This is an interim certificate for the period of one year issued to my father that says: ‘Certificate on the right of selling country clothes for the period from the date of issuance 17.10.1929 to 30.09.1930, given to citizen Meilikh [surname distorted] Avrum Gershkovich, resident of Tyrlitsa, owner of a tailor's workshop in the village of Tyrlitsa, where the following people work: Meilikh Avrum and member of his family Meilikh Hava. This certificate guarantees the right to sell the produce of the workshop from home, workshop, street kiosks, from buggies and carts at trade fairs, markets and other places both in the country and in town (but without organization of separate trade enterprises). Under this certificate only one person is authorized to carry out trade (handicraftsman or member of his family). This certificate must be presented as a document to financial bodies. A protocol is drawn up for violation, with simultaneous confiscation of the goods.’
In addition to this certificate the chairman of the village council, Grigory Kuchin, issued to me a reference saying that my father Avrum possessed electoral rights, which made it possible for me to enter an institute in Kiev.
Without this interim certificate it was impossible to trade and to live at all, it was a state document, without which one had no right to work. For this document you paid a tax, but it did not give you electoral rights in itself. Father was earlier deprived of electoral rights, since at one time he used to hire girls - seamstresses, to help him in his work and he was considered by the Soviet authorities an exploiter. Trade in general was considered exploitation, too, therefore he had been disfranchised.
