Bella and Sergey Bogdanov’s wedding photo

Bella and Sergey Bogdanov’s wedding photo

This is my wedding photo, taken in Riga in 1948.

I got married in 1948. My husband and I were very poor, but we loved each other very much. We had problems with accommodation. At first I lived with my husband Serapion Bogdanov – I called him Sergey – at his mother’s place. It was an old house, during the war there was a ghetto there. A large room, a large kitchen. My husband and I lived in the kitchen, we had screened off a corner, and his brother with his wife and children lived in the large room. My husband was the youngest in the family. Later we lived in rented apartments. We rented one in a private house on the very bank of the river Daugava. The landlady used to breed chickens there once.

I got married at the age of 22, and by the time we moved I turned 30, and I had to think of a baby. And so in 1957 Rita was born. Аnd in 1961 we were given this apartment by VEF. We had a boat, we used to travel down the Daugava and have picnics. We enjoyed our life!

After the war I couldn’t study anymore and I didn’t want to either. I had to earn money for bread. I was young. I wanted to enjoy myself, to dance. What happened to me later is a different story. I started to work at the big VEF factory. I worked on the large telephony equipment for 40 years and in one brigade for 29 years! And my husband also worked at VEF. My husband was from Rezekne, a Russian from an Old Believers family. I have lived a wonderful life with my husband. We always celebrated all the holidays – Jewish and Orthodox Christian. If there hadn’t been a war, everything would have been different! I probably wouldn’t have married a Russian.

My husband was born on 19th July 1928, near Rezekne. When he was only one year old, the whole family moved over to Riga, but their father died two years after that. His mother was left with five kids. My husband was very handsome. I sort of taught him how to behave, remembering how my Mom treated Dad. I remember how Dad had given Mom a golden ring with a diamond on the 10th anniversary of their marriage.

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