HOLY RESURRECTION ORTHODOX CHURCH

Veronika (Tourkina) Stein, 95, died in her daughter's house in Paris, France, in March 2021. She was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1926, the daughter of Valentin and Veronika (Polkovnikova) Tourkin. 

 

Veronika graduated from Moscow University's philological department as a Russian language and literature teacher, married Yury Stein, and had two daughters, Elena and Lilia. She taught Russian literature at the Technical Institute, prepared the students to pass exams to enter higher education, and wrote book reviews in the magazine Novy Mir (New World). She emigrated to America in 1972 with her husband and daughters. 

 

In New York, Veronika became the head of the Russian branch of the International Literary Center, the organization that smuggled into the Soviet Union the forbidden literature published in the West. She has been a warden of the parish of the Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church in Manhattan, New York.

 

For many years, during the summer semesters, she taught in the Russian school of Norwich University in Northfield, VT, and came with her family to attend the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Claremont, NH. She was very open and kind to everyone, and she was always surrounded by the parishioners of the church and her students, who faithfully followed her to the church services. Such gatherings became a special cultural and societal exchange during the church coffee hours. 

 

In 2001 Veronika, Yury, and their oldest daughter Elena with her family, returned to Moscow, Russia, where she lived until the winter of 2019. In 2019, she went to visit her younger daughter Lilia’s family in Paris, France, and had to remain there over the period of the Covid quarantine. While living in Paris, she was surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. After she died, she was taken to Moscow, Russia, and buried next to her husband, Yury.

 

The surviving family members include two daughters, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

 

Memory eternal, dear old friend!

 

 

Yury Stein, 90, died in his oldest daughter's house in Moscow, Russia, in 2016. He was born in Moscow in 1926, the son of Genrich and Maria Stein. 

 

Yury lost his father in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and also went himself to join the army as a volunteer as soon he turned 17 and could be drafted. After the end of the war in 1945, he remained in the military for seven more years because the Soviet Union expected to enter into a third world war and did not let soldiers to be discharged. 

 

Returning to civil life, he graduated from the philological department of Moscow University but could not find a job because of the spreading wave of antisemitism in the country. He ended up on television and became a documentary filmmaker at the studio of Scientific Movies. He married Veronika Tourkina and had two daughters, Elena & Lilya. 

 

In 1968 when Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia, in order to show support for the invasion that was under way, the government made voting for the invasion obligatory for all citizens. Yury voted against the invasion and, as a result, lost his job. He participated in the dissident movement for freedom of speech and the press, and for freedom for political prisoners. 

 

In 1972 he emigrated to the United States, lived in New York, and wrote articles for the emigrant mass media. He spent summer months with his wife and daughters in Vermont and New Hampshire and attended the Orthodox Church in Claremont. He had many friends and was dearly loved by them.

 

After the beginning of "perestroika," Yury started to spend his time between Russia and America, and in 2001, he returned to Moscow with his wife and the family of their older daughter, where he lived and died at almost 90 years old.

 

Memory eternal, dear Yury!