Age — 40, from Moscow, Russia.

One day, during the summer of 1984, my daughter Anna, a 4^th-year student at the Moscow Institute of Construction Engineering, came to me and, awkwardly, reported that she was going to get married.  Her choice was a classmate named Sergey, and he was coming by on the morrow to ask me for her hand.

One cannot avoid what is destined to happen.  The next day, in the evening, there was ring at the door and there, before me, stood my future son-in-law.  He was not tall, but he was well built and handsome, well dressed, and, of course, carrying a large bouquet of flowers.  For the rest of their married life, large bouquets would always accompany Anna and Sergey.

At dinner I learned that Sergey was born in Cherepovets, that he was 23 years old, had finished his military service, and that his mother was a teacher and his father a builder in whose footsteps he intended to follow.

I liked Sergey right away, and it was with pleasure that I gave consented for them to wed.

Later, as is custom, there was the bridal shower, then a very crowded, and almost exclusively youthful and happy wedding.

And in February of 1986 Sergey and Anna had a daughter, Sashenka.

He was the man of the house, strong and responsible.  In order to feed his family, he changed classes to the evening and went to work at the construction site during the day.  After finishing the institute Sergey and Anna began working as construction engineers in the design institute.

But then Perestroika thundered across the land.  The first cooperatives appeared, and Sergey rushed into free enterprise.

From this moment on he and his family began a completely new life.

He chose a difficult activity — the construction of single-story wooden buildings.  His abilities and best qualities became fully developed in this field.

It was a difficult time.  People were losing their jobs, and former classmates, professionals or simply people whom he trusted, came to see Sergey at his firm.

From the very beginning of this new activity he became a leader and an indisputable authority for all his coworkers.  But he never behaved haughty or swaggering.  He listened to many other opinions, but he assumed an individual decision and was solid and goal-oriented in putting this decision into practice.  Due to the clever and well-pondered policies of Sergey, the firm grew and developed successfully, and changed from a cooperative into a private company, but always under the same name: ‘Anna'.

Why do I know so much about this firm's activities?  Because, in 1994, it was I, a construction engineer, who was invited by Sergey to join this company, to become its assistance director, and after me followed my brother and our wives, who sooner or later also became construction engineers.

Quite often family relationships among coworkers ruin a company, but that was not the case with ‘Anna', where the indisputable authority was Sergey, where his word was the law for all the workers, including his relatives.

It was not enough that Sergey and I were shoulder-to-shoulder five days a week, but we spent our days off together as well — our weekend cottages were right next door to each other.

At the dacha he turned into a completely different person.  Happy, direct, and, as they say, unwound.  There were happy banquets at the dacha, with Sergey playing on the guitar and singing beautifully.  We held celebrations for any family occasion.  It was with such pleasure that he gave expensive, yet tasteful, presents.

Somehow Sergey started to perform philanthropy.  The company regularly donated (and continues to donate) to the children's shelter, and in return received tasty pastries and coffee cakes.  One of the Red Army veteran's councils also received aid from the firm.

Sergey and Anna decided to strengthen their family ties not simply with stamps in their passports, but in a more serious manner — they had a church wedding at a chapel in Archangel alley.  Later, following those tragic days, Sergey's funeral mass was held in this same church.

Life, it seemed, was going to be happy and last a long time. In 1988 Sergey and Anna had Ivan.

Only now, in hindsight, do I realize what an ideal family they were.  In 17 years of married life Sergey made a fisherman out of Anna, and she made Sergey into an inveterate theatergoer.

And then, on October 23^rd, they left the office a little earlier than usual, so that they would not be late to ‘Nord-Ost'…

About 9 in the evening came the call, from Anna, which turned our lives upside down.  Three days passed as if in a nightmare, and on the 26^th we learned that Sergey was no longer with us.

Hundreds of people came by the office to bid Sergey farewell: friends, relatives, or simply acquaintances from Moscow, Petersburg, Cherepovets, and Surgut.

Sergey is no longer with us, but he is there in their beautiful children, there in the company that Anna now heads, and in the memories of everyone who knew Sergey.

And this memory will be with us until the end.

Written by E. A. Kissin, Anna's father

In my recollections, Sergey as a child was ‘lively', a boy in motion.  He was always the center of attention and the leader of any group.

The liveliness of his character and his creativity attracted all who knew him like a magnet.  His hobbies, and in childhood Sergey had a lot of them, were hockey, football, music, and that, which more than anything worried his parents, pyrotechnics.  But for us kids, his younger brothers, it was so interesting to set off homemade rockets and firecrackers.  We did not get by without a couple of trips to the doctor's, but, fortunately, nothing serious.  Sergey never gave up this hobby as an adult, and learned fireworks almost to a professional degree.  He loved to give people pleasure.

Sergey often served as an example to my younger brother Yevgeny and I: be careful in everything, from your school journal to cleaning your room, be attentive to our parents, as well as justice and honor.

Seryozha did well in school and helped me.  I remember in 8^th grade I got a lot of 3's (C's) in organic chemistry and could not figure out the material at all, but inside of two days he explained it all to me.  By the end of the year I had a good, solid 5 (A).

Yevgeny and me associated holidays with Seryozha.  Sometimes our parents let us stay at his house, and on those nights we got to sleep very late, always thinking up various reasons to continue talking.  We hungrily waited for the next weekend so that we could see Sergey and once again think of something especially new and interesting.

Many funny things happen in childhood.  You recall them all, but this happy character, his kindness and his caring for us, the little ones, and the joy that he gave to one and all — this remains in our hearts for our entire life.

The wild 1990s changed many people as they bowed to the sometimes-unjust laws of the marketplace.  But Sergey was able to preserve his kindness towards others, always helping another in distress, and his justice and generosity.  These marked him even in early childhood and stayed with him through time.  The happy little fire in his eyes still looks at us from childhood and adult photographs, and makes us smile through the tears, remembering the past and dreaming about the future, always comparing our behavior to his.


Written by his brother V. G. Volynkin.

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