Leonid Karlinsky and his brothers

Volodia Karlinsky (left), and Vitia Krugliak (center, with me on the right.. This photo was taken in Kharkov in 1936. In 1935 my mother went to Kharkov. My younger brother Victor was born there. My father and I visited my mother at the maternity hospital and talked with her on the telephone - she had a telephone in her room. This was one of my brightest memories, holding a phone receiver for the first time in my life. I also remember that we traveled home from the maternity hospital in an open carriage. My mother's younger sister Ida married a man in the military and lived in Odessa. During the war she and her children, Tania and Volodia, were evacuated to Ashgabad. Her husband, Lyova, was stationed at the front line throughout the war. After the war he worked at the Officer Training School in Odessa. Aunt Ida died sometime in 1965. I don't know where her children Tania and Volodia are now - we haven't kept in touch. In 1934 my father was transferred to Chuguev, not far from Kharkov. There was an educational center for NKVD officers in Chuguev. My father became a specialist in protection from poisonous chemical substances, and later was appointed Chief of the Chemical Department. In Chuguev, we had a room in a communal apartment. I have dim memories of a long corridor and a kerosene lamp near each room. I also remember that wechildren watched the military training sessions: there were clouds of some kind of gas, and people in gas masks. It all seemed so interesting to us.