Alexander Grin with his mother Raisa Grin and sister Olga Grin

From left to right are: me, my mother Raisa Grin, nee Liberman, and my sister Olga Grin.

This photo was taken in Moscow in 1937. My father's cousin brother Mark Grinberg, who became a well-known photo correspondent later, took this photo.

My mother was an intelligent, well-educated person, though she had only one official document about finishing a grammar school. She studied at university, but never graduated from it and didn't have any documents proving her higher education.

She sang very well and attended evening classes at the conservatory before the war, but she never reached a professional level. She had no time having to raise two children. She was a statistics economist. She worked in the institute of figurative statistics. My mother was a wonderful person. She was my most loved and beautiful person. She spent a lot of time with my sister and me.

My first childhood memories are associated with our yard. It was an asphalted yard. We played lapta [rounders] in the yard. Gee, it was exciting! We also played 'shtander' throwing a ball up in the air and the one who caught it shouted 'Shtander!' [exclamation used exclusively in this game meaning 'stand'] and then he had to hit motionless players.

The boys from my yard were my friends and later I made friends at school too. The children from our yard went to different schools. I went to school #92 in our district.

My younger sister Galina Grin was born in 1932. She finished the Biological Faculty of Moscow University. My sister was a geobotanist studying plants. She was a talented person and took part in various expeditions to Kazakhstan, where she happened to work on a nuclear testing site. She was exposed to radiation and fell ill with leukemia at the age of 23.

My mother was trying to rescue her from death.
My sister died at the age of 28.