Robert Rozhdestvensky lived with his grandmother for several years as a child, when his mother went to the front — she worked as a field surgeon throughout the Great Patriotic War. The poet did not remember his grandfather. He died when Robert was not even seven months old.
Vera Pavlovna Rozhdestvenskaya recalled the life of her parents: “Daddy was 19 years old and mom was 17. Dad lived in St. Petersburg, worked with his father; my mother lived with my mother-in-law in a village. Dad would come to the village, always on a troika and wearing boots with new galoshes. Even on his last ruble, he would always come in style for people to see — that was their custom. Mom gave birth to three children, Kolya, Anna, and Sasha, then her dad took her to St. Petersburg. Nadezhda Alekseyevna worked for some very wealthy peasants and helped them with grain harvest. She was a very intelligent and talented person. She did not go to school because her father was an Old Believer and would not allow her to study. She learned to read and write from newspapers and was highly respected among the women in the neighborhood where we lived. Often women came to her for advice and help, she was elected to the City Council of Barnaul. She loved Robert very much and called him her seventh son. When Robert started walking, she went to stay with her older brother. And when I was graduating from medical school, my mother came to me again to help. Then the Great Patriotic War began. In the summer of 1941, I was drafted, and I left Robert with her. In 1943, in April my mother died after an operation. I got a short vacation to go to Omsk for 4 days. But I only made it to my mother’s grave”.
