Remarks:
Nina lived in the Urals in a town called Verkhneuralsk or possibly a village 20km to the north east called Karagayskiy where they had horses and a beautiful garden. She was taught to swim aged 5-6 in a river by her brother Grigory (who was to die in the war). It seems her father gave away their land just before dekulakisation in 1930 and they moved to Magnitogorsk where he worked as an engineer. Nina recollected that they left very quickly to Magnitogorsk and she was never taken back to their house and their horses and garden that she loved very much. (Her father's cousin Andrei and wife Salamea resisted giving up their land, and their son and grandchildren were all accused of being kulaks and evicted from Karagayskiy in February 1930 with Andrei dieing a year later. Nina remembers that Salamea was the daughter of a gypsy girl who could cure any illness with herbs and could tell your fortune by cards).
At the start of the war in 1941 Nina lived with her sister Zinaida and Zinaida's husband in Moscow but due to the danger from bombing was advised to leave, and left for Alma-Ata where shortly after arrival she had her daughter Albina. The place in Moscow was actually bombed out shortly after she left. She was reunited with her husband Mikael who by coincidence had returned from the Front and been posted to Almata.
She later worked as a manager in the main Moscow sports centre near Sokol.
