Editing Openai/6874b524-4134-8013-b5e6-0601c853d841 (section)

===== In the final decade of the 19th century, the Russian Empire stood on the precipice of transformation. The reign of Tsar Alexander III (1881–1894) was marked by reactionary policies following the assassination of his reformist father, Alexander II. Russification campaigns intensified. Pogroms flared sporadically across the Pale of Settlement. Anti-Jewish legislation proliferated. However, certain skilled and indispensable Jews—particularly artisans, professionals, and academics—were sometimes allowed to live and work beyond the Pale in select urban enclaves like St. Petersburg, albeit under constant scrutiny. =====

Moishe Gershovitz, born circa 1860 in Vitebsk guberniya, was one such exception.

A talented mechanic and self-taught engineer, Moishe was recruited in 1885 to St. Petersburg by a mid-ranking nobleman with ties to the railway board, who saw the utility of Moishe's skills in repairing imported German locomotives. He was granted a razreshenie na zhitel’stvo (special residence permit) and allowed to bring his wife Rosa Bruskin with him after their marriage in 1887.

Rosa, the daughter of a well-established furrier in Vilna, was literate, musical, and ambitious. Their union, while partially arranged, blossomed into a mutually affectionate relationship grounded in shared cultural values and pragmatic ambitions.