Vladimir Kunin’s certificate of change of the name

This document is called ‘The certificate of change of name.’ It was granted to my husband in 1976.

My husband Vladimir or Velvel Kunin was born in 1924 in the town of Nikolaev of Odessa region. He didn’t go to the front because of myopia. At the beginning of the war he was 17. My husband’s father took him to Kirov region into evacuation, where there was the only veterinary institute. Volodya completed the institute and upon his return from evacuation entered the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute, the Physics and Mathematics Department, became a Physics teacher first at school, and then at the radio-polytechnic school. My husband was a very good person. I don’t want to tell you anything more except some general things. This is our personal life. Everything was OK with us, we were happy. He died. For me life goes on. He had poor eyesight. In evacuation he studied to be a vet. And who needs vets in Leningrad? When he arrived in Leningrad, he started to study for another profession!

In January 1961 our son Leonid was born. Now he lives in Petersburg, he married a Russian woman, but they don’t have children together. I gave birth to Leonid at the age of 31. When Lenya grew up, I asked my husband to change his name from Velvel to Vladimir, as my son needed to receive a passport, but with such a patronymic –Leonid Velvelovich – at that time he wouldn’t have been taken into the Military Institute, which was his dream when he was 16 years old. But then he was taken in with the patronymic Leonid Vladimirovich.