Tsylia Aguf and her family

From left to right, sitting are my husband's mother Elena Aguf, my son Boris Aguf and my husband's father Michael Aguf. Standing from left to right are my daughter Victoria Aguf, my husband Mark Aguf and I. The picture was taken in Kiev on the occasion of my daughter's admission to the Moscow Aviation Instistute in 1962. Victoria finished a secondary school in 1968 and tried to enter the Kiev Polytechnical Institute. She passed her entrance exams but wasn't admitted. We realized that her Jewish nationality was the reason for their refusal to admit her. Victoria got a job at the Arsenal plant [a big military plant in Kiev that specialized in the production of optical devices]. After working at the plant for several years, she entered the Moscow Aviation Institute, where she studied by correspondence. She graduated as an optical tools specialist. She began to work at the design office of the same plant. In the 1970s, when large numbers of Jews were leaving the country, my husband and I firmly decided to stay. We both enjoyed work. My husband wrote books on architecture and defended his thesis. Our daughter wanted to move, though. It was her dream to travel to Cyprus and Greece, and moving to Israel seemed to bring her a step closer to have her dream come true. Well, she got married in 1974 and a year later her son Michael was born, so she dropped the idea of moving to Israel. Victoria married a Jew named Zaretskiy, but she divorced him in 1976. I retired in 1975 to help my daughter look after her son. Our son, Boris, followed into his father's footsteps. After finishing school in 1974 he entered the Faculty of Architecture at the Kiev Art Institute and graduated from it with success. He married a very nice, though non-Jewish, girl. They have a daughter, Elena. She is a 4th year student at the Kiev Art Academy. They don't observe any Jewish traditions.