The Man who made me cosmologist

After lunch I’ve got a mail from Yuri Petrovich where asked me to give a plenary talk at the annual PFU Conference.  So when around 5 p.m. he called me I was sure he wanted to know if I got the mail. And when I confirmed about the mail, he told, that was fine, but he has something else to inform me. And he told sometimes ago Georgi Nikolaevich died at the hospital. Georgi Nikolaevich Shikin, my supervisor, who together with Yuri Petrovich Rybakov made me what I am today. I first met him sometimes in June 1991. On May 28 I came back from Bangladesh. When on April 22 I went home, I came to know that my father died three weeks ago, on 31^st March. So when I came back to Moscow I was completely upset. Moreover, the problem I was dealing with turned out to be much more complicated than we thought. So Yuri Petrovich, my teacher offered me to work with Georgi Nikolaevich. He arranged our meeting in mid-June. During our first meeting he gave me some of his works and asked me to examine them. He also told if I find those problems interesting we will continue, otherwise I am free to study something else. Thus I started my study of cosmology. In two years we have published a number of papers and in 1993 I defended my Ph.D. I was his first student. After that I moved to Dubna, began to work independently. But it was thanks to them, who taught me operate independently I could go forward. Until 1998 we have worked together. Then after some gap we again wrote a number of papers in 2005. In 2009 due to some complexity he had to undergo an operation. Since then he stayed back home. After my D.Sc. we again began some joint work. Time to time I went to see him. It was mainly to keep him engaged. Our last joint papers were published in 2011. Lately every time when I called him and asked how he was, he replied that he was still alive (пока живой), and every time I replied, it is good news. We will have time to die, now as long as we are alive let us meet; and do some work. And he invited me to visit him. I usually visited him together with Yuri Petrovich. We talked about science, about our current work, drank tea and left him promising to come back again. Last time I visited him March 29. I went there alone, told me about my upcoming visit to Abu Dhabi. When I left him, he told it might be our last meeting. He told April might well be his last month. I told him we will meet definitely and write new papers. We were planning to visit him on last Friday, April 24. But Yuri Petrovich phoned me and told Shikin is at the hospital, so we better meet him when he comes back. Last we talked on Monday. He was very positive. He told that he has to undergo a minor heart operation and after that we can think about some new problem. I was very glad to see him in a positive frame of mind after long time, so today’s news was like a bolt from the blue. But as we know people like Shikin do not die, they live in their works, in their students. All your life you wanted to know the secret of cosmos, now you are a part of that. When you were alive I know who to ask questions and get answers to them, now I have to find them on my own. But I know where to seek, you taught me that very well. Good bye Georgi Nikolaevich!