Воробьев Николай Егорович

It is amazing how fate sometimes weaves lace in a person's biography, creating stories with the most captivating plots. Such as, for example, the life and fate of Professor Nikolai Vorobyov from the Volgograd Social Pedagogical University. Studying at a trade school and the siege of Leningrad. Working in hazardous production and at a timber yard. Studying at a military school and clearing mines in Sevastopol. Teaching German at a music school and defending a dissertation in Germany. All these are pages of his novel. A novel that he continues to write at 92 years of age.

The Siege

- In 1940, a decree was issued on labor reserves. These trade schools were opened. There were many who wanted to go there at that time, unlike in later times. Firstly, everyone from the village wanted to leave. Especially to Leningrad, as the city was called then. There were many who wanted to, but far from everyone got in. I don't know why, but they took me. Although I was only in the sixth grade, just the first quarter, in November. There were 600 of us in the dormitory, even a bit more. The rooms were huge. There were a hundred people per dormitory room. The smallest had thirty.

- Did all the guys want to study?

- Yes, the desire was great. They gave us a tour of the factory. Showed us everything. It became scary. Is it really possible to master all this? I chose the profession of a fitter. A toolmaker fitter. And a year later, the war began and then the siege of Leningrad.

- You were right at the school.

- A decree was issued to transfer all trade school students to the worker category. That is, there was no time to study anymore, we already had to complete tasks. And there were many tasks. We carried out a wide variety of military orders, up to the manufacture of mines and shells. The processing was so crude.

- What was the hardest thing?

- The hardest thing was to stand at the machine or workbench for 8, 10, even 12 hours. It was difficult, very difficult.

- No one was giving white bread anymore.

- What are you talking about. On September 8th, the ring was closed at Mga station, and that was it. We found ourselves in the blockade. That's when the hard days began. Our school, its equipment, was moved to the "Svetlana" plant. We were there for about two months, but the electricity ran out. There was nothing to do there. So they returned our group. Our group, group twenty-two, as I remember now. 25 people to guard our school, you see, and the neighboring workshop. So. And in this group, I, in fact, lived through the entire siege.

Everyone had their assigned post. Mine was upstairs - on the roof, in a glass booth, I had to keep watch. So, if a flare appeared somewhere in the sky, I had to report to the officer on duty, a flare in such-and-such place. Because many planes were guided using these flares. The most difficult thing was to go up in the bitter cold, frost. Footwear wasn't very warm back then.

And what was already interesting was that the front was already close, the front line was at Srednyaya Rogatka. That's about 3.5 kilometers away. And everything could be heard.

- You never once said the word "hunger."

- Hunger began practically at the end of October, when they started reducing the bread rations. First it was normal - 600 grams, then 400, then 250. We were supposed to get 250, as workers. That was 150 grams for children and office workers. And the bread wasn't like what we eat now, but half-filled with all sorts of impurities, sawdust and all that. They fed us in the canteen. It was such a watery soup. It was a happiness when a horse was killed on the front line, they would bring a hoof, give it to us, and they would make aspic. You eat that aspic.

When the war started, we had to go for defense work three times. What was our task? There, if you can imagine, they were digging an anti-tank ditch. There were thousands of women there. We had files and we had to go and sharpen shovels, the shovels got dull. And so a woman comes up. "Sharpen it, son." "Sharpen the shovel, son." You sharpen it - she rests. It was hard, guys.

From the cold, hunger, and bombing, out of 600 students of the school, only half survived. At first, the frozen corpses were dragged into the bomb shelter, and then they were burned in the furnace of a brick factory. It was a sight not for boys. Dead bodies, skeletons covered with skin, were thrown into the firebox like logs.

Evacuation and the First German Lesson

- We were evacuated in August to the city of Gorky. I worked at a factory in the tool shop, where they prepared 76-millimeter guns, ZIS-3, the famous anti-tank guns.

It was hard. I was 16 years old, and I still had to stand at the workbench for 12 hours. The work was difficult.

But interestingly, later I did something wrong, I don't remember, and I was transferred to another shop, a copper foundry, to a pressure die-casting machine. There was no safety equipment, they melted copper, it's very harmful, poisonous and so on. To save myself from this, from the fumes, from this terrible atmosphere, I asked on my own to be sent to the timber operations, which were in the area of this plant. They had their own timber operations, and they sent people there mainly as punishment. No one wanted to bother with them.

- And you asked to go?

- Yes. And there they put me to work at a sawmill. Do you know what a sawmill is? They saw logs into boards. And my assistants were Germans. A prisoner-of-war camp was located nearby. So I had three assistants, they rolled the logs. I turn on the sawmill, feed these logs and that's it. And when there is some break... Well, a log takes two minutes, in two minutes. A wooden building, like a heated shelter, where a stove was heated. You dash into this heated shelter, and the Germans are sitting there, they sing songs. "Wolga, Wolga, Mutter Wolga," and they start teaching me German. So, they speak to me in German, I don't understand the words. But I repeat like a parrot. Well, it was such soldier's obscene language. They: "Ha-ha-ha" - laugh together. I still remember all these little songs, all this obscene stuff to this day. That's how I started learning German.

The Path to Science

- When did you generally develop an interest in the field of education?

- It's still early, still. I graduated from university in '61. Faculty of Foreign Languages. And I entered graduate school in Moscow. Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute. It was called MOPI, as they said: "You entered MOPI, so you're not in distress (vopi)." I studied for two years. Had to choose a topic. What topic?

They say: "Well, one topic."

"Do you have professional training as a fitter?"

I say: "Yes. And as a turner and a milling machine operator."

"And what else? And you know German?"

"I know it well."

"Well, then you will write your thesis on vocational education, initial vocational education in the GDR."

I say: "With pleasure."

So, I studied, took my candidate exams in a year of graduate school. I was, indeed, the first graduate student in pedagogy who went abroad at that time.

- What year was that?

- It was exactly '62-'63.

I arrived at Humboldt University, I'll show you my ID. At Humboldt University, there was an institute for Berufsausbildung, an institute for vocational education. In this institute, I wrote my dissertation, wrote a 400-page dissertation. Now my graduate students write 150 pages. But back then, 400 pages was the norm. So. And they suggested I defend it at Humboldt University. It was like this... I had a decent command of the language. So the defense went well.

Life in Germany and Unexpected Encounters

During his studies in Germany, Nikolai Vorobyov rented a room from Frau Dunker, in whose life many complex turns were also intertwined, as with all residents of post-war Germany, which had just experienced the epidemic of fascism.

- She was a good woman. She had two sons who studied in our Russia. One even became a Candidate of Sciences.

- Did her husband die during the war?

- No, her husband didn't die. He was an SS man, a burgomaster in Poland, Silesia. He was arrested immediately, put in prison, and he died in prison. But the sons remained, studied in the Soviet Union. One was Hans, the other Karl. Very good guys. One became a translator, the other became a Candidate of Sciences, worked in a ministry. I was there a few years ago, I met with him. He's aged, of course.

The Core of Life – in Work

One should learn a positive outlook on life from Professor Nikolai Vorobyov. He is loved by his students and respected by his colleagues. He bakes pies and travels the world a lot. He goes to work with pleasure every day, confident in the tomorrow that will surely come.

- I believe that one must study all their life, otherwise you will fall behind and won't be able to work anymore. And therefore I have to read a lot of various literature on foreign pedagogy, because information is transmitted so quickly and there is so much of it that you have to constantly update the knowledge that was obtained earlier. Students are so informed now that you simply can't fool them. 

- And how do you find a common language with students?

- I manage well.

- The age difference is still big.

- No, I, for example, quickly find a common language with them. I have contact with the audience. Everyone knows that no one sleeps in my lectures.

I look at my peers, of whom almost none are left, even the young pensioners, 70 years old, they, as they say, from idleness, it seems to me, they feel bad.

I, for example, still go to work with pleasure every day, and it gives me great pleasure because I feel that I am still in demand.

I've worked for many years, they renew the contract every five years. I submitted an application. A commission gathered. Everyone says: "Vorobyov writes scientific works well, is in demand. Students respect him, teachers too. What is the decision? For three years." I say: "What do you mean for three years? Make it for eight years, until the centenary." "No, it's not allowed by the charter." So, they gave me the ID for three years. Professor again until 2021.

- What is your core of life?

- In work. I am only in work. I believe that I have worked all my life, starting, as they say, from the age of ten. And therefore I cannot imagine anything else, to be without work. I can't even imagine it.