Olga Zimanene and her family
This is the family of my daughter Olga: on the left is Olga in a black blouse, the second on the right is her husband Vitas, the first on the right is my granddaughter Ruta and the daughter of my son Alexander, Olga, embracing Vyacheslav, Ruta's son. The picture was taken in Olga’s house in Vilnius in 2002.
My children went to a Lithuanian school with profound studies of English. Both of them successfully finished school. My son Alexander graduated from the Vilnius Construction Engineering Institute. He was a teacher and got a degree as a candidate of science. Alexander refused to work for a doctor’s degree as that degree would bring him no money, which his family needed. Alexander’s family lives in a five-room apartment. I also moved there. My son met his future wife, a Russian lady from Siberia, Lusya, at the Palanga resort. Lusya and Alexander have two children. The elder son, Vladimir, born in 1976, graduated from the London School of Economics. He is currently working in Vienna. Vladimir has a mundane life. He is not going to marry. His younger sister Olga, who just turned 25, graduated from an Institute of International Law in Belgium and moved to London to attend courses for attorneys. There she met a Canadian and married him. She went to his motherland, Canada.
My daughter Olga graduated from the [Vilnius] Medical Institute, Pediatrics department. She has been deputy chief doctor at the Children’s Republican Hospital for 26 years. Olga married a Lithuanian, Vitas Brazauskas. Olga kept her maiden name. Her husband was a chief doctor of the Republican Sanitary Station. Last year [2004] Vitas suddenly died of a heart attack. It was a great loss for my daughter, and her children. I am also missing my son-in-law. He was a wonderful man. Olga’s elder daughter Ruta finished the Economics Department of Vilnius University. She fell in love with a gifted Lithuanian guy. He has been appointed ambassador of Lithuania to the OSCE. My granddaughter Ruta Paulaskene is living with him in Austria. She has a wonderful son, who knows five languages at the age of twelve. Olga’s younger daughter Emma also graduated from the Medical Institute. She is enrolled in additional courses now. She is going to study for four years in order to treat infants.
We never celebrated national holidays in our family, as there was no need in that. However, my children identify themselves as Lithuanians, being loyal to their motherland.