My ancestors.

Back to Viktorina Savelieva	Viktorina Savelieva. Revised on January 2011.

My mother's side grandfather was a rich merchant. He had 3 daughters and one son George. 15 years old George and my grandfather, as many others, were killed by Bolsheviks while trying to escape through Crimea.

My father's family was not as rich as merchant's, but they belonged to a class Dvoryanye. My grandfather and his brother both were railway engineers, and both of them were historical personalities. My grandfather, Vladimir Sokovich, was a chief of one of the railways in Ukraine. Bolsheviks were accepting such kind of specialists, and he was given a high position in Soviet railways, became an academic, general of railway, and was given the highest in Soviet Union awards. The fate of his brother was very different. When the revolution happened in St. Petersburg, Evgeny Sokovich fought for the independence of Ukraine against Bolshevik Russia. He became a government member of the first Ukrainian Democratic Republic, proclaimed in 1918. After Ukrainian Democratic Republic fell in 1920 Evgeny Sokovich immigrated to Switzerland and became a representative of Ukrainian "Government in Exile" in Geneva. He died and was buried in Prague. The last, very romantic story. My mother, as a daughter of "Enemy of the State" wasn't allowed neither work, nor study without a reference with confirmation about her loyalty and ability to work for Soviet Republic. For getting that she was hired by my father's family as a housekeeper. Two young people fell in love with each other and got married. The entire family lived in a house built by my grand-grandparents in a large city Kharkiv in Ukraine. My mother gave birth to two children: Vova (my brother) -  in 1932 and me - in 1938.

It is very strange and surprising, that after all terrible events in her life my mother has accepted the socialistic idea and considered it more fare that it was in Czarist Russia.