Simon Gonopolskiy with his son Natan and grandson Roman

This is me (first from right), my son Natan (in the center) and grandson Roman in Deribassovskaya Street on 1st April, at the annual Humor Festival of Odessa. The photo was taken in 2000. My son Natan finished school in 1977 and entered the Mechanic Faculty of Polytechnic College. Upon graduation he worked at the Research Institute of Machine and Automatic Units. He entered the post-graduate school in the Machine Building Institute in Moscow. When Perestroika began this institute was closed and he worked as the director of laboratory and then as production engineer at the machine tool plant. After the plant was shut down Natan learned computer programming. He works for a private company now. He is fond of sailing. He traveled to Turkey, Bulgaria, etc. in his yacht. He traveled across the Black Sea. He is vice-president of the Odessa Sailing Federation. He met his wife Evgenia Trofimova at the sailing club. She is Russian, but my wife and I had no objections to their marriage. Their son Roman, my grandson, was born in 1987. We live together. At the beginning Roman studied at a Russian secondary school with advanced teaching of the English language. Later his parents sent him to the Jewish school Tali. We wanted our grandson to study Jewish traditions and rituals. Besides, this school is very well equipped. My grandson was going to follow into his father's and grandfather's footsteps and after finishing the 9th grade at school he went to Primorskiy Lyceum. Roman is also fond of sailing like his parents. He went on advanced sailing trips and got into storms. Speaking about my Jewish origin and identity it has never occurred to me to forget my identity, but we knew so little. My wife took great efforts to get books about Jewish religion, traditions and history in the 1970s and 1980s. I told my son all I knew. When my son grew older he began to read books about Judaism. He has a very serious attitude towards these issues and often speaks with his son Roman about the Jewish heritage. I attend the synagogue at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I take part in activities arranged by Gemilut Hesed. I borrow books from the Jewish library. I'm especially interested in magazines and newspapers from Israel. I hope Israel will have a peaceful future.