Just wanted to remember a couple of personal qualities of our father -
His sense of humour never left him. I remember in September he was taken into intensive care unit in hospital and for the first days that we visited he looked bad - didn’t open his eyes, didn’t respond to us, and the only thing we could see he was still alive was his heart rate on the monitor. Then in a few days he opened his eyes and started whispering, the nurse came nearer… and then he made an inappropriate joke.
He was a kind man, as witnessed by all stray dogs in the vicinity of our flat. When he came out they would all gather round because he would feed them. In fact they were probably all related to the bitch Jack whom he adopted with my sister Tanya, then 5? years old. Jack, later known as Jackie, was very devoted and clever despite being a mongrel, and lived all her long live with us mothering many of the dogs in the neighbourhood.
He loved sport. Everyone knew him as “Professor on Rollerblades” after the local TV station made a little film about him. It was hard not to notice when he was cruising in all flashing lights among the traffic on main roads in Moldova. He was also known to police in Clemson where he was stopped for rollerblading on a motorway. He was a gymnast - as a student part of the then renowned Leningrad gymnastics team. And a good swimmer too - often brought back by the coast guard boats having swam way beyond the marked swimming areas in various countries while on summer holidays.
For Tanya and I, he was most of all a good father - who took us everywhere - Tanya to his trips in America, me to Leningrad, Moscow, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine. At the same time he gave us freedom and showed us that we could achieve anything. I followed his steps, having chosen his university and even his specialism in lasers. I then did a physics PhD in Cambridge on semiconductors like he suggested and with my success I will always remain indebted to him. But most of all he was a kind father and we will always remember him.
Just wanted to remember a couple of personal qualities of our father -
His sense of humour never left him. I remember in September he was taken into intensive care unit in hospital and for the first days that we visited he looked bad - didn’t open his eyes, didn’t respond to us, and the only thing we could see he was still alive was his heart rate on the monitor. Then in a few days he opened his eyes and started whispering, the nurse came nearer… and then he made an inappropriate joke.
He was a kind man, as witnessed by all stray dogs in the vicinity of our flat. When he came out they would all gather round because he would feed them. In fact they were probably all related to the bitch Jack whom he adopted with my sister Tanya, then 5? years old. Jack, later known as Jackie, was very devoted and clever despite being a mongrel, and lived all her long live with us mothering many of the dogs in the neighbourhood.
He loved sport. Everyone knew him as “Professor on Rollerblades” after the local TV station made a little film about him. It was hard not to notice when he was cruising in all flashing lights among the traffic on main roads in Moldova. He was also known to police in Clemson where he was stopped for rollerblading on a motorway. He was a gymnast - as a student part of the then renowned Leningrad gymnastics team. And a good swimmer too - often brought back by the coast guard boats having swam way beyond the marked swimming areas in various countries while on summer holidays.
For Tanya and I, he was most of all a good father - who took us everywhere - Tanya to his trips in America, me to Leningrad, Moscow, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine. At the same time he gave us freedom and showed us that we could achieve anything. I followed his steps, having chosen his university and even his specialism in lasers. I then did a physics PhD in Cambridge on semiconductors like he suggested and with my success I will always remain indebted to him. But most of all he was a kind father and we will always remember him.
