Israil, Emiliya's father with relatives and friends.

In this picture, my father Israil Maron is captured with his relatives and friends some time at the end of the 1920's in Chechersk.  Our own Chechersk photographer, Portnov, took the photo.  I don't know the reason for this get-together.
In the upper row of the photo, first from the left, is my father, Israil Maron.  The two men standing to the right of him are their friends.  To the far right in this row is my Uncle Emmanuil Kosoi, my mother's brother.  In the middle row (second from the top) form left to right are: Mikhail Bolshun, my grandmother Mera's brother David Bolshun's son; Mila Bolshun (maiden name Tsirlina), his wife; Miron Goldberg (Mote Maron), my father's brother and Kappa's husband as well  as Grandmother Mera's nephew; Efim Elkin, Emmanuil Kosoi's friend.  In the front (first row from the bottom) from left to right are: Matvei Tsirlin, Mila, Mikhail Bolshun's wife's brother; Arkadii Kosoi, a friend of the family with the same last name.
My father Israil Maron organized the first agricultural commune in the village of Edinstvo, Chechersk province.  He was injured by bandits.  The peasants sent him to S.M. Kirov for help and Kirov offered my father a chance to stay in St. Petersburg.  My father refused, however, saying that he was needed more in the village.  After Party Agricultural studies, Father became the head of the financial department in Chechersk.  In 1939-40 he was sent on a party assignment to the city of Kneishev, Belostok region.  There the war came upon him and he was killed during the first few days while transporting party archives to Fort Osovetz.
My father's brother Miron was an expert in timber marking, rafting and procession.  He organized the chase and capture of the bandits who staged the pogrom in the village of Zagore in 1922.  His 9-month-old son died during the pogrom.  Miron, along with his wife, Grandmother's niece Hanna, moved to Chechersk where he worked in the timber mill.  During the war he organized the self-defense corps in Chechersk.  He was then sent to Kuibeishev where he worked according to his specialty.  After the war he returned to Chechersk and was the director of the timber mill in the village of Krasnei Bereg.  He was an unusually strong man- he could lift a horse by himself- and all bandits were afraid of him.
Mikhail Bolshun was the son of Grandmother Mera's brother David Bolshun.  His mother was murdered by bandits in the pogrom.  Mikhail graduated from agricultural academy and was a winemaking expert.  He lived with his wife Mila in Pyatigorsk and worked as the head engineer of raw materials in the wine factory in Bishtau.  He spent the entire war at the front.  Mila Bolshun, his wife, was a highly qualified, party class, stenographer.
Motvei Tsirlin was Mila's brother.  We called him uncle Motei.  He taught literature at the college that Yuri Gagarin graduated from.  He was the first kosmonaut's teacher.  Next to him is Arkadii Kosoi, our friend of the same name from the village of Belyavki.  It was he who organized the self-defense against the bandits at the time of the 1922 pogrom, and the bandits couldn't enter the village.  He befriended the writer Mikhail Zoshenko.  He raised a daughter who became a famous artist.
Emmanuil Kosoi was my mother's brother, my beloved Uncle Monya.  He did so much for our family. As a 12-year-old boy, after the murder of his father, my Grandfather Borukh during the pogrom, vowed to help and protect his sister, my mother, to the end of his days.  He kept his vow.  He graduated from summer school before the war and worked as an instructor at the regional commission of the komsomol.  He then became the head of Vkusprom light industry in Leningrad (the food factories of the city).  During the war he served in the headquarters of aviation communication for the Leningrad front.  After the war he was the director of  Sewing Factory #5.  He passed away in 1955 from complications of a heart attack.