You understand this over the years, regardless of your position, status, or numbers in a banking application.
This is a time of an incredible feeling of peers – like-minded people and antagonists, people who lit others, and those who hid their light within themselves. This is the time of the appearance of those whom we now call “brothers” and “sisters” – and I am glad that most of them have been with me throughout my life.
This is the first communication with a respected professor who sees in you no longer a noisy audience of yesterday’s schoolchildren, but a future colleague. That first “You” from a famous, honored person, half a century older than me, I will remember for the rest of my life.
And being a student is a unique combination: when you feel like an adult, but inside – and there is nothing you can do about it – you still remain a child. Because you know that somewhere nearby there are parents - like in a computer game: a hidden "bottle of health", which gives peace and strength in difficult times.
But the main thing is a lot of stories. Funny, strange, incredible. Sometimes worthy of a thick novel, sometimes - a short anecdote. It's easy to check: you just have to gather former students - and you won't hear so much laughter and memories anywhere.
My cadet years were the same. Like all students - eternal lack of sleep and lack of money. And youth takes its toll.
A few days ago, at a meeting with KhAI students, I was asked about my most vivid memory. I answered honestly: once I fell asleep at post No. 1 near the flag. Two hours "smoothly" - and I did "hold out", because I slept standing up, as it is written between the lines in the guard service charter. But the weapon could not stand it - it fell to the floor and woke everyone up, including me.
Then it was horror, and now it is a fun adventure. Like most student memories.
Today, years later, I can say one thing: my student book was interesting.
I sincerely wish you, the young generation of students and cadets, that your book would be even brighter. That it would have a place for drama and love, adventures, humor and victories. And that it would stand on your shelf among the most beloved ones - those to which you want to return.
And that the students and cadets who are defending the country today and fighting the enemy at the front, would soon return home alive and well - to their classrooms and dormitories.
That the corridors of KhAI would once again hear student laughter.
And this is my main wish!!!
Acting Rector of KhAI Oleksiy LYTVYNOV