Michael Botvinnik

This is my father`s cousin Michael Botvinnik. Michael originally studied to become an electrical engineer. He became the chess champion of the world. My grandmother Masha's sister Shifra, or Serafima, married Moisei Botvinnik, and had two sons. One of them was Michael. They lived in Petrograd most of the time, and it is there that the chess genius of Michael Botvinnik developed. In the 1920s and 1930s, Grandfather was closest to his relatives who had settled in Petrograd even before the World War I. The correspondence between Grandmother Masha and Serafima was regular. Mikhail Botvinnik was then studying to become an electrical engineer. Among his teachers was a professor of geometry, from a family of Armenian descent, who had a rather attractive daughter, Ganna, a student at the Vaganov ballet school. Mikhail fell in love with her.