Irina Lidskaya and her mother Dina Konstantinovna Itskovich

There is my mother, Dina Konstantinovna Itskovich, and me, Irina Lidskaya, when I was nine months old. The photo was taken in Kharkov in 1935. My parents met and fell in love with one another when they were at Kharkov Medical Institute. They started living together when they were still students. They didn't get married. Much later they needed a Marriage Certificate for some reason, so they went to a registry office to register their marriage. After graduation from the Institute my parents lived in Kharkov for some time. They rented a room. There were no conveniences. Life was hard. It was difficult to find a job. My father was hired as a doctor in the medical department at some factory. My mother was a teacher somewhere in the country that was quite distant from Kharkov. My older brother Yuri was born in Kharkov in 1926. I was born 8 years later. A year after my birth my parents moved to Kiev.