Evgenia Berkovich was born in Leningrad in 1985 into a family of poet and writer Boris Berkovich and human rights activist and journalist Elena Efros. In one of her interviews, Evgenia said: “My family consists of journalists, human rights activists, writers, teachers, and dissidents.”
Her mother, Elena Efros, has been actively involved in helping political prisoners in Russia for many years.
Her father, Boris (Ilya) Berkovich, is a poet and writer who emigrated to Israel in the early 1990s.
Her maternal grandmother, Nina Katerli, was a writer and human rights activist, who wrote extensively about human rights and the experiences of political prisoners.
Her great-grandfather, Gavriil Lvovich Maizel, was a military journalist. His entire life was devoted to military service. Her father, Gavriil Lvovich, served as the head of the political department of Blücher’s tank brigade. He was repressed and executed in 1938 under the charge of “loss of vigilance.” He was rehabilitated in 1956.
Her sister, Maria Berkovich, is a speech therapist specializing in working with children and adults with autism. She has written several books and writes poetry. In 2022, she left Russia with her family and now lives in Serbia.
Her daughters, Kira and Anya Berkovich: In 2019, Zhenya took custody of two teenage girls, who had previously gone through multiple foster families and shelters.
Hello.
Sorry to bother you.
My last name is Lot.
To keep it short,
last night things got hot,
so everyone ran,
and me and my wife
hightailed it from under the shells.
And we did understand
the main rule was – not to look back.
Except all around us it was such unbearable hell
that she must have gotten
spooked.
She forgot, and
she looked.
I myself find it hard to believe
that this is my woman,
and I’m not talking about her looks,
not about those damn body standards,
although her old body was killer,
she did used to model:
no smoking, no booze...
Age does change everyone,
but still, excuse me,
she was a model of a human,
not of a pillar.
Sorry for texting;
I had many sleepless nights in a row,
and I do know
it’s not a country that will ever help me, but still, please tell me
if there are any inventions
to help me out a bit,
since now she can’t fit
into anything,
literally anything,
due to her new dimensions?
We don’t ask for a lot.
She’s just like a tree.
She doesn’t need food,
and I’ll do without,
not a big deal to me.
What choice do I have? Our love was fated. And now together we’ll stand
stupidly stand
quietly stand
silently stand
endlessly stand
in any old stand of trees in a vigil...
It’s just that in Europe
pillar sizes are regulated, while here,
we were told,
for now, the rules are less rigid.
July 2, 2022
Evgenia Berkovich
Translated by Anna Krushelnitskaya