I sent this photo to my future wife from Ternopol to Odessa in 1952.
I arrived from the army to Odessa in early October 1945 and submitted my documents to Odessa Construction Engineering College. I was admitted and a month later I passed my half-yearly exams successfully. I had only the highest grades. I finished my college with honors and had the right to take my post-graduate studies, but I didn't get an offer. Probably it was due to my Jewish nationality. I was a proud guy and decided to ask nobody about it. I got a job assignment [graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated] in Ternopol, a regional town in Western Ukraine, and in September 1950 I got off the train in this small half-ruined town in 500 km from my hometown.
I was chief engineer at a maintenance construction company in Ternorol. I had a low salary. I received a one-room apartment [people could not own apartments, so they were "given" apartments by the government]. In 1951 when my first year at work was over, I went to a recreation center near Odessa on vacation. On my way back I visited my family in Odessa. I visited my relatives when I met a lovely Jewish girl. She was my wife to be. Her name was Lubov Bruches. I fell in love with her at first sight and took her home on that day. We began to correspond and sent photographs to one another. I saw her again on October holidays [October Revolution Day]. I came to Odessa and we met at a party. Lubov came to the party with somebody else, but left the party with me. We met again on New Year's day and on 30 April 1952 I came to Odessa and proposed to her. We had a civil ceremony in the registry office and a small wedding dinner at Lubov parents' home in the evening. Shortly after we got married Lubov finished a Pedagogical College in Odessa and joined me in Ternopol.
In 1953 our elder son Gennadi was born and in 1960 our son Yuri was born.
