Tag #142677 - Interview #83360 (Tamara-Alexandra Goldenberg)

My ancestors settled in the Crimea long before I was born. My father Jacob Goldenberg’s generation lived in Simferopol [about 1350 km to the south from Moscow]. My parental great-grandfather, Shlema Malinskiy, settled in Simferopol in 1856 after his army service in Sevastopol was over [Sevastopol is about 1430 km south of Moscow]. He was in the Black Sea Fleet [1] of the tsar’s army during the Crimean war [2]. By the tsar’s decree Jews who had defended Sevastopol were entitled to settle in that city. [In Tsarist Russia Jews were allowed to settle only in the Jewish Pale of Settlement [3], apart from merchants and doctors, who were permitted to settle in larger cities too. In this case an exception was made based on military merits.] That is why my ancestors settled in the Crimea.