Published in Akhitektura i stroitel’stvo, No. 5 (204), 2009. Available online: https://ais.by/story/2572

I started my professional career not even as a designer, but as a builder-producer. After graduating from the Minsk Architectural and Construction Technical College, I wanted to be independent, so I chose Gomel as the place to work. There it turned out that the only place where I could find a job as a Raikommunhoz engineer was in the town of Korma. As it seemed to me then, on the edge of the world – 100 km from Gomel, no roads, in the winter the mail was thrown down from the plane. The first two-storey brick building was under construction there, the public bath was being repaired and the rest was trivial. And I turned out to be the only certified specialist. It was a big responsibility, and all sorts of things happened. I am still grateful to the engineer from Gomel who came to check on the progress of the work and quietly, so as not to undermine my authority and not to offend me, he asked me to release the ends of the wooden beams that I had overdone and completely wrapped in roofing paper. I forgot that they should “breathe” so they wouldn’t rot. But when it was necessary to install the formwork, bend and tie reinforcement for reinforced concrete slab of the bath and no one knew how to do it, I fully rehabilitated myself. I so diligently imparted my knowledge to the workers that, as I was going backwards, I fell off the bathhouse. It was good that I landed on a pile of sawdust, but I still have a scar on my arm from the cut with a metal rod, which I tried to hold on to.

…A year later I decided to enroll in the architectural department of Belarusian Polytechnic Institute, which had just opened in Minsk.

In 1959 I graduated from the Institute with honors and a three-year-old son. Subsequent years of design (mainly in Minskproekt) contributed to strengthening the foundation of architectural thinking. Independence did not arise at once. After all, as a rule, first, a young professional must go through the stage of a ” follower”, then a full-fledged “partner”, and only then, if you are lucky and trusted, you can become a “leader”. Much depends on the leaders, on the object, on the social climate in the collective of designers. This process is most difficult to develop in the field of urban design. I was lucky: I worked under the leadership and next to N. Trakhtenberg, V. Sakhno, I. Lublinsky, A. Gul, Y. Gradov, J. Linevich. We worked on such objects as the General Plan of Minsk, planning of Minsk districts on Kharkiv street, Opansky street, Zolotaya Gorka (at that time, the Bondarevskaya-Vysokaya district), V. Khoruzhey, the development of the centers in Zhlobin, Slutsk and other smaller objects.

I recall the agony of searching for any kind of individuality in the construction of the standard brick-sections. These orphaned houses stand in strict rows to this day as a reproach to industrial inertia. Only in the present with students do I play on the shape of buildings, on color, on the differences in heights.

After graduating from the doctoral program in 1968, where A.P. Voinov had persuaded me to study, I was involved in both teaching and design.

Nine years of work in the Belarusian Research Institute of Urban Planning (until 1990), participation in a unique work for that time – the General Scheme of Complex Territorial Organization (GSCTO) of the BSSR (1985-1988), guidance and participation in the implementation of international and Union large scientific and practical works – all this allowed me to finally “find myself”. Plus participation in international and republican design competitions and awards at them (in the student years – the microdistrict on Tolbukhin Boulevard, later – October Square and Lenin Square in Minsk, the district “Lebyazhiy”, zarechny district in Brest and others).

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What are the positive feelings left over from that time?

The feeling of joy of in-demand creative search, of discovering the unknown, the feeling of satisfaction with the cohesion and support of my colleagues in the department I was in charge of. This is where I felt fully “in charge. And all this thanks to working in a brilliant, speaking in the theme of the issue, ensemble of brilliantly thinking designers and scientists (G. Kozlov, V. Kharevsky, Y. Tyapkin, S. Brandin, A. Rogovin, G. Potaev).

What is your favorite creative outlet?

Teaching is my, one might say, shared love. After a lecture you feel like a balloon flying up to the clouds because you were able to show others something new, which you have learned, which you yourself have thought of and rethought. True, this euphoria cools down during exams. Most of all I enjoy working with doctoral students, master students, and diploma students.

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Such an energetic Master must have had some kind of a cherished goal?

I think that everything went naturally. I seemed to float on the bright river of destiny, doing what I was passionate about. But I must admit that when I was climbing up the ladder (higher education, doctorate, lecturer, secondary doctorate, professorship, the State Prize, foreign membership of the Russian Academy of Architecture, etc.), in my heart I always turned to my father: “You see, I could also do this.” My father died when I was in my second year at the institute. He strictly bequeathed: to graduate from the institute (nobody in his family had higher education), and to do this, do not marry early and do not cut your braids. And all my life I lived up to his hopes with delay, because in my third year I got married and got a short haircut.