Abramovich was born on August 11, 1890, in
Odessa, son of poet
Mikhail Abramovich and grandson of the Yiddish writer
Mendele Mocher Sforim. He studied at the
Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now
Technische Universität Berlin). In 1911, he earned a
pilot's licence. He began working for the
Wright brothers' German subsidiary,
Flugmaschinen Wright in
Johannisthal, and became their chief
test pilot. In 1912, Abramovich built his own aircraft, the
Abramovich Flyer, based on what he had learned at the Wright factory. He flew it to
Saint Petersburg, Russia, to participate in a military aircraft competition. The same year, he set a world altitude record of 2,100 meters (6,888 feet) and an endurance record for carrying four passengers for 46 minutes and 57 seconds. He was killed in an aviation accident while instructing a student pilot,
Evgeniya Shakhovskaya, at
Johannisthal on April 24, 1913. ==References==