Notes of an old refiner

Last Thursday the school No. 12 invited me to speak to the 9th and 10th grade, the "meeting with the veterans of the labour". It is the school where Lyudmila taught. The director remembered her and gave me the first row.

The four bottles for the school: crude, diesel, gasoline and the catalyst powder.

I brought a bottle with crude oil, a bottle with diesel, one with gasoline and a plastic bag with the catalyst powder. One boy asked whether I am rich. I said: with 38 years of work I have two good knees and a dacha. The class laughed and I felt that it was the correct answer.

A girl asked why I stayed in one workplace so long. I said: because at the refinery every day is different, and also nobody offered more. Then one more question, how does the refinery smell? I said: like money, but only for other people.