This is a photo of Mikhail Furman, my younger brother, his wife Polina and his senior son Alexander.
The photo was taken in 1964 in Kremenchug (Ukraine) in a photo studio.
When the war burst out, my father (he was a professional soldier) managed to send us for evacuation in July by the last train, on our way Germans destroyed the train by bombing at some station.
I remember my mum getting over the rails. My mum took care of me (at that time I was 6 years old) and my little brother, who was born on December 20, 1939 (he was 1.5 years old).
In evacuation (in Gorky region) I finished the first class. The closest person for me was my younger brother Mikhail. When we returned to Leningrad after evacuation he was 5 years old.
There was no kindergarten in our military settlement and I stayed with him at home all the time. When we arrived to Leningrad, we found out that in Ossinovaya Roscha there was no school, and I went to school in Levashevo village. Mikhail attended a kindergarten.
Later, when he grew up he studied at school in Ossinovaya Roscha. After 7 years in Ossinovaya Roscha School, he studied in Pargolovo school. Misha participated in construction of that school, boys worked there as masons (authorities stimulated their interest).
As for me, I went on studying in Levashevo. I finished there 7 classes, and then moved to Pargolovo secondary school and finished there 10 classes.
My brother was very clever and got only excellent marks. Being a pupil of senior grades he worked in addition at a construction site, but still managed to finish the 10-year school with excellent marks.
In 1957 he entered the Military Mechanical Institute and graduated from it with excellent results too. They wanted him to stay at the post-graduate department, but the subfaculty preferred a different student. Mikhail was assigned to work at the machinery construction plant in the town of Kremenchug [a town in Ukraine, 1,300 km to the south of Leningrad].
It was 1962 if I am not mistaken. He left and in a month received a telegram from the Institute about a vacancy at the subfaculty and an invitation to the post-graduate department. But he was offended and refused to go back. So he stayed in Kremenchug. He worked at that plant, which produced machinery for road construction, from the beginning of his assignment term until retirement.
At first he worked as an engineer, later at the SCB (Special Construction Bureau), then he was appointed Manager of the SCB and received the honorary title of the 'Best inventor of the USSR Ministry of Engineering Industry'. He studied at a post-graduate department by correspondence for four years, prepared a dissertation on road pavements, but failed to defend it.
Key specialists from Leningrad and Moscow had a quarrel with Kremenchug ones and his dissertation was 'killed'. He got a nervous breakdown and fell sick with diabetes. He was sick for many years and suffered from complications.
He underwent an operation in Kremenchug and his leg was amputated. He returned to the plant but in 1996 he was forced to retire based on disablement at the age of 56. It was a real blow for him.
He died a year after that, in 1997. I suffered much, because we loved each other.
My brother's wife Polina is a Ukrainian Jewess. My brother met her in Kremenchug, I do not know any details of their encounter. Mother and father of Polina were religious people, they spoke good Yiddish and observed Jewish Tradition for certain, but I am not sure about it, because I visited them in Kremenchug only once and have only rough idea about it.
In any case, Polina also knew Yiddish and brought Tradition to her family. They have two children with Mikhail: son Alexander and daughter Galina.
Alexander was born in 1967. In 1980 my brother and his wife Polina had another baby born, daughter Galina. She was a late child and her father's favorite.
My son Mikhail was born in 1960, on December 4.
I named him Mikhail in honour of my brother
.
