Part of History: The Oral Record and Moscow’s Model School No. 25, 1931-1937

All’s quiet now. Summer vacation has started, the halls and classrooms are deserted. Almost. It is 10 July 1992 and I am inside Moscow’s School No. 175 with Vladimir Dmitrievich Nikolaev, a pupil here from 1933 to 1941. Once this was School No. 25, hallowed ground, from 1931 to 1937 the most famous school in the Soviet Union, where a talented teaching corps instructed the children of Stalin and other representatives of the Soviet elite. The winner of many awards, School No. 25 was the object of my research for several years. It's a bit unnerving to imagine the sounds and images of the people who worked and played in these very rooms sixty years ago. Nikolaev interrupts, then enhances the experience: “This was the library; the deputy director’s office was here; Svetlana, Stalin’s daughter, and I were in the same literature class there.”