Svetlana alliluyeva escape what happened to the children. Kremlin princess and her men. Who loved Svetlana Alliluyeva, and who loved her. Destruction of the image of the ideal revolutionary

She was helped to escape from the USSR by the death of her beloved man. But in the West, she did not find happiness, and remained in the shadow of her father's name.

On the evening of March 6, 1967, Svetlana crossed the threshold of the US Embassy in Delhi, and on April 22 she got off the plane at Kennedy Airport in New York. When American diplomats transported her from India in transit through Italy to Switzerland, Alliluyeva silently repeated: “Thank you, Brajesh! That's what you did, that's what you gave me. How can I return such love to you? Hindu Brajesh Singh died after another bout of lung disease on October 31, 1966 in her Moscow apartment. This was the second death that Svetlana had seen so closely. And for the first time it happened in the spring of 1953, when the father of nations died. Her birth father is Joseph Stalin (aka Koba).

She tried to get rid of the seal of the leader's name, of the now hated Soviet reality, with the help of a small urn with the ashes of her beloved. Alliluyeva wrote letters to the then celestials of the USSR Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin, in which she asked to be allowed to bury Singh in his homeland, as he wanted, in the waters of the sacred river Ganges. As the well-known TV presenter Elena Khanga said, such a move was suggested by her mother Leah, who met Svetlana in her student years in Leningrad visiting the composer Tolstoy. Was it really so? The sages on this occasion say: "Do not confirm or refute what you have not seen yourself."

Therefore, we will not guess who gave the decisive advice. Something else is important. The Soviet rulers stood as an impregnable "patriotic" citadel when Svetlana and Brajesh wanted to officially get married in 1965: “Find yourself a strong man of ours. What do you need this old Indian for? But this time, the rulers of the allied Olympus gave the go-ahead for a trip abroad, however, they put forward a condition: “No meetings with foreign journalists!” And on November 11, Alliluyeva was given a passport with an Indian visa. Until the very departure on December 20, Svetlana did not leave the urn for a minute.

True, at that time she had not yet thought of escaping. The decision not to return was already made in India. Bathing in the Ganges River in Singh's homeland in Kalakankar seemed to wash away the remnants of doubt whether to leave the Soviet Union or not.

“I was myself, I breathed freely, and the people around me were not parts of the mechanism. They were poor, they were hungry, they had a thousand worries of their own, but everyone was free to say what he thought, free to choose what he wanted. India liberated and freed something inside of me. Here I stopped feeling like a piece of state property, which I had been in the USSR all my life, ”she wrote in the book“ Only One Year ”.

And still, Svetlana Alliluyeva remained Stalin's daughter for everyone. Despite everything ... In 1967, her first work, Twenty Letters to a Friend, was published, which became a bestseller. There, as it seemed to the author, everything that concerned Stalin and his entourage was stated. But this freedom turned into a creative addiction. The publishers demanded that Alliluyeva write about her father again and again.

“I hated to return again to the memory of the past, to my life in the USSR, in the Kremlin. I forced myself to write about politics in Soviet Russia, about Stalin's politics - everyone needed it so much! Indeed, the critics reacted positively to this. But what I considered more important - the details of the lives of non-famous people - this was not noted by criticism, ”she regretted in Journey to the Motherland, where she spoke about the circumstances of her return to the USSR in 1984 and the subsequent one in 1986“ return emigration.

SO DIFFERENT NEWSPAPERS

How to explain the throwing of the soul? A simple human desire - the search for love. And she was constantly taken away from Svetlana. The first irreparable loss was mother Nadezhda, the daughter of a Bolshevik with the experience of Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluyev. It is with her that the most sunny memories of childhood are connected, and this is only six and a half years ...

Little Sveta remembered her mother as beautiful. And although the memory could not accurately draw her face, figure, movements, but the magic of grace, lightness, elusiveness remained in her heart like a warm coal. Yes, mother, unlike father, did not spoil either son or daughter. Nadezhda Sergeevna often demanded from the "big girl who knows how to think" not to be naughty, to become more serious, to act like an adult. And this was required of a person who, in a couple of months, was to cross such a “turning point” in life as the age of six. However, later, over the years, Svetlana realized that all that warm atmosphere in the house rested precisely on her mother.

The sixth birthday turned out to be very memorable, the last under Nadezhda Sergeevna. In February 1932, a children's concert was given at an apartment in the Kremlin, in which almost all the guests took part. Boys and girls vying with each other recited poems in Russian and German, performed comic verses about drummers and double-dealers, danced the Ukrainian hopak in national costumes, which they made with their own hands from gauze and colored paper. The walls were full of wall newspapers with funny drawings and photographs. They told about adventures at the state dacha in Zubalovo near Moscow, where Stalin's family lived. There were reports about the sports ground, and about the "Robinson's house", which was a flooring made of planks between three pines and which could only be reached by a rope ladder...

Soon, a terrible line under the holiday was no longer a children's wall newspaper. On November 10, 1932, Pravda writes: “On the night of November 9, an active and devoted member of the party, comrade, died. Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva. Central Committee of the CPSU (b).

Behind these dry lines was a whole drama, the ending of which, as they say, played out at a banquet on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. A seemingly trifling quarrel with Stalin led to this. He told her: “Hey, you, drink!” To which Nadezhda Sergeevna threw: “I don’t Hey!” - and then got up from the table and left the room. But as they knew, this was the tip of the iceberg. Skirmishes with her husband happened more and more often. One of their main reasons was the visits of Lavrenty Beria. "He's a scoundrel! Don't you see it?" - said the wife. "Give me proof!" - answered the husband. “What more proof do you need?!” Hope was indignant.

And the morning of the 9th came ... The housekeeper Carolina Thiel, as usual, went to wake the hostess of the house. And she was already fast asleep. She was covered in blood, with a small Walther pistol in her hand, which her brother Pavel had once brought to her from Berlin. Iosif Vissarionovich himself did not dare to be the first to tell the sad news. They called the closest associates of the leader - Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Avel Yenukidze. They told Stalin when he woke up: "Nadya is no longer with us." When he entered the room, he was shocked, he could only say: “Such a small pistol and so much blood…”

TEARS AND THE SYSTEM

The circumstances of death, of course, were hidden from the children. Svetlana found out about how her mother left only in the winter of 1942, when she improved her knowledge of the English language by reading foreign magazines. There she came across a note in which, as a long-known fact, Nadezhda Alliluyeva's suicide was reported.

Since the autumn of 1932, everything that was connected with Sveta's mother began to get rid of. Already in 1933, in Zubalovo, both the sports ground with swings and rings, and the “Robinson's house” were demolished ... Gradually, they began to get rid of the housekeepers and teachers who appeared in the house with the assistance of Nadezhda Sergeevna. Then there were repressions against relatives and friends. They wanted to take a tiny piece of heat from Sveta too. In 1939, when the flywheel of the fight against “enemies of the people” was already in full swing, the head of personnel found out that the first husband of the nanny of the daughter of the leader Alexandra Andreevna had served as a clerk in the police under the tsarist regime. Stalin was informed about the "unreliable element", and he immediately ordered his dismissal. Upon learning that they were kicking out the grandmother - that's what Svetlana called her - the daughter ran to her father with a roar. Tears melted the ice, and Alexandra Andreevna remained in the family until her death in 1956.

But it was only a small victory. Otherwise, Stalin's daughter inexorably became an integral part of state property. A “stomper” was assigned to her, who accompanied her everywhere: to school, to the country house, to the theater, and during walks in the fresh air.

“I was already in my first year of university,” Svetlana Iosifovna recalled. - And I begged my father: I'm ashamed to go to a university with a "tail". The father said: "Well, to hell with you, let them kill you - I do not answer." So, only at the age of seventeen and a half did I get the opportunity to walk alone.

And still the system could no longer let go. Members of the party caste have always been under control. The clan was ready at any moment to protect itself from alien elements. Unfortunately, Alexei Kapler, a film director and screenwriter, was ranked among those. Svetlana met him in October 1942, when Vasily Stalin brought him to Zubalovo. Kapler worked on a film about pilots, and the leader's son himself, an Air Force officer, undertook to be a consultant for the film.

A spark flew between them. They started dating. Lucy, as Alexei was called, in the viewing room of the USSR Committee on Cinematography showed Svetlana foreign films: “Young Lincoln”, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” ... Kapler introduced the girl to the masterpieces of world literature: “To have and not to have” and “For whom the bell tolls” Ernest Hemingway, "All men are enemies" by Richard Aldington.

“He gave me “adult” books about love, quite sure that I would understand everything. I don’t know if I understood everything in them, but I remember these books as if I read them yesterday, ”Alliluyeva said. In January 1943, love literally burned in these two people - in a 40-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. They could talk on the phone for hours, just walk the streets, kiss madly, even though the spy is only a few meters away.

They tried to “reason” Kapler in a good way. Colonel Rumyantsev, one of Stalin's personal bodyguards, suggested that Alexei leave Moscow on a business trip. Lucy had the imprudence to refuse. And because of this, his filmography has a significant gap. After the release in 1943 of the paintings "She Defends the Motherland" and "Novgorodians" according to the scenario of Kapler, his next work, "Behind the Showcase of a Department Store", dates from 1955.

IN SEARCH OF HEAT

On March 2, Alexei was taken to the Lubyanka, where they were recorded as British spies. Svetlana rushed to her father: “I love him!” For this she received two slaps in the face, and Kapler - five years of exile in Vorkuta, then - the same term in a camp near Inta in Komi. They met 11 years later ... And Alliluyeva did not talk to Stalin for only four months, but they turned into a bottomless abyss that separated father and daughter.

She called Stalin in July, when she had to decide which institute to enter. Svetlana wanted to be a philologist, but the leader categorically objected: "You will go to the historical one." I had to submit to the will of the parent, from whom human warmth was no longer expected. And she needed a man who could give this feeling.

In the spring of 1944, Svetlana decided to marry Grigory Morozov, a student at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, with whom she went to the same school. Naturally, according to tradition, consent to marriage had to be obtained from the father. And this could cause problems, because the chosen one is a Jew. As you know, Stalin did not like representatives of this nationality, suspecting a “Zionist conspiracy” everywhere. Hearing about the intentions of his daughter, Stalin grimaced, but said: “Do you want to get married? Yes, spring... Do what you want. Just don't show up in my house." True, the head of the country helped the young family financially, allocated an apartment, and then allowed them to come to Zubalovo. And no sentimentality - even when in May 1945 Svetlana gave birth to a son, whom she named Joseph. For three years - until 1947 - they were together with Grigory, and then divorced. Oddly enough, without the participation of Stalin, simply for personal reasons.

The next marriage also did not last long - with Yuri, the son of an ally of the leader Andrei Zhdanov. It was a typical marriage of convenience: Stalin always wanted to intermarry with the family of a comrade in the struggle. Svetlana and Yuri had a daughter, Katya, but even this could not prevent the separation, because all the same, “artificiality” was visible in the relationship of the spouses. And it was difficult to get along in the Zhdanovs' house.

“I had to face a combination of formal, sanctimonious “party spirit” and trivial philistinism - chests full of good things, vases and napkins everywhere, penny still lifes on the walls. All this was personified by the widow Zinaida Alexandrovna Zhdanova, the queen of the house, ”said Alliluyeva.

"SECRETARY" STALIN

And what about Stalin? Did the leader of the peoples not love the Light? As Alliluyeva herself claimed, she was a bad daughter, and he was a bad father. But it was Iosif Vissarionovich who came up with the “letter game”. Setanka (as she called herself as a child, when she swallowed the sound “v”) gave dad “orders”, and he reported on their execution. For example: “I order you to allow me to go to the cinema, and you order the film Chapaev and some American comedy. Setanka hostess. Signature and seal. To which the father imposed a positive resolution: “I obey”, “I agree”, “I submit” or “Will be done”. And he almost always signed in the same way: "Setanka's secretary-hostess, the poor I. Stalin." True, there were also original options: “To my sparrow. I read with pleasure. Daddy".

The last humorous letter was sent in May 1941, a month before Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union: “My dear secretary, I hasten to inform you that your mistress wrote the composition perfectly! Thus, the first test passed. I'm submitting the second one tomorrow. Eat and drink to your health. Kiss daddy hard 1,000 times. Hello secretaries. Mistress.

The war became a zone of exclusion for them, which did not disappear on May 9, 1945, on Victory Day. They just exchanged congratulations. The case with Alexei Kapler, as well as with Stalin's son from his first marriage, Yakov, who died in captivity, played a role. Yes, and Svetlana has become more mature, the games that could bring her closer to her father remained in childhood. And quite in an adult way, she assessed the events of early March 1953, when "the country suffered an irreparable loss." On the 2nd, she was taken from a French lesson at the Academy of Social Sciences and brought to the "near dacha" in Kuntsevo. Svetlana saw how he was leaving - long and painful. Doctors pronounced him dead on March 5.

HINDUS AND AMERICAN

In 1963, at a government hospital in Kuntsevo, she met Brajesh Singh, an Indian communist who had come to Moscow for treatment at the invitation of the CPSU. “I cannot explain why I had a feeling of absolute trust in this stranger from another world. I don’t know why he believed my every word, ”Alliluyeva described her impressions of those rendezvous.

Having completed the prescribed course, Brajesh returned to his homeland. But his heart remained with Svetlana. Therefore, using his connections (Dinesh's nephew was then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs), Singh obtained an invitation to the post of translator in the Moscow Progress publishing house. True, the process did not go quickly due to bureaucratic red tape, and only on April 7, 1965, together with her son Osya, did she meet Brajesh at Sheremetyevo. Everyone was happy, including the children of Alliluyeva, who really liked the Indian "dad".

A common property of most idylls is to end quickly. Singh's illness progressed, so they celebrated the third anniversary of the first meeting in the same hospital on October 9, 1966. They were congratulated by doctors and nurses. Before the loss of a loved one, there was very little left ...

Then there was a trip to India, an escape to the USA, the publication of the books “20 Letters to a Friend” and “Only One Year”, many interviews and articles about Stalin, and another marriage. In 1970, in Arizona, Alliluyeva met architect William Wesley Peters. During a visit to a jewelry store, he bought Svetlana a turquoise ring and put it on her finger. “Will I marry this man?” she thought. Then there was dinner at a restaurant where Wes, as everyone called him, told about a car accident in which his wife and two-year-old son, who was pregnant with their third child, died ... Three weeks later there was a wedding. The wife paid all her husband's debts - about half a million dollars. Alliluyeva then received huge royalties from publishers, so she paid money with peace of mind. As it turned out, Wes was only interested in money. In 1972, he easily agreed to a divorce, leaving Svetlana with her daughter Olga in her arms, without any obligations for alimony.

In the "free" world of the West, she soon became cramped, and she decided to return, as she herself claimed, after a call from her son. In 1984, the Soviet Union opened its arms for Alliluyeva and her daughter. But this "comeback" did not bring her soul the desired peace. With Joseph and Catherine, whom she left in the USSR after the escape, she did not find mutual understanding. And she left again. Already forever.

FACTS ABOUT SVETLAN ALLILUEV

I believe in the power of intelligence in the world, in any country, no matter where you live. The world is too small and the human race is too small in this universe

• Born February 28, 1926 in Moscow;
• In 1949 she graduated from Moscow University with a degree in contemporary history;
• Author of the books “20 Letters to a Friend”, “Only One Year”, “A Book for Granddaughters. Journey home”, “Distant music”;
• She died November 22, 2011 in Wisconsin.

She did not follow in her father's footsteps, preferring "life behind the scenes", and wrote memoirs in which she denounced the party elite and showed Stalin from an unexpected side.

Father's death

Svetlana developed a very controversial relationship with her father, whose shadow haunted her throughout her life. But even despite their numerous conflicts, his death was a real blow for Alliluyeva, a turning point in her life: “Those were terrible days then. The feeling that something habitual, stable and durable has shifted, shaken…”.

Probably, today nowhere you will find so many warm words about Joseph Stalin, as in the memoirs of Alliluyeva, who herself later admitted that in the last days of his life she loved him most of all. Iosif Vissarionovich was dying for a long time and painfully, the blow did not give him an easy death. The last moment of the leader was completely terrible: “At the last minute, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked around at everyone who was standing around. It was a terrible look, either insane or angry and full of horror before death and before the unfamiliar faces of the doctors who bent over him. This look went around everyone in a fraction of a minute. And then, it was incomprehensible and scary, he suddenly raised his left hand upwards and either pointed it somewhere up, or threatened all of us. The next moment, the soul, having made the last effort, escaped from the body.
And then the power of the so hated Alliluyeva Lavrenty Beria began, whom she would call more than once in her “letters” “a scoundrel, a creeping bastard and a murderer of her family”, the only person who, according to him, rejoiced at the leader’s death: “Only one person behaved almost indecent - Beria. He was excited to the extreme, his face, already disgusting, now and then distorted from the passions bursting him. And his passions were - ambition, cruelty, cunning, power, power ... He tried so hard, at this crucial moment, how not to outwit, how not to outwit! When it was all over, he was the first to jump out into the corridor and in the silence of the hall, where everyone stood silently around the bed, his loud voice was heard, not hiding the triumph: “Khrustalev! car!

"Orders"

All children have their own games, Svetlana Alliluyeva also had her own. From childhood, the leader's daughter played "orders", the father himself came up with the tradition, and it became an obligatory component of the life of his children. The bottom line was that the daughter did not have to ask for something, only to order: “Well, what are you asking for!” - he said, "only order, and we will immediately fulfill everything." Hence the touching letters: “Setanke the hostess. You must have forgotten the folder. That's why you don't write to him. How is your health? Are you not sick? How do you spend your time? Are the dolls alive? I thought that you would send an order soon, but there is no order, how not. Not good. You offend the folder. Well, kiss. Waiting for your letter". Stalin always signed under the order: “daddy” or “secretary”.

Mum

The image of her mother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Svetlana cherished all her life, despite the fact that she spent very little time with her, she was only six when Stalin's second wife died. And during her lifetime, Nadezhda spent little time with her daughter, it was not in the order of emancipated women to babysit children.
Nevertheless, it is life with her mother at the dacha in Zubatovo that Sveta connects her best memories. She independently managed the household, found the best educators for the children. After her death, Alliluyeva recalls, the whole house was transferred to state control, from where a crowd of servants appeared, who looked at us as "an empty place."
Stalin's second wife shot herself in her room on the night of November 8-9, 1932, the reason was another quarrel with her husband, whom she, according to her recollections, loved dearly all her life. The children, of course, were not told about this, Sveta learned a terrible secret about suicide many years later: “They told me later, when I was already an adult, that my father was shocked by what had happened. He was shocked because he did not understand: why? Why was he given such a terrible blow to the back? He said that he himself did not want to live anymore. At times, some kind of anger, rage found on him. Stalin took her death as a betrayal, besides, Nadezhda left her husband a long accusatory letter, which subsequently untied his hands. Repressions began in the country.

Lucy Kapler

But it was by no means the death of the mother that played a decisive role in aggravating the conflict between “fathers and children”.
The Stalinist daughter had many novels, and each of them is remarkable for something. Alexei Kapler, nicknamed "Lucy", became the first love of the "general's daughter", with whom she had to part very quickly - dad did not approve.
This story took place during the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War. Lusya conceived a new film about pilots and came to Zubatovo to consult with Sveta's brother, Vasily. Well, then, long walks, going to the cinema: “Lucy was for me then the smartest, kindest and most wonderful person. He opened the world of art to me - unfamiliar, unknown. Nothing foreshadowed trouble until Pravda published a careless article by an ardent lover from Stalingrad, where Kapler went on the eve of the battle. The “letter” of a certain lieutenant to his beloved betrayed the author completely, the last words were especially bold: “It is probably snowing in Moscow now. From your window you can see the battlements of the Kremlin.”
Clouds began to gather over the couple. It became obvious to the lovers that they should part, besides, Lucy planned a business trip to Tashkent. The last meeting was reminiscent of “Shakespearean passions”: “We could no longer talk. We kissed in silence, standing side by side. We were bitter and sweet. We were silent, looked into each other's eyes, and kissed. Then I went to my house, tired, broken, anticipating trouble.
And the trouble really happened, the next morning Lucy Capela was “asked” to Lubyanka, from where he went not on a business trip, but to prison on charges of having connections with foreigners. A day later, an angry dad burst into Svetlana: “No way
could find a Russian!” - Kapler's Jewish roots irritated Stalin the most.

exotic romance

Fate did not favor Svetlana with happy novels. Another personal tragedy and at the same time great happiness was her relationship with Brajesha Singh, the heir to a rich and noble Indian family. When they met in 1963 in the Kremlin hospital, Brajeshey was already terminally ill - he had advanced lung ephimesis. Nevertheless, you can’t order your heart, the lovers moved to Sochi, where soon the Hindu proposed to Svetlana. But the marriage was refused, saying that in this case, Brajeshey would take her abroad legally. Svetlana claimed that she was not going to live in India, but would like to go there as a tourist. Kosygin refused this too. Meanwhile, in Moscow, he was getting worse. Alliluyeva was sure that he was "specially treated like that." She begged Kosygin to let her and her husband (as she called Brajeshey) go to India, she was again refused. She was able to see the homeland of her lover only accompanied by his ashes, Brajesh died in her arms on October 31, 1966.

overseas epic

With the death of Brajesh, Svetlana's life abroad began. After her trip to India, she became a "non-returner", her citizenship was nullified in the USSR. “I didn’t think on December 19, 1966, that this would be my last day in Moscow and in Russia,” Alliluyeva later recalled in her book “Only One Year”. But the big name did not leave her abroad either, Svetlana was supported by the CIA officers - it was useful for America during the Cold War to have the daughter of a great dictator who had fled her own country. Another Soviet diplomat, Mikhail Trepykhalin, argued that Alliluyeva's presence in the United States could "undermine" relations between Washington and Moscow. Now it is difficult to judge exactly what connections Alliluyeva had with the US special services; her dossier, published after her death, has undergone serious revision. On the one hand, she thanked America for the miraculous rescue: “Thanks to the CIA - they took me out, did not leave me and printed my Twenty Letters to a Friend. On the other hand, the following words are attributed to her: “For forty years of living here, America has not given me anything.”

Goodbye Russia

Svetlana spent most of her life abroad. In her memoirs, she described longing for her homeland, the joy of returning at the end of 1984: “As I understand it, everyone who returned to Russia after emigrating from France, where life was not so unsettled ... I also understand those who did not leave for relatives abroad, returning from camps and prisons - no, they do not want, after all, to leave Russia! No matter how cruel our country, no matter how difficult our land<…>None of us, who are attached by heart to Russia, will ever betray her, leave her, or run away from her in search of Comfort.” The return was not easy for her, Gorbachev personally received permission for her entry. But the shadow of her father, which inexorably pursued her all her life, did not allow her to get along peacefully in her homeland. In 1987, she left the USSR forever, which, however, did not remain long either. Svetlana Alliluyeva, the Kremlin princess, ended her days in 2011 in a nursing home in Richland, USA.

In 1919, forty-year-old Stalin married the young Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She was then only seventeen; at the same time with her, Stalin brought her weather brother into his house.

The Soviet people first learned the name of Nadezhda Alliluyeva in November 1932, when she died and a grandiose funeral procession stretched through the streets of Moscow - the funeral that Stalin arranged for her, in terms of splendor, could withstand comparison with the funeral corteges of Russian empresses.

She died at the age of thirty, and, naturally, everyone was interested in the cause of this so early death. Foreign journalists in Moscow, having not received official information, were forced to be content with rumors circulating around the city: they said, for example, that Alliluyeva died in a car accident, that she died of appendicitis, etc.

It turned out that the rumor prompted Stalin a number of acceptable versions, but he did not use any of them. Some time later, he put forward the following version: his wife was ill, began to recover, but, contrary to the advice of doctors, she got out of bed too early, which caused complications and death.

Why couldn't it just be said that she fell ill and died? There was a reason for this: just half an hour before her death, Nadezhda Alliluyeva was seen alive and healthy, surrounded by a large society of Soviet dignitaries and their wives, at a concert in the Kremlin. The concert was given on November 8, 1932 on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of October.

What actually caused the sudden death of Alliluyeva? Among the employees of the OGPU, two versions circulated: one, as if tested by the authorities, said that Nadezhda Alliluyeva shot herself, the other, whispered, claimed that Stalin had shot her.

About the details of this case, I was told something by one of my former subordinates, whom I recommended to Stalin's personal guard. That night he was just on duty in Stalin's apartment. Shortly after Stalin and his wife returned from the concert, a shot rang out in the bedroom. “When we broke in there,” the guard said, “she was lying on the floor in a black silk evening dress, with curled hair. A pistol was lying next to her.”

There was one oddity in his story: he did not say a word about where Stalin himself was, when the shot rang out and when the guards ran into the bedroom, whether he was also there or not. The guard was silent even about how Stalin took the unexpected death of his wife, what orders he gave, whether he sent for a doctor ... I definitely got the impression that this man would like to tell me something very important, but expected questions from me. Fearing to go too far in the conversation, I hastened to change the subject.

So, it became known to me from a direct witness of the incident that the life of Nadezhda Alliluyeva was cut short by a pistol shot; Whose hand pulled the trigger remains a mystery. However, if I sum up everything I knew about this marriage, I should perhaps conclude that it was suicide.

For high-ranking officials of the OGPU-NKVD it was no secret that Stalin and his wife lived very unfriendly. Spoiled by unlimited power and the flattery of his associates, accustomed to the fact that all his words and deeds cause nothing but unanimous admiration, Stalin allowed himself in the presence of his wife such dubious jokes and obscene expressions that no self-respecting woman can stand. She felt that insulting her with such behavior, he takes obvious pleasure, especially when all this happens in public, in the presence of guests, at a dinner party or a party. Alliluyeva's timid attempts to rebuke him caused an immediate rude rebuff, and when drunk, he burst into the most selective obscenities.

The guards, who loved her for her harmless character and friendly attitude towards people, often found her crying. Unlike any other woman, she did not have the opportunity to freely communicate with people and choose friends on her own initiative. Even when she met people she liked, she could not invite them "to Stalin's house" without obtaining permission from him and from the leaders of the OGPU who were responsible for his security.

In 1929, when party members and Komsomol members were thrown into the rise of industry under the slogan of the speedy industrialization of the country, Nadezhda Alliluyeva wanted to contribute to this matter and expressed her desire to enter some educational institution where one could get a technical specialty. Stalin did not want to hear about this. However, she turned to Abel Yenukidze for assistance, who enlisted the support of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and by joint efforts they convinced Stalin to let Nadezhda go to study. She chose a textile specialty and began to study viscose production.

So, the dictator's wife became a student. Extraordinary precautions were taken so that no one in the institute, with the exception of the director, would know or guess that the new student was Stalin's wife. The head of the Operational Directorate of the OGPU, Pauker, attached two secret agents to the same faculty under the guise of students, who were entrusted with taking care of her safety. The driver of the car, who was supposed to deliver her to classes and bring her back, was strictly ordered not to stop at the institute entrance, but to turn around the corner, into the alley, and wait for his passenger there. Later, in 1931, when Alliluyeva received a brand new "gazik" (a Soviet copy of the "Ford") as a gift, she began to come to the institute without a driver. The OGPU agents, of course, followed her on the heels in another car. Her own car did not arouse any suspicion at the institute - at that time in Moscow there were already several hundred high-ranking officials who had their own cars. She was happy that she managed to escape from the musty atmosphere of the Kremlin, and devoted herself to her studies with the enthusiasm of a person doing an important state business.

Yes, Stalin made a big mistake by allowing his wife to communicate with ordinary citizens. Until now, she knew about government policy only from newspapers and official speeches at party congresses, where everything that was done was explained by the noble concern of the party for improving the life of the people. She, of course, understood that for the sake of the industrialization of the country, the people must make some sacrifices and in many ways deny themselves, but she believed the statements that the standard of living of the working class was rising from year to year.

At the institute, she had to make sure that all this was not true. She was amazed to learn that the wives and children of workers and employees are deprived of the right to receive ration cards, and therefore food. Meanwhile, two students, returning from the Ukraine, told her that in areas that were especially hard hit by famine, cases of cannibalism were noted and that they personally took part in the arrest of two brothers who were found with pieces of human meat intended for sale. Alliluyeva, stricken with horror, retold this conversation to Stalin and Pauker, the head of his personal guard.

Stalin decided to put an end to hostile attacks in his own home. Having attacked his wife with obscene abuse, he told her that she would not return to the institute anymore, he ordered Pauker to find out who these two students were and to arrest them. The task was not difficult: Pauker's secret agents assigned to Alliluyeva were obliged to observe who she met within the walls of the institute and what she was talking about. From this incident, Stalin drew a general "organizational conclusion": he ordered the OGPU and the party control commission to begin a ferocious purge in all institutes and technical schools, paying special attention to those students who were mobilized for collectivization.

Alliluyeva did not attend her institute for about two months, and only thanks to the intervention of her "guardian angel" Yenukidze was able to complete her course of study.

About three months after the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, guests gathered at Pauker's; there was talk of the deceased. Someone said, regretting her untimely death, that she did not use her high position and was generally a modest and meek woman.

- Meek? Pauker asked sarcastically. So you didn't know her. She was very irascible. I would like you to see how she flared up one day and shouted right in his face: "You are a tormentor, that's who you are! You are torturing your own son, torturing your wife ... you have tortured the whole people!"

I also heard about such a quarrel between Alliluyeva and Stalin. In the summer of 1931, on the eve of the day scheduled for the departure of the spouses to rest in the Caucasus, Stalin for some reason became angry and attacked his wife with his usual square abuse. She spent the next day in the hassle of leaving. Stalin appeared and they sat down to dinner. After dinner, the guards carried Stalin's small suitcase and his briefcase into the car. The rest of the things had already been delivered in advance directly to the Stalinist train. Alliluyeva took hold of her hat box and pointed out to the guards the suitcases she had packed for herself. "You won't go with me," Stalin announced unexpectedly. "You'll stay here!"

Stalin got into the car next to Pauker and drove off. Alliluyeva, amazed, remained standing with a hat box in her hands.

She, of course, did not have the slightest opportunity to get rid of her despot husband. There would be no law in the whole state that could protect her. For her, it was not even a marriage, but rather a trap, from which only death could free her.

Alliluyeva's body was not cremated. She was buried in the cemetery, and this circumstance also caused understandable surprise: a tradition had long been established in Moscow, according to which the dead party members were supposed to be cremated. If the deceased was a particularly important person, the urn with his ashes was walled up in the ancient Kremlin walls. The ashes of dignitaries of lesser caliber rested in the wall of the crematorium. Alliluyeva, as the wife of the great leader, should, of course, have been honored with a niche in the Kremlin wall.

However, Stalin objected to cremation. He ordered Yagoda to organize a magnificent funeral procession and burial of the deceased at the ancient privileged cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, where the first wife of Peter the Great, his sister Sophia and many representatives of the Russian nobility were buried.

Yagoda was unpleasantly struck by the fact that Stalin expressed a desire to follow the hearse all the way from Red Square to the monastery, that is, about seven kilometers. Responsible for the personal security of the "owner" for more than twelve years, Yagoda knew how he strives to avoid the slightest risk. Always surrounded by personal guards, Stalin, however, always came up with additional, sometimes ridiculous tricks to even more reliably ensure his own security. Having become the sole dictator, he never ventured to walk the streets of Moscow, and when he was about to inspect some newly built factory, the entire factory territory, by his order, was freed from workers and was occupied by the troops and employees of the OGPU. Yagoda knew how it got to Pauker if Stalin, going from his Kremlin apartment to his office, accidentally met with one of the Kremlin employees, although the entire Kremlin staff consisted of communists, checked and re-checked by the OGPU. It is clear that Yagoda could not believe his ears: Stalin wants to follow the hearse on foot through the streets of Moscow!

The news that Alliluyeva would be buried at Novodevichy was published the day before the burial. Many streets in the center of Moscow are narrow and winding, and the funeral procession is notoriously slow moving. What does it take for some terrorist to look out of the window for the figure of Stalin and throw a bomb from above or fire at him with a pistol, or even a rifle? Reporting to Stalin several times a day about the preparations for the funeral, Yagoda each time made attempts to dissuade him from the dangerous undertaking and convince him to arrive directly at the cemetery at the last moment, in a car. Unsuccessfully. Stalin either decided to show the people how much he loved his wife, and thereby refute possible rumors that were unfavorable to him, or his conscience worried him - after all, he caused the death of the mother of his children.

Yagoda and Pauker had to mobilize the entire Moscow police and urgently demand thousands of Chekists from other cities to Moscow. In each house along the path of the funeral procession, a commandant was appointed, who was obliged to drive all the residents into the back rooms and forbid them to leave. In every window overlooking the street, on every balcony, there was a gepeushnik. The sidewalks were filled with an audience consisting of policemen, Chekists, soldiers of the OGPU troops and mobilized party members. All side streets along the planned route had to be blocked and cleared of passers-by since early morning.

Finally, at three o'clock in the afternoon on November 11, the funeral procession, accompanied by mounted police and units of the OGPU, moved from Red Square. Stalin really walked behind the hearse, surrounded by other "leaders" "and their wives. It would seem that all measures were taken to protect him from the slightest danger. Nevertheless, his courage did not last long. Ten minutes later, reaching the first meeting on along the way of the square, he and Pauker separated from the procession, got into the car waiting for him, and the motorcade of cars, one of which was Stalin, raced in a roundabout way to the Novodevichy Convent, where Stalin waited for the arrival of the funeral procession.

Grave of Nadezhda Alliluyeva

As I already mentioned, Pavel Alliluyev followed his sister when she married Stalin. In these early years, Stalin was gentle with his young wife and treated her brother as a member of his family. In his house, Pavel met several Bolsheviks, little known then, but who later occupied the main posts in the state. Among them was Klim Voroshilov, the future People's Commissar for Defense. Voroshilov treated Pavel well and often took him with him, going to military maneuvers, air and parachute parades. Apparently, he wanted to awaken Pavel's interest in the military profession, but he preferred some more peaceful occupation, dreaming of becoming an engineer.

I first met Pavel Alliluyev at the beginning of 1929. It took place in Berlin. It turns out that Voroshilov included him in the Soviet trade mission, where he monitored the quality of supplies of German aviation equipment ordered by the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense. Pavel Alliluyev was married and had two small children. His wife, the daughter of an Orthodox priest, worked in the human resources department of a trade mission. Alliluyev himself was listed as an engineer and was a member of the local party cell. Among the huge Soviet colony in Berlin, no one, except for a few senior officials, knew that Alliluyev was a relative of Stalin.

As an employee of the state control, I was assigned to oversee all export and import operations carried out by the trade mission, including secret military purchases made in Germany. Therefore, Pavel Alliluyev was subordinate to me in the service, and we worked hand in hand with him for more than two years.

I remember when he first came into my office, I was struck by his resemblance to his sister - the same regular features, the same oriental eyes, looking at the light with a sad expression. Over time, I became convinced that in character he was in many ways reminiscent of his sister - just as decent, sincere and unusually modest. I want to emphasize one more of his properties, so rare among Soviet officials: he never used weapons if his opponent was unarmed. Being a brother-in-law of Stalin and a friend of Voroshilov, that is, having become a very influential person, he never made it clear to those employees of the mission who, out of careerist motives or simply because of a bad character, weaved intrigues against him, not knowing with whom he was dealing.

I remember how a certain engineer, subordinate to Alliluyev and engaged in testing and acceptance of aircraft engines manufactured by a German company, sent a memorandum to the mission leadership, where it was said that Alliluyev had a suspicious friendship with German engineers and, having fallen under their influence, carelessly followed the check aircraft engines shipped to the USSR. The informant considered it necessary to add that Alliluyev also reads newspapers published by Russian emigrants.

The head of the trade mission showed this paper to Alliluyev, noting at the same time that he was ready to send the slanderer to Moscow and demand that he be completely expelled from the party and removed from the Vneshtorg apparatus. Alliluyev asked not to do this. He said that the man in question was well versed in motors and tested them very conscientiously. In addition, he promised to talk to him face to face and cure him of his intriguing tendencies. As you can see, Alliluyev was too noble a man to take revenge on the weak.

During the two years of working together, we touched on a lot of topics in conversations, but only occasionally talked about Stalin. The fact is that even then I was not too interested in Stalin. What I managed to learn about him was enough to feel disgust for this person for the rest of my life. And what new could Paul tell about him? He once mentioned that Stalin, drunk on vodka, began to sing spiritual hymns. Another time, I heard from Pavel about such an episode: once in a Sochi villa, coming out of the dining room with a physiognomy distorted by anger, Stalin threw a table knife on the floor and shouted: "Even in prison they gave me a sharper knife!"

I parted ways with Alliluyev in 1931, as I was transferred to work in Moscow. Over the following years, I almost did not have to meet him: either I was in Moscow, and he was abroad, or vice versa.

In 1936, he was appointed head of the political department of the armored forces. Voroshilov, the head of the political department of the Red Army, Gamarnik, and Marshal Tukhachevsky became his immediate superiors. The reader knows that the following year, Stalin accused Tukhachevsky and Gamarnik of treason and an anti-government conspiracy, and both of them died.

At the end of January 1937, while in Spain, I received a very warm letter from Alliluyev. He congratulated me on receiving the highest Soviet award - the Order of Lenin. The letter contained a very strange postscript. Pavel wrote that he would be glad to have the opportunity to work with me again and that he was ready to come to Spain if I took the initiative and asked Moscow to be assigned here. I could not understand why it was I who needed to raise this issue: after all, it was enough for Pavel to tell Voroshilov about his desire, and the deed would be done. On reflection, I decided that the postscript was attributed to Alliluyev simply out of courtesy: he wanted to once again express his sympathy to me, expressing his readiness to work together again, he wanted to once again demonstrate his friendly feelings.

In the autumn of the same year, when I arrived in Paris on business, I decided to visit the international exhibition that was taking place there, and, in particular, the Soviet pavilion. In the pavilion, I felt someone hugging my shoulders from behind. I turned around - the smiling face of Pavel Alliluyev was looking at me.

- What are you doing here? I asked with surprise, meaning by the word "here", of course, not an exhibition, but Paris in general.

“They sent me to work at the exhibition,” Pavel replied with a wry smile, naming some insignificant position he occupied in the Soviet pavilion.

I thought he was joking. It was impossible to believe that yesterday's commissar of all the armored forces of the Red Army had been appointed to a position that any non-partisan of our Paris trade mission could have taken. It is all the more incredible that this happened to a Stalinist relative.

The evening of that day was busy for me: the NKVD resident in France and his assistant invited me to dine in an expensive restaurant on the left bank of the Seine, near Place Saint-Michel. I hastily scribbled the address of the restaurant on a piece of paper for Pavel and asked him to join.

In the restaurant, to my surprise, it turned out that neither the resident nor his assistant knew Pavel. I introduced them to each other. Dinner was already over when Pavel had to leave for a few minutes. Taking advantage of his absence, the NKVD resident leaned close to my ear and whispered: "If I had known that you would bring him here, I would have warned you ... We have Yezhov's order to keep him under surveillance!"

I was in a hurry.

Leaving the restaurant with Pavel, we leisurely walked along the Seine embankment. I asked him how it could happen that he was sent to work at the exhibition. "Very simple," he replied bitterly. "They needed to send me somewhere far away from Moscow." He paused, looked at me searchingly and asked: "Have you heard anything about me?"

We turned down a side street and sat at a table in the corner of a modest café.

- In recent years, there have been big changes ... - Alliluyev began.

I remained silent, waiting for what would follow.

“You must know how my sister died…” and he trailed off hesitantly. I nodded, waiting to continue.

Well, since then he has stopped accepting me.

Once Alliluyev, as usual, came to Stalin's dacha. At the gate, a guard on duty came out to him and said: "It was ordered not to let anyone in here." The next day, Pavel called the Kremlin. Stalin spoke to him in his usual tone and invited him to his dacha next Saturday. Arriving there, Pavel saw that the dacha was being rebuilt, and Stalin was not there ... Soon, Pavel was seconded from Moscow on official business. When he returned a few months later, some employee of Pauker came to him and took away his Kremlin pass, allegedly in order to extend its validity. The pass was never returned.

“It became clear to me,” Pavel said, “that Yagoda and Pauker inspired him: after what happened to Nadezhda, it’s better that I stay away from him.

What are they thinking about! he suddenly exploded. - What am I to them, a terrorist, or what? Idiots! Even here they are spying on me!

We talked most of the night and parted when it was already dawn. We agreed to meet again in the coming days. But I had to urgently return to Spain, and we never saw each other again.

I understood that Alliluyev was in great danger. Sooner or later, the day will come when Stalin will become unbearable from the thought that somewhere nearby the streets of Moscow are still roaming the one whom he made his enemy and whose sister he brought to the grave.

In 1939, passing by a newsstand - it was already in America - I noticed a Soviet newspaper, either Izvestia or Pravda. Having bought a newspaper, I immediately began to look through it on the street, and a mourning frame caught my eye. It was an obituary dedicated to Pavel Alliluyev. Even before I had time to read the text, I thought: "So he finished him!" The obituary "with deep sorrow" reported that the commissar of the armored forces of the Red Army, Alliluyev, died untimely "in the line of duty." Under the text were the signatures of Voroshilov and several other military leaders. Stalin's signature was not. As with Nadezhda Alliluyeva, so now the authorities carefully avoided details ...

Stalin's wife was an outstanding woman with a difficult fate and personal life, his wife knew everything about his character and the dark side of his soul. Many people know about Joseph Stalin, as a politician and leader of the USSR, much less is known about the other side of Stalin's biography: his wife and. In fact, Joseph Vissarionovich was a terrible womanizer, albeit in his youth. It is noteworthy that all close people of the Soviet leader had a sad fate. Until now, their life is shrouded in myths and conjectures of historians.

When Joseph was 27 years old, he married a Georgian 21-year-old girl Ekaterina Kato. The personal life of Stalin's wife was filled with real feelings and romance, then still a kind and carefree future revolutionary. They were in love with each other. Catherine's brother was one of Stalin's best friends, with whom they attended the seminary at the church together. At the time of the wedding, Stalin was hiding from the Soviet authorities, so the couple had to perform a mysterious wedding in the Tiflis monastery. This marriage was based on mutual love and respect, but according to the law of fate, it turned out to be very short. Catherine managed to give birth to Joseph's son Jacob, and at the age of 22 she died of typhus in the arms of Joseph. Rumor has it that the heartbroken Stalin said at the funeral that his love for all mankind died along with Catherine. The authenticity of these words remains in question. But during the time of repression, he dealt with all of Catherine's relatives.

Stalin's first son Yakov Dzhugashvili

The son of Ekaterina Kato and Joseph Stalin was raised by close relatives of Ekaterina. At the age of 14, when Stalin was already married for the second time, father and son met. Stalin did not have warm feelings for Yakov, he called him a "wolf cub." Rumor has it that he was even jealous of his second wife. Their age difference was only 5 years. Jacob was brought up in severity, his father punished him for any trifle. It even happened that Joseph did not let the “wolf cub” home. At the age of 18, Jacob went against the will of his father and got married. After that, family relations in the end deteriorated. Yakov even tried to shoot himself, but survived. At the beginning of the summer of 1941, Yakov left for the front, later fell into German captivity and died in captivity in 1943.

Stalin's second wife - Nadezhda Alliluyeva

The second and last time the "Soviet leader" married at the age of 40. His wife was Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who was 23 years younger than Joseph. At that time, Nadezhda had just graduated from high school, she was madly in love with a revolutionary. In his younger years, Joseph Stalin had a warm relationship with his mother, Nadezhda, who later became his mother-in-law. The personal life of Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva was not as happy as expected. Over time, their relationship became simply unbearable. According to some sources, Joseph was gentle at home, and Nadezhda tried to introduce strict discipline in the family. According to others, Stalin was a boor, and Nadezhda endured his humiliation. In the fall of 1932, the couple went to dinner with Voroshilov, where Joseph and Nadezhda had a fight. Nadezhda returned home alone, where she committed suicide by shooting herself in the chest. At the time of her death, Nadezhda Alliluyeva was 31 years old.

Stalin's second son Vasily Dzhugashvili

Nadezhda Alliluyeva gave birth to the "Soviet leader" of two heirs: Vasily and Svetlana. At the time of her death, the children were 12 and 6 years old. The upbringing of children was carried out by nannies and Stalin's guards. It is reported that it was precisely because of the influence of the guards that Vasily began to smoke and drink alcohol early. Four official wives of Vasily Stalin are known:

• Galina Burdonskaya;
• Ekaterina Timoshenko;
• Kapitolina Vasiliev;
• Maria Nusberg.

Vasily Stalin received disciplinary punishment more than once during his service in the Soviet army. He died in the spring of 1962 from alcohol poisoning.

Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva

The only daughter of the "Soviet leader" was his favorite. But it was she who was the most problematic. After the death of Joseph Vissarionovich, Svetlana fled to the United States, where until the last days of her life she suffered moral humiliation for the name of her father. In Russia, she left two children who at the time of the flight were 16 and 20 years old. However, they told reporters that they did not consider her a mother. In the USA, Svetlana got married and became Lana Peters, she had another daughter, Olga. Svetlana Alliluyeva died in 2011 in a nursing home. In addition to children born in an official marriage, Joseph Stalin had another adopted son and two illegitimate ones. Distance from the famous father allowed them to build a happier life.

Adopted son of Joseph Stalin Artem Sergeev

Artem's father was the famous Bolshevik and friend of Joseph Stalin "Comrade Artem". He died when Artem was only 3 months old. Stalin took the boy to him. Artem became good friends with Stalin's son Vasily. But they were complete opposites: Artem was obedient and studied well, Vasily was distinguished by bad behavior from childhood. At the request of Joseph Stalin himself, there was a strict attitude towards Artyom at the Artillery Academy. Artem rose to the rank of a great military commander, retired as a major general. Artem Sergeev died in 2008.

In 1953, but his children continued to live. Their fate has always been twisted by him and his character.

In the personal life of the daughter of Joseph Stalin there were many novels, she got married several times, the first time it happened in her student years - then Grigory Morozov, who studied in the same class with Svetlana's brother Vasily, became her husband. The children of Svetlana Alliluyeva were born from different men, and the first of them, son Joseph, was born in her first marriage.

Svetlana Iosifovna lived with Grigory for about five - her father did everything so that her daughter broke up with an objectionable person.

Soon after the divorce, Alliluyeva again went down the aisle - with Yuri Zhdanov, whom she saw almost only on the day of the wedding - Joseph Vissarionovich this time picked up her husband's daughter himself, but this marriage did not bring her happiness.

As soon as Svetlana Alliluyeva gave birth to her second child, daughter Katya, she immediately filed for divorce. Relations with her daughter Svetlana Iosifovna did not work out from childhood - when Katya was seven years old, Alliluyeva left the country, leaving her daughter to her ex-husband's parents, for which Katya could not forgive her mother.

Alliluyeva's third child was born in her fifth marriage, after emigrating to the States. The father of Olga's daughter was William Peters, an American architect, whom Svetlana Iosifovna married in 1970.

The relationship with the mother of the children of Svetlana Alliluyeva did not work out, they did not experience maternal love, so they tried to remember her as little as possible. After her flight from the country, Joseph and Katya erased her from their lives, and Catherine, in fact, completely abandoned her.

The son of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Joseph, after the divorce of his parents, was adopted by his mother's second husband, Yuri Zhdanov, who gave the child his last name. Later, Joseph returned his patronymic and took the surname Alliluyev. Iosif Grigorievich received a medical education, became a cardiologist. He worked all his life at the Moscow Medical Academy, published over one hundred and fifty scientific papers, defended his doctoral dissertation, and received the title of Honored Scientist.

His personal life did not develop immediately, he was married twice, in his first marriage his son Ilya was born. Iosif Grigorievich died in 2008, Svetlana Iosifovna, having learned about the death of her son, did not want to come to Moscow to see him on his last journey.

Iosif Grigoryevich tried to avoid publicity, almost never gave interviews, and in one of them he spoke of his mother like this:

“My mother is an absolutely unbearable person in terms of character ... Somehow, angry, she threw a hammer at me, a boy. If I hadn’t dodged, I wouldn’t be talking to you now ... ”- recalled Iosif Alliluyev.

The eldest daughter of Svetlana Alliluyeva Ekaterina had even more negative memories of her mother, and this is probably why, when she was informed about the death of Svetlana Iosifovna, she said that she had nothing to do with this woman - Katya was not able to forgive her mother for the fact that when she, having left the country, left her daughter to the mercy of fate.

Ekaterina Yurievna became a geophysicist, and after graduating from the university she left as far as possible from the capital - to Kamchatka, to the village of Klyuchi, located at the foot of the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano. For almost forty years she lived in this village, without leaving anywhere, married one of the employees of the volcanological station, where she worked herself, gave birth to a daughter, Anna.

Her personal life was difficult - her husband left his first wife and children for her sake, and expected that marriage with Stalin's granddaughter would change his biography for the better, but this did not happen. Ekaterina Yuryevna cut off all ties with her relatives, and did not receive any help from them.

Catherine's husband drank, fell ill with cirrhosis of the liver, he began to have mental problems, and in the end he shot himself with a hunting rifle.

Alliluyeva's youngest daughter Olga also did not have warm feelings for her mother, who sent her to a boarding school at an early age.

Olga later changed her name to Chris and became Evans, taking her husband's surname. Now she is divorced, Olga has her own business in Portland - she owns a small gift shop.

Grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Svetlana Alliluyeva

The relationship with the children of the daughter of the leader of all peoples did not work out, therefore, the grandchildren of Svetlana Alliluyeva could not experience love and care from their grandmother. The granddaughter of Svetlana Iosifovna Anna Vsevolodovna Kozeva also has a strained relationship with her mother - Svetlana's daughter Ekaterina Zhdanova.

Anya was born in 1982 in Kamchatka, where her mother left Moscow in 1977. Now Anna Vsevolodovna lives in a military unit located near the village of Klyuchi, where her mother lives.

Anna got married, her husband is an ensign, and she herself works as an accountant. In the family of Anna Vsevolodovna, the daughter Victoria, the great-granddaughter of Svetlana Alliluyeva, is growing up.

Another descendant of Svetlana Iosifovna is the grandson of Ilya, the son of Joseph Grigoryevich Alliluyev, who was born in Svetlana's first marriage. Ilya is now fifty-three years old, he has a different surname - Voznesensky. When Svetlana Alliluyeva came to the Soviet Union, Ilya was fourteen years old, but he never met his grandmother.

His mother, the first wife of Joseph Alliluyev, says that they never maintained family ties with Svetlana Iosifovna. Despite the fact that Ilya's parents divorced, he communicated with his father, a wonderful cardiologist Iosif Alliluyev, until his death. Ilya Iosifovich himself is a famous Moscow architect.