Rank: Captain _x000D_ Fragment of the memoirs of Elena Ivanovna Mikitenko, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of German philology, Kalmyk State University. _x000D_ When I came for a job interview at the department as a Laboratory Assistant after graduation, the Head of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Kalmyk State University, Nikolay Pavlovich Serov, asked me: “Are you good at typing?” _x000D_ It was January 1973. Nikolai Pavlovich was the Head of the Department for two years. _x000D_ My ability to type was not an idle issue. At that time there was a great shortage of paper printed teaching materials not only for the specialty “Roman-Germanic languages” (as our specialty was called then), but also for other specialties where English and German were taught as a foreign language. Nikolai Pavlovich himself created many manuals, so I had to work hard on a typewriter, or rather on typewriters, since I had to insert words, sentences, comments, tasks, etc. in Russian into a foreign text. _x000D_ In the future, these typing skills were useful to me. While studying in graduate school, I published my articles and typed dissertation. The Head of the Department was taking good care of his staff. He was interested in attracting more young specialists to the department, so he writing to Moscow State University, to the Gorky Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages. He especially tried to recruit men. At that time, many talented young people were invited by Nikolai Pavlovich: Kolodko Vasily, Shevnin Anatoly, Avilov Sergey, Kornachik Alexander, Mikitenko Yuri and others, to work at our department. _x000D_ In those days, it was quite common to work side by side with war veterans. And Nikolai Pavlovich, at 50, was a veteran of the Great Patriotic War and had state awards "For Victory over Germany" and the jubilee medals "30 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War", "60 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR". He spoke little about this, was modest, claiming that he had little to fight, since he was drafted at the end of the war, at the beginning of 1944. He served as a trumpeter in the regimental orchestra, but in special situations he had to use real weapons. Therefore, his love for music is understandable. Nikolai Pavlovich knew well, loved and appreciated classical music and songs of the war years. Nikolai Pavlovich was always cheerful, fit and in a good spirits. Few people guessed that he had suffered from severe asthma since the war years. Therefore, he was anxiously concerned about his health: he was a vegetarian, he drank water only from a spring, he even washed himself with rainwater, (then the rainwater was clean). _x000D_ I was amazed that his son Pavlusha 5 years old talked with Nikolai Pavlovich in English. Few people were able to teach their children a foreign language. Nikolai Pavlovich knew English well, he lectured on the lexicology of the English language, on the theory of translation and especially liked to analyze the texts of the original and the translated parts; he had many published works on this subject. _x000D_ This skill formed the basis for instructing English for graduate students who were preparing to pass the candidate science minimum requirements in a foreign language. For him there was no obstacle in translating a text in any field of science, since at home Nikolai Pavlovich had many dictionaries for a variety of specialties. Today it is easy to translate any word, but then you had to run to the library, find a special dictionary or reference book. _x000D_ Nikolai Pavlovich treated the students kindly, he felt young being around them. We had always passed his exams and tests, he did not skimp on grades! For many years Nikolai Pavlovich Serov successfully headed the Department of Foreign Languages. _x000D_ After dividing the department into two: the Department of English Philology and the Department of Foreign Languages, he worked for only a few years, but then he had to leave the department for health reasons. We have preserved in our memory the image of our colleague Nikolai Pavlovich Serov, the defender of this country in the Great Patriotic War!