My parents did everything possible to give me a chance. They passed to me good genes and healthy habits, kept me healthy, gave me good education, and provided an example of a life worth living. They excited my curiosity, guided me and encouraged my interests first in books, later in sciences. They were my moral compass and source of unwavering support all their lives. I am eternally grateful to them. I love them as I would want my children to love me. Thank you!
They met in Moscow, where they both were students of the same Moscow Insitute of Finance.
After graduation, Peter was sent, as it was habitual for a young officer, to serve in the remote military settlement inside the Polar Circle. Larisa with newly born me went with him. We lived in the Russian North for the first seven years of my life.
During winter-long polar nights, my mother taught me read and English, among many other things. My father taught me skiing and skating, and to build snow fortresses, too.
For summer months, I was brought to the grandma (Larisa’s mother) Maria, who lived in the Ukraine. Both – she and my father – were active participants of WWII: he – as a soldier, she – as an executive director of a site that produced military cloth and field kitchens in Siberia.