Mia Ulman's uncle Akim Ulman

This is my uncle, my mother's brother, Akim Ulman at the age of 24. The picture was taken in the winter of 1919 in Petrograd. He worked as an economist at that time. He is wearing a leather sailor's jacket and boots; warm knitted mittens are stuck behind the belt. 

My grandmother raised nince children. Our big family was on very friendly terms, and all my aunts and uncles and their families spent holidays and weekends at our place. The big apartment we had allowed it. Jewish holidays were observed. My grandmother cooked traditional meals. I remember teyglakh, gefilte fish and triangles with poppy-seeds [hamantashen]. She baked matzah, a big, round one, on a huge stove at home. My grandfather didn't like matzah very much, so my mother secretly gave him rolls. They were scolded by grandmother for doing that. For the birthdays of her grandchildren, she baked Napoleon cake with custard and teyglakh and sent grandfather to deliver the present.

The family also celebrated secular holidays. My mother even baked Easter cakes to celebrate Russian Easter. Our home was very hospitable. My parents' friends and my aunts and uncles' friends visited us often and with pleasure. They were received very warmly. It happened so that many of our friends were Russians. My mother's brother Akim also had good Russian friends: Alexey Krotov and Yelena Rashevskaya. Alexey was Chief Medical Officer at the Institution of Mud Cures and Hydropathy, and Yelena worked as a neuropathologist there.

Akim married Yevgenia Yekhilevskaya before the war. He worked as the head of the Planning Department at the Shipping Company and she was an epidemiologist. Yevgenia participated in the Soviet-Finnish War. They didn't have any children. Akim and Nina are still alive.