This is me, Iosif Gotlib, with my wife Antonina. We were photographed on our wedding anniversary. This photo was taken in Uzhhorod in 1976.
I worked as electric locomotive operator all my life. My wife finished a medical school and went to work as a lab assistant in a dermatovenerologic dispensary clinic where she worked until retirement. In 1966 I was transferred to the depot in Uzhhorod [700 km from Kiev], in Subcarpathia. We received a small 2-bedroom apartment called 'khruschovka' and said it was to be our temporary dwelling and that we would receive another apartment. We lived in this 'temporary' dwelling for 12 years and only recently we got a comfortable apartment. I liked spending my weekends with the family. We went for walks, to the cinema and theater. We didn't celebrate any Jewish or Russian religious holidays at home. We celebrated birthdays and Soviet holidays. In the morning we went to a parade and then Antonina arranged a festive dinner at home. We often invited friends and colleagues. We traveled on our summer vacations. I could have free railroad tickets for the family and we traveled a lot across the country. We traveled to the south and north of the USSR and we liked tourist trips.
I became a pensioner in 1977, but I continued to work in the depot. Firstly, it was hard to live without working. It seemed to me I would die if I quit my job. Besides, it was hard to live on a pension. I had to support my daughter. I got a job of a track dispatcher. It was an interesting and responsible job and I liked it. I worked in the depot until 1992. Only after I had my first stroke my family talked me out of going to work.
