Leonid was the only child in the family of famous parents of the writer Zoya Boguslavskaya and the scientist-designer Boris Kagan. Later, Andrei Voznesensky became his stepfather.
However, famous surnames did not make him a "golden" boy from an early age. He had to achieve everything with his own strength, work and will.
"My parents raised me correctly. They gave me the opportunity to act independently, and if they limited me in something, they did it not by saying "No!", but by arguing in such a way that I would understand and agree."
Leonid lived in one of the overseas chinese in uk data most disadvantaged areas of Moscow, went to a very ordinary school, and after school, together with other hooligans, he broke windows and fought with other boys.
Leonid Boguslavsky in childhood
In the fourth grade, when his parents realized that the school where Leonid studied was a risk zone, they transferred him to school No. 444 with a physics and mathematics focus. However, Boguslavsky managed to distinguish himself here too.
In the seventh grade, Leonid became seriously interested in biology and decided to take part in the All-Union Olympiad of Moscow State University. And he treated it as an adult as possible - a week before the Olympiad, he dropped out of school. Having lied to the teachers that he was sick, and to his parents that he was staying at school for an after-school program, Leonid actually went to the library to study reference books and scientific biological works.
By the way, he won that Olympiad, receiving the first prize, which opened the doors for him to the biology department of Moscow State University. However, his father dissuaded him from entering there, citing the fact that biology is not a serious science. In order to find a compromise between biology and physics with mathematics, Boguslavsky decided to enter the physics department of Moscow State University, which had the best biophysics department in the USSR.
As Leonid himself later said, he was mentally prepared for the fact that he would not be admitted to this university. Having received a C in oral mathematics and not having gained the necessary points, Boguslavsky took this defeat as an instructive experience. After which he entered the faculty of applied mathematics at MIIT, where he became seriously interested in mathematical probability models of computer systems.
"I have long noticed a quality in myself: the prospect of falling and starting all over again does not scare me at all. I have never understood the expression: "I am in deep shit!" "Total shit" is a state of mind, in reality, thanks to even the most serious failure, you just find yourself at a new starting point."
Thus began the career of scientist Boguslavsky. It was 1972, computers were still far from modern PCs, but work in the field of computer networks was already actively conducted both in America and in our country. It can be said that Leonid Boguslavsky stood at the origins of the modern Internet.
Leonid Boguslavsky's University Years