The house on Klebanovsky Lane in Minsk of Inna Rajskaya's grandfather, with her father, Ilya Shif, herself, and cousins Yasha Shif and Fanya Shif

In this photograph you can see the house in Minsk where my grandfather Iosif Shif and his family had to move when their property was confiscated after the 1917 Revolution. The house was in Klebanovsky Lane in Minsk. It was situated not far from the Opera Theater. This is an amateur photograph, taken in 1936, when dad and I were on a visit to Minsk when I was three years old. On the porch are: my dad, Ilya Shif, myself, cousin Yasha Shif and cousin Fanya Shif. The house was big and consisted of five rooms and a kitchen. My grandfather was born in 1870, but where ? I don?t know. He lived his entire life in Minsk. I know little about his family, just that they were not very prosperous but tried nonetheless to educate their children. In 1890 Grandpa completed his education in pedagogy and became a teacher in a Jewish school in Minsk. He taught young children both in his own family and in other families, among them the Borishanskie children. And so it happened that my grandmother, Feiga-Tsipa Elkonovna Borishanskaya, and Grandpa Iosif fell in love and later got married.