G.N. Lepeshkin: During my school-age years I didn't think about that, during those years I studied, played soccer and went fishing, like all normal kids. When I went to the medical institute, I began to focus on microbiology in my third year, and joined a microbiology study group. And basically this predetermined for me that in the future I'd like to get involved in this research. Later I transferred to the military-medical department, and this was already a different kind of service, this was already military service. Yet I was also working in microbiology. And when experts came to select people for their organizations, I simply said that at one time I had done such-and-such research, and I got an offer to get into... to join, that is, the service... to continue my service in Kirov. That's how I ended up there.
Well, when I was already in the military-medical department, we had a lieutenant colonel named Vlasov there. He was in charge of my class, he specialized in microbiology, and one way or another he and I became close friends. And he was one of my first mentors specifically in that field.
They were interesting people who were very erudite and knew their subject well. And most importantly, they were very kind to me, they tried to pass along their knowledge to me.
They were older than me and treated me like a son.
Bochkaryov, Pavlovskiy, Dzyuban. I even had the nerve to pick the brains of the senior lab technicians, people who were older than me and more experienced, to grasp the basics of microbiology, because the institute doesn't provide the kind of good foundation that you can get by working directly in a research organization. I recall with gratitude Presnyakova, my lab technician, Kuznetsova, and a whole host of others.