There is a reason to celebrate. October 14 is the day of the 85th anniversary of the unbending talent, pure and sharp as a blade, Naum Moiseevich Korzhavin, or Mandel (real name), or Emka (for friends). Kyivian Nahum Mandel was the grandson of a tzaddik and a terrible nonconformist. He was even expelled from school before the war. In 1945, the future Korzhavin (already a poet) entered the Literary Institute. His roommates were Rasul Gamzatov and Vladimir Tendryakov.