What Dreams May Come

Me, snoozing in my mom's lap, while vacationing on Lake Voldai.

We Are Scientists

My dad (top row, right), with some colleagues, at a conference in the mid-1980s.

Mother's Day

My mom and I back in 1983.

Granddads

Me, age 4, with my grandfather (left) and his brother.

Dolphin Show

My mom and I at a dolphin show in Anapa, a resort town on the Black Sea.

St. Petersburg

One day circa spring 1986 or '87, my parents and some friends of theirs took me sightseeing around St. Petersburg. We posed on bridges:
I met a camel statue:
We went to the Hermitage.

Teaching

Me, age 7, teaching my dolls the alphabet. That's letter "a"!

Contrasts

My mom, in 1980, at the height of her Soviet hipster-chic phase. The retro graphic T-shirt! The bell bottoms! The disaffected stare!
And two years later, a Soviet working woman, wheeling a baby carriage in the courtyard of a communal apartment building in St. Petersburg.

Mushroom Eaters

My mom (9 months pregnant with me), my paternal grandfather (middle), and his brother pretend to eat just-picked mushrooms while vacationing in the country. Mushroom-picking is big in Russia.

Uzbekistan, Bukhara

More from my parents' early '80s trip to Uzbekistan.

Drinking tea and eating grapes.

Stopping at the bazaar for watermelons.

Atop a camel.

And then a donkey.

Touring a minaret.

And a temple?

Three generations

My grandfather, a relative of his (a nephew?) and I.

The relative's name is Emil and he has since immigrated to Israel.

Baby Carriage

My mom with a baby carriage in St. Petersburg. (I am presumably inside the carriage.)

Grandfather

My paternal grandfather and I (10 months).

Uzbekistan

My mom on vacation somewhere in Uzbekistan (Hiva?), in the early 1980s. Note her au courant outfit: capris and a peasant blouse.

School

My first or second grade class, school #322, Kupchino, St. Petersburg. Check out the Soviet uniforms.

Mother and Child

My mom and I (age 4?), vacationing on Lake Voldai.

Meeting Grandather Frost

Me, age 4 or 5, meeting Grandfather Frost, the Russian version of Santa Claus, at a kindergarden party, under the watchful eye of my teacher. I remember that whatever gift I got from the big guy was underwhelming, and that his costume didn't fit him quite right.

New Year, 1983

There was no Christmas in Soviet Russia, but there was New Year, which served nearly the same purpose. Above, me, at my first New Year, with my grandfather.

Moi

Hey, look, that's me! All together now: Aww! No, seriously, this photo has some historical value. Note the Brezhnev-era high-rise apartment building in the background.

Kupchino (Leningrad suburb, "a neighborhood of bleak Soviet-era high-rises far from St. Petersburg's beautiful, historic center"), early 80s.