Short biography

My name is Vera Kofyan, nee Pritzker, and I am the eldest daughter of the artist Tatiana Kofyan, the creator of this website and Evgeni Davidovich Pritzker, a screenwriter, still living in St.Petersburg.

I was born in Leningrad in 1967, and lived there until the age of 11, at which time my family moved  to Israel. In the course of our repatriation I was given my mother's maiden name, as she had already been divorced from my father for several years. We came to Israel together with my second father, anesthesiologist, Dr.Michael Rosenzweig, (I never called him "step" father, as he never acted like one; in fact, it was he who  raised and supported me most of my life).

In Israel I have finished school, then Army service in the Air forces, and then, quite naturally, received a B.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering at the Technion, Haifa. I began my studies for a Master's degree, but left, realizing that designing and building missiles was not my preferred career choice. Instead I studied Quality Assurance Engineering and, for the next 15 years, worked in different plants and factories as QA Engineer or advisor. While studying, I also began teaching - at first everything from Senior Secretaries to Technical English, and then QA Engineering, which I have taught continuously since 1996.

The website designing was, as far as I was concerned, my mother's idea, done at first just to help her realize her own dream. I learned to use Frontpage, and that was my contribution to her all-consuming passion with the Russian Avant-garde. I was very happy that she had something to do she truly was excited about, and I went along mostly to humour her, thinking this whole website thing a dubious crazy venture at best and a waste of time at worst.

In 2000 my son Oded was born, and I became a single mother, which complicated matters a bit, as I had little time to spare for my mom's projects. But she was working so hard on this, I just had to help in any way I could. We were a bit astonished at the huge inflow of visitors and the warm enthusiastic response to the site.

Then, in November 2003, Tatiana died of lymphoma, as many of you know. I was not up to the task of continuing to develop this project, but I vowed to not allow it to die, and just kept it up in the air, kept the hosting plan and the domain, and answered the mail which continued to arrive. I hoped the day would come when I would find some way, perhaps a grant, to allow me to develop this site and make my mother's vision come true.

In 2008 I was approached by David, a wonderfully generous person who discovered our nearby location and was interested in sponsoring the continuation of this project, and Dana, an independent art entrepreneur. They have made the dream possible. I handed in my resignation at the plant and embarked on a new (part-time) career as the developer of a website on Russian Avant-garde art.

In addition, I still teach QA Engineering as a freelancer in college, and give seminars at plants and organizations; I am also a marketer in the wellness niche; and I teach at my son's amazing alternative school, also new in the making. We live in Kfar Weradim, in Western Galilee, Israel, a picturesque village, beautiful and quiet, on a mountain, near the town of Ma'alot, about 10 km from the Lebanese border (as the crow flies).