This is me, Larisa Gorelova, with my husband Grigory Gorelov.
The picture was taken in Leningrad in 1951 on the occasion of Grigory's visit; he was serving in the navy at that time.
Our first child was born that year, daughter Alla. I am 24 years old here and Grigory is 25.
As a student I spent my holidays at my mother’s place in Brest. I met my husband-to-be, Grigory Gorelov, a Jew, there. He lived there with his parents. They were doctors and as well as my mother, had been assigned to work in a liberated district, in Brest.
They were a very nice family of intellectuals. I don’t remember anything else about my husband’s parents. No one introduced us to each other on purpose; we met by accident at a dancing pavilion and liked each other at once.
We spent those holidays together as well as all following ones.
We had a very good time together, we were students.
Our relations were difficult owing to the fact that we lived in different cities. But we wrote letters to each other very often.
In 1949 my husband graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Minsk and I graduated from the Electrical Engineering Institute in Leningrad. He came to Leningrad for his preliminary diploma practical work and in June 1949 we got married.
I thought that we were just good friends, that is why his proposal to marry him caught me unawares. However, I agreed immediately. On that day we both went to work, and while we talked, he, as if among other things, made me a proposal. I took up his intonation and on our way to work we dropped by the ZAGS [Civilian Registry Office Department] and wrote an application.
We didn’t have any celebration, we simply registered our marriage. I was dressed very commonly, ordinarily, and my friend, the only guest at our registration, was dressed very beautifully, that is why the ZAGS official addressed her all the time, as if she were the bride.
It was very funny, and I remembered it for the rest of my life. In the evening of that day we went to the theater together to watch the Moscow Arts Academic Theater performance.
After the defense of his diploma Grigory got an assignment to work in Leningrad at the Sverdlov plant. We lived here until 1951, when he was enlisted to the Red Army Forces, since the Navy required personnel. In 1951 our daughter Alla was born.
In 1953 we moved to Tallinn, where my husband served as a navy officer at that time. My husband worked at the navy plant in Tallinn up to 1957, and in 1957 he was transferred to work in the Polish People’s Republic, the town of Svinemuende, the USSR navy base. I joined him with my daughter a little later. We lived there until 1960.
In 1958 I temporarily moved to Brest to give birth to our son, Yevgeny. I didn’t want a foreign country to be written in his birth certificate, as we lived in the Soviet Union.
