Kiev 1956 - 1977

My parents and I upon arrival to Kiev in 1956

Kiev did not greet my parents with outstretched arms. First, there was no place to live. My parents rented a little room in Bikovnya, a village connected to Kiev by train.

Every morning my father went to work for an engineering company in Kiev by train. My mom took me, also by train, to Kiev, to leave me, a 4-year-old child, with friends or relatives for a few hours. Then she would go to war. She had two wars to fight: 1. Getting a place to live 2. Finding a job. Both wars consisted in writing letters and taking them to a variety of government offices, waiting in interminable lines, pleading your case and not getting too far.

Particularly unfathomable to Larisa was her inability to find a job.

"I have been a teacher for 15 years, 5 out of them without a diploma. Now that I have a diploma and all this experience – nobody wants to hire me.”

As it turned out, after the war treatment of Jews in the Ukraine changed, even though there was no official law for it. Jews were not to be given jobs or places in the institutions of higher learning. It was not a hard rule, just a tendency, so even though everybody I knew worked and studied, their lives were filled with struggle and hardship.

Miraculously, within a year, we had a place to live: a 150 sq. ft. room in a communal apartment, housing 4 more families, a total of 20 people to share the kitchen and bathroom.

The building where our communal apartment was located.

My mother also found a job: it was a school operating in two shifts – so she would leave the house at 7 am and get back around 8 pm. Both my parents had a lengthy commute by overcrowded and unreliable public transportation to their jobs. The majority of people lived like that.

At that point everything would probably fit into a manageable routine. But my father's health started failing: he had stomach cancer. He underwent gastric resection, a difficult surgery with terrible recovery: restricted diet, bouts of severe pain accompanied him for the rest of his life. But he was a fighter, athletic, health-minded, and after a while figured out a way to lead a normal life. "Хочешь быть здоровым - будь им! If you want to be healthy - just be healthy!" was one of his favorite sayings. He believed in mind over matter. And his mind was strong. My mother supported him in everything – making special foods, cheering him up, even though her own health at the time was not great.

I was also a sickly child and starting with 1959 my mom started taking me to the Black Sea to get me to be stronger. I have amazing memories from these trips. Mom always organized everything in such a way that there was no stress and we spent a lot of good time together. We often met up on these vacations with Larochka, so that gave us a chance to catch up.

In Yalta circa 1966-1968 (Larisa, getting my first taste of coffee, Larochka and her son, Victor)

In 1962 we moved into a luxurious by those standards new apartment: 300 sq. ft., two rooms, a tiny kitchen, and only the three of us to share all that. It was also right across the street from my father's job - so his life became easier.

The building in the new developments where Larisa lived from 1962 to 1977.
Red marks 'our' balcony. When my mother lived there it was an open balcony
with heaps of flowers at all flowering seasons. You could see it from far away.

In 1969 my mom and I went through the ordeal of me getting into college. I wanted to study English. It was my passion. However, It was virtually impossible to get into a college for a Jewish youngster in those days. I studied really hard but still was given a low enough grade in the entrance exam that I thought would not allow me to enter. But here a true miracle happened: I still got in.

But the college proved a bitter disappointment. A lot of students from rural areas were accepted with really low level of knowledge and they were setting the tone in the school. In 1971 my father helped me transfer to study in Moscow, where the school was much better but it was hard on my mom and me. We have never been apart in our lives. In those days phone calls were expensive, so we established a routine according to which each of us wrote long letters to each other twice a week. I remember scribbling those in the library and between classes. Unfortunately, our correspondence is lost.

My parents at my dad's work function - late 1960-ies

 In 1973 my mother retired from her teaching career. Even though she professed to like her job very much, she embraced retirement with gusto. She gardened, cooked, knitted, sewed and read. I visited about every two months and we spent those visits together.

In 1974 I got married but our visits continued, except my parents stayed with me in Moscow.

My parents at my wedding in 1974

On August 13, 1976 my father was killed while jogging.

For another year my mother lived in Kiev, was sick quite a bit but strong and brave. But I was pregnant and there was nobody to keep her in Kiev anymore. So she agreed to move to Moscow.