Everything would have happened without problems if his tutor and the Dean had not been at odds.

The Dean was opposed to Jorge immediately continuing with his PhD; so he had to travel to Moscow so that the higher authorities would give the order that he could immediately begin his doctoral studies.

It was the time of the Soviet Union. So Ukraine depended on Moscow.

Jorge had a scholarship to do his Master's degree, but when he finished it was immediately taken away from him, so he traveled to Moscow with scarce financial resources, risking everything on that trip. In accordance with his expectations, in three days he would solve everything, and he would return to kyiv with his doctoral scholarship, residence and dining room.

And he was able to solve the situation in cold Moscow, since he had traveled in winter, but not in three days, but in a week, so by the last day he had all the documents in his possession and the ticket for the mid-day train to kyiv, but he had spent a day and a half without eating. Hunger and fatigue attacked him furiously.

And the worst thing that could happen to him happened, the snow-clogged roads leading to the airport made him late, when the mid-day train left before his eyes without him being able to do anything.

The next train would not leave until midnight, it would be 12 hours of waiting, under normal conditions he would have waited stoically, but now it was not only fatigue and hunger, but also thirst.

He sat on his briefcase and hugged his envelope with his diplomas, his grades and personal documents, as if to say "If I die, I die with them."

He felt faint and stood up looking for strength, then he looked at a strange couple, whose nationality he found difficult to guess, they were drinking tea and eating black bread. He spoke to them in Russian, explained his situation and asked them only for a piece of bread and tea.

At first he thought they had not understood him, because they looked at each other and did not say anything, then very kindly they said: "No sir, we do not usually give food."

He returned to his suitcase on the floor, he felt like crying "If I believed in God I would ask him," he said to himself; then he thought of his mother and said without thinking: "Mom, help me."

In front of him stood a young man about his age, a black man with very straight hair "he could be Venezuelan, African or Indian," he thought.

Moscow trains are old, but they are extremely punctual. At that time there was not much international tourism, but a lot of domestic tourism, not only from the Soviets themselves, but also from African, Asian, Palestinian, Iranian, Vietnamese, Indian, and Latin American students, especially from Cuba.

Jorge slowly approached the young man, already with chapped lips and a completely dry throat, and said desperately: "Are you Venezuelan?"

The young man turned around surprised and answered, dropping his bag and opening his arms, "My brother, of course I am."

Almost fainting, Jorge threw himself into the arms of his lifeguard.

A little while later, in a restaurant near the metro station, Luis, as the young man was called, told him that he was a Venezuelan medical student, who studied in Stalingrad and who, coincidentally, also came to Moscow to solve some problems with his scholarship, since he intended to continue with a specialization in cardiology.

Jorge was from Caracas and Luis from Cumaná, a city in eastern Venezuela, where I spent almost all my life, working as a gymnastics coach.

_{When I was Jorge and Luis's coach}