Various photographs of my friends and colleagues
The soldiers of my platoon are on guard duty. That is why I am wearing a sheepskin coat. I was inspecting the guard posts with the unit's guard commander (the officer in the center of the photo). The officer has his holster unfastened, and I am carrying a loaded carbine. There is an ammunition pouch with live rounds on my belt. Everything is in accordance with regulations.
Test drivers. Far left: research engineer I. V. Voloshinov. Far right: B. P. Zaikin, foreman of the test drivers. (Unfortunately, I do not recall the exact names of the other test drivers.)
In the centery suit, is V. G. Mazepa, Chief Designer at ZIL. He is a member of the Russian Union of Writers. (Photo from a letter in our correspondence.)
My friend I. S. Stepanov (1936–2013) was the chief designer of ZIL luxury automobiles and a professor at the Moscow Automobile and Road Construction Institute. After graduating, we both began working in a design bureau, focusing on the development of test rigs. We discussed the designs we were working on and engaged in filmmaking. We attended an amateur film club, where we met the renowned film director Grigory Roshal. We also celebrated holidays together with our families.
M. Dveres. A friend of mine. We studied together at the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering. He graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University and holds a Candidate of Sciences degree.
Edgar Borisovich Vulgakov (1927–2006) was a Doctor of Technical Sciences, a professor, and an aircraft engine designer. After familiarizing myself with Vulgakov’s work on gear calculation, I called him, and we met. I began designing a new transmission for a future ZIL vehicle using Vulgakov’s gear-meshing calculation method. This resulted in patents in the USSR and the USA (USA Patent No. 4,986,142). Our professional relationship gradually evolved into a personal friendship. This bond remained unchanged even after I moved to the USA for work; we stayed in touch by phone and exchanged holiday and birthday greetings via the Internet. Vulgakov sent me his monograph Theory of Involute Gearing (published in 1995) and—at his request—his autobiographical novel The Flow of Time (published in 2007). In turn, I sent Edgar Borisovich chapters from the book I was working on at the time.
