As a child I had an interest in history, general history. As I had an inquiring mind I did my best to study it. There I find a lot for me. I had an interest in the history of my family and my relatives, but, there were, — alas! — few facts known. When I explored my surname and understood it to be a non-Russian but a Jewish one, when I knew that the «Jewish problem» was a topic closed or non-spoken aloud, I became very curious.

I met my relatives very rarely when a child, but when I got to know my grandfather Shulim Rapoport, my uncles Yuly Rapoport and Valentine Rapoport, Joseph Shaikin, I came across a lot of very bright information. But I must say that this information was not a systematical one, it couldn’t give an answer to the questions about us: who are we? Where are we from? And at last — what are we for? I felt these questions to be so important to help me to clarify my place in life, my future, my position in the society. The times were dark and dull for our society those days. The brightest impressions of that period were left by the meetings my relatives when my Dad took me to Novaya Kahovka town, to the Granddad’s house at the station, to the uncle Yuliy’s cottage on the canal.

Granddad didn’t tell me much and gave very few instructions. Even many years later during my work in Novaya Kahovka town when I came to visit him on his 90th anniversary shortly before his death, I tried to get some facts of his family and relatives, he became irritated and didn’t say a word. Once he told me he couldn’t tell because he didn’t remember anything interesting. He might have kept his secret, God knows why. What a pity!

My uncle Yuliy used to say a lot of interesting things (it is clearly seen in the book) and gave a great lot- of instructions of morality. It was he to inform me about the family life and about my father’s biographical facts, everyday life details, events, — but he didn’t mention any of them in the book itself.

The most impressive meeting was produced by the uncle Valya (Valentine) in the time of his coming to us to Severodonetsk (town). He was a man of spirit and imagination. He inspired and influenced me. There for the first time in my life I began reading a Political Glossary. But he told nothing about the family and gave no moral lessons.

The particular place in my soul is taken by my uncle Iosya (Joseph). I saw him first in Kiev in 1974. We went there together with my Dad by a motor ship from Novaya Kahovka. There for the first time in my life 1 saw a communal flat, I was fed with the «Kiev cake». I was shown a microscope and the Japanese awards, I was plunged into the «Jewish problem». Since 1974 these memoirs have been impressing my life.

It is wonderful that the uncle losya (Joseph) was the first to study and research the history and the life story of our common large family. He was the person to produce the magnificent work, and that work has united the whole family really. None of the Rapoports seem to produce anything of the kind.

Everyone of us, the Rapoports, fought himself for his own «place under the sun». We had our progress and failures, but the result was weak. Though everyone in the family has his pride and his arrogance in the quantity to be spread on the population of the city. The only one man — the uncle Valya — must be put on the particular place, his spirits, his thoughts were taken into consideration by a great number of people who surrounded him. He had got a real success, he decided to share it with our large family with the generosity he possessed. It is pitiful that his attempt to gather the family and to get a systematic and economic progress hadn’t come true, but everybody was impressed and influenced by this attempt. We do use it now. He became our own «Moses» (children, study the history!) and 1 personally will never forget him. After him we again went on with our fights and problems for our «place under the sun», and due to many reasons our family dispersed.

I happened now to be the most wealthy as to the social and material values. As I am brought up at the noble examples set above and those ones of the life around me, I decided to reunite the family. I created the Fund of supporting the members of the family who are the Rapoporte-Rapoports as the descendants of our granddad. This fund is to support the pensions, the medical and educational supply. I make it for any future Rapoporte—Rapoport with the moral aims. I hope this person will have pride and arrogance, be brought up as a curious person, as a respectful one, to be respected by the others. While younger I needed these possibilities greatly (though if there were such possibilities for me, God knows, whether I should use them in fact).

Though you must not be as shy to mention only good things — this is the saying of the uncle Valya. The biographies show that some relatives are shy, some others are not. Some stories show that their owners’ history is at the beginning — therefore there are few facts only. Some our people put everyday life on the highest level, some people try to hide the essential information. And it is only the start. We shall continue writing the history of our family, and the longer we shall write, the clearer it shall be that we are different, our fates are different, but the smell of the Rapoports will ever be present.

Andrey Natanovich Rappoport — the Initiator and the Sponsor