Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was born near St. Petersburg into a Jewish family. His father was a dental technician, and a cantor ("hazzan") in the local synagogue. His mother was a dentist, which allowed the family to live outside the Pale of Settlement to which most Jews in Russia were restricted at the time. As a result, Mikhail Botvinnik grew up in Saint Petersburg's Nevsky Prospekt.