and her fame, Dulova did not emigrate from the Soviet Union and represented her homeland proudly abroad. Career In 1935, she competed at the Second All-union competition of musician-performers, held in Leningrad, and divided the first prize with Maria Goralova. After that she gave numerous concerts all over the Soviet Union – often together with her husband –, and became a well-known and popular artist. In 1942, during World War II, the Bolshoi artists were evacuated to Kuybyshev where she met and made friends with Dmitri Shostakovich. She had not stop playing, but meanwhile worked in the hospital as well, caring for the wounded from the battles around Stalingrad. In 1943, she returned to Moscow and resumed her busy harpist life. In 1955, she was awarded the title of Honorable Polar Explorer when she organized an artistic tour to the station North Pole-4 to introduce their art to the workers of the polar stations and the locals. She had been teaching at the Moscow Conservatory from 1943; she served there as Professor of harp from 1958. Among her students were E. A. Moskovitina, Natalija Sameyeva, Olga Ortenberg and other famous harpists. At least 30 of her pupils won first prize at competitions and festivals in the USSR and worldwide. In 1946, two of her former students from the Ippolitov-Ivanov Music School, S. Maikov and A. Kaplyuk, - with Dulova's expert assistance -, created the first Russian harp. In 1964, she had been a founding member of the All-Union Harp Society. In 1997, she was the chairperson of jury at the I. Moscow International Harp Competition. After World War II, she was not allowed to leave the country; but later she traveled all over the world, gave numerous concerts overseas and judged at international competitions. On several occasions, she participated in arranging seminars on harp playing for master-classes at Hartford University (USA) with Aristid von Würtzler. From the 1960s, Dulova-schools or Russian-schools were formed in the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, China, United States, Brazil, Venezuela and elsewhere; the students could acquire her special harp technique there. She visited these schools regularly and established master classes, too. Since then Russian harp playing style has been well known everywhere. From the Hungarian harpists Melinda Felletár and Anna Lelkes were her students in Moscow. Vera Dulova's repertoire consisted of three hundred pieces; and she herself wrote many transcriptions and studies for harp. She