In May, it will have been 61 years since Mikhail Makovski was born into post-Stalin Moscow.

Plenty has changed for the Russian national — he’s a doctor, practicing occupational medicine. He’s a father of two girls, and makes most of their toys by hand by painstakingly carving bits of scrap wood.

He also loves to swim, as he explains in his rich Russian accent, something he couldn’t have imagined as a child in the Soviet Union. His parents never taught him how, and he didn’t discover the pool until he reached college.

Mikhail intends to change that for his daughters, Veronica and Anna.

“When I was in my 20s, when I was a student in medical school, I tried to catch up with swimming because all of a sudden I realized I loved swimming and I loved being in the water,” Mikhail said over a special blend of chai and a bowl of grapes set out by his wife, Natalia. “I love to swim fast, I love to dive farther — you know, those type of things. It came to me not until 20s, but precious time was already lost.”

Mikhail sees swimming much like the ancient Greeks, a favorite reference of his, in that there are two things a person of culture should be able to do: read and swim.

But it’s not as easy as simply skipping down the road and hopping into the oft-icy waters of Lake Washington.

Veronica is eight, a child from an earlier marriage. She’s bilingual, speaking Russian and English without an accent whatsoever, with a keen interest in art and the game Mindcraft — in Russian, of course.

Veronica has been in the pool from a young age, but Mikhail only has custody on two days per week.

“I thought it was awesome that he was only seeing her twice a week, and he was bringing her here on those two days,” said Mariele Wenzel, Veronica’s swim coach at the Juanita Bay Columbia Athletic Club. “It’s amazing to spend so much quality time, pool time, and she loves it.”

Veronica learned to swim in the much-colder waters at Juanita High School. But for her younger sister, cold water wasn’t an option.

See, Anna first dipped in the warm water at Columbia Athletic Club when she was just seven days old. She’s now just over five months old, and has hardly missed a day.

“Natalia was swimming in the morning, and Anna was born in the afternoon,” said Mikhail, whose love for the pool hasn’t faded since his time as a youngster.

But Mikhail’s reasoning goes beyond childhood nostalgia and a desire for his girls to share in his passion for swimming. He sees major health benefits in swimming, and said Anna’s time in the pool has helped her motor skills and spacial awareness.

Anna’s pediatrician, Dr. Holly Ginsberg of Allego Pediatrics, “praises her development and encourages her regular swimming as a key to well-being,” said Mikhail, who mentioned his gratefulness for the support of Ginsberg and Wenzel as the girls learn to swim.

The idea is not at all unpopular, and in fact, Columbia Athletic Club offers a Water Babies course for children as young as three months — the earliest course called “Baby Splash.”

The classes get up to around a dozen babies at once, and though the parents are always with their children, a dozen babies bobbing in a pool can be understandably hectic.

“It’s stressful, sometimes, when the babies learn how to walk out of the pool, but it’s awesome what they teach them: how to roll on their back and blow bubbles and all that,” Wenzel said. “It prepares them for swim lessons.”

Anna is on her way, enjoying an occasional splash in Mikail’s direction during a recent trip to the pool, drawing a smile from behind his fogged-up swim goggles.

Because you can bet he’s neck-deep in the water, doing his best to make Anna laugh.