Walking through Buenos Aires reminded me of a long history. In the early 1970s, we held the first major international conference with the participation of many renowned scientists. Most of them came to the USSR for the first time and they naturally wanted to see the sights. I come from a small Russian town on the Volga. Let me think I will bring my colleagues to my little homeland, and at the same time I will look at the tomb of my parents. We took the institutional RAFik (the Riga automobile factory - it was then) and went. It is not me to tell you about the poor houses on the sidelines, the shelters, the women and the men in incomprehensible clothes on the wreckage. Yes, my own homeland met with strawberries, meadows, rows in shops. But there was a day off, a holiday of the type of harvest collection, the orchestra of the local music school was set up on the square near Kalanchi fire.
Dozens of kids with violins, baseball and guitar. Their girlfriend director said something to the spectators and the orchestra played. before the eyes of foreign colleagues. Shock, surprise, delight, astonishment – like, here in the midst of the lounges, the drunken audience, the Leninist portraits, far from civilization and suddenly sounds Astor Piazzolla! The Children’s Orchestra. And how it sounds - a licked bayon instead of a bandoneon!! How they hugged the boys and the girl of the conductor! Where is the Perlamout concert here in the deaf province? The girl's leader - her name was Masha Podoxik (therefore I remembered her name) - said that her father radio amateur recorded on the magnetophone music transmissions of different countries, and she liked to learn with students. in the hearing. On the way back, my foreign colleagues whispered about something for a long time, wrote something in the notebook - Then asked to check whether they correctly recorded the address and name of the girl director.

I do not know how her fate was. I hope it is okay. But when I hear Spring on the streets of Buenos Aires, for some reason I remember that provincial Russian town and a children’s orchestra on a rainy bridge with their little girl conductor. and Amen.