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Video: Why did a Soviet girl swim across the bay with sharks and what happened to her parents later
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Some still consider this girl a traitor, for others Lina Gasinskaya's red swimsuit has become a symbol of craving for freedom and determination. Fact is fact: once a girl named Lina realized that she would not be allowed to live in the country she wanted, and swam there in one swimsuit.
Obsessed with Australia
A girl with a typical Eastern European name Liliana was born in Odessa, a port city where many languages are mixed - so it is still debated whether Liliana was from Crimean Tatars, Jews, Poles or Ukrainians. In any case, she was an ordinary Soviet girl who, at the age of fourteen, realized that she wanted to become - non-Soviet. In general, it was possible to contrive to change the country of residence in the USSR - but the choice was limited. It was possible, for example, to move to Mongolia and the GDR … If you try.
But Lina dreamed of Australia. She, who grew up by the sea, was indifferent to the steppes or closely standing European cities. After she saw the photos of Australia, the girl realized that she wanted to live on the shore of a warm, warm ocean, where beautiful, actor-like guys ride on boards on the waves - and in the evening go with these guys to a disco, or look at strange constellations of the Southern Hemisphere, or … Anything - but in Australia.
The plan was developed for years to come. At school, I tried to make a positive impression - in order to gain access to a career with travel abroad. At eighteen I got a job as a waitress - firstly, abroad I still have to start with a service profession, and secondly, Lina was lucky to get a job on the cruise ship Leonid Sobinov. And he was staying at the Sydney port!
There was no way to go ashore unaccompanied. But what Odessa girl did not know how to swim? In one swimsuit - what kind of things are there - slender Lina managed to get out the window and slide into the ocean waters. In forty minutes the girl was already getting out on the coast of the bay, in the Sydney suburb. One can only imagine the surprise of a local resident who went out for a walk with the dog, to whom a girl in a red bikini, covered in bruises and bruises, climbed out of the water (it was not easy to get to the pier) and asked for help.
When she said that she had escaped from the Soviet ship and swam the entire distance to him in the bay, he realized that he saw a miracle in front of him: the bay was teeming with sharks, and the girl's swimsuit was so bright that at any moment when she was just sailing away from ship, she could be noticed and captured.
Does Australia need Lina? Does Lina need Australia?
The Daily Mirror newspaper was the first to react - it hid the girl from Soviet officials and KGB officers who were trying to return her, in exchange for an exclusive photo session and interview. In an interview, Lina (she knew perfectly well the sauce under which defectors get asylum) said that she was looking for political asylum from the Soviet authorities. True, except for "hatred of communist propaganda" she had nothing to show - she was not persecuted in any way at home (before), and a heated discussion unfolded in society: why can an illegal migrant Lina claim to live in Australia only because she is from the USSR ?
Want to become a model or actress? Many people also want to be in Australia - and in its homeland, many become the same. Don't like reading communist propaganda? Here, she may likewise not like the ad attack everywhere. In the end, the country has a certain migration policy, and it does not imply exceptions for girls who were bored in their homeland while shopping for textiles and other Soviet light industry. The year is 1979, not 1937, so that you can fear the murder of Lina if she returns.
In the end, they decided to leave Lina. The scandal and the first photo session gave Gasinskaya a good impetus to start her career. She starred for several magazines, married a Daily Mirror reporter and used his connections to write a go-go article as a dancer in discos and later as a DJ. She starred in a couple of television series. In general, she lived a very ordinary life - without radical ups and downs, without endowing Australia with some special talents of her own … But it was this life that she dreamed of: dancing in discos, starring in TV shows, seeing her photos on the spreads of glossy magazines.
Australia for a long time continued to wonder why she needed Liliana Gasinskaya - there were even rumors that the actress allegedly asked to return to the USSR. But at twenty-three, Lina married a second time, and again to an Australian, a wealthy businessman - which young actresses often dreamed of. Obviously, she didn't really want to go to any USSR, except that she could miss her family.
A few years later, her husband left Lina. Gasinskaya, who did not become a star of the screens, decided to leave her career, got married for the third time (and finally successfully), gave birth to two sons. Throwing away the acting craft, she disappeared from the gossip, although curious reporters unearthed that Lina has long been living in London, raised her sons safely, became interested in spiritual practices, brought her parents to Britain and enjoys travel and time with her family. She maintains a page on social networks, but for outsiders this page will not say anything.
Gasinskaya was not the only defendant from the USSR. How the life of the stars of the Soviet ballet who fled from the USSR developed: Baryshnikov, Godunov and others.
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