This article is dedicated to the beginning of the surgical career path of an outstanding public figure, a world-famous scientist, and a high-profile domestic oncologist, namely Nikolay Nikolayevich Blokhin. His transformation from a resident physician into a great scientist and brilliant surgeon is described. Based on archive materials, the results of his first surgical interventions are presented for the first time. Those interventions took place when he graduated from the Gorky Medical Institute and started working in a rural hospital in the village of Diveyevo, Gorky Krai, in 1935. Readers get to follow the development of skills of N.N.Blokhin who mastered increasingly complex methods of restorative medicine by every year.