Early childhood; born 1911 near Vilna (USSR); secondary school in Leningrad; studied physics at University of Leningrad (Vladmir Fok); first paper published prior to university studies, 1927; collaboration with Lev Landau in 1938; life at Leningrad Physical-Technical Institute; effects of World War II on physics in the USSR; Landau's view on theorists; influence of Western texts in the USSR; comparison of Lev Landau with Enrico Fermi. Also prominently mentioned are: Abrikosov, Hans Albrecht Bethe, Walter Heitler, A. F. Ioffe, Petr Kapitsa, Khvolson, Massey, Harrie Stewart Wilson, Nevill Francis Mott, Okun, Wolfgang Pauli, Isaak I. Pomeranchuk, Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, Victor Frederick Weisskopf; and Leningradskii gosudarstvennyi universitet imeni A. A. Zhdanova.