Family of Galina Natarevich at home

This is my family in our apartment on Nevsky Avenue in 1990. From right to left: my mom, Genrietta Raitsykh; I, Galina Natarevich; my spouse, artist Arkadiy Natarevich and our son Ilya. In this photo he is 18 years old.
An acquaintance was on a visit to our place, and he offered to take a photograph of the whole family. It  happened unexpectedly, we were unprepared and did not even change clothes for the picture.

My husband is an artist, a member of the Union of Artists, and he is dealing with stained-glass windows. In March/April 2001, there was an exhibition of four generations, in which artists starting from Mikhail Davidovich Natarevich and up to his grandsons took part. Arkadiy, certainly, took part, as did his two sisters, one of them an architect, the other – a graphic artist. Also there was a large exhibition in the Manezh.

I heard about Arkadiy Natarevich, when I was still a student of the evening courses in the institute. And he was a day-course student. At first I asked my friend, Nina Solovei, ‘What kind of a person is he?’ She answered, ‘This Natarevich, he is very talented and paints very well already.’ And indeed, he graduated from that Higher Arts School at the Academy.

Once we were walking along Liteiny Avenue, heading to my house, and she pushed me suddenly with her elbow and said, ‘Here is Natarevich!’ And there he was, walking with his friend. And that’s where I saw him for the first time, and then we got acquainted at a party in the Academy of Applied Arts and even danced a little. He went to see us off. We noticed each other at once. He was ten months older than me, and as a student two years ahead of me, and studied in another department. Accordingly, he graduated before me. We got acquainted in 1962, and married in 1967.

Our son Iliya was born in 1971. But my child is ill; he’s got cerebral palsy. Despite my son’s condition, I was able to give him a high school education, he actually studied by himself, I just saw him off to school and back. It was a school in Zvenigorodskaya Street, a school for deaf persons, but with a normal program. That is, the program was a little bit stretched out in time, but otherwise it was a usual high-school program. So I went to school with him for about four years. I would take him by the hand, and as he was no longer a small boy, but a grown-up lad, it was rather hard for me physically. We now live together: I, my mom, my husband, my son, and our dog Chan.