Irina Lidskaya's aunt Bella Vasilieva and aunt Maria Davydova and her husband Abram Davydov.

From left to right are an unidentified woman, my aunt Bella Vasilieva, and my aunt Maria and her husband Abram Davydov. This photo was taken in Kiev in 1968. Maria met her future husband, my father's friend Abram Davydov, in Kharkov. It was love at first sight. She was already ill with tuberculosis, and he knew that she had a contagious disease, but he never left her for a moment. At that time Abram studied at the Kharkov Industrial Institute. By the time he graduated, Masha was completely cured. Abram got assigned to work at the heat power plant in Novosibirsk, Siberia. Abram and Masha got married and left for Novosibirsk, where Masha became an engineer like her husband. In 1926 their daughter Faina was born. Abram died in 1976 and Maria in 1980. My mother's sister Bella (Beila) met her husband Alexandr Vassiliev in Artyomovsk. They got married in 1919 and moved to Alma-Ata. In 1924 their son Vladimir was born. Bella's husband died in a tragic accident, and Bella had to go to work to raise her son. She found a job as a hospital nurse, and then, in the late 1930s she finished medical school. Bella and her son visited Kiev several times. She never retired from her work. She worked until she died in 1976 at the age of 77. Bella lived her whole life in Alma-Ata, and her son is still living there.