Tag #153930 - Interview #78048 (lev mistetskiy)

My father's family lived in Zhytomyr [150 km from Kiev]. Zhytomyr is one of the oldest towns in Ukraine. In the early 20th century it had a population of a little under 100,000 people. From the middle of the 16th through to the late 18th century Zhytomyr belonged to Poland; afterwards it was annexed to the Russian Empire. The population consisted of Russian, Polish and Jewish inhabitants. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917 1 Zhytomyr was located within the Pale of Settlement 2 and Jews constituted the bigger part of the population. In 1917 the Soviet regime stopped the Pale of Settlement. Jews settled down in the central part of the town, and so did the Russian and Polish intelligentsia. There were two-storied stone houses in the center of town. Jews dealt in crafts and trades, and there were also Jewish doctors and teachers. After the Revolution the Soviet authorities didn't nationalize smaller stores owned by Jews where members of their families worked. Most Russian and Ukrainian residents lived in the suburbs and were farmers supplying food products to the town.