Irina Lidskaya's parents: Dina Itskovich and Yakov Lidskiy

These are my parents, Dina Itskovich and Yakov Lidskiy. The photo was taken in Kharkov in 1930. My parents met and fell in love when they were at Kharkov Medical Institute. They started living together when they were still students. They didn't have a wedding and lived for a long time in a common law marriage. Much later they needed a Marriage Certificate for some reason, so they went to a registry office to register their marriage. After graduation from the Institute my parents lived in Kharkov for some time. They rented a room. There were no conveniences. Life was hard. It was difficult to find a job. My father was hired as a doctor in the medical department at some factory. My mother was a teacher somewhere in the country that was quite distant from Kharkov. My older brother Yuri was born in Kharkov in 1926. He went to school there. I was born 8 years later. A year after my birth my parents moved to Kiev.