Beethoven's Fifth Symphony changed his life, which seemed largely meaningless to him in the environment of communist ideology that didn't meet his childhood and youthful expectations. He felt that life should unfold before him like a tulip, and the music of composers from past centuries, not bearing the imprint of dirty proletarian hands, led Mark into its rich, genuine world, where he could immerse himself in true creativity and separate himself from universal dullness and obscurantism.

Once Mark asked his beloved Uncle Lusik which profession he liked most.

Lusik thought for a moment. And said:

"All professions are a yoke!"

"And your profession?" Mark asked.

Lusik taught economics at the university.

"Also a yoke," he replied.

"What about an engineer?"

"An engineer is a yoke too."

To any of Mark's questions, Lusik answered: "A yoke."

"But a composer is not a yoke," Lusik suddenly said.

And Mark thought… This conversation seemed to determine his future path in many ways.

The music school where little Mark was accepted to study was located in the Lenin Pioneers Palace. It was not a fake "palace," as envious communists liked to call simple buildings intended for the leisure of pioneers, but a real palace, built in Art Nouveau style and reminiscent of the era of powerful rulers of the Ottoman Empire – a one-story mansion of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov, exiled by the royal family from Petersburg and residing in Tashkent since 1881.

Around the beautiful mansion was a park with tall old oaks and fountains. Huge stone frogs surrounded small pools and, spouting streams of water from their mouths, filled them. Mark often sat astride these frogs and then bathed in the pool. Sometimes he collected acorns falling from the branched oaks or watched athletes who regularly trained in this park.

One day, Mark joined a group of running athletes warming up before training, using boxing equipment. They were all well-built.

Their coach, with a huge hooked nose and incredibly short stature, looked at Mark, who, with a thick rear end and plump cheeks, awkwardly ran after them, and sternly warned him: "If you bother us, we might hang you by your bottom."

Mark fondly remembered this comical episode, as he later learned that the hook-nosed coach who threatened him was none other than the legendary Sydney Lvovich Jackson, the champion of America in boxing. Born into a poor Jewish family in New York, he was raised in kosher traditions and even knew Yiddish. By a fateful coincidence, he ended up in Turkestan in 1916 and couldn't return home. He created the famous national school of Uzbek boxing and became an honored coach of the USSR.

This story sounds so fantastic that it's hard to believe it. The lightweight champion of America, Sydney Jackson, an American Jew, by the will of fate became a Soviet citizen and founder of the Uzbek boxing school, considered one of the strongest in the world.

Mark had many interesting and vivid memories of the palace. In summer, it opened as a pioneer camp – children slept right on the floor made of expensive wood, running barefoot with dirty feet through the rooms and halls decorated with incredibly beautiful oriental mosaics. Elegant Byzantine-style stained-glass windows with intricate patterns, floral motifs, and the use of gold and bright colors created an impression of luxury.

Before his death, the prince left a document stating that the palace, with all its contents, was bequeathed to the "beloved city of Tashkent."

The proletarians and their children took great pleasure in possessing such a valuable legacy of great culture from past centuries. However, this right was won by their grandfathers and expressed in the communist doctrine of "take," "divide," and "everything should belong to the people."

But over time, when Uzbekistan left the communist empire and returned to its national thousand-year traditions of feudalism, more specific and caring owners appeared for this palace. They turned it into a museum and began to carefully guard it.

But this will happen in the future, in the distant future. And at a time when everything still belonged to the people when after Stalin's death they no longer shot enemies of the people and party demagogues acquired somewhat human faces, the country experienced a flourishing semblance of democracy. The only period of warming when there were no wars and almost all the commandments of Moses were fulfilled to the "accompaniment" of the Communist Party Manifesto. Literature, cinema, music – all forms of art sang of humanism, equality, and justice concerning the Soviet person.

It was an "island in time" that many would remember as a truly happy period of Soviet life. For before that, there was a raging "ocean of time," filled with revolutions, repressions, wars, famine, and the trampling of human rights. And after this relatively happy and short period came a time of the rise of obscurantism and barbarism. Practices of "burning witches at the stake" and belief that the Earth is flat were revived. "Kremlin packs" and "wild terrorist gangs" roamed the planet.

But little Mark was fortunate to live precisely in that time which he later, many years later, recalled as a kind of earthly paradise behind the barbed wire of socialism. He had everything necessary for childhood happiness, and he began to engage in music, which enchanted him after acquaintance with the works of Beethoven and Grieg.

The classrooms of the music school where Mark studied were located in the building of the former stables belonging to Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, the owner of the palace. And in the palace itself, group events or choir classes were held, which Mark couldn't stand. He was placed with a highly experienced piano teacher – Berta Yakovlevna. She made him sing while playing the instrument, which he disliked. In general, she thought that Mark had no musical talent and often set as an example a talented neighboring orphan boy who studied with her. That boy had no instrument due to poverty and often ran to her, asking: "Aunt Berta, can I practice on your instrument?"

And little Mark was ashamed that he had everything but wasn't as talented.

"Why teach him music?" Berta Yakovlevna, the most experienced teacher in the school, asked his parents. There was a moment when Mark, despite his love for music, threatened to burn the home piano. But his mother insisted on continuing his studies; she was a pediatrician by profession but understood and loved classical music very much. She often sang arias from operas, as did her musical brother, Uncle Yakov, who warmed up in the toilet.

Eventually, Mark was transferred to another, less experienced teacher – Natalia Mikhailovna Nadezhdina. And a miracle happened! Mark began to study with pleasure and even compose small musical pieces, and at exams, his bright musicality in piano playing was noted. However, it should be noted that his passion for serious music was not always supported by his natural abilities, necessary for full realization as a talented performer. He listened to records with recordings of compositions by great composers for hours, imagining himself as either a conductor or a performer. It was like unrequited love of a short and not very attractive young man for a tall and beautiful girl who needs a suitable guy. The young man knows that with his physical data, he won't win her heart, and is simply happy that he can love her.

This discrepancy, this human drama with which God "rewarded" people, permeates all times, all epochs, and all conflicts.

But love and passion sometimes work wonders and realize themselves, breaking through in a different path, like streams of water in rocks.

For example, the love of the Italian poet of the Middle Ages Dante Alighieri for Beatrice Portinari, with whom he could not be together. To this woman, whom Dante Alighieri loved all his life and even after her death, he dedicated the "Divine Comedy." Perhaps he wanted to be with her, to unite with her at least in his imaginary world. This love created his immortal literary masterpiece, in which even hell "is created by the highest power, the fullness of all knowledge, and the first love."

Yes! The possibilities of love are inexhaustible! But the impossibility of realizing one's passion due to natural physiological shortcomings sometimes leads a person either to a feat or to a crime.

Mark believed in his star, and this naive illusion led him in the right direction. Naive illusions, despite their dramatic nature, often work wonders, like various religious beliefs that have preserved civilization and life on the planet.

Even unfulfilled dreams and hopes can have a positive influence and lead to unexpected results. Mark remained in such a state for many years. It was very dangerous, but some divine force protected him from personal catastrophe. Thanks to illusions, his life in this obscurantist society was more meaningful with motives and goals.

Natalia Mikhailovna, Mark's new teacher, was a very intelligent woman with a kind heart. She was the wife of the famous composer Boris Borisovich Nadezhdin, who made a significant contribution to the formation of the composer school in Tashkent. For his great merits, one of the city's music schools was named in his honor.

In general, the formation of musical culture in Uzbekistan under the influence of European musical traditions occurred quite unexpectedly. It was one of the rare but historically significant successes of the ideology of the communist regime.

After the Great Patriotic War, many outstanding cultural and art figures who were evacuated from Leningrad and other cities occupied by the Germans remained to live and work in Tashkent. In sunny and bread-rich lands, one could survive, create, and continue pedagogical activities, thereby preserving the valuable creative heritage of the European school and introducing it into the national cultures of Eastern countries. This marked the beginning of the flourishing of musical art in Uzbekistan and throughout Central Asia, which brought many interesting creative discoveries to the world.

Nevertheless, the "Marxist hairy paw of the communists" lay on this area of intellectual development of society, especially controlling and suppressing composer innovations and modernist styles. Innovations in classical music were not welcomed: they were considered the harmful influence of the West. Therefore, Mark was inspired by good old traditions, composing musical pieces that his friends liked.

He enjoyed visiting the Nadezhdins' home, where Natalia Mikhailovna engaged him in music.

Boris Borisovich usually had lunch at that time and sometimes, unintentionally listening to Mark playing scales with mistakes, joked: "He gets something like C-sharp flat major."

They had a large green yard where Mark loved to spend time with the youngest son of the Nadezhdins, Igor, who also composed music and was already studying composition with famous professors. Once Mark showed him his compositions, and Igor liked them. "There is both meaning and imagery in this music," Igor praised. "You see, you have above-average abilities," Natalia Mikhailovna rejoiced, encouraging Mark.

She always tried to create a positive aura around herself, her family, and her students. Their home was filled with intelligence and nobility, rooted in the aristocratic traditions of Russian families of the nineteenth century when European culture dominated in Russia. Thanks to this, masterpieces of Russian national art were created – painting, music, and literature.

Once after a lesson, Mark played chess with Igor in the yard where lilacs and cherries grew. A boy passed by them, seemingly unnoticed, silently. Mark looked at Igor questioningly, and he smiled: "This is my older brother Boris. We have only Borises in the family for centuries," Igor laughed. "He is preparing to enter the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, studying all day and completely absorbed in his passion – physics."

Boris, the eldest son in the Nadezhdin family, was very determined, always busy, and paid no attention to those around him.

Mark had to remember this modest, always self-absorbed youth many years later. It was a period of obscurantism in Russia, a period of the destruction of Russian civilization. Boris Nadezhdin, the son of that very Boris, with whose brother Igor Mark was friends in childhood, was a well-known political leader of one of the democratic parties and ran as a candidate for the presidency of Russia, and many Russians associated his surname with "hope." He tried to stop the "sliding avalanche of obscurantism" that had accumulated over the years of Soviet power. But the avalanche of socialist scum began to bury all of Russia, and it was already impossible to stop it. Nevertheless, Russian human rights activists in the West believed that politician Nadezhdin was a hidden protégé of the Kremlin and did not trust him. But Mark believed! He remembered his family – that aristocratic spirit polished by centuries-old traditions. He understood that it was from such families that the Russian intelligentsia would one day revive Russia and its spiritual values. Mark remembered his teacher Natalia Nadezhdina.

Many years later, various events of the past came to life in his memories, and the question arose: what of all this has the greatest value? Success in career and creativity, meetings with bright and talented people, romantic love adventures, or other significant events? No! He concluded that the most valuable are those people, teachers, who give us soulful light and knowledge, warmth, and paternal attention. And Natalia Nadezhdina lived in his soul as such a person and teacher, as if he had only parted with her yesterday.

In that distant period of childhood, in warm lands with bright sunshine, an abundance of fruits, flowers, and the rainbow illusions of communism, little Mark immersed himself in the world with all its shades of beauty and ugliness. He was passionately engaged in his creativity, and, apparently, genetics strongly influenced him in this regard, being a more significant factor than many realize.

"Why does he need this, Yosef, composing music?" asked Boris Abramovich, a relative of Mark's father, with a typical comical Jewish-Odessa intonation, scratching his balls. "Will Beethovens be needed in Uzbekistan?"

"Let him do something useful, not run around the streets of Pervushka with hooligans and drug addicts," Yosef replied.

But Mark was a curious teenager and managed to run through all the streets of the city, including Pervushka – it was a famous district, like Deribasovskaya in Odessa, and the oldest undeveloped sloboda in Tashkent.

They said that the area was called Pervushka since the time of the Russian merchant Pervushin, who in 1866 sent his son from Moscow to Turkestan. The son opened stores there, set up a distillery, and undertook the construction of many government institutions, including a military hospital and a church. The Pervushin company became the first investor in the development of production in the Turkestan region.

On the banks of the Salar River in Tashkent, a sloboda appeared where factory workers and railroad workers lived. Opposite the factory lay a vast caravanserai where visiting merchants from Russia stayed before market days.

Since 1950, Russian proletarians settled here, moving to warm and fertile lands where there was a high demand for labor. Their children grew up with Mark, and he adopted their habits and customs. Together with them, he ran through dangerous areas of the city and fell in love with their Russian girls.

Chapter 2