Source: HRO.org (info), 21/05/12 

· Human rights defenders  · Human rights education  · Moscow city & Moscow region 

Andrei Sakharov was born in Moscow on 21 May 1921. His father, Dmitry Sakharov, was a physics teacher and author of a well-known mathematics textbook and many popular science books. His grandfather, Ivan Nikolaevich Sakharov, was the son of a priest from Arzamas and a barrister at the Moscow Regional Court, where he represented defendants in many criminal and political trials. He was a member of the Kadet party in the Second State Duma and co-editor of a collection of articles, Against the Death Penalty. His grandmother, Maria Petrovna Sakharova (maiden name Domukhovskaya), was born into a gentry family on her family estate in Smolensk province... 

Andrei Sakharov’s mother, Ekaterina Alekseevna Sakharova (maiden name Sofiano) was the daughter of a hereditary military officer, Aleksei Semenovich Sofiano, who retired in 1917 with the rank of lieutenant-general, and her great-grandfather was born on the Greek island of Zeya, acquired Russian citizenship and was ennobled during the reign of Catherine the Great. [Read more]