In many respects, an individual life is influenced by meetings with other people who might make a serious impact on their professional career and relationships with friends and colleagues. But there are some special people meeting with whom might define your destiny. One of such destiny-makers was Lyudmilla Ivanovna Novikova (1918-2004). Lyudmilla Novikova was born on January 22, 1918 in the town of Gorky, Byelorussia. She graduated from the Mechanics and Mathematics School, Moscow State University. After the graduation and until the end of her life she was closely connected with public education. Novikova began her career as a teacher of mathematics. During the Great Patriotic War she was evacuated to the Altai region where she taught mathematics, physics, astronomy, field hygiene, and German at one of the local schools. She was constantly trying to be enlisted in the army as she had completed the program for military field nurses. However, due to the lack of teachers her request was rejected. In 1944, she was appointed Principal of a secondary school in the Moscow region.