Uriel (Yuri) Zaharovich Nektalov
Born on 9 August 1926 in Samarkand, the second son of Zavulun and Neqadam Nektalov. He came of age in wartime; when he finished school in 1943, teachers were scarce and his elder brother Bakhor had been lost at the front. He chose the classroom over the front line — and never left it.
For some forty years he taught at Samarkand's School No. 25 — chemistry, then mathematics, and finally physics and astronomy — becoming one of the city's leading teachers and a spiritual center for a whole generation of Bukharian Jewish youth. He knew Rudaki, Hafiz, and Khayyam by heart. Thousands of students carried one instruction with them for life: одам шаветон — be a mensch.
He buried two wives. Lyuba Yagudaeva — mother of Gavriel, Larisa, and Nelya — died in 1954, when he was just twenty-eight; he went to her grave every evening. Mafrat Babakhanova, who raised those three as her own and gave him Iosif, Mara, Olga, and Yakub, died in 1976. Seven children in all.
On 25 June 1983, already gravely ill, he insisted on going to school one last time to place diplomas in his graduates' hands — "The children are waiting." He passed the next day, not yet fifty-seven. His funeral was among the largest Samarkand had ever seen, and he was laid to rest in the Jewish cemetery beside Lyuba and Mafrat. His children and their families carry the name today from New York to Vienna, Tel Aviv, Or-Yehuda, and Samarkand.
"We never amassed great riches — you are our wealth. We are only gardeners, taking joy in the saplings we raise." — Yuri Zaharovich, of his students
More of his story
His father Zavulun never reconciled himself to Soviet rule and was imprisoned more than once on false denunciations; his brother Bakhor was scarred by the Stalinist years. Uriel refused Communist Party membership his whole life, politely turning aside every offer — and was named an Honored Teacher of the Uzbek SSR only posthumously. The illness that took him began at a friend's memorial on 23 June 1983, where he had risen to speak. Three tributes preserve his memory in print: two in The Bukharian Times — by his son Gavriel Nektalov (2016) and his nephew Rafael Nektalov (2013) — and one in MOST by Prof. Rena Elizarova (1995), alongside the Bukharian poem "Hech" written by his student, the poet Mikhail Zavul.
Compiled from three published family tributes: The Bukharian Times №592 (2013) and №756 (2016), and MOST (July 1995). Yahrzeit 15 Tammuz confirmed against both the 1995 memorial notice and the civil date of passing.
