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I remarried in 1988. My second wife Ludmila Zhutnik was born in Kiev in 1926. Her mother is Jewish and her father is Ukrainian. Ludmila finished Moscow College of Economics and taught economics in technical schools in Kiev. She retired almost 20 years ago. I also retired in the late 1980s and joined her in Kiev. I couldn’t imagine my life without working with children, so I was head of an artistic word studio in the district children’s house for many years.
In 1991 residents of Polesskoye left the town: there are empty houses with holes where doors and windows used to be. A bulldozer removed my small house due to high radiation. I received a small apartment in Belaya Tserkov (70 km from Kiev). I lived in this apartment two years and then we exchanged this apartment and Ludmila’s for a two-bedroom apartment in a new district in Kiev.
In 1991 residents of Polesskoye left the town: there are empty houses with holes where doors and windows used to be. A bulldozer removed my small house due to high radiation. I received a small apartment in Belaya Tserkov (70 km from Kiev). I lived in this apartment two years and then we exchanged this apartment and Ludmila’s for a two-bedroom apartment in a new district in Kiev.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Leonid Kotliar