ABSTRACT
My first meeting with Ya.B.Zeldovich was fleeting, and, although it would completely change the course of my life, it has now nearly vanished from my memory. In 1947, when I worked in the Department of Higher Mathematics of the Zhukovskii Air Force Engineering Academy, I was recommended to YaB (I think by I.G.Petrovskii, then my scientific boss) as a possible collaborator. My meeting with YaB was very short; as far as I remember, he said only that I would work with applications of mathematics outside Moscow. The result of this conversation was that, at the end of 1947, when I was already working in Riga at the newly founded Higher Military School, I-an ordinary captainwas summoned by the Air Force Commander-in-Chief Marshall K.A.Vershinin; I remember the night-time commotion this caused. However, Vershinin briefly asked me about the conditions at the school and sent me back. Later, someone told me that a long telegram was sent by the school asking that I be allowed to stay there, and that in the end, of the two candidates requested by YaB, the Commander-in-Chief confirmed only one: this was E.I.Zababakhin, the future Academician, with whom I had studied at the Air Force Academy in the same section.
