Family of Ukrainian WWI vet look back at his life One of the ancestors of the Ukrainian Groudzynsky family served as a gunner in the Russian army during the First World War. Arkadi Groudzynsky was born in Kiev in 1883 when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire. He was drafted in 1914, while studying architecture in Moscow, and fought in "Galicia" (now Western Ukraine). A lover of fine arts, this founder of the family dynasty of architects and artists was so traumatized by his experience of war that he almost never told his family about it. Today, some black and white photos, yellowed by time, is all that remain of that time in his family. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES