Such a great life

Exactly eight days before the end of August, Elena Maksovna Seslavinskaya, respected by many at Mosmetrostroy, began to accept heartfelt congratulations on her 90th birthday. And the calls continued on the second and third days. In addition, not all of our veterans know the exact date of her birth. It is possible that this issue of “Metrostroevets” will cause many more responses. Including because the super-weighty number 90 fits very poorly with the history and appearance of this wonderful woman.

How indestructibly young they look in the large group photograph taken on March 5, 1963 in our Palace of Culture on the occasion of Yuri Gagarin’s arrival there. Tatyana Fedorova arranged such a surprise on the eve of International Women's Day, using her long-standing parliamentary connections. She stood in the middle of that memorable photo, holding the hand of the first cosmonaut of the Earth. And on the other side of him is Elena Seslavinskaya. At that time, she was the chief engineer of the Special Works Office and, no less important, the young mother of the boy Sasha, who in the future would become the head of our TO-6 section. By chance, the same age happened to be nearby. Let's remember - Yuri Gagarin's 90th birthday was celebrated last spring...

That historical group photograph was reprinted in Metrostroevets for Cosmonautics Day in 2011. And the first separate photograph of the young specialist Elena Seslavinskaya appeared in our large circulation on February 10, 1959. By that time, the MIIT graduate had not worked for another year and a half, but was already noticed. And by whom! A short essay “Builder Elena Seslavinskaya” was written by one of the founders of the metro construction press, Margarita Nevolina. The same journalist who, in the 30s, along with production materials, wrote about our flying club in Malye Vyazemy, where 29 future Heroes of the Soviet Union “took wing.”

    The newspaper girl spotted our current hero of the day 65 years ago at the construction of the Leninskie Gory metro station. She saw and approved the fighting character of the young finisher, her exactingness: “There is no doubt that at the new metro stations Master Seslavinskaya will work with the same love for the work.”

Now we can rightfully confirm the accuracy of that bold forecast. Elena Maksovna carried her active love for metro construction through many decades. For her conscientious work, she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Badge of Honor, and several medals. She was awarded the title “Honorary Builder of the City of Moscow.” The very first and last entry in her work book is separated by 52 years. And both of them were made by personnel officers of Mosmetrostroy.

Strictly speaking, in the ongoing history of our unparalleled construction team, such facts have been noted more than once; moreover, length of service up to 60 years has been recorded. But the birthplace of the future Moscow metro construction is truly unique. The girl Lena was born into the family of an employee of the Soviet representative office in England. And they lived in London, in the city where the world’s first metro line opened in 1863.

However, no “sign of fate” should be seen in this circumstance. Three years later, the young family returned to Moscow. And there, it was no longer an ordinary subway, but the first line of the Soviet metro. And the new Muscovite began to live in a beautiful building on Dzerzhinsky Square, on the ground floor of which there was an entrance and exit to the metro station of the same name (now it is Lubyanka). It was from this building that Lena first went to school (in the alley behind the Polytechnic Museum), and then went to MIIT.

She completed her pre-graduation internship in the Donbass city of Slavyansk, and with the newly received diploma of a railway engineer she came to the personnel department of Mosmetrostroy.

It is better to read about how the “thin, fashionable girl in high heels” did not get to the railway workers (using the Internet) in the essay “Elena Maksimovna” by Sarkis Zukakyants, published in “Metrostroevets” on March 5, 1982. But her coming to the Special Works Office - to those metro builders who create the beauty of underground stations - became a very important act in life.

“The metro is where it’s beautiful,” she thought so from a young age and still holds the same thought. Once heard the words of the chief architect of Metrogiprotrans, Nikolai Shumakov, that one should not save on the architecture of metro stations, the chief engineer of the USR, Elena Seslavinskaya, perceived it as an immutable truth. Working in this position for 12 years, she made every effort to ensure that the architects' plans were brought to life. And for this it was necessary to monitor the deadlines, the quality of materials, the updating of equipment, compliance with technology, and the correct placement of teams.

The year 1966 became a very busy year for the USR, when seven stations of the Tagansky radius were launched - from the station of the same name to “Vykhino”, but even now Elena Maksovna cannot say which of these “seven” she likes best or remembers. The same applies to the four stations of the Zamoskvoretskaya line, opened in 1969. As the chief engineer, she was fully responsible for everything; she put everything through her heart, one way or another.

Then there was a period of work in the party committee of Mosmetrostroy. The deputy secretary of the party committee had more than enough to do. But even in a conversation with Zakukyants, she still complained: the papers and reports were jammed. She wanted to visit construction sites more...

  Such wishes came true when Seslavinskaya became in 1991 an assistant to the most experienced production worker Ezar Sandukovsky, who was then deputy head of Mosmetrostroy Yuri Koshelev. After some time, she received a new position - leading engineer of the Production Department of the Mosmetrostroy Administration. In fact, Seslavinskaya became the authorized representative of the finishers. The then director of the USR, Alexander Myshenkov, said about pre-launch meetings from the mid-90s onwards that Elena Maksovna was always at the epicenter there. And here we can recall the launch of six stations on the Lublin Line in 1995, and three more in the next year. And the elevated stations of the Butovskaya line are literally like an exit to a new space.

“The Special Works Department is my homeland as an engineer,” Elena Maksovna said in one of her pre-anniversary conversations. And she immediately named the recent and current leaders of this organization - Alexander Myshenkov, Anatoly Petrenko, Alexander Bondarenko. And when I started listing the famous foremen remembered from the late 50s, I couldn’t stop for long. A lot of them fit into her big life.

E.M. Seslavinskaya

Having given half a century

Metrostroy,

You have the right, whatever you say,

Count as stations

sister.

And there are not two of them, not three,

Who did you share with

beauty...

Yuri Petrunin