Gabaeva, Nataliia Sergeevna
Born in Leningrad, in 1930. During the war, she was evacuated to the Emurtla settlement in Omsk Oblast, together with the boarding-school for children of members of the Artists' Union. In 1944, she was taken back to Leningrad, where she graduated from the Faculty of Biology at the State University. She stayed on at the Faculty to do graduate research in Biological Sciences and was eventually appointed a lecturer there.

Mother: Koente, Marsel'-Mariia Georgievna (1898-1977). Born in Petersburg, she was a professional painter. On 19 April 1933, she was arrested on charges of 'involvement in the Community for the Fusion of Religion and Life, a counter-revolutionary religious renovationist organisation, ' but the charges against her were dropped on 19 May and she was released. She was employed as an illustrator for the 'Lenizdat' publishing house. She was rearrested on 13 February 1950 and, on 23 December, sentenced to 8 years in a labour camp. She was sent to the Ertsevo unit of the Kargopollag camp, and then to Shiluma station in Lithuania. After her release on 19 July 1954, she went to live in Leningrad.

Father: Gabaev, Sergei Georgievich (1902-1942). Born in St Petersburg, he graduated from the Petrograd Agricultural Institute, where he was a student of the famous plant geneticist N. I. Vavilov. He himself became a lecturer at the Institute, but died of exhaustion and hunger during the Siege of Leningrad.

Grandfather: Gabaev, Georgii Solomonovich (1877-1956). Born in Simferopol, he graduated from the Nikolaev Military Engineering Academy in St Petersburg in 1898, and from the Imperial Institute of Archaeology in 1903. He served as an officer in the Imperial Life-Guards Sapper Battalion, and was also a military historian, being one of the founders of the Russian Military History Society in 1907. During the First World War, he served at the front. From 1918, he worked for the military section of the Main Archives Directorate. On 3 March 1921, he was arrested on suspicion of sympathising with the demands of the Kronstadt sailors, but was released in April. He worked as a researcher for the State Museum Fund, but was arrested in Leningrad on 14 July 1926, accused of 'leading an occultist circle.' On 16 June, he was sentenced to 3 years' exile in Komi. He was allowed to move to Kursk in October 1928, but on 6 March 1930, he was arrested in connection with the purge of the Academy of Sciences and taken to Leningrad for investigation. On 10 May 1931, he was sentenced to 10 years in labour camps and sent to the Solovetskii Labour Camp. He was later transferred to the Medvezh'ia Gora camp, near the headquarters of the White Sea Canal camp complex. In 1934, he was sent to the Dmitlag camp, where he worked as a custodian at the museum which documented the history of the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal. He was released in July 1937 and went to live in Taldom, in Moscow Oblast; then moved to Kaliazin in Tver Oblast; and spent his final years in the settlement of Budogoshchi in Leningrad Oblast.

Uncle: Gabaev, Viktor Georgievich (1901-1930). He studied at the Leningrad Technological Institute. Arrested on 14 June 1927, he was sentenced by an OGPU Collegium on 15 July to 3 years in a labour camp. He served out his sentence in the Solovetskii Labour Camp, but after his release, died of tuberculosis in Arkhangel'sk on 12 November 1930.

Uncle: Ott, Al'bert Al'bertovich (1887-1939). Professor at the Moscow Higher Technical School. Arrested in Moscow in 1938, he died in prison.

Aunt: Ott, Alis Benediktovna (1890-1980s). She worked as an administrator for the Roman Catholic church at the French Embassy in Moscow. Arrested in December 1947, she was sentenced on 28 August 1948 to 15 years in a labour camp and sent to the Dubravlag camp. After her release in 1958, she emigrated to France.

Cousin: Ott, Alis Al'bertovna (1914-1989). She was employed as a secretary and typist at the French Embassy in Moscow, but was arrested in December 1947. From July 1948, she was subjected to compulsory confinement in the Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital. After her release in 1958, she emigrated to France.