Arnold Fabrikant with his cousins Nina Patlazhan and Nina Gorodetskaya

This is me with my cousins Nina Patlazhan, nee Bogomolskaya (on the left) and Nina Gorodetskaya (on the right). This photo was taken in Odessa in 1928. I remember that our parents took us to be photographed on a weekend, on a summer day. The girls behaved themselves, while I was naughty, and while the photographer was preparing to take photographs, I was pinching the girls from behind, and that is why they look so annoyed. I was born in Odessa on 1st January 1923. When I was small, my father's sister Yekaterina, who was living with us at the time, was my nanny. Later I was taken to a teacher of the Froebel Institute, who lived a block away from our house. She taught me and a few other children music. There was nothing interesting about it and we could hardly endure it. I learned to read before I went to school. I went to school in 1931. Nina Patlazhan was my aunt Yevgenia's daughter. During the war the family evacuated to Tashkent and after the war they returned to Odessa. Nina graduated from the Philological Faculty of Odessa University and married Yefim Patlazhan. They had a daughter named Lena. My other cousin Nina was aunt Klara's daughter. During the war the family evacuated to Central Asia and then returned to Odessa. My parents didn't keep in touch with this part of the family for some reason. All I know is that Nina finished a medical college and became a doctor.