With great sorrow I received the sad news about Yuri. He was not only a great scientist and a wonderful fellow researcher; he was a great man and a real friend. As a fellow researcher I remember very well the many exciting and fruitful, constructive discussions on transactions at ETH long ago. Regular research contacts continued until most recently with discussions at the Basel University on replication in Grid and Cloud environments. Yuri was always creative, most active and most influential - in spite of his health. He simply ignored his health state. I admired him because of this great ability; frankly I would not have been able to function like him in this situation. Already his childhood in Siberia was by no means simple, much worse than what many of us experienced during and after the war. And again, at the end of his career and of his life, he had to be strong against himself. He mastered everything with a great deal of humor.
During the last years, beyond research contacts, Yuri and I were in regular mail contact and I have extracted some of Yuri’s typical sentences regarding his health, showing how bravely Yuri accepted his situation:
13 Jun 2008: On my front, unfortunately the news are not great. Doctors have determined that I have a liver cancer… doctors say I may be around for 1-1.5 years if I am lucky… I am in good spirits and continue to work. Some of my papers are appearing in journals and other under considerations and some other I hope to finish before unpleasant events…
22 Jul 2008: … the probability that I will be around between 1-2 years is about 5%... I continue to do research while I still can… I have started to prepare my fall class…
08 Sep 2008:… I am plugging along. Currently, I am teaching a class on Advanced Database and I noticed that my energy level is not what it used to be….
15 Nov 2008:… My health is holding up. So far I am able to ignore my conditions and continue to work as if nothing is wrong. Ignoring it helps a lot. I hope G-d will give me some more time to ignore the disease and let me work….
16 Feb 2009:…Pat and I are both realists and are aware of some difficult times ahead, but we are determined to be optimistic. I continue to work and still enjoy it…
25 May 2009:… I had to go through a cataract surgery on my left eye…(As I was joking with my doctor, I cannot go into my final journey without some vision in both eyes, otherwise, I would by mistake step into hell instead of heaven. Moreover I would not see my judges in the final destination of my last journey).
03 Jul 2009:… I noticed that I have slowed down a bit. I cannot work 10-12 hours without a break as I used to do before my health problems. Pat trying to encourage me saying it is my age slows me down, but I am not so sure.
11 Sep 2009:… I am teaching for the first time an undergraduate course in Data Mining and preparation takes a more time than I expected.
11 Oct 2009:… I continue to teach and write. Unfortunately, my health conditions somewhat declined….I try to abstract from concentrating on myself and continue to concentrate on the job….I was put on Promotion and Tenure committee in our College. That adds a great amount of non research work
2 Dec 2009:… I continue to conduct a normal life and submitted two proposals to NSF
18 Mar 2010:… I am still surviving. Doctors are not very optimistic about my case but I try to ignore them. I still work and hope to finish this semester
16 Apr 2010:… The other day the doctor said… you should take a week to rest. I responded that I do not have time to rest. He laughed and asked: when are you planning to rest. My response was, I will have a plenty of time to rest after my demise … I plan to go to SIGMOD in June…
This was Yuri’s last mail to me. It was my turn to respond. I missed the deadline. Sorry, Yuri, I will miss you a lot.
Hans Schek, June 16, 2010
