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We lived in an underground flat, and my mother told me how scared she was every time the police came. The flat looked like a sewing workshop. My mother worked as a tailor and sewed dresses and some other things, pretending she had other sewers there, while my father embroidered. I remember when we already lived in Kiev and our house hadn't been bombed yet, I saw a postcard from some general's wife, saying 'Mrs. Sokolov, please prepare this and that for my arrival'. My mother was a fully-fledged member of the revolutionary organization.
My mother told me how once the police misunderstood the name of a person and for some reason came to our house to look for somebody called Shimon Sak. There may have been such a person in another organization. My mother showed them the documents for Alexander Sokolov, and the police left. Then my parents immediately decided to move from Vladikavkaz. It was in 1917. We left the town immediately after the February Revolution. I remember Vladikavkaz only a little.
At the end of 1917 we came to Kiev, to my father's parents. My grandfather had already died, but grandmother continued to live in the same house. My father's older sister Tsipa also lived there. The flat was big. I remember one very big room where all the Ratmanskys who lived in Kiev at the time came together once - I'm not sure why, maybe it was a holiday or someone's birthday. Aunt Tsipa and her husband had horses and a stable. Her husband drew horses very well. Every time we would come over, he would draw horses for us. Their son Pinya became an artist. His children still live in the same street that we lived in.
My mother told me how once the police misunderstood the name of a person and for some reason came to our house to look for somebody called Shimon Sak. There may have been such a person in another organization. My mother showed them the documents for Alexander Sokolov, and the police left. Then my parents immediately decided to move from Vladikavkaz. It was in 1917. We left the town immediately after the February Revolution. I remember Vladikavkaz only a little.
At the end of 1917 we came to Kiev, to my father's parents. My grandfather had already died, but grandmother continued to live in the same house. My father's older sister Tsipa also lived there. The flat was big. I remember one very big room where all the Ratmanskys who lived in Kiev at the time came together once - I'm not sure why, maybe it was a holiday or someone's birthday. Aunt Tsipa and her husband had horses and a stable. Her husband drew horses very well. Every time we would come over, he would draw horses for us. Their son Pinya became an artist. His children still live in the same street that we lived in.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
lubov ratmanskaya