This is me, my son Mikhail and my wife Victoria Novik. The picture was made in Moscow in 1966.
In 1960 I found a job in construction design institute Mosproject. I was hired as a technician and entered evening department of Moscow Engineering and Construction University, Civilian and Industrial Construction.
I cannot say that the university studies gave me a lot from the standpoint of professional skills, but I acquired the latter in practice, working at the institute. I was well up in calculations and models.
At any rate I obtained a diploma and had worked for the design institute Mosproject 1961, and retired in 1989.
I wanted to marry only a Jew. I had been hurt by anti-Semitists for quite a lot, even by my family. I wanted to feel at ease, but it is possible only when there is no issue on nationality segregation. I met my wife-to be in Mosproject.
Victoria Novik worked as an architect in the department of a very good-looking Jew, architect Chechulin. Victoria was a Jew, and it made us closer. She was an only child in the family. Her family was assimilated, and Victoria's mother tongue was Russian.
When Victoria was a little girl, her father, a famous economist Mark Novik was invited in Moscow for work. His family moved in Moscow with him. Having left school, Victoria entered Moscow Engineering and Construction faculty. She got a mandatory job assignment to Mosproject and had worked there until she retired.
We had an ordinary wedding. We got registered in the state marriage registration office and had a wedding party for our close people. We lived with the parents. By that time our neighbor, colonel, in communal apartment, got a lodging and the unoccupied room was given to my parents by Ispolkom. It turned out that we had a separate two-room apartment.
In 1962 our only son Mikhail was born. My son has always been aloof and tried not to tell about his child's concerns. Later on I found out that my son, even when being a child, had to come across anti-Semitism. Having finished school Mikhail could not enter the institute. He was drafted in the army. He was lucky he was in the tank troops in Germany. He was a telephone operator.
To a certain extent it kept him away from anti-Semitism, which might mostly likely have happened if was on the territory of the USSR. Having been demobilized from the army, he entered Moscow Institute of Telephone Communication.
It was in Brezhnev's times in 1982, when anti-Semitism was spread all over the country. At that time demobilized from the army had some benefits and it must have worked. When son graduated, he was employed by the telephone communication company.
I have been writing since childhood, first verses, then prose, but I did not find it important. I started doing it professionally (if I can say that) after I retired in 1989.
There was a literary institution Magistral in Moscow [literary institution Magistral was founded in Moscow in the 1960s and united officially unrecognized poets and writers, whose works were unpublished by state publishers].
I was involved in work for this institution. I met many poets and writers. Then I took to writing more seriously. I write about the past and the present.
My works were published in different collection of stories and magazines. I wrote reminiscences of my camp life the collection of stories "Still a Burden", published in 2004 in Moscow with assistance of the compiler.
As for the Jewry, I have always identified myself as Jew and will remain a Jew till the end of my days, especially is there are anti-Semitists. When I am invited to hold a speech, I always recite my verses dedicated to the Jewish theme.
Jewish people are heroic. Each member of the tribe takes a credit that the peoples have survived under such hard conditions. A person becomes Jew at birth and remains a Jew for good.
