Smik's mother Antonia ("née" Davydova) was the daughter of a Russian army officer who had guarded Rudolf Smik. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Rudolf and Antonia were married and the couple lived in Borjomi in the briefly-independent Democratic Republic of Georgia, which in 1921 was taken over by the Bolsheviks and became part of the Soviet Union in 1922.