Ribovsky (Ribowsky) Alexander Zakharovich (2 January 1919, Warsaw — ?) – mechanical engineer.
In 1929 Alexander Ribovsky moved with his family from Poland (Warsaw) to Latvia, living in Līvāni and since 1933 in Jēkabpils.
After graduating from Jēkabpils Secondary School in 1938, he studied at the mechanical faculty of the University of Latvia until 1941. In 1941 he volunteered for the Soviet Army and in the same year, after illness, was evacuated to Central Asia, where until 1942 he worked as an unskilled labourer in collective farms of Samarkand Region, Uzbek SSR.
From 1942 to 1945 he participated in combat on the North-Western Front and the 1st Belorussian Front. In 1948 he graduated from the mechanical faculty of the University of Latvia, qualifying as a mechanical engineer.
Career:
1946–1947 – mathematics and military studies teacher at Riga Secondary School No. 11
1947–1951 – teacher at the Riga Officer School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
1951–1952 – freelance teacher at Riga distance secondary school
1952–1953 – assistant at the Department of Theoretical Mechanics of Latvian University of Life Sciences and Technologies
1953–1955 – teacher at the Riga Municipal Construction Technical College
1955–1958 – teacher at Riga Teacher Training Institute
1958–1961 – senior lecturer at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the University of Latvia
1961–1962 – translator at publishing house Liesma Publishing House
1962–1979 – lecturer at the Department of Machine Operation, Latvian Agricultural Academy
Alexander Ribovsky was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the medal Medal For Battle Merit, the medal Medal For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 and five other jubilee medals.
He travelled abroad several times: in 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973 and 1974 to Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia; in 1975 to Austria; in 1976 to France; and in 1977 to West Germany.
Family:
Father – Zakhar Isaakovich Ribovsky (1895, Riga — ?, Jēkabpils), dentist, died during the Holocaust.
Mother – Maria Sigismundovna Ribovskaya (née Skotnicka) (1895, Warsaw — ?, Jēkabpils), dentist, died during the Holocaust.
Brother – Genrikh Zakharovich Ribovsky (1922, Riga — ?, Saint Petersburg), died during the defense of Leningrad in World War II.
Maternal cousin – Arye Mieczysławovich Skotnicki (1918, Warsaw — ?), chemical engineer; emigrated from Poland to Palestine in 1939.
In 1947 he married Janina Władysławovna Ribovskaya (née Bartkevich) (1925, Višķi — ?). The couple had a son – Georg Ribovsky (born 1948, Jūrmala), engineer. The marriage was dissolved in 1953. The same year he married to Olga Ernestovna Ribovskaya (née Yurgenson) (1929, Riga — ?), assistant chief literary editor of the theatre named after Jānis Rainis. They had two children: Alexander Zakharovich Ribovsky Jr. (born 1954, Jūrmala), senior researcher at the Latvian Museum of Natural History and Andrey Aleksandrovich Ribovsky (born 1963, Jūrmala).