Lyudmila’s maternal granparents

These are my grandfather and grandmother on father's side. Grandfather's name was Berk Levit. But he was commonly called Boris Petrovich. Grandmother's first name was Frida. I think her maiden name was Kunina. I somehow remember that vaguely. Between them is their granddaughter Inessa - the daughter of their elder daughter Rachel, who was a very ardent Komsomol member and consequently named my cousin, born in 1922, in the honor of Inessa Armand [a prominent Bolshevik figure], and after Lenin's death renamed her Lenina. This photo is made in Leningrad.

The name of my grandfather on father's side was Berk Levit, and in everyday life they called him Boris Petrovich. He died in 1944 in the city of Minyar, Kuibyshev region. Grandmother's name was Frida, her maiden name, I think, was Kunina - I can remember it somehow. She died in Leningrad in 1949. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about them. Unfortunately I know almost nothing about this Grandfather, where he worked or what he did, because nobody informed me about that, and I myself was not interested while being small.

My Daddy Samuil Berkovich Levit was born in Simferopol in 1904. Their family was also rather rich - they owned a house, I think in Kanatnaya Street. As a boy Daddy, it seems, went to Cheder, but I do not know for sure. Then he studied in a vocational school, in the commercial department. In 1929 Daddy graduated from the Institute of Civil Engineers in Leningrad and was assigned to Murmansk, the city under construction then. Daddy was one of the first builders and designers of that city. But Mum fell ill with tuberculosis there, and they had to return to Leningrad. Mum got acquainted with Daddy during the students' practical training session in Kronstadt and they got married in 1928. Parents didn't tell me anything about their wedding, I don't even have any photos of this event. Maybe there weren't any wedding at all, they could have just register their marriage with state bodies or live in civil marriage.

Daddy's elder sister Rachel worked in the Crimean Komsomol, was a very loyal Komsomol member, and consequently named my cousin, born in 1922, in honour of Inessa Armand [a prominent Bolshevik figure], and after the death of Lenin renamed her Lenina. The father of Inessa-Lenina was a writer by name Gorev. Before the war, they performed his play "On the banks of Neva" in Alexandrinsky Theatre in Leningrad. He died in the middle of the 1970s, and Aunt - in 1936, of cancer.

Also, Daddy had a sister Fenya, but what her occupation was, I do not know. Her husband Yosya worked at a defense factory, therefore they were evacuated to Sverdlovsk in 1941 and never came back to Leningrad any more.

Father's sister Sonya named her son Rem - the abbreviation for  "revolution, electrification, peace". Sonya also was an ardent Komsomol member, as well as her husband Nikandr (in general we called him Kolya), but actually he was Nikandr Kuzin. Uncle Kolya at that time was the chief of construction of Pre-Baltic Electric Power Station, deputy of the Supreme Council of Estonia, they lived in Narva, and died in Pushkin, when they were retired.

Daddy's younger brother Abram, too, was an active Komsomol member. He was the Komsomol leader of the steel-casting shop in a factory. Then he worked as a deputy director of a large factory in Gatchina. He also died rather young, approximately in 1976.

Until 1941, all Daddy's relatives lived in Leningrad, but the war scattered them over to different places.