Grigoriy Golod with his wife
My second wife Taisia Ogasian and I. The photo was taken in Tikhomirskiy village, 1954.
My first wife Mirrah did not want be with me, she did not like me. We lived separately. In 1949 I met a nice Russian woman, Taisia Ogasian. She came from Voronezh, a small Russian town. She finished a secondary school and an accounting course. She was in evacuation in Tashkent and worked as an accountant. After the war she stayed in Tashkent. Taisia was married. Her husband perished at the front. Her mother was raising their daughter. We began to see each other and fell in love. Taisia came to live with me. I wrote Mirrah in Kiev to ask her for a divorce. She wrote that I was unfaithful and immoral to my military unit.
It was a customary thing in the former USSR to have personal issues resolved by public or party organizations. There were even administrative penalties for immoral conduct applied to those that broke the rules. Adultery was not tolerated by the public. I got a strict reprimand, which was incorporated in my personal files. That meant that I couldn't have any further promotions. I couldn't stay at the disciplinary battalion either, as I was considered unreliable. I was sent to a military office in Tikhmirskiy kishlak [Uzbek for village] near Bukhara [Uzbekistan].
The military commandant there was an Uzbek man, Lieutenant-Colonel Ichkerov. He didn't know Russian. The other employees of the office were Russian. Very soon I realized that Ichkerov took advantage of our ignorance. Uzbeks came to talk with him about their children's service in the army. He accepted bribes for the release from service in the army. I never accepted any gifts and people respected and liked me. I was the only Jew there, but I never faced any anti-Semitism throughout my service. I forgot about my Jewish identity - we were all equal and supported each other. Taisia was with me. She worked as an accountant in various offices. We couldn't get married, because Mirrah didn't respond to my numerous requests to divorce me.