete" that I once got into a funny situation, despite the reason behind it being far from cheerful. In one of the concerts, I was supposed to play my piece "Mourning for Yitzhak Rabin." I was warned to make a long pause before this piece, during which the pastor would read a prayer for Rabin, and since the prayer ends with the word "amen," I should start my piece right after it. He read the prayer, said "amen," but I wasn't playing. The audience already began raising their heads toward the organ, not understanding what had happened. And what happened was this: I wasn't starting because I was waiting for the pastor to say ";guete" after "amen."
And what about the time when, playing regularly in the small town of K;nigsfeld, I always stayed with the hospitable Glitsch family, without realizing for almost three years that I was living in the home of the daughter of the great German pianist Wilhelm Kempff, whose name and records I had known and whose mastery I had idolized since childhood. Of course, they had told me, but due to my poor German, I didn't catch on and only understood it a few years later.
In the summer of 1999, I played a concert in a small German town called Schopfheim. The program featured my recently composed "Jewish Symphony" for organ. It was like a minor premiere before the big one in Berlin, at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ged;chtniskirche. The concert went beautifully. Then came the restaurant. The food was beyond praise. During dessert, someone slipped me a guestbook, in which I immediately wrote that I had never eaten such delicious food. Everyone around me, including the local organist, went suspiciously quiet after reading my entry and started looking at me rather strangely. Meanwhile, I was beaming, admiring my own wit. After a few brief explanations, it turned out that they had given me the cathedral's guestbook, not the restaurant's, hoping I would write down my impressions of the organ and the concert, but certainly not about the schnitzel. There was a lot of laughter. I managed to cleverly add a certain flowery phrase about the concert so that it actually turned out original: I killed two birds with one stone—both the schnitzel and the organ.
This is where I stopped writing this book, I think, in 1998. Everything beyond this point was continued already in 2022, but it describes the events from 1998 onward.


                Four hands with Irina






Chapter 44
It could be said that life was getting back on track. I was performing actively in various countries, teaching at the Jerusalem Academy and the Carmiel Conservatory, and had released several CDs through a well-known record label. My daughter started flying in every summer—the first two times accompanied by my first wife, Lyuda. I flew to Kharkiv several times to see my daughter and perform concerts there. I remember the ticket queue for my Kharkiv concert being as long as the line for the Lenin Mausoleum. Kharkiv television even produced a program about me titled “Look Who We Lost!” (I’m about to burst into tears.)
A flat was purchased without any significant debt; true, it was shared with my parents, but that didn't bother me.
I was also not wanting for female attention.
The only thing spoiling the overall picture was that my primary job was working as a municipal sanitation worker. Yet, at the same time, this was my "thing"—a quirk that lent me a certain charm. As for me, I viewed it as a three-hour morning jog, just with a paycheck.
Various documentaries and short films were regularly made about me. I earned a decent wage, and from all my jobs combined, an exceptionally good one—and this was at a time when many immigrants were still struggling with a lack of money and stability.
In short, everything was wonderful, but...
I was already over forty, and it was about time to get married, but I just didn't want to! I was perfectly fine as I was, so why bring fresh trouble upon my head? I comforted myself with the thought that there was no suitable bride for me anyway: I categorically refused to marry a woman from Carmiel, and moving to a hypothetical wife's city meant instantly losing the comfortable life I had grown so accustomed to, only to inherit new, unnecessary complications.
I looked around at women in Europe, but nothing came of it either. I even flew to New York after tracking down my high school sweetheart, Larisa. However, after spending a wonderful week together, we realized that moving to her city would bring nothing but fresh hardships and deprivations.
Still, I didn’t worry much; I was doing very well on my own.
One of our city's active residents suggested that I could host concerts at home using my home organ, which sounded (and still sounds) very decent. Mind you, this was the mid-1990s.
I must say, I hosted these concerts with great pleasure. Beautifully dressed people would come, mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and usually, after these home concerts, I would find myself a new girlfriend, which suited me just fine. Once, during such a concert, my eyes caught a certain young woman, and my immediate thought was that if I were destined to marry again, she was the only one I should marry. I didn't manage to talk to her then; the setting wasn't right, as there were too many people. Eventually, I found her.
We met, and we haven't been apart since. Her name is Olga (Olya). My signature joke ever since has been: "My wife is a simple Jewish girl from Dniprodzerzhynsk, Olga Stepanovna Chabanenko." By the way, in twenty-five years, I still haven't returned the 15 shekels she paid for that concert ticket. What a cheapskate!
Calling her Jewish is quite a stretch, but formally, through her maternal grandmother—yes. I emphasize this on purpose, because in Israel you can only marry through a religious ceremony, and for us, this was possible. However, we didn't want to deal with the Rabbinate and decided to do it in Cyprus, as "mixed" couples often do. Because of this, we had to wait a year since Olya didn't have a passport for travel abroad. Back then, passports weren't issued right away. Imagine a half-hour flight on a massive, three-aisle Boeing, filled entirely with brides and grooms.
And so, on October 13, 1998, our wedding took place in Cyprus, in the village of Germasogeia near the city of Limassol. But we received the stamp on our Marriage Certificate the next day, October 14, in the capital city of Nicosia.
In our Israeli passports, our marriage was confirmed and registered at the Ministry of Interior branch in the city of Akko on October 15. (Without that registration in the Israeli passport, that Marriage Certificate could have been torn into tiny pieces and thrown into the wastebasket.)
So, I never know on which date I should buy a bouquet and congratulate Olechka on such bliss. Take your pick.
From this moment on, I will call Olya "Oltsya"—the name I use for her in daily life.
Just like that, in a single minute, Oltsya shattered all my stereotypes: not to marry a girl from Carmiel, let alone one who had nothing to her name. It was only later, working as an architect, that she began to earn more than me, which she continues to do to this day.
As a memento of our wedding in Cyprus, I composed an organ erotic fantasy, which I dedicated to my young wife (nine years younger, after all) and titled “Cyprus Nights.” I couldn't explicitly write "erotic fantasy" in the sheet music since I perform in cathedrals, and that title simply wouldn't fly there. In the music, I tried to depict exoticism, romance, and sensuality, but in reality, everything was the exact opposite.
We were put up in what seemed like a decent hotel in Limassol: close to the sea, a pleasant environment all around, nice shops—and, of course, everything cheaper than in Israel. But it turned out that a cricket lived in our room.
Before that, I had always been charmed by the distant chirping of crickets, but you cannot imagine what a cricket sounds like at close range. The moment we turned off the light, the little bastard would start screaming furiously (in the light, he kept quiet). It was like having a siren in the room. Finding him was impossible. Negotiating with the hotel management to switch rooms was also impossible; they pretended not to understand what I was talking about. So, we had no romantic Cyprus nights; we couldn't even manage a basic night's sleep. But at least I captured it in music.
Some time later, I performed “Cyprus Nights” in no less a place than Cologne Cathedral, and a while after that in the famous Notre-Dame de Paris. No room for an "Erotic Fantasy" there. I am no Victor Hugo, after all.
By the way, to describe Oltsya’s strict, "Nordic" character, let me share one episode.
Imagine, especially the women among you, sitting at a concert in a packed Notre-Dame de Paris. Before the piece begins, their bishop stands up and announces to an audience of thousands that “the performer has dedicated this piece to his wife Olga, who is present here today”...
As my friends sitting next to Oltsya later told me: "Olya even offered a faint smile."

Chapter 45
I don't remember now how Debora Ben David (known to everyone as Debbie), the head of the cultural department at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, found out about me, but she contacted me and offered to arrange a tour through Moldova and Ukraine, which made me very happy. First of all, my daughter Irochka lived in Kharkiv. Secondly, when you go on a concert tour arranged by such a prestigious institution, you have no issues with transport or hotels. Everything goes smoothly, comfortably, and quietly.
The first concert in Moldova was in Chi;in;u, in their organ hall. Then came Kyiv, then Kharkiv (the main goal of my trip), and Lviv. Irochka flew with me to Lviv, and after the concert, we returned to Kyiv, from where she took a train to Kharkiv, and I flew back to Israel.
Among other things, this trip flattered my ego: who would have let me anywhere near the Kyiv House of Organ and Chamber Music before?—the one that would later burn down in 2021, leaving all my friends, the Kyiv organists, out of work.
Or take Lviv: who would have given me a solo concert there? But now, people carried my suitcases for me. All over Lviv, posters were plastered: The Virtuoso of Israel, Roman Krasnovsky. And the address of the House of Organ Music: 8 Stephan Bandera Street. At the time, it made a great impression on me. I even brought one of the posters back to Israel with me. During the concert, the House of Organ Music was guarded by a police detachment. Irochka was thrilled!
While in Kyiv, my handler became the Deputy Ambassador of Israel to Ukraine, Mr. Zeev Ben Aryeh, which translates into Russian as "Wolf, Son of Lion." A few years later, Zeev would be a massive help to my daughter Irochka in securing a visa to Germany for her first trip to Europe. She could easily get the visa itself, but to get it, one had to physically enter the German embassy, and the queue to get inside was backed up for months. Zeev helped her get in, and after that, the rest was easy. But that happened later.
In time, Debora Ben David became the cultural attach; at the Israeli Embassy in Germany, in Berlin. For me, this resulted in two more interesting visits to Berlin, where, during the first trip, I played at the "Tel Aviv Non-Stop" festival. I was even filmed by Berlin television and featured on the evening news. There, I played a solo concert at the Berliner Dom on an incredible, fairy-tale organ. The second time was just an organ concert in one of Berlin’s cathedrals. (In general, I perform in Berlin quite often on my own hook.)
Upon returning from Kyiv to Israel and arriving in Carmiel from the airport, Oltsya and I still managed to make a doctor's appointment, where we were informed that in nine months, we were going to have a baby. Consequently, Oltsya could no longer accompany me to the concert at Cologne Cathedral, where among other things I was to perform “Cyprus Nights,” which were dedicated to her: a couple of days before the concert, Dimochka was born in the Nahariya hospital.
I want the dear reader to imagine the situation: I have a concert at Cologne Cathedral that can only be canceled in the event of my own funeral, yet the baby refuses to be born, even though the due date has already passed. Everyone around me is saying: "Roma, how can you fly to Germany and leave Olya alone in this situation? Are you not human?"
What should I do? How should I handle this?
I am supposed to fly out on August 20. The concert is on the 22nd—a concert I have waited for my entire life. And on the morning of the 23rd, at eight o'clock at the Frankfurt airport, I am supposed to meet my daughter Irochka, who is flying to Europe for the first time for an audition at the Academy of Music in Basel.
Lord, help me!
But this is Israel! The land of miracles! Anything is possible here!
On the evening of the 18th, I put Oltsya in the car and drive her to the hospital in Nahariya, with the idea that in the reception of the maternity ward, she should say she felt something moving or starting. While she was babbling something over there, I approached the doctor on duty. He turned out to be a "Russian" guy (though even if he hadn't been "Russian," or had been an Arab, it would have been exactly the same). I explained the whole situation with Cologne Cathedral to him in detail.
He understood perfectly and told me: "Don't sweat it! We'll deliver now."  He admitted Oltsya to the ward, pressed on her belly, her water broke—and off we went! (I was reminded of Rachmaninoff's romance Spring Waters.)
I was present at the birth from start to finish, and I actually quite liked it. At five in the morning on August 19, 2000, Dimochka was born.
Interestingly, it was on August 19, but back in 1978, that my first marriage took place.
Usually in Israel, names like Dmitry are not given. But we named him in honor of Dmitry Shostakovich. Dimochka also has a second name—David—but he doesn't use it... yet. In the evening, I left for Israel’s David (again) Ben-Gurion Airport.
Of course, a concert at Cologne Cathedral is a special event. Besides Olya's “Cyprus Nights,” I also played my “Jewish Symphony” and, naturally, some Bach, whom I performed terribly—but I compensated for everything with the “Jewish Symphony,” which brought the house down, making everyone forget all about my Bach. Afterward, there was a restaurant where I delivered a historic speech about how Cologne Cathedral, in its centuries-old history, had seen everything, but it had never yet seen or heard its “Jewish Symphony” performed by an Israeli street sweeper.
My friends Peter Brusius and Erwin Althaus drove to the concert from Marburg (which is far from Cologne), and we went to Marburg after the restaurant. Following a short night, I was already at the Frankfurt airport (which is far from Marburg) by eight in the morning and met my daughter Irochka there.
But the adventures did not end there. From the Frankfurt airport, we took a train to Basel, and during a transfer, we forgot Irochka’s main suitcase in the carriage—the one with her clothes, sheet music, gifts for Margrit, and everything else. Fortunately, her passport and tickets were in her handbag. In Basel, we reported the loss. Usually, in Germany and Switzerland, items left on trains are found and returned, but that was not the case this time.
It was the price to pay for happiness.




                On the Rhine.
 My, my son Dimochka, my daughter Irochka, my first wife Lyuda, my second wife Olya.

Chapter 46
Margrit arranged an audition for Irochka at the Basel Academy of Music with a young, highly promising professor, Adrian Oetiker. Frankly, I felt a little slighted, since Rudolf Buchbinder and even Krystian Zimerman taught in the neighboring classrooms. Later on, Irochka often dropped by Zimerman’s class; he was friendly with Oetiker and even played four-hands with him. (She recalled how Zimerman, immaculately dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, would arrive at work at the academy on a kick scooter.)
But Oetiker turned out to be a wonderful professor, despite being only slightly older than Irochka. He had studied at the Juilliard School in New York under Bella Davidovich.
Allow me a brief digression. I don't miss life in the USSR, but I remember with nostalgia that every year Bella Davidovich, Nikolai Petrov, Dmitry Bashkirov, Lev Vlasenko, Oxana Yablonskaya (with whom I often chat on the phone nowadays), Yakov Zak, and Yakov Flier came to give concerts in Kharkiv, and even in Donetsk. Even the divine Grigory Sokolov, whose concerts people now travel to other countries to see, came to Kharkiv every year. How could anyone forget my conversations with Sokolov? He never brushed anyone off and thoroughly explained everything being discussed (and he knew everything in the world). He asked me what I was playing at the time, and I was preparing Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit for my state exam. He sat down at the piano and began to play "Ondine."
I froze: to hear and see something like that from up close was a divine gift. I had never imagined such perfection before. A few years later, I attended his concert in Moscow, at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. When, after that fabulous concert, I timidly peeked into the artist’s dressing room, he asked joyfully, "Roman, how on earth did you end up here?"
Not long ago, Nadezhda Zhdanova released a film about G. Sokolov called The Conversation That Never Was. I am very proud that at the end of this film, my name is included in the list of people the filmmakers express gratitude to.
And how could anyone forget how the incredibly massive Nikolai Arnoldovich Petrov recommended his "special" weight-loss recipe to me: during a full moon (or a new moon), you were supposed to eat nothing but pears with water for a few days—though he did warn me not to overdo it with the pears (there was a limit), otherwise, it would end up like it did for him. In his words, "he wanted to take a sh*t more than he wanted to become a Lenin Prize laureate." I naively asked where one could get pears in winter. Nikolai Arnoldovich said, "Romochka, can you just go to the market and buy a kilogram of pears for three rubles once in your life?" I said uncertainly that I could. "Then go and buy them," he commanded. But observing Nikolai Petrov in later years, I became convinced that this diet clearly hadn’t helped him.
I want to reveal another secret: many years ago, Nikolai Petrov played M. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition on Central Television, and there is a movement called "Two Jews, Rich and Poor." In the credits, they just wrote "Rich and Poor," ignoring the words "Two Jews." I asked him directly—why was that? He answered me sadly, "Romochka, I recorded Pictures at an Exhibition for television twice: on Moldovan TV and on Central TV. On Moldovan TV, I successfully demanded the phrase 'Two Jews, Rich and Poor,' but on Central TV, I just couldn't manage it."
As for Bella Davidovich, I never spoke with her, but her regular concerts in Kharkiv were unforgettable.
My God, where has all that gone!
But let’s return to Irochka’s audition. Oetiker listened to her for a few minutes at his home and told us to come to the Academy the next day. There, he led us into the director's office, where Irochka played for them for about five minutes. Then Margrit and I were asked to step out, and a minute later we were told that Irochka was accepted, that there was no need to come for the entrance exams, and they would automatically credit her harmony and ear training, because they knew very well that in the USSR these subjects were taught with ironclad rigor. That was it!

















Chapter 47
On the eighth day, a Jewish boy is circumcised. If you follow Jesus Christ, it turns out that the traditional New Year, celebrated worldwide from December 31st to January 1st, falls precisely on the day of his circumcision, exactly the eighth day after Christmas (the non-Orthodox one, of course). And although Dimochka is Greek-Ukrainian-Jewish, formally he is a Jew, and according to Halakha laws, on the eighth day we had to... well, you understand.
I didn't attend the event, though I should have. After the Cologne Cathedral, I had a few more concerts in Europe. On the morning of the circumcision, I was giving a morning organ concert in some German city. At that very moment, the organ suddenly stopped playing, and the concert had to be cut short. The audience stood up and went home. This was the only time in my life (so far) that such a thing happened at a concert. I, a person who until then hadn't believed in any kind of mysticism, paused to think.
And another mystical episode unsettled me. We were changing another car: leaving the old one at the dealership and taking a new one (it’s called trade-in). At the moment we were transferring our things from one car to the other, suddenly the old car, whose anti-theft siren had never gone off once in its life, started honking at full blast without stopping. It was impossible to shut it up. I crawled under the hood and pulled the wire, but... it kept wailing. Tears started streaming down Olya’s and my faces, and only then did it stop. The car was sobbing, and we were sobbing with it. I can't forget this.
I assure you all: objects have a soul.
Dimochka’s birth, of course, changed our lives. Olya and I bought another small flat not very far from us, and my parents moved in there. Olya's parents got a quite decent two-room apartment in a retirement residence, also nearby. I must note that in our town, everything is close by.
All in all, life entered a new stage.
Our daughter Irochka also settled in quite well in Basel. During her studies, she participated in the Zurich "RAHN" competition, where she won first prize, the title of laureate, a pile of money, concerts across Switzerland for a couple of years, and a performance of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto with an orchestra at the Zurich Tonhalle. How about that!
I found out about this while sitting in a luxurious hotel bathtub before my solo concert at the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri in Rome. It was designed by Michelangelo himself at the age of 86. It was his last architectural project, and he evidently did his best. At any rate, Olya, being an architect, appreciated his work. The only thing she didn't like was a small cemetery right on the basilica's premises, in the passageway leading to the administrative section. While I was rehearsing, she had to return the keys to that part of the building and walk past those graves in the dark, and then come back again. Out of sheer fear, she didn't even notice the graves of the great painter Salvator Rosa and Pope Pius IV. She was in such a rush.
The second problem turned out to be crossing the road in front of the basilica. I thought the concert would be canceled or, at best, delayed: crossing it, even at a pedestrian crossing, was impossible due to the Italian driving style. But we did it! How—I don’t remember anymore.
I was received as if I were Luciano Pavarotti or Montserrat Caball;, which is actually bad. During such rare triumphs, I keep a smile on my face while bowing, of course, but a sad one, because I know: they will never invite me there again in my life. It has already happened to me in Cologne, Prague, and Munich. All solo performers, except for organists, are invited by philharmonics through impresarios, and a great success is a guarantee for new invitations. An organist, however, is invited to a concert by another organist—the one who works in that particular cathedral, and he simply doesn't need the triumphant success of a visiting organist. That’s why I fear such warm receptions like the plague. Though it’s nice, of course.
In Notre-Dame de Paris, I was also blessed with great success, even twice, and was invited for a third time. But on January 11, 2020, my concert, like the others, was canceled due to the fire in the cathedral.
Performing in that place, a musician is doomed to success: the very name of the cathedral, a multi-thousand audience (many people didn't come for the concert, but just walked in to see the cathedral), the divine sound of the organ, regardless of the quality of the performer—all this guarantees a triumph. After the concert, like Quasimodo, you descend to the street, and the excited crowd is still exiting the cathedral. And nobody pays any attention to you because they don't know it was you who was playing. The organ is up under the ceiling, after all, and no one sees the performer.
I never even imagined I would be able to perform at Notre-Dame de Paris. But my old pal living in Paris, a stupendous organist named Eduard Oganessian, who was de facto the best organist in the USSR, passed my CD to the right person, and they invited me to perform there.
Let me sidetrack and brag a little. By that time, I had recorded all three of my organ symphonies on a CD: the first—the "Jewish Symphony," dedicated to my parents; the second—the "Margrit Symphony," dedicated to Margrit Pfister; and the third—the "Brusius Symphony," dedicated to Peter Brusius. This disc was recorded on a marvelous Seifert organ in the German town of Rhede. This organ was given to us to mess around with completely free of charge for a few nights by a wonderful guy and excellent organist, Stefan M;ller (a rare surname in Germany, just like "Ivanov" in the USSR). And I was recorded by my old friend, a sound engineer from Berlin, Christian Hadulla. The CD was released in Berlin.
There is a clich;d and hackneyed phrase: "Now I can die in peace." When I saw this compact disc with my own eyes, I uttered that clich;d and hackneyed phrase.
So, Edik Oganessian passed this CD of mine to the organ curator of Notre-Dame de Paris, Philippe Guyonnet, and Philippe later wrote to Edik that he had listened to this disc three times in a row without stopping, which means: three symphonies multiplied by three equals nine. And each lasts approximately half an hour. This was what decided the fate of my performances at the famous Notre-Dame de Paris.

                My family

Chapter 48
My second performance at Notre-Dame de Paris was marred by a most unpleasant incident: I was robbed right before my very eyes in the Paris M;tro while Oltsya, a slightly grown-up Dimochka, and I were heading to the cathedral for a rehearsal.
We had decided to take Dimochka to Paris to bring him some joy, so he could see this magical city and hear his papa perform in such a place! But all of that was wiped out in a single moment. Of course, only someone as carefree as I could stroll around Paris with the entire sum of our cash sitting in his wallet. That same wallet held all kinds of plastic cards: a bank card, a driver’s license, a health insurance card, and many other things. At that moment, I had to figure out how to cancel the bank card, and a rehearsal or concert was the absolute last thing on my mind.
There used to be a half-joke, half-riddle: How is Paris different from a man? The answer: Paris is always Paris. Ha-ha-ha.
Alas, today's Paris is not the Paris I used to know. The entire city is swarming with shady characters who clearly do not embellish it. We saw with our own eyes how these characters in supermarkets take whatever they want and walk right past the cash register without paying, while the cashiers don't say a single word... Where on earth are we heading?
The concert program included, among other pieces, my new composition, Prelude and Fugue on the Name "Eduard", which I dedicated to Edik Oganesyan, where each letter of his name corresponded to a specific musical note. I dislike dynamic excuses or blaming my poor playing on external events, but this time I was visibly demoralized by that wretched episode. Even meeting the great organist Jean-Pierre Leguay, who works at the cathedral, did not ease my state of mind at that moment—though it remained in my memory for a long time. By the way, he is the second blind organist of Notre-Dame de Paris, after Louis Vierne.
I had a third concert scheduled at Notre-Dame de Paris, where I intended to fully redeem myself after the previous performance, but as I mentioned before, it never took place due to the fire. However, I did give a concert on the phenomenal organ at Saint-Eustache, and shortly before that, at the Cathedral of Les Invalides—the very one that houses Napoleon’s tomb. With that, my Parisian performances came to an end for the time being.
After the word "Paris," the word "London" naturally pops up right away, out of sheer inertia. There is even a song that goes: "After all, it's not for nothing that London and Paris walk in our little boots." To tell the truth, I never crossed paths with anyone wearing Russian boots in either London or Paris, though perhaps I just missed someone.
But let us return to London. In London, I played at the grandiose St. Paul’s Cathedral. The organ there is enormous (and very beautiful), but its keys are slightly shorter than standard length. And so, during the rehearsal, whenever I played a certain passage on the upper manual (there are five of them), the organ would completely stop sounding at the exact same spot every single time. It felt like some kind of mysticism. I was already driven to despair when it suddenly dawned on me: because the keys are a bit shorter than usual, the middle knuckle of my third finger was inadvertently catching a toggle on the organ panel in that exact same passage—a toggle that cuts off the sound. What if I hadn't figured it out? Imagine what a laughingstock I would have been.
One more thing: before the rehearsal, the Cathedral organist was showing me around, explaining the specific features of the instrument. Pointing to several stops, he asked me not to use them, as they were reserved exclusively for occasions when the Queen of England is present in the cathedral. Putting on a disappointed face, I asked: "Why, isn't she coming to my concert tomorrow?" — "No. She is not coming," he replied with absolute seriousness. To this day, I still don't know whether he took my question literally or if that was a prime example of British humor.
I also played on a phenomenal organ in Cambridge, at the famous King’s College Chapel. I stayed right there, in a separate room in the student dormitory. I was escorted into a magnificent hall—just like in British films. I stood there dumbfounded: one could easily assume that some Lord Buckingham or another aristocrat of his caliber was about to step out. But the hall turned out to be the student cafeteria. The most delicious detail was that the envelope containing my contract had printed on it: “King’s College, Cambridge. Professor Roman Krasnovsky.” So, technically, I am a professor of Cambridge King’s College. If anyone doesn’t believe it—I can show you the document.
Yet all these beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) "geographical stories" did not exempt me from my long-standing routine of waking up every single day at four, and later even at three o’clock in the morning. After having some coffee by the computer and managing to get various important things done on it, I would head to work—meaning, onto the garbage truck.
There lay a completely different life, with different colleagues and a different way of communicating. My acquired, and sometimes even put-on, aristocratism (an organist, after all!) was of no use to anyone there, and I had to swap my "white gloves" for work gloves and just be like everyone else. What exactly "being like everyone else" means, I cannot explain, because then I would be accused of xenophobia or Lord knows what else. Incidentally, two of my "colleagues" once expressed a desire to come with me to my organ concert in Jerusalem, and both walked away highly satisfied. So, music truly is a great power.
Now, regarding the gloves. When I went out on the garbage truck for the first time, I realized that I absolutely had to work in gloves, otherwise I would be left without my aristocratic profession: simply put, you could injure your hands at any given second. So the next day, I showed up in gloves that I had fished out of our luggage items. Both my colleagues and the driver mocked me mercilessly. The sentiment was that you wouldn't get very far or get much work done with a laborer like that. A couple of days later, another "colleague" showed up wearing gloves, then the rest followed suit. And it became the norm: no one went out to work without gloves. Later on, the management even started purchasing gloves for everyone. Strange that they never felt the need for them before. But oh well.
The television crews and journalists continued to pester me. I was filmed for the news in Spain, in Australia, and by the Reuters agency, not to mention the Israeli media. I was a choice morsel for them, but Oltsya said, "Stop." She convinced me to turn down reports where the central theme was my "morning job." An exception was made for the TV show On the Three of Us with Igor Guberman and Aleksandr Okun. Igor Guberman called my wife himself and managed to persuade her to allow me to appear on their program, which, naturally, heavily played up the contrast between my professions. I also had to yield to the pressure of a German director who was making a major documentary about musicians from the former USSR who hadn't found employment in their profession (though I, in fact, was employed: I worked for four years at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, and at the conservatory in my home city for 30 years, right up until my retirement). Aside from mine, there were stories about three other musicians from various countries. Understandably, my story was the most picturesque.
The film even won some prize at a Czech film festival. How about that!













Chapter 49
One day, upon calling Irochka on her mobile phone, I heard an ecstatic voice: she informed me that she was currently on a train to the town of Morges to see the great tenor Nicolai Gedda! Oh-oh-oh-oh! Mein Gott! A living legend! If she had told me she was going to the home of Chaliapin or Enrico Caruso, it would have meant the exact same thing to me.
Once, Irochka and a friend stopped by an auto repair shop in Italy, and the mechanic's name was actually Enrico Caruso.
She was traveling to Nicolai Gedda's place to accompany someone during a private lesson that the maestro occasionally gave.
I was once asked by an Israeli singer in Switzerland to accompany her for a lesson at the home of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, but I had a concert that day and couldn't make it.
Irochka still remembers that unforgettable day to this day, especially since she left her scarf at Gedda's house. And I get to admire their photos together in the maestro's courtyard. Despite his very advanced age, he remained a handsome man with extraordinary charm. And now he is gone. I sadly joked that now Irochka and Nicolai Gedda share joint property—the scarf.
Irochka’s pull toward vocal and chamber music led her to a position as a vocal coach (repetiteur) at the Theater Basel.
In the USSR, they were called "theaters of opera and ballet," but in Basel, it is a combined theater of opera and drama, simply named "Theater." Only my natural modesty prevents me from writing about the massive competition Irochka had to overcome to get that position, being the only one holding a Ukrainian passport (which doesn't exactly help) among Europeans. I once made a reckless joke, saying that if Irochka ever got a Swiss passport, I, a non-drinker, would get drunk out of my mind. A few years later, she showed it to me over Skype. I did end up drinking a small glass.
I won't list all the vocal stars she has worked with over the years. But when she launched her YouTube channel, “PocketPianist”, she became mega-popular among vocalists worldwide. My personal pride is her thorough knowledge of, among other things, Alban Berg’s operas Lulu and Wozzeck (musicians will understand me), as well as the fact that she is frequently invited as a soloist-pianist to play with the Basel Symphony Orchestra. Usually, collaborative pianists are not invited to participate in such projects.
My second child, Dima, was doomed from his very first days to hear nothing but classical music—aside from what frequently blared loudly from Israeli windows. But he instantly understood what tasted "sweeter": Bach and Prokofiev, or songs like "Yalla, Moti, lekh habayta" (I won't translate—it's clear enough). I was practicing either the organ or the piano all the time anyway, so... you understand.
When the time came for Dima to learn music, I tried to sit him down at the piano, but nothing came of it. He clearly did not want to study with me, and I stubbornly refused to hand him over to anyone else, comforting myself with the thought: who else could he possibly study with in Karmiel if not with my beloved self? (Though there actually were people to study with at that time. And to study seriously.) But deep down in my soul, I was glad he didn't want to practice, knowing how impossible it is for a real musician to make a living in this life. I thought it was better for him to know and love music than to play it. But fate decreed otherwise.
The most common question asked to a garbage collector is about what can be found in the trash. I will say right away that you can find a lot—both in the trash itself and in what people leave out next to the dumpsters. They leave out televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, collected works of classic authors (to buy which we once used to write queue numbers on our hands while standing in lines overnight); furniture, sometimes usable; clothes, sometimes brand new and sealed; and much, much more. But most importantly—empty bottles. It was precisely on bottles and scrap metal (especially copper) that my colleagues built a business. Sometimes there was money: lots of scattered loose change (I would pick it up; it felt like a waste to leave it). I only found paper money a few times in 30 years. The amounts were enough for a modest trip to the supermarket. Personally, besides that money, I took nothing.
I lie! Once I found a spare part for my dishwasher. If I were to order this small part from the manufacturer, it would have cost more than the machine itself.
I used to eye books, but Oltsya forbade me from taking them "from the trash." Though they weren't exactly in the trash, but set out right beside it.
One day, our driver Neri got bored, jumped out of the cab, and started helping my colleagues sort through the discarded items (he loved finding hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and so on). Suddenly, calling me over as the only musician in our crew, he handed me a flute case containing a decent-looking flute from a Leningrad factory. I told him I didn't need it at all. To which he quite rightly replied: "So what, should we just throw it away? Isn't it a pity?" I felt sorry for it, so I took it, having no clue what for... At home, we wiped it down thoroughly; it was in fair condition, but I couldn't test it since I didn't even know which end to look into.
My ten-year-old Dimo÷êà suddenly showed an interest in the flute and even managed to produce a quite flute-like sound from it.
I tracked down our Karmiel conservatory flute teacher, Talma Deroi (it was August, and everyone was on vacation), and she delivered the verdict that this flute should be thrown back into the trash in the exact same spot where I found it. Repairing it—meaning replacing all the pads on the keys—would cost much more than the flute was worth, especially since it featured an old-system layout: the G with G-sharp and B with B-flat were inverted, and almost no one plays on such systems anymore.
Well, how about that! And Dima already wanted to learn how to play it.
But we didn't throw that flute away; it still sits in our closet as a historical artifact.
On the first of September, Dima began studying the flute with Talma at our conservatory, where they issued him a perfectly good Taiwanese-made flute. I highlighted the word "Taiwanese" because that country played a major role in my life, which I will write about later.
And that is how a chance find changed our entire lives. Dima has already achieved superb milestones on the flute, and every time, I buy driver Neri a bottle of whiskey. Not because I am so generous, but simply because through this bottle, I am thanking the Almighty via Neri. After all, the Almighty gave us the flute precisely through him.

Daniil Trifonov once came to our concert with Dimochka and even stayed until the end



Chapter 50
My father passed away in 2011 at the age of 88. A few years prior, he had undergone what was expected to be a "bad" surgery, but apparently, they did an excellent job, and we never had to worry about it again. He just needed routine checkups every six months, and that was it. By the way, my dad's attending physician was a Dr. Nasrallah. Just like the leader of Hezbollah.
So, my dad didn't pass away from that, but from Alzheimer's. As fate would have it, his decline coincided with a concert tour I couldn't possibly turn down at the Washington National Cathedral. To make matters even more intense, I also had a concert scheduled two days prior at the National City Christian Church in downtown Washington. I jokingly say that one performance was on the "small" organ and the other on the "large" one. In reality, that "small" organ was far larger than the giant instruments found in the Riga Dome Cathedral or Notre-Dame de Paris. As for the "large" organ at the Washington Cathedral, I won't even try to describe it—its scale was simply beyond comprehension. For fellow organists, I'll mention that both instruments featured a 64-foot stop in the pedal. To explain this to non-organists: imagine your personal car, say a Toyota or an Audi, but built to the exact proportions of a Boeing 747.
And so, my father lay unconscious in the ICU for several days, and I was faced with the agonizing necessity of flying out. Even my mother, who had always urged me to do what I needed to do and never let circumstances hold me back, pleaded, "Roma, how can you fly out now? You do realize that..."
On the day I was supposed to head to the airport—or stay behind—we went to visit my dad in the ICU. The situation was desperate. I was in a state of double shock, completely torn about what to do. The male nurse on duty—a short Arab man —came up to me and asked why I looked so deeply distressed. Pointing to my father, I explained my predicament. He asked how long I would be away.
I replied that I would be gone for exactly one week. (Flying to Washington is a long journey involving multiple layovers.)
He looked at me and said, "Go! We will keep your father stable for a week. When you get back, he will be in the exact same condition." I asked, "But what if...?" He cut me off: "No 'what ifs.' Just go!"
Needless to say, I wasn't in the best frame of mind while playing those two Washington organs, but... everything went ahead as planned.
The day after my return, my daughter Irochka flew in from Switzerland. She had come strictly for a visit, certainly not expecting a funeral, but that very evening we received the phone call from the hospital...
When I mentioned to the organist of the "small" Washington organ that I was looking for a flute for my young son, he led me into his dressing room. He pulled out a case containing a silver flute made by the well-known Armstrong company and said he could sell it to me for $250. Personally, I think the silver it was crafted from is worth far more than that. I had no way of testing it on the spot, but of course, I bought it right then and there. Knowing what flutes usually cost, I knew this was practically a giveaway. The instrument turned out to be excellent, even featuring a low B footjoint (flutists will understand), and Dima's first major musical achievements were made on this very flute.
Dima progressed as a flutist at such a breathtaking pace that exactly one year later, I didn't hesitate to include him in my organ concerts at the Immanuel Church in Tel Aviv and the Hecht Hall at Haifa University (which houses an organ built by Gideon Shamir). He performed completely mature, virtuosic pieces, such as the Tambourin by F. Gossec and even J.S. Bach’s famous Badinerie. Apparently, the flute isn't such a difficult instrument if you can tackle pieces like that after just one year of playing (just kidding, of course). Recordings of these performances are available on YouTube, which serves as proof that I am not exaggerating.
Later on, Dimochka toured with me in China, Taiwan, Germany (including Berlin), Madrid, and even at the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York. Though wait, let me rephrase that! In Carnegie Hall, he wasn't performing with me—I was performing with him.
Oltsya had read online about a regular video-submission competition held in the US called American Prot;g;, where the winners get to perform at Carnegie Hall. (Ha! Imagine that! Just try winning it!) Dima had been dreaming about that venue for ages, and suddenly, there it was: win, and Carnegie Hall is yours. You get exactly six minutes on stage—not a single second more.
Dima and I—or rather, I with Dima—recorded a few highly advanced, "grown-up" pieces and sent them in. We certainly didn't expect anything to come of it, but just in case, we secured US visas for Oltsya and Dima (I already had mine).
A few months later, we received word that Dima had won first place and was scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall on March 3, 2013 (with me accompanying him).
My driver, Neri, received his first bottle of celebratory whiskey.
Dima flew to New York with a bad cold, which worried us terribly. It is hard enough to play the flute under normal circumstances, let alone without a cold in a hall of that caliber. We were saved by Lana Krakovsky, an organist and great enthusiast who ran the online group Organ Focus, making her well-known to organists worldwide. By an incredible stroke of luck, she lived on the exact same street, almost directly across from our friend Misha Parkhomovsky (see Chapter 20). And this was in a city as massive as New York! (A year earlier, Lana had helped arrange my own performance in New York. Furthermore, her father, Aleksandr Markovich—a tuba player and piano tuner for Steinway—was the one who convinced me to resume writing this book, which I had abandoned nearly 24 years ago. How beautifully interconnected life can be!)
Naturally, we stayed with Misha and Eda.
However, I accidentally threw poor Misha under the bus. Instead of booking a flight to New York's JFK Airport, which is a mere 15-minute drive from Misha’s house, I mistakenly bought tickets to Newark Airport. Poor Misha had to drive for an hour and a half through a torrential downpour in the middle of the night to pick us up, and then another hour and a half to drive us back home.
When we finally reached Brooklyn, my exhausted Oltsya, who had been eagerly anticipating her first glimpse of New York, looked around at the surroundings and uttered just a single word: "Dneprodzerzhinsk."
The next day, Lana Krakovsky put us in touch with their family pediatrician, and using the medical insurance we had set up back in Israel, we went to the clinic. The doctor happened to be Russian-speaking, though that is beside the point. She gave Dima a meticulous, head-to-toe examination.
I wouldn't even mention this visit if it weren't for one particular episode: Dima needed to blow into a spirometer. When you blow into it, a small gauged piston rises to measure lung capacity. The nurse on duty happened to be African-American (this detail matters here), and she had truly beautiful, slightly prominent eyes. When thirteen-year-old Dima took a breath and, without exerting himself at all, blew into the device, the gauged component—which was supposed to gently glide upward—shot out of its tracks with a loud pop and clattered onto the floor. The expression in that nurse's eyes is something we will remember for the rest of our lives: Louis Armstrong would have looked modest by comparison. That is the power of a wind musician, even a young one!
The doctor told us that if Dima weren't scheduled to play at Carnegie Hall in a couple of days, she wouldn't have prescribed anything at all. But under the circumstances, she gave him some mild antibiotics just to be safe and told him to rest indoors. Easier said than done when you're in New York. Fortunately, Dima wasn't particularly interested in New York as a city anyway; Parkhomovsky had a computer, and that was all Dima needed to be completely happy.
Our pre-concert dress rehearsal was scheduled for 7:00 AM on the day of the show, and we were allocated exactly five minutes. At 7:05 AM, the next performer was already scheduled to take the stage. We weighed our options: the concert was at 3:00 PM; getting from Brooklyn, where we were staying, to Carnegie Hall took at least an hour. Traveling all that way just to play for five minutes, then traveling back, only to head right back to Broadway before 3:00 PM seemed absurd. So, we decided to skip the rehearsal entirely and step onto the Great Stage for the very first time during the actual concert. In musicians' parlance, this is called "rehearsing live on stage." It happens sometimes, but this was Carnegie Hall!
And yet, that is exactly what we did. We walked out onto the stage having previously seen it only in photographs. We gave a highly successful performance of Gaetano Donizetti's Sonata for Flute and Piano, clocking in at exactly five minutes and fifty seconds. We even had 10 seconds to spare. The hall was packed. Among the audience were some familiar faces: the Parkhomovsky family, Lana Krakovsky, and my childhood friend Sasha Izbitser, who is famous throughout Russian-speaking New York and whom I hadn't seen in—it feels terrifying to say—how many years.
The next day, while out for a walk, we returned to the same spot. Dima looked up at the Carnegie Hall building with a look of profound significance and uttered a truly historic line: "Dad, you do realize that if it weren't for me, you'd never have had a snowball's chance in hell of playing here."











               


Chapter 51
In 2008, the phone rang in my Israeli apartment. It was Vladimir Anatolyevich Khromchenko, calling to invite me to perform at an organ festival in Livadia. Naturally, I happily agreed.
I knew that some guy named Vladimir Khromchenko had built an organ in Crimea, and I didn't expect anything special from it (what can you expect from a homemade organ?). But I decided to go because of the excellent conditions. Besides, the last and only time I had been to Crimea was 50 years ago.
But when I walked into the hall and saw all this...
What can I say: it was a wonder of extraordinary beauty, an absolutely magical hall. But when I heard the organ and played it, I felt ashamed of my skepticism. It was a world-class, four-manual organ! To think that one person could create such an instrument out of sheer enthusiasm...
He spent 18 years building it. His son helped him. We mustn't forget that in the USSR, it was impossible to buy the necessary wood and metal, especially since an organ requires very specific materials. In Europe, an amateur organ builder can buy pipes and other parts from decommissioned organs. Here, it was impossible. Khromchenko also designed the interior of the hall (which used to be the power station of the Livadia Palace). In short, trying to fathom and realize what this man accomplished entirely on his own is simply mind-blowing.
I remember his typical workday. He would arrive at the hall in the morning already wearing a black suit and a white shirt. The heat was at least 30 degrees Celsius. He would start repairing something, lying on the floor in that very suit. Any organ requires regular maintenance and minor—and sometimes major—repairs. Then, getting up from the floor, he would go to play a daytime organ concert or give a tour. After that, right back under the organ (in the same suit and white concert shirt). By then, the heat would be 33–35 degrees. Another concert. Then administrative problems: the garden, the fountain in front of the hall's entrance (everything was on his shoulders)—and another performance. And on top of all that, he walked with a limp. Day after day, it was like this.
With his status and renown, he could have performed all over the world. Everyone knew him and was ready to invite him anywhere, but he was so deeply attached to his organ that he couldn't leave it even for a short time.
Alas, on January 2nd, 2022, he left his organ forever. Volodya Khromchenko is no more.
The following summer, I was invited to Livadia again. And again, it was wonderful. Everything except the sea: the water was cold, and there were pebbles instead of sand. It was awful. Why was everyone so eager to go there?
In Crimea, I met my army buddy Vasya Shkin, whom I had reconnected with on the Odnoklassniki social network. Vasya was one of the few comrades who remained in my memory as a person who never tarnished his reputation in any way. And in the conditions of the Soviet Army, that is incredibly difficult.
Ever since childhood, I had dreamed of going to the Artek pioneer camp. In Chapter 7, I described how, as a child, I composed a piano piece called "Summer in Artek" in the hope that they would invite me there for it. Silly boy. But the dream of visiting Artek for at least ten minutes stayed with me for many years. (I almost automatically wrote "for my whole life." No. Now I don't want to go to Artek. And in general, I haven't wanted to visit Crimea since 2014.)
Vasya called and said that he would be driving from Foros past Livadia, where I was staying, to a "certain place" for a short time, and if I wanted, he could pick me up on the way so we could go to this "certain place" together. And if I didn't want to go right then, he would pick me up on his way back from "that place" and we would go to his place in Foros. I needed to rehearse, not just stroll around, so I asked him to pick me up on his way back. Vasya stopped by, and I suddenly asked him: "So, what was that 'certain place' you went to?"
He replied: "Oh, I just had to drop by Artek to check on my daughter..."
That's what you call missing your destiny.
But still, I did visit a pioneer camp once. It was near Donetsk, in a little place called Galitsinovka. I was 11 years old. Half of our courtyard and half of my school were in that camp, including my foster brother Borka Khvalabov, and so on. Literally on the second day, Borka and I were forced to scrub the camp pool with brushes all day long. We scrubbed for two days. While everyone else was swimming and having fun, we—the only two Jews in the entire detachment—were cleaning up what was clearly not our job to clean. A week later, my mother arrived for parents' day, and Borka and I threw such a crying fit that my mother took me home. All the girls from the detachment ran over to convince me to stay, but I was unyielding. Today, I would be more accommodating and yield to the requests of so many women. But back then, I didn't. They took me home. They didn't take Borka. True, his parents took him the next day. My two letters from the camp to my parents are still preserved to this day. They are two literary masterpieces.



















Chapter 52
Once, back in the USSR, after one of my organ concerts, a tourist from West Germany gave me a touch calculator. I had never seen anything like it and was completely stunned. On the back, it read: “Made in Taiwan”. I didn't know what Taiwan was, and it piqued my interest. Later, already in Israel, my TV, VCR, and stereo system were all “Made in Taiwan”. Even Dima’s first flute was “Made in Taiwan”. What kind of place was this Taiwan?..
A while ago, someone let it slip to me that Israel's ambassador to Taiwan, Raphael Gamzou (hereinafter referred to as Raphi), knew about me and wanted me to play a concert on a mind-blowing organ in the massive National Concert Hall in the capital city of Taipei.
To be exact, Raphi wasn't an ambassador, but a representative of Israel in Taiwan, since, at China's request, Israel, like many other countries, didn't officially recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Well, whatever.
I waited for his phone call for a long time, and just when I stopped waiting, he called. Raphi told me the date of the concert, which had already been set, provided I agreed, of course, and asked me to send over the program. Things started moving fast. I actually began practicing seriously. The organ was on the stage, not up in the choir loft like in cathedrals where no one can see the performer (in Notre-Dame de Paris you can play in shorts and nobody will notice), and I was out of practice playing directly in front of an audience. And they said this hall has three thousand seats. Oh boy!
A couple of weeks before the trip, Raphi called to ask if everything was alright and if I was healthy, because all the tickets were already sold out and there was no turning back. Oh boy! I'm a sanitation worker, and with my hands and feet—I'm an organist, after all—anything could happen at any second.
After that, he emailed me a business-class ticket, even though I hadn't asked for one. When I looked at the ticket price, I realized I absolutely had to stay home during those days and not go to work. I rushed to the doctor, saying my throat was a bit sore (and my throat is always a little red anyway). The doctor gave me sick leave. God forgive me, but what else was I supposed to do?
I only calmed down when I reached Ben Gurion Airport safe and sound. Everything after that no longer depended on me.
Then came a long but very comfortable flight to Hong Kong, a wonderful time at the airport there with all the perks of business class, and then a short flight to Taipei. In business class, you could fly to the Moon. I finally understood why all governments in the world don't care about regular people: because they themselves have it so good.
In Taipei, Raphi Gamzou met me and took me to a posh hotel on Dehui Street (this is an obscene word in Russian.). What amazed me most was the toilet, or rather, its lid with all the gadgets: washing, drying, and, I think, even medical analysis. Back then, in 2009, this was a novelty to me. Since I was a "VIP persona", I was entitled to breakfast not with everyone else in the "common hall", but in a private room for the elite. I deeply regretted this because they brought very little food there, even if it was high quality, whereas when I sneaked a peek into the "common hall", there was an abundance. Oh well.
In general, in Taiwan, they place great emphasis on a person's status and social distinctions. I find it repulsive, and so does Raphi. We are from Israel, and we don't have that, at least not on an everyday level (in Israel, you can't tell a millionaire apart from a homeless person). When I stayed at Raphi’s apartment for a couple of days at the end of the trip, I was immediately struck by an incredible elevator. Well, when his housekeeper, a simple Chinese woman, once rode up to his place in that elevator, Raphi got an immediate phone call telling him that she should not use it. It was strictly for residents and their guests. For the service staff, there was another, simpler elevator. Just like that! As Raphi told me, breaking the news to her was the hardest part of his entire diplomatic job.
Therefore, Raphi warned me not to act like a simpleton or a humble guy, but to puff out my cheeks: that's how things are done there.
The National Concert Hall is built in the shape of a massive pagoda, and right across from it stands an identical pagoda—their theater. These two "pagodas" are located on the grand Chiang Kai-shek Square. The name of the square sometimes changes depending on the political views of the country's leaders.
But the beauty of it is extraordinary.
I was received in the packed hall in a way that feels almost indecent to describe. Since the concert carried somewhat of a diplomatic status, Rafi had asked me over the phone earlier to "unexpectedly" play the national anthem of Taiwan as an encore (which I had to find and learn back home), as well as another very popular Taiwanese song. I started to argue: how can you play a popular song as an encore at an organ concert in a hall like this? It's like playing "Apple trees and pear trees were in blossom" [Katyusha] on the organ during a concert. But he asked me to think about it anyway... and he turned out to be right. What happened in that hall is impossible to put into words. (After the trip, I composed "Variations on a Taiwanese Theme for Organ" based on that very song, and dedicated it to Raphi and Michal Gamzou. Michal is his wife. It's a terribly complex piece—I struggle with it myself.)
After the concert, I had to spend nearly an hour signing autographs and taking photos with everyone. And that is harder than playing the concert itself. But it's pleasant to look back on. Later, there were two more organ concerts: in Tainan and Kaohsiung. (In Tainan, I lived on the 38th floor—it was awful.) The organs there were more modest, but the success was just as grand. Interestingly, in Kaohsiung, Raphi told me not to play the anthem without his signal, as the attitude toward the country is different there: in the south, many consider the northerners to be their oppressors. But when he saw a lot of Taiwanese flags, he gave the green light. Funny how that works.
In those cities, flags with my face on them hung in the streets. I asked them to bring me a couple, otherwise people back home wouldn't believe me. They also released Japanese watches with a tiny diamond allegedly in my honor. There was a phrase on them in Hebrew that I just couldn't read. Raphi couldn't read it either, but by the next morning, he figured it all out: they had written it from left to right instead of right to left. This gave the watches a special uniqueness. I keep them, but I don't wear them.
The flight back was just as luxurious as the flight there. But while I flew out via Hong Kong, I returned via Bangkok. The same business-class luxury, but there is a certain difference between Israelis flying to Hong Kong and those flying to Bangkok (Thailand). And if there is a difference between the passengers, there is also a difference in the service, even if everything seems exactly the same. Seems!
I was away from home for ten days. I called this trip Ten Days That Shook the World, after the book by John Reed.



Chapter 53
While on a concert tour in New York and Boston, I called Maron Khoury, a former student of Dima's flute teacher Talma. Maron is an Israeli Arab (a Christian, not a Muslim, actually) and a flutist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Together, we went to the world’s most famous flute shop, the "Flute Center", and picked out a flute for Dima.
By the way, regarding Maron Khoury: this is what happens to Israeli Arabs if they seriously study a craft they love, instead of running around the streets and throwing stones at passing cars.
In the store, Maron immediately started hugging someone. It turned out to be his colleague, the principal flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Stef;n Ragnar H;skuldsson. Today, he is the principal flutist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Together, they began choosing a flute for Dima that would be the best quality but not the most expensive, and they selected a flute made by the Japanese company "Altus".
To give the reader an accurate idea of flute prices, I saw flutes there for as much as 90 thousand dollars, but ours was cheaper. Although, considering which global flute giants chose this flute, it is truly priceless.
This purchase happened a year before Dima’s (and my) performance at Carnegie Hall, and, of course, Dima played it there, though all the recordings that secured his first place in the competition had been made on his old one.
To the credit of the Altus company: when the pads on the keys needed to be replaced a few years later (quite an expensive pleasure) and I wrote a letter to the company in Japan requesting a set, I decided, using my clever Jewish head, to attach a few videos of little Dima playing. Shortly after, I received a package with a set of pads completely free of charge—with a note saying that they couldn't possibly take money from a flutist of his caliber. Well, fantastic. My thanks to them.
Soon after, Dima won second place in the all-Israel youth woodwind and brass competition. Winning this competition is harder than the one in New York: that one was based on video recordings, but here you had to play live. The prizes weren't awarded by individual instruments, but by sections: woodwinds and brass. The first prize went to a clarinetist, and Dima got the second, but effectively among flutists, it was the top prize.
That's how my driver Neri scored his second bottle of whiskey.
At that very same time, on Talma's recommendation, Dima began taking lessons from the principal flutist of the famous Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (the Zubin Mehta orchestra), Yossi Arnheim. Now we had to drive him to Tel Aviv once every two weeks. During the first lesson, I waited in horror for Yossi Arnheim to say that Dima had incorrect breathing, poor tone production, criminal vibrato, etc. That happens often. But he didn't say any of that; instead, he immediately started working on the music itself, from which I realized that Talma had taught Dima correctly. It's no wonder she received an honorary diploma from Carnegie Hall as the teacher of a competition winner. A deep bow to her!
At Yossi Arnheim's house, I once ran into a pianist I knew, Irit Rub. It turned out that she performs with him as a chamber ensemble partner and accompanist. What a small world!
An annual dance festival takes place in our town of Karmiel. And once, right when Dima was born, I was invited to participate in the performances of a Venezuelan ballet. It was a vocal-choreographic staging of a piece I don't particularly care for by Carl Orff—Carmina Burana. It is written for orchestra, choir, and soloists, but there is a version for two pianos and percussion instruments instead of an orchestra. I played this version alongside a pianist from the center of the country, Irit Rub. And here we suddenly met at Yossi's place.
I might not have even remembered this if it weren't for one funny detail. There were four performances: two in our city at the festival, then at the Tel Aviv Opera, and the last one in Jerusalem. Besides the Israel Opera Choir, the children's choir of our Karmiel Conservatory also participated in this project, consisting almost entirely of girls—both little ones and quite grown-up ones, aged 14–16. Naturally, the male dancers of the Venezuelan ballet—young, slender, handsome ballet studs—instantly caught the attention of our teenage choristers. Just around that time, various TV channels were broadcasting Mexican soap operas.
When our girls started getting to know the dancers, it turned out these guys were named: Luis-Alberto, Juan-Carlos, Miguel-Fernando, Pedro-Sergio, Alberto-Julio, Jose-Ignacio, Rafaeli-Hidalgo, and so on. What can I say—it was like something straight out of the comedy series Sancho from the Rancho by my idol, the brilliant Russian director Yuri Mamin. Everyone remembers his movie Window to Paris.
I'll tell you a secret: the director's charming wife, actress Lyudmila Samokhvalova, plays the role of “Simply Juana” in this series, and this often prompts me to watch the show on YouTube, although even without this spicy detail, the series is magnificent, like everything Yuri Mamin does.
But let's return to our rams—or rather, to our festival: when the Karmiel girls heard their names, their hormone levels spiked so high that even the terrified machos started looking at them with apprehension.
And now, here we were meeting with Irit at Professor Arnheim's house. Irit held some administrative position in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and when a few years later Dima (with me) played an audition to perform with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the great Zubin Mehta himself, Irit Rub was sitting right next to the legendary maestro in the empty, massive hall. Dima was selected, and he played, but more on that later.














Chapter 54
The famous Ukrainian composer Vitaliy Gubarenko, who lived in Kharkiv, had a poster hanging over his piano at home: "Not a note without a banknote."
The well-known Israeli opera and chamber singer Mira Zakai—who even participated in the recording of Boris Godunov under the direction of Rostropovich himself, and who also performed with me in organ concerts—used to lecture me: "Roma, you are forbidden to leave the apartment unless you bring back at least 700 shekels." In 1995, that was quite a lot of money.
Well, look at that! Everyone has their own rules. My own rule was never to fly out of Israel just like that, without a concert lined up.
So, to this day, I have broken this rule of mine only four times. The first time was when Oltsya and I flew to Cyprus to get married.
The second time, I had to fly with Oltsya to Prague (where I had played before) for a "weekend" excursion organized by her workplace. Oltsya pleaded: "Roma, everyone is going with their husbands and wives. I'm the only one alone." So I had to fly.
The third time was a flight to Basel: I hadn't seen my daughter and grandson, Maximilian-Rosario, in a long time (sounds just like a Mexican soap opera, or rather an Italian one, if such things exist). He is half-Italian. Until recently, he spoke only Italian, but now he speaks decent Russian thanks to his mom. And now he’ll learn German too, since he’s going to kindergarten soon. Ah... I completely forgot: he can also count to ten in Greek and Korean, because his dad is a taekwondo coach, and they use Korean terminology there.
And the fourth time—I flew with Oltsya to relax in Rhodes. But even there, I managed to play the organ, though not at an official concert. "A pig will always find its puddle."
I'm afraid I'll have to fly just like that, without concerts, more than once in the future. Margrit Pfister passed away suddenly. It was a massive blow. Everything I have achieved over the last thirty years, I essentially owe to her. Some time after that, Peter Brusius died, who was several years younger than me. His passing completely devastated me. I owe nearly all of my CDs, and much more, to him.
Several other people important to me have either passed away or retired. It’s sad...
But I already have a certain perspective taking shape. There is still much to come, and indeed, much already here!
The coronavirus mess really ruined things. When the whole "corona" epic began, I composed a new piece and called it "Coronatoccata."
Usually, when I compose something, it’s not because music is bursting out of me, but only if I want to do something nice for someone in return for their help. And I dedicate the new piece to that person. For example, the very famous Italian-French organist Domenico Severin informed me that he had learned one of my pieces and performed it all the way in Paris, at L’;glise de la Madeleine. I was deeply touched, so I composed and dedicated my Toccata Domenicale to him. In the title, I played on his name, Domenico, and the concept of a "Sunday toccata," since "Sunday" in Italian is domenica. I even listened to him play it once: at first, I didn’t recognize my own music, but later, listening to the recording, I liked it.
But I didn't compose "Coronatoccata" for anyone in particular; I did it just because. I envisioned it as a storm in a teacup—a tragicomic piece lasting three minutes. I even planned to perform it wearing a mask and rubber gloves, and I had already started practicing it in gloves. But things turned out to be much more serious, and the humorous interpretation had to be abandoned. Suddenly, I ended up dedicating it to my friend Dov Lukhovitsky, whom we all call Borya.
He is almost my age and used to study organ playing with me at my place, just for himself. Borya is incredibly tech-savvy and always fixed my computer and phone. Or rather, he didn't even need to do anything: the moment he stepped into the apartment, everything just started working on its own. When a concert hall with an organ opened in the town of Zichron Yaakov at the Elma Hotel, Borya took charge of inviting foreign organists there for concerts. Before Borya's active involvement, I was basically the only one playing there, but then numerous visiting organists appeared, and while I still played, of course, it was less frequent.
Borya kept bugging me to dedicate something to him, but I would wave him off, saying, "Wait, your time will come." And when I composed "Coronatoccata," I realized there was no better candidate for the dedication than Borya. I have already performed it several times in Jerusalem and abroad: everyone loves it, and most importantly, Borya is happy.


Chapter 55
In the previous chapter, I skipped ahead a bit in time, but this literary device is often used by great writers. I simply borrowed it from them.
Over time, I began to reflect on my place in music, realizing it was minuscule. But one day, I was included in the "International Top-Organists" list. There were about 200 organists on it. My unforgettable friend Peter Brusius broke the news to me. My pride knew no bounds. I started bragging about it left and right. And so it went for about five years. One fine day, as usual, I opened the internet to look at the website and stroke my ego, but... the site was gone. Just like that! That's how dependent we are on things today. Fortunately, I had printed out the list for myself beforehand, but it just wasn’t the same.
Once, my son Dima and I were on a long car ride from Tel Aviv. He connected his phone to the car radio via Bluetooth and turned on Apple Music. It featured classical recordings of all the outstanding musicians, especially from Deutsche Grammophon. We were driving along, listening to Krystian Zimerman.
I timidly asked, "Am I by any chance on there too?" He looked at me like a soldier looks at a louse and said, "Dad, only outstanding musicians are on there..."
Well, naturally, I swallowed my pride. Though I noticed him searching for something on his phone, when suddenly he let out a huge shout: "Da-a-a-d! You're all over the place here! Did you get any money from them?!"
Of course, I hadn't received a single dime and didn't even know about it.
And so we started listening to my recordings. He was so stunned by this fact that he even spoke to me respectfully for about ten minutes. Take that!
Dima managed to visit the US again, but this time on the West Coast. He passed the audition for the "Noar" All-Israeli Youth Wind Orchestra and went to the US, partly funded by the state and partly by Oltsya and me. San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego. In San Francisco, he bought himself... a conductor's baton. Before doing so, he called and asked for permission (a thrifty boy). Of course, I gave him permission, even though you can buy a conductor's baton in any Israeli music store. You could even whittle one yourself. You can also conduct without a baton, and some people even conduct with toothpicks.
Conducting is his dream, and a conductor's baton bought in San Francisco is a great incentive for future aspirations. But the most important event for him (and the other kids) was riding the terrifying roller coasters at "Six Flags" near Los Angeles. Just looking at them terrifies me.
Later, Dima made it into the Israeli Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. This is a symphony orchestra put together from the best young musicians twice a year. They play spectacularly.
And finally, the day came when Dima performed as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under none other than Zubin Mehta himself.
To help the reader understand what this name means to me, let me share an episode. In the late sixties, as a young boy from Donetsk, I decided to make a musical crossword puzzle myself. Of course, it didn't quite work out, but... my very first vertical clue was: "great American conductor?"—four letters. And the answer was supposed to be: "Mehta."
And here, almost fifty years later, my son is playing with that very same Mehta. It seemed unbelievable to me. Furthermore, I personally had to play for him at the audition, accompanying Dima in the finale of Mozart's Flute Concerto in D major. Accompaniment pianists know how incredibly difficult it is to play piano transcriptions of Mozart's orchestral accompaniments, especially the interludes. In a huge hall sits Zubin Mehta, legs crossed, with his assistant Irit Rub beside him (I wrote about her in Chapter 53)—and no one else. I had to practice this accompaniment more diligently than I prepare for my own solo concerts.
Usually, wind players perform from sheet music in solo appearances. I don't really know why that is; presumably, so as not to overexert themselves. Organists play from sheet music too, claiming they need the score for the page-turner/assistant to see where and what stops to switch, and so on. (An excellent excuse.) In that case, it beats me why harpsichordists play from sheet music instead of by heart—they don't need an assistant. Though I rarely perform on the piano, I know many pieces by heart, yet when performing on the organ, I don't know pieces by heart that I've been playing for over thirty years, because I know that on the organ, you don't have to stress and can just play from the score. Except, of course, for Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (or not Bach's—no one knows for sure). But I could play that piece not just by heart, but even if my head were chopped off. That doesn't count.
So, Dima, like a devout wind player, always played from sheet music, and it was precisely during his performance with Zubin Mehta that he suddenly felt the urge to play by heart. Talk about finding the perfect time and place for an experiment! It cost me a few more gray hairs (if you can even spot them on my bald head), but everything went brilliantly. The video, which we were offered a professional recording of for a hefty sum, turned out to be dreadful: they filmed it in such a way that Zubin Mehta is barely visible, only at the very beginning and the end. And the sound was terrible, too. It’s a good thing I filmed it myself on my phone from the upper balcony.
After this performance of Dima's, a nearly Shakespearean question arose for me. True, Shakespeare's version was "To be or not to be?", while mine was: "What to do next?" After all, when a child's first international concert is right in Carnegie Hall, and their first conductor is Zubin Mehta himself, you really do have to stop and think about where to go from there.
But what came next was as simple as could be: it was time to serve in the army. Usually, neither boys nor girls dodge the draft in Israel. Everyone is touched when they see a beauty walking down the street in a clearly non-military fashion but with an Uzi submachine gun slung over her shoulder. It means she came home from the army for the weekend, and you can't leave your weapon behind.
In Israel, there is a path where a highly advanced musician, dancer, athlete, and presumably someone else, after passing a special exam, can earn the right to serve in the army until noon and study at a music academy, for instance, in the afternoon. For musicians, this status is called Musikai Mitztayen (Outstanding Musician). Dima passed this exam and also gained admission to the Tel Aviv Academy of Music, joining the class of his own teacher, Professor Yossi Arnheim. The admission didn't go completely smoothly, as Dima wasn't on good terms with music theory and solf;ge. That was my blunder, of course, but somehow it got sorted out.
Naturally, such studies were compromised, since all group classes take place in the morning, and Dima had to be in the army until 2:00 PM. But as King Solomon said, all things pass, and this too shall pass. Though Solomon didn't mention exactly when.



Chapter 56
"Everything flows, everything changes," said the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus.
Indeed, everything was changing except for my morning job. The garbage trucks changed, the work crews changed, the drivers and routes changed, and even the salary changed—albeit very slowly. Only I remained unchanged. Or rather, I was changing: growing older, more hardened, and heavier (though there were days when I would walk 20 kilometers on foot). What didn't change was my lifestyle: just as before, I would wake up at three o'clock in the morning, sit at the computer with a cup of coffee, and head out to work.
My colleagues started at five in the morning, but I would start a bit earlier without them. I would go out to pull the garbage bins and lighten their workload—for instance, condensing ten garbage containers into six or seven. I logged an immense number of kilometers. It didn't make me lose weight, but at least it kept it from rising, considering my passion for "unhealthy" foods. Also, every 40 to 50 minutes, I would sit down for a smoke, even though I barely smoked at all after work. When doctors asked if I smoked, I would answer no, only to remember later that technically, yes, I did. During those times, my colleagues were doing something else. This gave me the opportunity to meet up with them only toward the end of the shift and to walk a great deal on foot. My record was 21 kilometers, while 13 to 16 kilometers was a regular occurrence.
The mass media had forgotten about me. And I had a hand in that myself: I was tired of the one-sided coverage of my incompatible endeavors. Although not too long ago, I suddenly received a call from the television network inviting me to a very popular show in Israel. Naturally, it was to dwell once again on my incompatible professions. I didn't watch these shows and had no idea what they were about. But my son Dima knew, and he declared that if I agreed to go on that show, he would leave the family and change his last name. As a result, I realized it was better for me to decline.
Dima didn't like my job, but once, when the youth Israeli Philharmonic orchestra was being driven somewhere in a bus and they called out his last name during roll call, all the children suddenly went quiet, stood up, and looked at Dima—as it turned out, because of me. Afterward, they asked him with respect whether he was my son.
Shortly before that, I received a call from the famous Israeli pianist Arie Vardi, a professor at the Tel Aviv and Hannover academies of music. He invited me to his renowned television program Intermezzo with Arik, where he interviews famous musicians. At first, I thought someone was playing a prank on me; I didn't think I could possibly interest him after the likes of Evgeny Kissin, Andr;s Schiff, Daniel Barenboim, and others. But it really was him.
The program was filmed in Zichron Ya'akov, in a concert hall featuring a new organ at the Elma Hotel. Having heard about my son Dima, Vardi wanted Dima to play something with the organ as well. Shortly before this, Dima and I had been on tour in Taiwan (my second time there) and in China, where I played all the concerts on the piano—both solo and with Dima. From there, we brought back a delightful Chinese song, which Dima subsequently played with the organ. That is what we played together on the program, along with a few pieces I performed solo. The show was recorded all at once, from start to finish without any retakes. We chatted by the organ about organ music, its mechanics, and so on. I wasn't expecting any traps, when suddenly Arie Vardi asked me: "And what can a concert organist do in Karmiel?" I froze and hesitated, but realizing there was no way out—since it was a continuous recording—I cracked and broke the taboo regarding my morning job.
My mother has been worrying for nearly thirty years that I didn't settle down in life the way she had dreamed, but seeing my perfectly respectable level of income, she understands that without "my garbage job," it wouldn't exist.
Yes. There is nothing more permanent than the temporary.
After all, I started this job as a temporary one. I didn't even set up a keren hishtalmut—a type of savings program where you pay a small amount from your salary and the employer pays twice as much, and after a certain number of years, you receive a tidy sum. I didn't even set up that program, hoping that I would soon quit this job. Later, though, I did. And I didn't regret it.
On January 10, 2021, on my birthday and exactly a year before retirement, the very thing I had feared for 29 years happened: I broke the index finger on my right hand—specifically the phalanx, the exact spot that makes contact with the key. I had suffered various bruises and injuries before, but this time it felt like a symbolic climax of what could go wrong.
My whole life flashed before my eyes at that moment. I immediately began trying to remember which concerts and where I would need to cancel urgently. But nothing had to be canceled: there was nothing to cancel. It was during the coronavirus pandemic, and everything had canceled itself without the help of my finger.
The X-ray showed a fracture, and the surgeon wrapped my finger in a splint, having first glued back some unpleasantly dangling bits of flesh with some kind of adhesive. He told me to come back in a month to show him the finger and extend my sick leave. At home, I tried to play the piano with the bandaged finger, and realizing that I could play and would likely be able to in the future, I was terribly overjoyed—at the prospect of not going to work for a couple of months.
As a child, I used to be happy when I fell ill so I wouldn't have to go to kindergarten, and in sixty years, nothing had changed.
I imagined what might have happened if this had occurred, for instance, before my concert in Taiwan... It wasn't for nothing that I took sick leave before that trip back then, taking advantage of my red throat.
During the healing period of the ill-fated finger, I recalled one of the pianist's rules: when you don't know what to practice, practice the left hand. So that is what I did. And I also practiced Chopin's Second Etude, lightly touching the necessary keys with my bandaged "second finger." Pianists will understand me; others don't need to know. It's better not to know.
Just before the pandemic, I managed to perform in Paris at Saint-Eustache on a mind-boggling organ, and in Zurich at the Fraum;nster—which all tourists know for its Marc Chagall stained glass windows—also on a spectacular organ. In Paris, Raya Nir, a gynecologist from my town of Karmiel, came to my concert; she had timed her trip to visit her daughter in Paris to coincide with the date of my performance. The two of them recorded the concert on video. Well done.
Now there is a memento of such a (!) concert.
Just a few months prior to that, my third performance at Notre-Dame de Paris had been canceled due to the fire, and the concert at Saint-Eustache, where the organ is by no means inferior to the one at Notre-Dame, served as a fine consolation for me. And then there was Zurich, where I hadn't performed before.
Well, and since the city of Basel is located near Zurich, where my daughter lives, I also had the opportunity to meet my grandson, Maximiliano-Rosario, whom I saw then for the very first time.



















Chapter 57
Since childhood, I have remembered the term "Mozarteum Edition." It must have been written on some of my sheet music. I understood that this Mozarteum in Salzburg was something very distant, unattainable, and highly significant if it was written on my music.
My son Dima decided to switch from the Tel Aviv Academy of Music to something else. But the snag wasn't the switch itself; it was that he decided to do it during the COVID-19 pandemic. He applied to several institutions and sent them his recordings. Based on the results of hearing these recordings, an applicant is either admitted to the actual exams or not. To give the reader an idea of how this works, I will say upfront that over 100 recordings were submitted to this notorious Mozarteum, out of which only seven applicants were chosen, including Dima. But all the others were Europeans who could just hop on a train, pull masks over their faces, and arrive in Salzburg. Dima, on the other hand, had to fly out of Israel by plane at a time when Ben Gurion Airport was practically shut down. With God's help, he managed to fly out and make it to the exam.
They accepted Dima and one more girl from Serbia.
Dima told me later that when you play at the exam and see Mirabell Gardens through the window, everything just plays itself.
Dima played on a new Japanese silver flute, a "Muramatsu," which we bought in Israel. I must say, the prices increase from flute to flute in such a terrifying proportion that we are horrified: a need for an even better flute might arise soon. Though we want that to happen ourselves. In the worst-case scenario, we just won't trade our old car for a new one—you can drive an old one for a long time. Big deal!
He also had to pass theory and solf;ge, which was not Dima's strongest suit. However, the exam lasted exactly one minute, and they asked such nonsense that even Dima knew it. Furthermore, he had to submit a recording of his piano playing, but Dima didn't know how to play. He was required to record easy pieces for beginners, but for the proud Dima, that was humiliating. Here, I showed some resourcefulness and convinced him to learn—completely unable to play—the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and the first C major Prelude and Fugue (but without the fugue) from the first volume of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier. Dima's hands naturally "sat" well on the keyboard. He knew the notes—or rather, he knew which note corresponded to which key. He didn't know the bass clef, but we used a pencil to write down every single note in the bass. And so, by this "point-and-press method," he learned it and even created the impression of a serious musical performance. But he would get muddled on the last pages. That’s exactly what happened on the recordings. When I suggested he re-record it from the beginning, Dima wisely noted that right now he was only messing up at the end, but if he started re-recording, he would definitely mess up at the beginning too, and besides, nobody would listen to it until the end anyway: nobody gives a damn. And so, without knowing how to play the piano, Dima recorded two of the most popular masterpieces of the piano repertoire. In the end, he was right: nobody listened to them until the end.
Dima was accepted into the class of a world-renowned, prominent musician—the principal flutist of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Martin Kofler. It was a triumph! My driver (now ex-driver), Neri, received a fourth bottle of whiskey from me.
Then began the horrific troubles with securing a student visa. All the offices were closed, the mail wasn't working, the police weren't issuing background checks, apostilles weren't being processed, planes weren't flying, but bureaucratic Austria didn't care—hand it over, no matter what!

He also had to pass a German language exam. Dima only knew "H;nde hoch," "Hitler kaputt," "Schnell," and "Nat;rlich." In short, a total alles kaputt! He had to cram and pass—without it, Dima wasn't considered a student. But he passed that too, while already in Austria.
I don't even want to describe what we went through, but the Lord is merciful, and He sorted everything out!
As a side note, I should mention that Dima never managed to make it to the exams at the other music academies due to the pandemic, but that was no longer necessary.
 
Dima at the Mozarteum
Chapter 58
And so came the day I had been waiting for more than the Jews of the entire world have awaited the coming of the Messiah throughout all ages. But as it turned out, one might never live to see the Messiah, and I am not even sure that, having finally witnessed his arrival, the Jews wouldn't regret it—after all, they have messed up quite a bit over the centuries: they didn't follow the commandments well, not everyone was circumcised, not everyone observed the Sabbath, not everyone ate strictly kosher food, and so on. So the conversation with the Messiah is going to be so serious that I would rather not be a part of it.
But I did live to see my day! And that was the day of my retirement: the first of February, 2022. Having landed a job as a garbage collector through connections, intending to work for just a couple of months and leave, I ended up working there for 30 years. From clock-in to clock-out. Actually, the position of a street cleaner, and especially a garbage truck collector, was highly coveted in Israel. In the nineties of the last century, street cleaners with the appearance of professors were not uncommon. In the USSR, they truly had been professors, doctors, teachers, and engineers. One of my colleagues was a deputy plant director in the Urals. And everyone was glad just to have a job, let alone one with the municipality.
The most blissful feeling during the first days of retirement is when, out of sheer habit, you wake up at three in the morning, but you don't have to go anywhere anymore. I would call this state a blissful sleeplessness. That is, you want to sleep, even though you can no longer drift off, but the famous song "And we don't care, and we don't care..." keeps playing in your head. But then the age-old Russian question arises: what is to be done? And there was simply nothing left to do. Concurrently, I was also sent into retirement at the conservatory: my only student failed to pay for the new academic year, and I received no new students, so I was automatically banished into retirement there as well, which made me very happy.
Previously, I used to think: once I retire, I will start traveling the world freely, without having to beg for time off at work. But the pandemic arrived just in time to dictate its own terms: some of those who regularly invited me to perform passed away, others retired; concerts in the US were postponed two years into the future; the owners of the organ hall in Zichron Yaakov changed, and they had no use for organ music for the time being. So, it was a total retirement. But gradually, things will clear up—and indeed they already are.
In the meantime, I bought an annual pass to the swimming pool. And not at all because I love to swim, splash in the jacuzzi, or, God forbid, sit in various steam rooms—not in the least. After retiring, my weight began to increase threateningly, and there is a gym attached to the pool. This became the main goal of my new, not-so-beloved hobby. I have never liked physical culture and sports, though I have always deeply respected athletes for their self-sacrifice and dedication.
Of course, over my 67 years of life, I had been to pools and beaches numerous times, but only now did I realize that it is a "kingdom of straight mirrors." And this is even more terrifying than the Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors: there, you can still blame the distortions, but here, there is absolutely no way to make excuses. The pool is an exhibition of our flaws. It displays everything that we try to hide in ordinary life: we tuck in our stomachs, try to walk with a graceful posture whenever possible, cover up our bodily imperfections; women try to hide cellulite, feel self-conscious about having breasts that are too small or too large, and suffer from every flaw in their figures. And yet, the pool is the place where you can just spit on everyone and everything and demonstrate your flaws openly and freely, exposing all the secrets of your imperfection. The men's locker room is a feast of deformity. I assume the women's can only be worse, though I haven't been there, although...
Many years ago, in a Kharkiv student dormitory, there was a shower room that could be used once every two days: there was a women's day, then a men's day. But sometimes, on a women's day, you could persuade the woman on duty to give you the key to the shower for about five minutes and wash really, really quickly if there was a special reason. And so one day, I persuaded her to give me the key on a women's day so I could wash quickly before it opened. When I returned home to the dormitory in the evening, exhausted, I completely forgot that it was women's day and that I had washed in the morning solely due to the kindness of the lady on duty. I grabbed my soap, washcloth, and towel, and burst into the shower. But I wear glasses, and the steam instantly fogged up my lenses, depriving me of unexpected and rich impressions. I could feel the breath of people around me, but I couldn't comprehend the situation. And suddenly, some melodic girl's voice gently said: "Roma, why the hell did you show up? Today is women's day." And nothing more—no shrieks, no screams—even though there were several girls inside. It was almost disappointing.
Terrified, I dashed out of there, and when I came to my senses, I regretted that I wore glasses.
But let us return to the present day. In their lockers, people keep various shampoos, colognes, perfumes, razors, combs, deodorants, hair dryers, etc. I am amused by the guys who pull out their shaving gear and start shaving right there. As if it couldn't be done at home. In my opinion, they are just saving on their water bills at home.
And what about those philosophical conversations in the steam rooms, both dry and wet! I especially love it when some hypothetical acquaintance of mine, whom I barely remember, asks me a sacrosanct question in the steam room in front of everyone: "So, are you still playing?" In Hebrew, this question sounds even more depressing: "Nu, ata od menagen?"
At the same time, the unfamiliar sweaty women in the steam room, starting from the age of 70, turn around and, with poorly concealed interest and caution, glance carelessly in my direction.
Yes! Being a celebrity is a heavy burden.
When I first arrived in Israel, bath brooms (veniki) in the steam rooms were strictly forbidden. For the "Russians," this was a major blow. But now—they are allowed! Apparently, the "Russians" fought for and won their right to thrash each other with leafy branches. Praise the Almighty! At least they achieved something.
I adore watching how certain long-time patrons of the pool feel like the masters of life—but strictly within the territory of the pool: a strong-willed stride with a proudly protruding belly and a commanding gaze. They come to the pool with a suitcase, as if arriving at an airport. It brings to mind the song: "And everything around belongs to the collective farm, and everything around is mine!"
After this violation of my own will and the simulation of pleasure from all these pool-side delights, I visit my mother, who lives nearby, and then go home, supposedly to practice my instrument. I purposefully do not specify which one.
I have already written that I own a three-manual Johannus organ, on which one can give home organ concerts, which I occasionally do, and now also a recently purchased Yamaha piano. So, I practice on the organ only when an organ concert looms on the horizon, and when it doesn't, I practice on the piano. I dislike the word "pianino." I am convinced that to maintain a professional level, one should practice on the piano, not the organ, especially not an electronic one, no matter how good it might be.
The organ repertoire can be highly complex, but still not to the same extent as the piano repertoire. I risk drawing the wrath and indignation of my fellow organists upon myself, but I am not afraid of them. Would any of them truly argue with me that even in the most complex organ repertoire, there are no Feux follets by Franz Liszt or the Etude No. 2 by Fr;d;ric Chopin? Pianists understand what I am talking about, and it is better for others not to know. That is why I practice on the piano.
There is an opinion that it is undesirable for an organist to play the piano at all, due to a different touch (touch;) and a different nature of sound. Of course, this is true. But I am certain that the greatest organist in history—J. S. Bach—perfected his mastery on the harpsichord and clavichord (the grand piano, alas, did not exist). How could Bach regularly practice for many hours on the organ when there was no electricity and someone had to pump the organ bellows? For this, there were the so-called calcants—presumably his students. And quite possibly, one had to pay for this. You can't get a lot of practicing done that way.
I once encountered such an historical organ where the air had to be pumped manually, or rather, by foot. I assure you that no one will do this for free for more than ten to fifteen minutes. And even for money, you can't pump it for long. There is your answer. And I will never believe that Bach, Buxtehude, or Handel, if they had today's grand piano, would not have played it.
But even that is not the main thing; the main thing is that, as it turned out, I am not Organist Organistovich, but Organist Pianistovich. When I dream before falling asleep, I see myself at the grand piano, not at the organ. I should have played more scales and etudes in my childhood.
And yet, I do have a piano CD, recorded with the H;nssler company, featuring the most complex piano masterpieces (I don't even dare to name them). It was sold in European stores for many years. I am not overly proud of it, but it exists.














Chapter 59 – And the Last One
War. In the first half of the 21st century, right in the center of Europe, between two kindred countries... It is impossible to comprehend.
As a child in the choir, we used to sing a song with the words: "My Russia, my Ukraine—like blood sisters." And now, the "big sister" is bombing the smaller one. It feels like a horrific nightmare. It seems impossible for this to be happening in reality. Truly, "We were born to make Kafka a reality."
Some people say to me: "But Roma, don’t you remember Ukrainian antisemitism? What about Babi Yar and the Ukrainian auxiliary police? What about the discrimination against Jews applying to universities and jobs?" Of course, I remember all of that. But if we go by that logic, Jews should be advocating for the bombing of Germany, Poland, Spain, Romania, and many, many other countries. And, of course, Russia itself, which throughout the centuries has been one of the global epicenters of antisemitism. By that logic, Jews shouldn't listen to Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and especially Wagner. Yet, not only do they listen to them, they perform them brilliantly. I won't even start on writers. I read somewhere that out of all Russian writers, Sukhovo-Kobylin was the only absolute non-antisemite.
So, what should we do—start bombing?
What shocks me most is that it's not just the so-called "vatniks," "orcs," and "goblins" who fall under the influence of deceitful propaganda, but also the intelligentsia—the "conscience of the nation." To my horror, many once-famous musicians whom I deeply respected now support these atrocities and obscurantism. Even under the Soviet dictatorship, musicians retained a spark of free-thinking. What on earth happened to them now...
In Marxist-Leninist philosophy, we were taught about the role of the masses and the individual in history, where the paramount role was always assigned to the masses. But according to my own philosophy, I see that a single personality can lead sheep-like masses anywhere, turning normal people into barbarians, murderers, executioners, rapists, and thieves. (Well, there was no need to turn them into thieves; they were already there.)
I have been touring different countries for thirty years. Most of all in Germany. Over these thirty years, I—a teetotaler—have shared plenty of beer, schnapps, and cognac with a vast number of elderly people who helped me out for nothing in return, showed me every kind of kindness and care, and stood as examples of high morality and humanity. I can personally attest to this.
As it turned out later, every single one of them had served either in the SS, the SD, the Gestapo, or had been in the Hitler Youth... Comments are superfluous. This is a prime example of where a "great personality" can lead (and mislead) normal people using propaganda.
They say there are no bad or good nations—only bad and good people. Yes. Of course. But a human being can be both good and bad. What matters is which part of that specific person gets activated.
The war also disrupted my own plans, though "my plans" are nothing compared to the misfortunes that have befallen millions of Ukrainian residents. I had long dreamed of playing the Donetsk organ. In Chapter Six, I described the period when that organ was being built. I was a child back then and saw it almost every day, since I regularly went to concerts and even rehearsals with my dad. Later, still a young boy, I performed on the stage of the Donetsk Philharmonic myself and with an orchestra. Once, as a student in Kharkiv, I played Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with an orchestra on that very stage. And it seems strange to me that, having played on the world's finest organs, I have never once touched this Donetsk organ. Well, actually, I touched it many times: I leaned on it, put bags and grocery nets on its bench, tripped over it with my feet, but I never produced a single sound from it. It felt like an absurdity, so I kept planning to come to Donetsk and give an organ concert there. The Philharmonic was ready to welcome me at any moment I wished. Forgive my lack of modesty, but I can just imagine what it would have been like if Roma came back with a concert after forty years. But Roma will not be coming to this Donetsk. What a pity.
This war, among other things, shattered the integrity of my biography: I was born de facto in the city of Krasnyi Luch in the Luhansk region, and a couple of days later I was taken to Donetsk and registered de jure there. I wrote about this at the beginning of the book. Meaning, I was born in the USSR on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. After the collapse of the USSR, it became Ukraine. And now, suddenly, it turns out I was born in some "annexed territories"... So, maybe I wasn't born at all?


Epilogue
Well, that’s all. I started writing this narrative way back in 1995. Today is the end of 2022. Twenty-seven years have passed. Even the composer Alexander Borodin didn’t take that long to write his opera Prince Igor.
In fact, I wrote this book in a sluggish, sporadic way for about three years back in the last century, and for a few months starting in August 2022. That is, with a break of roughly 24 years. I simply forgot about it.
Let me try to articulate the main point. It is customary to say that a performing musician, especially a pianist or a violinist, must above all protect their hands. For them, hands are everything. This is probably absolutely correct. But when I hear such phrases, I burst into loud laughter—at best. At worst—I won't specify what I think of these sissies, intellectuals, and oversensitive, neurotic aesthetes who shelter their precious hands and refuse to complicate their lives with physical labor (just joking, of course).
I have been actively touring for thirty years—and for those same thirty years, I worked a hazardous manual job. During this time, I severely injured my hands multiple times, broke a finger once, tore leg ligaments three times, and regularly smashed my kneecaps against metal (after all, I am an organist and play with my feet), fell off a truck stepwell, lifted incredibly heavy objects—and much, much more.
So, bringing up the idea that a musician must pamper their hands in front of me is simply indecent and unethical.
Though, you really should wear gloves.





         
 And now for dessert, that is, the acknowledgments:

To Faina Isaakovna Khavkina, my mother, for rewriting most of the book in the last century with her own handwriting, translating it from my chicken scratch. I didn’t have a computer back then.
To Oltsea (Olga) my wife, for reading and approving everything I wrote.
To Irina Chabanenko, my sister-in-law (Oltsea’s sister), who corrected my grammar mistakes and, most importantly, sorted out all the punctuation marks (confound them).
To Alexander (Sasha) Markovich, a technician for Steinway & Sons in New York, who convinced me over the phone in just a couple of minutes to finish writing this book.
To Anna Bakunts, a leading Yerevan organist, who added a very juicy detail to my chapter about Yerevan (Chapter 27).
To Igor Guberman, an outstanding writer and poet, a classic of our days, for reading this book in manuscript form and writing a blurb for it, doing me a tremendous honor.
To Elina (Linochka) Goncharskaya, the most prominent Russian-language cultural reviewer in Israel, for teaching me what to do next after the book is written.
And finally, to my new dog Archibald (Archik), for not barking and not bothering me while I was writing.
December 7, 2022
Karmiel. Israel.



Table of Contents
• Before the Prologue 5
• Prologue 6
• Chapter 1 8
• Chapter 2 12
• Chapter 3 15
• Chapter 4 19
• Chapter 5 20
• Chapter 6 22
• Chapter 7 25
• Chapter 8 28
• Chapter 9 30
• Chapter 10 32
• Chapter 11 33
• Chapter 12 34
• Chapter 13 37
• Chapter 14 40
• Chapter 15 42
• Chapter 16 44
• Chapter 17 49
• Chapter 18 57
• Chapter 19 59
• Chapter 20 61
• Chapter 21 66
• Chapter 22 69
• Chapter 23 72
• Chapter 24 74
• Chapter 25 77
• Chapter 26 .80
• Chapter 27 83
• Chapter 28 87
• Chapter 29 95
• Chapter 30 • Chapter 31 101
• Chapter 32 103
• Chapter 33 106
• Chapter 34 109
• Chapter 35 111
• Chapter 36 114
• Chapter 37 116
• Chapter 38 119
• Chapter 39 124
• Chapter 40 127
• Chapter 41 131
• Chapter 42 134
• Chapter 43 139
• Chapter 44 143
• Chapter 45 146
• Chapter 46 149
• Chapter 47 152
• Chapter 48 155
• Chapter 49 159
• Chapter 50 162
• Chapter 51 167
• Chapter 52 170
• Chapter 53 173
• Chapter 54 176
• Chapter 55 178
• Chapter 56 181
• Chapter 57 185
• Chapter 58 187
• Chapter 59 – and Last • Epilogue • And now for dessert, that is, the acknowledgments……………………………….………………….......195