My maternal Grandmother's step-mother Marya with a relative of hers.
The most interesting fact about Marya Andreevna was that she never learnt to read. She couldn't read a word till the end of her life.

Москвичам будет интересно: это "утюг" в Петропавловском переулке. Видна колокольня церкви Петра и Павла, на которой тогда не было купола. Оцените, как эффектно вырисовывается на фоне высотка на Котельнической набережной.

My grandfather Lev Dubrovsky and his sister Olga. Lev died about 25 yeas ago. He worked some 40 years at a small Moscow "secret plant", with a 4 year break for the war (he was starshina in an artillery battery).

His elder sister's life is far more interesting: her daughter Lyuda married a Czech she met in her University and had a daughter with him. They all left for Prague just before 1968. Lyuda and her husband Milosh were very active in the days of the "velvet revolution": Lyuda, a native Russian speaker, used to make speeches before Soviet tank crews asking them to please go home. When things went completely wrong and arrest was imminent, Milosh's company found a way to send him, and his family, to a "business trip" (of course it was a trip of no return) to a nice western country. You can easily guess what country it was by this photo:



Milosh died a few years ago, Lyuda, a retired engineer, lives in a respectable Boston suburbia with Olga who's over 90 now.
Her daughter Lyuba (the girl in the photo) is a very successful NY physician, married with 2 daughters.

Needless to say that after 1968 Olga never had a chance to see her brother again. She came here in late 1980s: as soon as the borders were open, to meet what was left of her old family. There was not much.