Syedyshev Oleg
Syedyshev Oleg

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Humorous Essays Based on students' memories

"All have died
except for those who are alive, and those whom we remember"Confucius

Essay 54. Superstitious Beliefs

Victor Kubasov

Victor Kubasov

Vladimir Fainzilberg

Vladimir Fainzilberg

The first years in college are very important for the formation of a student. It is in the first year, when the former high school students part with their school model of behavior and master a model, which is new for them, to be more precise, which was unknown to many of them before. First year students make a dramatic leap in development of their spiritual and moral culture. The main aspects of education are being clearly lined up: informational, motivational and operational. It is good when a student becomes aware of these aspects quite early and starts implementing them. It is a spiritual aspect, which helps a student to consciously control, I underline - consciously, control himself or herself and his or her behavior. Spirituality is neither more nor less than one of the main characteristics of a student as a person and a human being. Those of the students who mastered control over themselves and their behavior considering the three aspects, I will repeat myself, informational, motivational and operational, later became good professionals in their spheres of activity.

For instance, I can give names of several 1972 graduates: Victor Kubasov, Vladimir Fainzilberg and Sasha Salmaier and many others. And the students, who quickly learned to detect spiritual characteristics of everybody around them and in addition to that were keeping the three aspects in mind, became leaders during their student years, official or unofficial ones in their groups, among other groups and later in life, and as a rule

Sasha Salmaier

Sasha Salmaier

good organizers.

As an example I can name Vagram Agadzhanyan and Aleksey Krasnov.

Aleksey Krasnov

Aleksey Krasnov

Vagram Agadzhanyan

Vagram Agadzhanyan



It is also true that one can with absolute responsibility say about them that they are great specialists as well.

And the last point of my pseudoscientific introductive speculations-schmeculations: at the institute the students do not undergo education. I would divide the process into two elements: from the professors' side it is teaching; and from the students' one -learning and self-studies. And it is great when the two streams flow into one, and it is very bad, when they are parallel during the whole student's time at a higher educational institution.

Well, are you tired? I am tired, too, of such strain of intellectual activity. Though all above-stated explains what is going to be said below.


No matter how the level of spiritual and moral culture develops, none of the students ever avoided superstitious omens and rituals. Just tell me, what kind of a student would ever dare to step on a sewer manhole during his or her examination period? Just none of them! I will tell you honestly that I still try to avoid stepping on sewer manholes. I wrote already in the essay "Phapmacology" that Vagram and I obligatorily went to Russian baths a day before an examination. That was our ritual, but student superstitious beliefs forbade not only to wash, but even to comb before an exam.
There were not only Vagram and I who believed in omens and disproved them by their rituals at the same time. For instance the two friends, I wrote about them before in the essay "Three Tablets of Aminazine", Nadya Nagornova and Natalia Androkhanova, too, both had superstitious beliefs and refuted them.

I am not even going to mention about the black cat.




Of course, it was considered a one hundred per cent sign of good luck, if the two girlfriends saw a man at the very first moment, when leaving their place for an exam. Well, and if a man was also a macho?!

Of course, one could not in any case leave a student's record book anywhere, or there would be no good luck. However there was a situation when I before I became a student, had left my student's record book before my physics examination and received an excellent grade as a result (see the essay "How I Became a Student"); that case cannot be considered as it had been long before I learned about the superstitious beliefs. Here is a story which happened with Nadya and Natasha. The girls knew the obstetrics well, attended the lectures, made notes and nevertheless were diligently studying for the examination. In the evening before the exam they checked five-kopek coins in their student's record books, everything was in place. In the morning without any breakfast, but breaking one of the omens, they titivated themselves, though they had no reason for that - both girls were just beautiful the way they were. They went out of their apartment and there was not a macho, but a man coming upstairs. Natasha winked to Nadya meaning everything would be O.K.

They came to the department, and there it stroke Nadya like a lightning: "The record book is left on the windowsill!", she almost cried. Natasha also did not want to take the exam because of solidarity, but Nadya convinced her to go to the exam, but wait for her to bring her record book. How she was running practically all the way to her place, she cannot remember even now. She says that there was only one phrase running in her mind: "I won't get away with it; oh, I won't get away with it!". Things could have been much easier for Nadya, if she red a prayer: "My Angel, go with me, you are ahead, and I am after you! Make it so that I pass the exam!", but she was "a Komsomol member, an athlete and just a pretty girl!", she did not believe in God and did not know the prayer. Nevertheless she passed the exam with an excellent grade. Natasha waited for Nadya and confessed that she had been calling her everything she could lay her tongue to.


N.P.Androkhanova

N.P.Androkhanova

It is also a student superstitious belief that if someone close scolds you, everything will go smoothly.
It was not long that Nadya believed in the superstition that a night before an exam had to be spent cramming. The belief lasted till the summer examination period after the end of the first year of study. Natasha and she studied till morning before their biology exam. Unlike Natasha who was absolutely fine, Nadezhda started falling asleep right at the department at the institute. Natasha made every effort in order to wake her up! She pinched Nadya and slapped her on her cheeks, then someone gave her a pin, and Natasha pricked Nadya's bottom with the pin. Nadya's shriek made laboratory assistants rush out in the hall to see what was going on there. After she was woken up in such a way, Nadya went to the examination room and passed the exam with an excellent grade. Natasha was almost crying and begging for forgiveness, she felt so sorry for Nadya, that she caused such pain to her. Though her friend had no intention to be mad at her and gladly went together with her group to watch an Indian movie "Love in Simla" at the "Moscow" movie theatre after the examination. Nadya was happy; the film had two parts, so she had a good sleep.


N.K.Nagornova

N.K.Nagornova

That seemed to be a lesson for the whole student life left, but no. And again that was Natalia, she was really tireless and enthusiastic! She again talked Nadya to study political economy all night long. And so what? Both of them fell asleep at five in the morning. And they slept so fast that woke up only by noon. They woke up at the same time, well, of course, they slept like a log for seven hours, and had a good sleep. They quickly got ready, there simply was no time to have something to eat (at least that sign was observed) and quietly bickering hurried to the department. The examination was over. They found the professor and almost fell to their knees when asking him to let them take the exam. Only God knows what they told him. The professor was in a good mood, and he agreed on the condition that both of them aspired to receive excellent grades. And why would not they; they had had a good sleep. And both of them did received excellent grades.

Associate professor I.A.Lapshin

Associate professor I.A.Lapshin

I.A.Lapshin, and it was him, was a good man; he was satisfied by the exam and paid a lot of compliments to the girls. And there they promised each other to sleep before an examination!
Though there was one sign, which Nadya observed during all the years of her student life. And it never failed her. Nadya had never told about it to anyone, and only in forty years confided it to your most humble servant. And the sign was the following: if in the morning before an exam a joke, or as they say now a "trick" came into her mind, she knew, her sense of humor was with her, and everything would be fine. How mad her girlfriends were at her, when without any obvious reason she gave a giggle before an exam. She did not tell anything about it even to the members of NASNANE group. What a sample of self-control! Nadezhda constantly had problems with histology. She could not draw. And she was required to draw an amoeba or some cockroach. On the top of that Nadya's histology textbook, which she had borrowed from the library, was stolen. What a repulsive man was that Anatoliy Georgievitch Mikheyev. She connected him and the textbook. No, he did not steel it, but that was his fault anyway. And he was holding the examination she had to take. She was very upset at the beginning, and then she remembered, that the male-students also had a tradition to beat Mikheyev every year after the examination session.

After she remembered that she laughed and as a result received from Mikheyev, well, not an "excellent", but "good" was also good.

The plot of the story was kindly provided by N.K.Svetchnikova.

2 September, 2011.

© Copyright: Oleg Syedyshev, 2012
Publishing licence #21204260424

Translated by Viktoria Potykinato content ↑


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