Kharkov, 1952.

Sasha was only four years old, when his father, Lyonya, left Kharkov for Novosibirsk.

Lyonya had just received his PhD and, along with his certificate, was handed a list of Siberian colleges in the cities ranging from Omsk to Vladivostok, to choose where he would work. Officially his assignment was called – “… for enforcing a high quality education in Siberian colleges” – nothing that anyone could object to, but the reason was surely superficial. Neither his colleagues in the Institute of Physics nor his family were prepared for that decision. One of Lyonya’s scientific discoveries in the area of secondary ion emission and mass spectrometry has been called in the Institute the “Berkhoer Effect”, and Lyonya was supposed to continue his work on that project. We know that the research of that effect was still active in the institute as far as 1958, long after Lyonya had left the lab.

However, the decision was made. It was a general decision, nothing personal. Lyonya was simply one of many – and his fate was much better than the fate of others, even within our families. And, one more caveat, Lyonya’s assignment had a strict postscript – “Without rights to continue scientific research!”

The timing of that decision is another story – an uneasy story about Stalin’s paranoia, the Doctor’s Plot case of 1952, and one more wave of anti-Intellectualism and antisemitism that tore through the Soviet Union. For Lyonya – it was just unfortunate timing.

Anyway, it was not sharashka – the net of specialized prisons/research facilities that belong to NKVD. There were so many scientists and engineers who spent time there, including such giants as Korolev, Tupolev, Kurchatov, Glushko – and those names are just a few drops in the pond. Sharashka is the horror story – a story already told by many, including the Nobel Prize–winner Solzhenitsyn in his novel “In the First Circle” – Solzhenitsyn also was a zek in sharashka, by the way.

Lyonya was given one night to inform his family, and the very next morning he was requested back at the Committee for his formal assignment.

That night Lisa and Lyonya held a family meeting. Sasha was not invited, of course – at his tender age bedtime was sacred, but Luba – Sasha’s grandmother, and Sofia – Lisa’s younger sister, and the nanny Galina joined Lisa and Lyonya in that discussion. They had no chance to avoid this conversation anyway, because all six lived together in two tiny rooms, and Sasha, during the meeting, was sleeping in one of them.

Both families of Lisa and Lyonya – parents, siblings, close friends, most of their aunts, uncles and cousins – lived in Kharkov. Those who were not mobilized to the Soviet Army at the beginning of WWII, left Kharkov a few days or even hours before the Nazis entered the city, and, when civilians were allowed to return, rushed back to the city so they could salvage whatever was left of Kharkov and their belongings. Kharkov was home, after all.

The family meeting came to the conclusion that the best strategy would be to select the city as close as possible to Kharkov, work there for some time, and come back home at the very first possibility. Jumping ahead, we need to tell you that despite many future possibilities of different kinds, Sasha’s parents stayed in Novosibirsk for the next 50 years and both continued working at the same college of that random, initial choice.

Sasha, personally, did not mind being there, neither when he was 5 and came to Novosibirsk for the first time, nor when he was 25 and met Tanya for the first time.

Not once did we ask ourselves, why Lisa and Lyonya never returned to Kharkov, why Victor, or Iskra and Kostya – from Tanya’s side – did not move from Novosibirsk when they had, more than once, real offers. We didn’t see any “excuse” or explanation that was reasonable for us. Perhaps, we were too young to understand then, and only now could find an answer? To keep it short – it’s complicated.

In the morning everyone in the group was called by the Committee in alphabetical order. Lyonya, whose last name starts with a B, was the first one. Everything went according to plan. The Committee sat at one side of the table. On the other side, the list of assignments was placed. The westernmost place on the list was Omsk, city that Lyonya knew well – he was there couple of times during the War – on special training and, later, in the hospital, after he had been seriously wounded. His memories associated with that city were not really inviting and he skipped to the second closest to the West city – Novosibirsk. There was only one college listed – SIBSTRIN – The Siberian Civil-Engineering College. Lyonya checked of SIBSTRIN, printed his name, dated, signed it, and left. The Committee did not care.

One week later, Lyonya departed. Lisa and Sasha followed a year later. That is how the Siberian saga for Lisa, Lyonya, and Sasha began.

 

But that will be another story – about Novosibirsk and its history, about the layers of politics, culture, migrations,  people’s connections and expectations.