My father's sister Bella Levina (nee Zalivanskaya), her husband Grigori Levin and their son Victor Levin.
This photo was made in Moscow in 1964.
My father’s family lived in Grodno [in Belarus, over 1000 km from Moscow] in a wooden house with three small rooms. Their biggest value in the family was a sewing machine. There was a well in the yard from where they fetched water.
Here was a wood stoked stove in the house. They didn't have a garden, but there was a shed where they kept chickens. They were not wealthy. The family wasn't religious. They observed Jewish traditions, but it was most likely their tribute to traditions and provincial way of life.
They went to the synagogue on Friday and on Jewish holidays. They celebrated Sabbath, but didn't follow kashrut. They celebrated all holidays at home.
My grandfather Israel Zelvianski had progressive opinions, he was a Soviet person believing religion to be something obsolete and disappearing, something that was on the way of life and progress, but he never joined any political parties or public or cultural organizations.
My father's sister Bella Zelvianskaya in Grodno in 1916. She was raised in a children's home in Moscow. She married Grigori Levin, a Jew, a major in the Red Army, and stayed to live in Moscow.
She worked in the department for the Party personnel inspections in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. She had a son named Victor Levin. He is an electrician and lives in Moscow.
Bella died in Moscow in 1999. We didn't have contacts with her or her son.
