Welcome To

Part Two: The Braverman Family 67 in Framingham, Massachusetts, that day, and snow dris were up to five feet high. When Iosif and Lev came to the apartment, for some reason Boris and Esfira did not hear the doorbell. The next thing they saw was Lev, who had climbed over the balcony and was knocking on the sliding glass door. "We were all startled. This is a good memory of their visit," Boris said. Boris and Esfira have two sons, Roman and Gary Leonard. On June 19, 1999 in Boston, Roman married Kim Brady and they have one child, Zachary Kyle. Roman is a photographer in Maryland. His brother, Gary Leonard, received his middle name in memory of Lyubov Volsun; the tradition among Russian Jews is to repeat just the first letter of a loved one's name to honor them in subsequent generations. Gary lives in Washington, D.C. Their grandmother, Klara, was a good-natured woman whose first interest was her close family. Lev Volsun, the son of Klara's youngest sister, Lyubov, knows that he was breastfed by Klara's daughter, Faya, whose son Mikhail was the same age as he. It was common in Russia at that time for nursing mothers to cross-feed the children of relatives. On a social level, this practice of cross-feeding brought families closer together. On a practical level, it was almost a necessity, as there was no baby formula available in Russia at the time. Zinaida (Zina) Braverman Volinsky Zinaida (Zina) Braverman Volinsky Zina was born in Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine, and her husband, Mikhail Volinsky, was born in western Ukraine but grew up in Kharkov. They bore and raised their children Raya and Yuri in Reutov, Russia. Yuri describes his mother as a compassionate, hard-working woman. "She was loved in the family and respected by all of our relatives," he says. "She was an outstanding cook, known for several favorite dishes such as stuffed fish, chicken Kiev, and cream-filled éclairs. No feast was complete without her special recipes, which always drew rave reviews. My mother's recipe for pickled tomatoes is still used in my family and never fails to elicit an enthusiastic response. A jovial and gregarious woman, attentive to her family, just and kind—that was my mother." And Mikhail? "My father was an industrious and persistent man," says Yuri. "From early childhood, my father taught me to be disciplined, meticulous, responsible, and conscientious in anything I did." Aer growing up in Kharkov, Mikhail moved to Moscow, where he was a factory worker and a car driver. "He met my mother in the town of Pavlovskiy Posad, and aer a short courtship they married," Yuri recalls. When the war broke out in 1941, Mikhail was called up for service in the Red Army and fought as a highly decorated soldier in an artillery regiment. On V-Day 1945, he took part in the victory parade in the Red Square. Aer the war ended, Mikhail worked in retail and then joined a photographic portrait studio. It is because of that job that the family has high-quality portraits of Malka and other Top: Lev and Faya Geller in Moscow, 1952. Above: Leonid and Klara Laber in Moscow, 1960s. Facing page top: Lev Laber in Moscow, 1947. Facing page middle: Lev Laber in Moscow, 1956. Facing page bottom: Fira Laber in Moscow, 1957. Facing page right: Faya Laber and Lyubov in Moscow, 1946.

• Cover