Когда‑то у дяди не было бороды, но теперь я не могу представить его без неё.

Once my uncle didn’t have a beard, but now I can’t imagine him without it.

Breakdown of Когда‑то у дяди не было бороды, но теперь я не могу представить его без неё.

• я: I
• быть: to be
• не: not
• но: but

Questions & Answers about Когда‑то у дяди не было бороды, но теперь я не могу представить его без неё.

Why do we say у дяди instead of just дядя to mean “my uncle didn’t have a beard”?

Russian often uses the structure у + genitive case to express possession or “having/not having” something.

• у дяди не было бороды literally = “at uncle there was no beard” → “my uncle didn’t have a beard”.
• у requires the genitive case, so дядя (nom.) → дяди (gen.).
• This у + genitive + есть/нет/было pattern is much more natural than using a verb like иметь (“to have”) for people and their physical characteristics.

So у дяди is the normal way to say “(my) uncle had / didn’t have …”.

Why is it не было бороды and not не была борода, since борода is feminine?

Here быть is used in the impersonal existential construction (“there was / there was not”), and in that pattern Russian normally uses the neuter form было, regardless of the noun’s gender.

• У дяди не было бороды = “There was no beard at (my) uncle.”
• The focus is on the non‑existence of the beard, not on a beard as a grammatical subject.
• If you made борода the grammatical subject, you could say борода не была у дяди, but that sounds unusual and marked; speakers very strongly prefer the impersonal не было бороды here.

So не было is neutral existential “there was not”, and that overrides the noun’s gender.