Bella Zeldovich and her parents

This is a picture of me and my parents Samuel and Sarah Zeldovich (nee Chernenko). The photo was taken in Nikolaev in 1928. My parents never told me how they met. I guess they met when my mother's family moved to Nikolaev. They got married in 1924 and only had a civil ceremony. I was born on 13th September 1925. We lived in my grandmother's house, which had a number of rooms. They also had housemaids. I don't know what my father did for a living. He might have been a businessman. My grandmother had a room of her own, and my parents had a few rooms for themselves. I had my own children's room. We had meals in the big dining room. The house was nicely furnished. My grandmother had a woman who took care of her. There was also a housemaid. My mother was a housewife. My father and mother came from religious families. They went to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and fasted on Yom Kippur. I remember a general clean-up of the house before Pesach and the removal of chametz from the house. Fancy dishes were put on the table. There was matzah and other traditional food: gefilte fish, chicken broth, maror (horseradish), charoset and kosher wine. Grandfather Avrum visited us on Pesach. He conducted the seder. I, and, later my brother Leonid, asked our father the traditional four questions [the mah nishtanah]. Our grandfather hid afikoman in the room and we had to find it.