And then came the university entrance exams.

I'd applied to the Moscow University psychology department. This department, like a number of others at Moscow University, had quotas for several national republics. Latvia was given two places. This meant that anyone living in Latvia could apply and sit the entrance exams in Riga rather than in Moscow. The competition was also less fierce: in Moscow, there were about fifteen applicants per place, while in Latvia, just under twenty for the two places. So it was easier academically and saved one going to Moscow and back. The only catch was, as I realized post factum, that the Latvian Republic was anxious to use those two places for native Latvians rather than Russians or Jews with only weak connections with Latvia, including its history, culture, and language. My parents were born in Belarus, and even I myself wasn't Latvian–born, but had arrived there at the age of eleven. So I saw the point, but it wasn't—and couldn't be—official. Everybody was supposed to be equal in the Soviet Union—Latvians, Jews, Russians.

I was the only one out of the eighteen or nineteen applicants from the Republic to pass the entrance exams with straight A's. Closest below me was a Latvian girl who had A's and one B. The next one down the list was another Latvian with a B and a C. I was obviously the best candidate. My school grades were also all A's, with only two exceptions, both non–academic (PE and woodwork).

The three of us had to appear before the Latvian entrance examination panel and university admission board, which consisted of some dozen members, all looking quite professorial. They accepted the girl, but turned down both me and the other boy, saying they had decided not to use up that year's allocation and to send only one student to Moscow.

Determined to fight the injustice, I talked to the same old family friend I've called Alexander, who'd advised me how to behave faced with the KGB the previous year.