Школ немало бывало,
Только дело-то в том,
Что одной не хватало
Под названьем Колом!

Не хватало безумно,
Что уж тут говорить!
Чтобы где-то разумно
Что-то нам различить,

Мало просто работать,
Что-то там создавать,
Надо вместе рассветы
Иногда нам встречать.

Иногда, покидая
Пыль и шум городов,
Жить в лесу, узнавая
Суть научных основ.

Пусть нас ветер качает
На днестровских волнах,
И доклады читают
На зелёных ветвях,

Пусть нам солнце сияет
Или дождь с облаков,
Всё же пусть процветает
Дружба первых шагов,

Чтоб от школы, до школы
Вспоминалось не раз
Добрый юмор веселый
и серьезный, подчас.

Many schools people founded,
But by reason alone
We felt really confounded
Till we opened COLOM!

Yes, we needed it badly,
For it cant be denied
That to do something ably
Isnt easy inside.

Just to slave away inside
Will not make you grow wise.
So we saw the new days in
Outside, at sunrise.

Leaving sometimes the hubbub
And the dust of the town
We escaped to the forest
And there touched the ground.

May the wind swing us softly
On the Dniester blue waves,
And the papers on posters
From green trees show new ways.

May the sun pour its sunshine
Or the rain drop from clouds,
But the friendship of young days
Forever abounds!

And from "classes" to "classes"
Of this wonderful school
We remember its fun things
And the serious too.

I have been acquainted with Yuri Pechersky since student days, when I studied at the Radiophysical Department (RPD) of Tomsk State University (TSU). Yuri graduated from this department in 1958 and worked at the basic research laboratory of calculating devices of TSU Siberian University of Physics and Technology. This laboratory was a base for students specializing in computers. He supervised graduate theses of RPD students and taught students to solve chess problems (end game) on the Central Computer "URAL". As a research employee of the laboratory, Yuri took a position of the secretary of the Scientic Seminar chaired by our teacher Arkadij Zakrevskij. In 1961 Yuri Pechersky moved to Yerevan and soon afterwards to Chisinau where he worked as head of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR, later the Republic of Moldova.

His publications in Russian and international journals both in Russian and English testify to fact of Pecherskys recognition as an outstanding scientist. Books by Pechersky, such as "Theoretical and Graphical Methods in Pattern Recognition" (1978), "Robots among People" (1979), "Designing Transmitting Processor" (1980), "On the Way to Artificial Intelligence" (1981), "Models of Robotic Production" (1985, with co-authors), "Recognition Systems in Nature, Science and Technique" (1986), "System and Theoretical Programming" (1987), "Optimization and Data Processing" (1987), "Intelligent Systems" (1988), "Sketches on Computers" (1989), "Mathematical Modeling and Optimization" (1989) etc. are highly interesting in scientific terms. The publication "Yuri Pechersky is My Teacher and Friend" by Xenia Naidenova speaks about a high academic level of these books.

I would like to note that Yuri Pechersky was a perfect scientific expositor of science. He contributed much to the creation of the website topic "Chronicle of Events".

Pechersky used to announce about book releases to his friends by sending them information cards. An example of these cards sent to me is shown in Fig. 1. It should be noted that the edition of these books was usually large. For example, the edition of the book presented in Fig. 1 was 3000 copies.

Yuri often presented and sent books and journals to me in Tomsk written not only by him but also interesting scientific books and journals of other authors. A striking illustration of the books and journals exchange is the following letter from Yuri shown in Fig. 2.

Рис. 2.	Письмо от Юры
Figure 2.	A latter from Yuri

Pechersky used to announce about book releases to his friends by sending them information cards. An example of these cards sent to me is shown in Fig. 1.

For me, Yuri has always been a great friend. It was often that during the excursions that he organized I lost my handbag, and he always found it. One day when I was traveling to school by bus from the airport to Chisinau, the amber from one of my earrings fell and was lost. That amber was very dear to me. I had to remove the second earring. When I told Yuri about it, he reassured me that it would be found. And when I returned back to the airport by the same flight, a woman who sat next to me, said, 'What a pity that someone has lost this amber', and showed it to me. I immediately pulled out from my handbag two earrings, one of which had no amber. We both were happy. Upon my arrival I called Yuri and thanked him for the words that he reassured me with.

I knew that Yuri was a talented painter, and I admired his creativity. He told me that he started drawing only at the retirement age, and I hoped that when I reached that age, I would also begin to paint. Unfortunately, it has not come true.

At the COLOM (combination logical methods) school I have got a lot of real friends, namely: T.Cheboksarova, X.Naidenova, G.Korneva, who are close to me in spirit and in terms of scientific activity. Especially, I remember the night stories by G.Korneva about Marina Tsvetaeva, whose biography she knew very deeply. Those stories fascinated me, and we could not sleep all night.

Many All-Union and international conferences and international workshops on combination logical methods in recognition problems conducted under the leadership of Pechersky were organized by the Institute of Mathematics together with the Computational Center AN MSSR, the Moldovan Republic Regional Department 'Artificial Intelligence' of the System Analysis Committee of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The information about the first seminar held between 2 and 6 October 1977 in Vadu-lui-Vode (Moldova SSR), was published in the booklet Information Materials: Cybernetics 4 (104), 1987, Moscow, released by the Scientific Council on Complex Problem Cybernetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Dmitry Pospelov, the outstanding scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, has played a great part in the creation of the COLOM School. He made stunning reports not only in the area of this school but also in other subjects. For example, he gave a lecture based on the book by Eric Berne 'Games that People Play'. Dmitry Pospelov was a connoisseur of art and gave a lecture with a slide show based on the compositions of Amaravella. It should be noted that one-fifth of the compositions was donated to D.A.Pospelov from Peter Fateev (Amaravellas member).

Representatives from dozens of research institutions and universities in Moscow, Vladivostok, Kazan, Kiev, Leningrad, Minsk, Novosibirsk, Riga, Tomsk, Chisinau etc. participated in the workshops. Among the active speakers, the reports should be noted by D.A.Pospelov (Moscow), A.D.Zakrevskij (Minsk), Yu.N.Pechersky and A.V.Karelina (Chisinau), L.A.Rastrigina (Riga), N.G.Bondariva, X.A.Naidenova, T.N.Cheboksarova, G.N.Korneva (Leningrad), A.E.Yankovskaya (Tomsk), V.V.Nikolaev, Yu.S.Moskalenko (Vladivostok), V.V.Aleksandrova, N.D.Gorsky, A.O.Polyakov (Leningrad), V.I.Gorodetsky (Leningrad), E.V.Mazur (Kazan), N.D.Vashenko (Kiev). It should be noted that the geography of the students attending the workshops presented the best cities of the USSR.

Discussions about the prospects of the development of the combination logical approach to solving recognition problems were held at each workshop. Decision-making recommendations provided theoretical and practical results in the area of forecasting, recognition, and diagnostics of objects using combination logical methods. Thus, at the first workshop the recommendations highlighted the necessity of the wider research conducted into mathematical apparatus, discrete devices theory, coding theory, graph theory, discrete mathematics.

It is worth noting that some workshop meetings were held not only on the premises of the camping site "Nistru" but also on the beach of the river Nistru, where particularly the problem of COLOM pattern recognition was disclosed rather intensively. Many useful reports were made. Particularly, students were interested in information about the breakfast, lunch and dinner time. Despite the blinding light and the scorching sun the listeners did not spare the speakers and asked tricky questions. When there was a lack of posters that were hung on branches, the speaker drew in the air, and students recognize a particular image, and this was somewhat exciting. Nevertheless, all students passed the tasting exam.

Not only the COLOM workshop and other conferences were organized by Yuri, but he also helped his friends implement the results of their research. For example, systems "Abiturient-T" and "Student" (Yu.Komarov, A.Yankovskaya) developed and operated in TECI (TSUAB), were put into operation in two or three schools of Chisinau with a help from Yuri Pechersky.

It is dificult to enumerate all that Yuri Pechersky has done.

Yuri trusted people very much. Sometimes it landed him in trouble, but still his trusting people helped him in dificult situations. In the 2000s, Yuri was seriously ill. He asked me to help financially in connection with the operation. The dificulty was that the dollars - not rubles - were needed, and one had to deliver them to Chisinau as soon as possible. A lot of ways had been considered so as to ensure a money transaction from Moscow, Minsk, and other cities. But Yuri found the way to transact dollars. It was not only me who sent the money, but also his friends whom I addressed. Thus, people who helped were V.P.Tarasenko, F.P.Tarasenko and his childhood friend L.S.Lyahovich, and others. Unfortunately, we could not save Yuri.

I am sure that Yuris friends will also write about him, namely: A.D.Zakrevskij, A.A.Utkin, X.A.Naidenova, and many others.

Yuri will remain in our hearts and memories forever.