This is my family. Sitting, from right to left: my mother Fira Gun, my mother's adoptive father Lazar Alpert, his wife Risia and my mother's sister Nina Shtilman. Standing, from right to left: my father Anatoli Gun, my sister Bella Andreeva, my mother's brother Yakov Shtilman, my first wife Lubov Gorovenko and I, Semyon Gun. This photo was taken in the apartment of my parents in Odessa in 1961. There are my parents' portraits on the wall. My sister Bella studied in the 9th form of the secondary school at the time of the photo.
In 1956 I entered Odessa College of Light Industry. In 1958 I finished it with honors and worked as a modeler at the individual fashion factory for about half year. In 1959 I married my fellow student Lubov Gorovenko. She was Ukrainian. Lubov was born in Kiev in 1939. She was also a modeler. We didn't have an apartment of our own. We divorced and Lubov went to live with her parents in Kiev in 1961. We didn't have children. I lived with my parents. In 1959 I went to work as an assistant modeler at the Fashion Model House that had just opened in Odessa. In a year I became a modeler. Every year a group of modelers went to methodical meetings held in Moscow for representatives of 36 Fashion Houses of the USSR. We took there our garment collections and mannequins with us. I remember coming to the All-Union Chamber of Commerce where they had foreign made clothes on hangers. We looked at them and forgot about everything else. We drew pictures of them and tried them on. We discussed how they were made and discussed the technology. This was how we learned. We also went to theaters and art museums.
My father worked in the Navy school for 13 years already. My mother was housewife. She was a great cook, but she didn't have a kosher kitchen. She bought food at the market and cooked herself. She made traditional Jewish food: goose cracklings and stew with matzah as garnish. It was added to the gravy. My mother made red borsch with meat broth and vegetarian red borsch that was served cold. Mother also stewed meat with traditional or sweet and sour gravy. My mother selected beef that melted in the mouth. She stewed ribs served with potatoes or noodles. She fried semolina and made garnish to be served with meat. She made salads and liked garlic and onions. She used a lot of salt. Later she had problems with high pressure because of it. My mother suffered a lot and I remember how she had leeches applied on her. My mother died in 1971. She had pneumonia and developed edema of lungs due to negligence of doctors. I took professor Finkelshtein, a well-known doctor in Odessa, to examine her, but there was nothing he could do. We buried mother at the Jewish cemetery and hired a man from the synagogue to conduct the funeral.
Aunt Nina was a pensioner and she often fell ill. In 1964 she died and was buried at the Jewish cemetery. In 1970 grandmother Risia died at the age of 100 years. Four years later grandfather Lazar died an easy death in the age of 94. We buried him near Risia's grave at the Jewish cemetery.
