INTRODUCTION

The story I want to tell is not fictional; all of these events actually happened to my grandfather. In the 1880’s, when he was twelve years old, a series of events occurred that caused him to travel throughout the Crimea in search of his mother. His journey through the Crimea, which in those years was part of the Russian Empire, is described in this book. In the course of his wanderings, young Leo encountered representatives of various sectors of society: nobility, peasants and intelligentsia, and people of different cultures and nationalities—Russians, Gypsies, Jews and Crimean Tatars. These childhood adventures left a deep impression on my grandfather.