Speaker 1: We last left set Lana on Christmas nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: clutching a telephone in her ex sister in law's California home.
Speaker 1: She just placed what I can only imagine was a
Speaker 1: very expensive long distance call from Mill Valley to Moscow,
Speaker 1: and had spoken directly to her son Joseph for the
Speaker 1: first time in almost a decade. I can't say I
Speaker 1: understand how exactly she got three to him, or what
Speaker 1: exactly she felt hearing his gruff voice echoing through the
Speaker 1: receiver from roughly six thousand miles away. But this call
Speaker 1: sets in motion a chain of events that threatened to
Speaker 1: make my head explode. A chain of events that, while
Speaker 1: trap set Lana in the same cycles she's been stuck
Speaker 1: in over and over again, a chain of events that
Speaker 1: will get her from the US to England, to Russia
Speaker 1: and back again. She's been here before, overwhelmed, fired up, impulsive,
Speaker 1: and unstoppable. But this time the circumstances are different. This time,
Speaker 1: it's not just her life she's uprooting. It's her daughters too,
Speaker 1: a daughter who is quote as American as apple Pie. Ironically,
Speaker 1: America was never set on his dream. When she made
Speaker 1: up her mind to defect in nineteen sixty seven, she
Speaker 1: thought perhaps she could stay in India. At her first
Speaker 1: press conference in New York, she had high hopes for
Speaker 1: her new homeland, but she wasn't ready to put a
Speaker 1: ring on it just yet. Do you intend to make
Speaker 1: your a permanent home in America? And do you intend
Speaker 1: to apply for American citizenship? Well? I think that before
Speaker 1: the marriage, it should be loved. So if I will
Speaker 1: love this country and this country will love me, then
Speaker 1: the marriage will be settled. But I cannot say now.
Speaker 1: So in this episode, we're going to watch spet Lana
Speaker 1: fall out of love with America and run back into
Speaker 1: the arms of her X the USSR. I'm damn Katroser
Speaker 1: and this is sped Lana. Speed Lana. You wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning, you live your day, and then you
Speaker 1: do it tomorrow and over and over again, and over
Speaker 1: again and over. Act one, A stateless woman of the World.
Speaker 1: The year is nineteen seventy seven. Both Atari and the
Speaker 1: Apple two computer make their way to the marketplace. Arnold
Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger gets swollen in the film Pumping Iron and Debbie
Speaker 1: Boone's You Light Up My Life is number one for
Speaker 1: ten straight weeks. And if you were to open the
Speaker 1: pages of your April edition of McCall's magazine, you might
Speaker 1: find yourself reading an article titled the Americanization of Stalin's Daughter,
Speaker 1: a profile in which set Lana seems positively happy and
Speaker 1: free living in California. Spet is wearing blue jeans and
Speaker 1: likes to dance. Adorable Little Olga is pestering her mother
Speaker 1: for Kentucky fried chicken and corrects sveet Lana's English. Sipping
Speaker 1: a beer, Svetlana tells the interviewer, I think in English,
Speaker 1: I dream in English, I read in English. I don't
Speaker 1: even think about Russia. I'm getting rusty speaking Russian. I
Speaker 1: have to stop and remember the words. She tells the
Speaker 1: interviewer that she is quote a stateless woman of the world,
Speaker 1: a Russian defector, an American alien. If all you had
Speaker 1: to go off of was this article, you'd think spet Lana,
Speaker 1: while a little unrooted, was living a life of domestic bliss,
Speaker 1: of absolute normalcy. That is what she wants to give
Speaker 1: her daughter, and she makes it clear in every interview
Speaker 1: she gives that Olga is not to know the truth
Speaker 1: of their lineage. Here she is around that time on
Speaker 1: Good Morning America. Have you told her who her grandfather? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for her own good, she doesn't know much about it
Speaker 1: than maybe she isn't going through I don't think it's
Speaker 1: necessary for her. And you want your daughter to be
Speaker 1: completely America. Oh, she will be. She will be. One
Speaker 1: might wonder if going on Good Morning America to say
Speaker 1: that she was keeping a secret was the best way
Speaker 1: to keep that secret. But there are a lot of
Speaker 1: contradictions when it comes to sed Lana, because in truth,
Speaker 1: these years of being a single mom without a stable
Speaker 1: income in a country where she still wasn't a citizen,
Speaker 1: where as you might imagine hard and in running away
Speaker 1: from her problems in Russia or at tali Essen, she'd
Speaker 1: run right into new ones. In her solitude at home,
Speaker 1: she worries about secret Soviet microwave experiments and plots to
Speaker 1: kidnap Olga. She clips pictures from magazines of her estranged
Speaker 1: Russian children, Joseph and Coccia, and frames them on the mantel.
Speaker 1: Eventually she sees a psychiatrist to work through her quote
Speaker 1: undigested bitterness towards west, and she moves around a lot speed.
Speaker 1: Lana would later write to a friend. I feel very
Speaker 1: much being a stranger, a fild them everywhere, a gypsy
Speaker 1: of sorts, and I do not mind that. But I
Speaker 1: carry the inner feeling of home with me everywhere, like
Speaker 1: a snail carries her shell. Throughout the first seven years
Speaker 1: of her daughter's life, sped Lana moves them from Scottsdale, Arizona,
Speaker 1: to Princeton, New Jersey, to Oceanside, California, to La Joya,
Speaker 1: and back to Princeton again. And inside of those cities,
Speaker 1: they're moving from rental houses to purchase ones. Olga is
Speaker 1: in and out of different public and private schools. Why
Speaker 1: was spent Lana so driftless, so lost? Why was it
Speaker 1: that every autumn, as the cold and darkness set in,
Speaker 1: she'd feel the same familiar urge to blow everything up.
Speaker 1: November the dark short days, the time when my mother
Speaker 1: took her life. I felt as if I was sinking
Speaker 1: into dark waters, as it is sometimes in a nightmare
Speaker 1: when water floods everything. And do you know that you
Speaker 1: are doomed? Yet spent Lana is spending off the dark
Speaker 1: waters and she sees dry land ahead Yoho, Captain thar
Speaker 1: Be America, and so in nineteen seventy eight, she's back
Speaker 1: in Princeton once more, and she officially becomes a citizen
Speaker 1: of the United States. Final spet Lana has officially chosen America,
Speaker 1: and America has chosen her. The story is over. Spet
Speaker 1: Lana will never move again until four years later, when
Speaker 1: she says she's done with America, packs up her daughter
Speaker 1: and moves to England. The move comes after a trip
Speaker 1: stet Lana had taken to the English countryside for a
Speaker 1: televised interview with the BBC presenter Malcolm Muggridge. It was
Speaker 1: her first time out of the country since her defection.
Speaker 1: Dear mister Mugridge, I am getting somewhat nervous about meeting
Speaker 1: you in person because I have been and always wanted
Speaker 1: to be an ordinary person. Something about Muggridge's plea resonated
Speaker 1: with her. He seemed interested in spet Lana the person,
Speaker 1: not spet Lana the headline. I have been pushed around
Speaker 1: a lot and developed a certain protective habits to say
Speaker 1: no leave me alone piece. Something in your letters has
Speaker 1: stashed me and I feel I cannot say no to
Speaker 1: you anymore. We connected with the show's producer, Jonathan Steadall Hello, Jonathan. Hello.
Speaker 1: Jonathan had been gardening all morning before our chat. Because
Speaker 1: he's very British. He's also very warm and introspective, and
Speaker 1: his relationship with Stetlana didn't end with the show. We
Speaker 1: finished the filming my wife and I showed her around
Speaker 1: London and she'd never been to England before. A Great Britain,
Speaker 1: damp and monarchical and filled with BBC presenters asking her
Speaker 1: introspective questions. Perhaps England can be her new home, and
Speaker 1: she decided that she wanted to come and live here,
Speaker 1: and she settled in Cambridge. Nineteen eighty two. Bangs are in.
Speaker 1: Prince William comes out of Princess Diana, the Iron Margaret
Speaker 1: Thatcher runs her country with austerity and hawkishness, And just
Speaker 1: like that, to quote Carrie Bradshaw, Speed Lana sells her
Speaker 1: Princeton house, enrolls Olga in a British boarding school, and
Speaker 1: rents a flat in Cambridge, just fifteen miles from her daughter.
Speaker 1: Everything is perfect. Olga fits in beautifully at school and
Speaker 1: in the storied flats of Cambridge. Stet Lana dives back
Speaker 1: into her writing, working on short stories and even penning
Speaker 1: her third memoir called The Faraway music about her time
Speaker 1: at Taliesin. Feeling anonymous again, set Lana is hopeful that
Speaker 1: this time she's finally found her home where she can
Speaker 1: be a writer and a mother and live a completely
Speaker 1: normal life. Svetlana moved to England and then she asked
Speaker 1: me to please not let on that she'd come here
Speaker 1: or where she was, which was fine and I honored that,
Speaker 1: but it was a little bit naive of her to
Speaker 1: think that, you know, the press wouldn't find out if
Speaker 1: that somebody like her who was coming to live here,
Speaker 1: and of course they did. Spet Lana had spent the
Speaker 1: past decade trying to protect Olga, fighting to protect herself.
Speaker 1: She tried to secure them a home, anonymity, freedom, but
Speaker 1: she could only step into the sun and out of
Speaker 1: her father's shadow for so long. One day, the paparazzi
Speaker 1: show up at eleven year old Olga's boarding school in
Speaker 1: search of Stalin's granddaughter. Spe Lana's family secret is out here,
Speaker 1: spet Lana's daughter, as she told it to me, Mom
Speaker 1: had to just basically break down and tell me the
Speaker 1: whole story. I got confined to the house for the
Speaker 1: next three weeks, keeping the curtains drawn, sneaking out in disguises,
Speaker 1: getting carved chases. I mean, it was just ridiculous. It
Speaker 1: was all just weird. I didn't know what to make
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, it was it was not normal.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, this reveal must have been difficult
Speaker 1: for both mother and daughter, but on the other hand
Speaker 1: it must have been incredibly liberating. No more secrets, no
Speaker 1: more lies. The Soviet cat was out of the Babushka,
Speaker 1: as someone somewhere probably says. But that wasn't the only
Speaker 1: secrets fet Lana was keeping. See. Something else was going
Speaker 1: on during this time, something that only spent Lana and
Speaker 1: a few trusted people knew, something that must have felt
Speaker 1: at the same time wildly dangerous and painfully hopeful. Over
Speaker 1: the last decade, speed Lana had been playing a strange
Speaker 1: game of late stage Cold War telephone with her son.
Speaker 1: There were letters and photos in the mail journalists playing Middleman.
Speaker 1: Speed Lana's friend George Kennon, had advised against any further
Speaker 1: con tact. It was too dangerous both for her and
Speaker 1: her son. But all of that changes one December in Cambridge,
Speaker 1: Spetlana is in her flat when the phone rings Mama,
Speaker 1: is that you, asks the gruff voice of her son
Speaker 1: on the other end of the line. Spet Lana's heart
Speaker 1: is a flutter. She remembers the last time they spoke
Speaker 1: at Christmas, when the call was cut short. She knows
Speaker 1: she has to speak and speak quickly. Your voice has changed,
Speaker 1: so she tells her son, who laughs and spits back,
Speaker 1: you too, You speak like a Russian tourist. They chat
Speaker 1: some more, and Joseph gives her his personal phone number,
Speaker 1: and soon they are connected, really connected, Trading phone calls
Speaker 1: back and forth. Spetlana and Olga talk to Josef and
Speaker 1: to his new wife, Luda. Joseph and Nuda even ask
Speaker 1: if Stetlana and Olga could come and visit Russia over
Speaker 1: the net next year or two. More invitations are made,
Speaker 1: Could Joseph come to England? Oh no, maybe spet Lana
Speaker 1: and Olga can meet them in Finland. Why don't you
Speaker 1: come here to Russia. It sounds like they're planning an
Speaker 1: ordinary family vacation, But when you're the descendants of Stalin
Speaker 1: and the Iron Curtain is still hanging tight, this is
Speaker 1: all very high stakes, and there's something about it that
Speaker 1: is unsettling. To Stetlana, I now found it unexpectedly difficult
Speaker 1: to combine my usual life in the West with the
Speaker 1: news from out there, blending the two worlds, it was
Speaker 1: difficult for me. I get separated them in the my
Speaker 1: psyche with wolves. Sveet Lana has a daughter now, a
Speaker 1: completely westernized one. She can see that a return would
Speaker 1: not be an Olga's best interest, and she can see
Speaker 1: that any move, no matter how personal her motivations, will
Speaker 1: be construed as political. And yet the more my mind
Speaker 1: realized what a shock my trip to the USSR would
Speaker 1: be for everyone, the more my heart insisted on it
Speaker 1: for its own reasons. In September nineteen eighty four, Splana
Speaker 1: seeks guidance from her astrological horoscope. It read not to
Speaker 1: make right now any big decisions for clear understanding of
Speaker 1: things is somewhat befogged and an absolutely iconic fashion. She
Speaker 1: does not take this advice. What nonsense, I said to myself,
Speaker 1: and I sat down to write a letter to the
Speaker 1: Soviet ambassador with a request to permit me to return
Speaker 1: to my motherland. Our stateless woman of the world is
Speaker 1: going back to the uss ARE after the break Act
Speaker 1: two there's no place like home. You know that feeling
Speaker 1: you get when you've decided that you are in fact
Speaker 1: going to have pizza for dinner. You've scrolled through all
Speaker 1: the other options but valiantly landed on some za because
Speaker 1: you deserve it. And today has been a day that
Speaker 1: pizza is on its way feeling. I'd like to think
Speaker 1: that's what speed Lana is experiencing as she prepares to
Speaker 1: take a delicious bite of her children. The plan comes
Speaker 1: together faster than she'd ever thought possible. Olga had a
Speaker 1: fall semester break coming up, and speed Lana would use
Speaker 1: that opportunity to take her daughter to Russia. Now there
Speaker 1: is only one problem. She has sort of kind of
Speaker 1: maybe suggested to Olga that the two of them are
Speaker 1: sort of kind of maybe just going on a little
Speaker 1: vacation to Greece at the last possible. In it, the
Speaker 1: truth comes out and she just said, We're going to
Speaker 1: go move to Russia. So I cried, and I cried,
Speaker 1: and I cried, and I cried the whole night, and
Speaker 1: I cried the home warning and then she said, okay,
Speaker 1: we won't, which I think she just lied. So as
Speaker 1: the Beatles once sang Joseph Stalin's daughter, Spethlana, is back
Speaker 1: in the USSR seventeen years after she defected to the West.
Speaker 1: Friends say she never got over the life that she
Speaker 1: left behind. She said that not for one single day
Speaker 1: was she free while in the West. She also said
Speaker 1: that she had complete legal control over her thirteen year
Speaker 1: old American born daughter, Olga, who returned with her to Moscow.
Speaker 1: It's fifty nine years of age. She had decided to
Speaker 1: return home to live with the past. Okay, pawn, let's
Speaker 1: take a moment to reflect on this. The Princess of
Speaker 1: the Kremlin is on her way back to the USSR,
Speaker 1: the land of ice, skates and communism, where the roads
Speaker 1: are paved with caviar and borshed. This is, of course
Speaker 1: a big flipping deal. The USSR is in decline, the
Speaker 1: Soviets are bolstering Joseph Stalin's memory as the World War
Speaker 1: Two hero who defeated the Nazis, and now his daughter,
Speaker 1: the Princess of the Kremlin, is undeffecting proving that life
Speaker 1: in Russia is as good as it gets. Trading capitalism
Speaker 1: back in for communism, well, that's a hot piece of propaganda.
Speaker 1: But when Spetlana arrives in Moscow. She doesn't want the
Speaker 1: big press conference, she doesn't want to give interviews. All
Speaker 1: she wants is to go somewhere quiet and private and
Speaker 1: hug the sun she hasn't touched in almost two decades.
Speaker 1: At first speed, Lana and Olga have to do some boring,
Speaker 1: bureaucratic shit meeting with a committee of Soviet women, getting
Speaker 1: ushered from room to room handing over their passports. But
Speaker 1: finally the moment arrives. The Hotel Sovietsky sits right in
Speaker 1: the middle of Moscow. It is a big, brown, impressive structure.
Speaker 1: Inside the decor is nineteenth century chic chandeliers, ornate moldings, pillars,
Speaker 1: burgundy carpets, Golden crowned birds peek out of corners, just
Speaker 1: to remind you that here there are golden crowned birds.
Speaker 1: This is the grandiose, ostentatious landing pad for spet Lana,
Speaker 1: A woman who had never been one for pomp and circumstance,
Speaker 1: she cares little for the backdrop. What she cares about
Speaker 1: is the man who awaits her, and finally, in the
Speaker 1: white marbled lobby she sees him. Her thirty nine year
Speaker 1: old son, Joseph. They embrace quickly. Here she is holding
Speaker 1: her son, him holding her. It had been nearly eighteen years.
Speaker 1: When she releases herself from the overdue hug, she sees
Speaker 1: who else is with him Her ex husband, Joseph's father,
Speaker 1: and a woman in her mid fifties with grayish permed
Speaker 1: hair Spedlana assumes that this woman is her ex husband's
Speaker 1: new wife, but then Joseph intervenes Mama. He says, this
Speaker 1: is Luda Svetlana is taken aback. She describes Luda as
Speaker 1: portly more than once in her writing, and can't fathom
Speaker 1: how Joseph has married someone his mother's age. But that
Speaker 1: was just the start of her concerns. He looks much
Speaker 1: older than he's thirty nine years, somewhat boldish, with somewhat
Speaker 1: of tummy. Nothing he's left of that slim, quick boy
Speaker 1: with shining eyes. The other weird thing is that though
Speaker 1: Joseph was fluent in English, he says not one word
Speaker 1: to his English speaking little sister. He merely looks thirteen
Speaker 1: year old Olga up and down at dinner. Things get
Speaker 1: even more awkward speed Lana's first husband, Joseph's father tries
Speaker 1: to make conversation in Russian, but Olga doesn't understand anything.
Speaker 1: Joseph holds his mother's hand throughout the meal, but he
Speaker 1: remains silent. Speed Lana can feel her heart breaking. Her
Speaker 1: daughter Kacha doesn't show up at all. My sister was
Speaker 1: never in on this. She was absolutely Communist. She turned
Speaker 1: her back on my mother when she defected, and that
Speaker 1: was it. And she's lived on top of this volcano.
Speaker 1: A quick aside, this is not a Russian euphemism that
Speaker 1: doesn't translate. Speed Lana's daughter literally became a geophysicist studying
Speaker 1: volcanoes in the remote peninsula known as Kumchatka. So not
Speaker 1: exactly the reunion anyone was hoping for. After dinner, things
Speaker 1: go from awkward to hostile. Stetlana is harassed by the
Speaker 1: press and police on the street. When things get tense,
Speaker 1: she loses her cool. The daughter of Joseph Stalin was
Speaker 1: not happy about her involuntary meeting with Western newsman. Today,
Speaker 1: you have savages, you have un civilized people. She wasn't
Speaker 1: about to tell where her daughter Olga was either. Look
Speaker 1: your blood business. It was just a front line of
Speaker 1: paparazzi outside the front I wouldn't know until years later
Speaker 1: that that's how people who I knew here, my father included.
Speaker 1: We're keeping tabs on us West alleges that Stetlana kidnapped Olga,
Speaker 1: intensifying the media circus. There are ferrish tonight for the
Speaker 1: happiness of a thirteen year old California born girl named Olga.
Speaker 1: She happens to be the granddaughter of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Speaker 1: Olga's father, William Wesley Peters, thinks that the girl may
Speaker 1: have been taken against her will. Stetlana and Olga are
Speaker 1: under constant state surveillance. Missus Ali Lujeva is staying at
Speaker 1: a hotel where the Soviets often house visiting dignitaries. The
Speaker 1: hotel is under constant guard from uniformed and plane closed police.
Speaker 1: Sources have told CBS News that she is staying as
Speaker 1: a guest of the government. All her expenses are being
Speaker 1: picked up by the state, and where Spitlana had once
Speaker 1: felt like a quote Cia pet she now felt like
Speaker 1: a KGB puppets. Any decision to talk to the press
Speaker 1: officially would probably be made by the Soviet Foreign Ministry,
Speaker 1: which he has organized. News conferences in the past for
Speaker 1: former defectors, they are usually trundled out before the cameras.
Speaker 1: They denounced the West, endorse the Soviets, and when they're
Speaker 1: no longer needed, they usually fade from public view. Oh
Speaker 1: if only they would let Spelana fade. Everywhere she goes,
Speaker 1: she's being watched, questioned, lampooned. All of this might have
Speaker 1: been bearable worth it even if Spitlana had gotten what
Speaker 1: she'd come for, a happy little family reunion. But instead
Speaker 1: she rarely sees Josef, and when she does, the encounters
Speaker 1: are so icy Joseph's father has to step in. Sped
Speaker 1: Lana writes leave with Freese together alone. She and Olga
Speaker 1: would both come to believe that her son and his
Speaker 1: wife were in cahoots with the KGB, that they'd simply
Speaker 1: done their part in an effort to get her back
Speaker 1: onto Soviet soil, and it was all just reeked of KGB.
Speaker 1: There's no other way that they would be able to
Speaker 1: call each other. She would later go on to say
Speaker 1: that it was I mean, it's definitely pulling out her
Speaker 1: heart strings, but it was all staged. Russia got its
Speaker 1: marker back, Russia got its mascot. Just like when Svetlana
Speaker 1: flew to talies In West under the pretense of finding family,
Speaker 1: she now finds herself in Moscow, useful for only her name.
Speaker 1: Her son is married to a woman her age, her
Speaker 1: daughter is married to a volcano, and Moscow feels like
Speaker 1: a huge graveyard, sad and isolated. It's November again. She's lost,
Speaker 1: She's trapped. She wants to go home. But where is home.
Speaker 1: It wasn't tally Essen, it was in California, it wasn't Princeton,
Speaker 1: it wasn't England. And now for sure she knows it's
Speaker 1: not Moscow. Much like after I've eaten that entire pizza
Speaker 1: by myself, steed Lana was filled with guilt and unable
Speaker 1: to sleep. And then, suddenly, amidst the sleepless night of
Speaker 1: anxiety and doubt, emerged the image of a country where
Speaker 1: were born, leaved, married. Almost all my ancestors ah Georgia,
Speaker 1: a fragrant land full of old stone churches cut into
Speaker 1: the hills, fine arden, storied history. If anywhere was home,
Speaker 1: it was the home of her ancestors. When st Lana
Speaker 1: flew to Taliesin to meet Olga Vana, she had been
Speaker 1: seduced by the idea of being near a Balkan maternal figure.
Speaker 1: Georgia was full of them. If anywhere was home, it
Speaker 1: was the home of her ancestors. As much as I
Speaker 1: want to honor speed Lana's line of thinking here, I
Speaker 1: do want to point out that this late night revelation
Speaker 1: slash decision to move, this is all part of a
Speaker 1: cycle that she just keeps repeating again and again. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting, or maybe just sad, is that this cycle
Speaker 1: had previously taken years. Now it's tightening. No sooner does
Speaker 1: fet Lana declare someplace home than she declares it her prison.
Speaker 1: So two months after their arrival in Moscow, sped Lana
Speaker 1: yang Solga out of her public school, and mother and
Speaker 1: daughter head south across the border, over the range of
Speaker 1: the Caucasus Mountains to the capital of Georgia, to Tubilisi.
Speaker 1: Georgia is a place of great meaning, where both sides
Speaker 1: of Speedlana's family had lived, crossed paths and changed the
Speaker 1: course of history, Where the Bolsheviks had rallied, and where
Speaker 1: the Alla Lujevs had sheltered a young Yosep Jugashvili, the
Speaker 1: man who would become Joseph Stalin, which means Joseph Man
Speaker 1: of Steel, which sounds like a great porn star name. Honestly,
Speaker 1: speed Lana had been running from her father for most
Speaker 1: of her life. Now she was heading right back to
Speaker 1: where he'd been born and raised. After the break, Act
Speaker 1: three a repeat of Act one, it's time for some
Speaker 1: fun facts about Georgia or Fag for short. Georgia is
Speaker 1: considered the birthplace of wine. Georgia has twelve climate zones.
Speaker 1: Georgia the country is not the same as Georgia the state,
Speaker 1: and in December of nineteen eighty four, Georgia becomes the
Speaker 1: new home of sped Lana and Olga Peters. The Times
Speaker 1: of London reports they've been allocated a flat in a
Speaker 1: prestige block reserve for Georgian VIPs. They're offered a car
Speaker 1: and chauffeur. The Soviets are trying hard to keep Splana happy,
Speaker 1: but it seems to make her squirm. Here's Rosemary Selana
Speaker 1: was given so many things to keep her there, including
Speaker 1: it all, chauffeur, wonderful apartment, all of which she refused
Speaker 1: in the name of her own integrity. Sped Lana and
Speaker 1: her daughter visit Stalin's birthplace, the town of Gory. They
Speaker 1: find that it's something of a shrine. There's even a
Speaker 1: Joseph Stalin museum built around his childhood home, glorifying his life.
Speaker 1: Sveetlana tries to bite her tongue. I already seemed to
Speaker 1: be a somewhat strange bird to the Georgians. Anyway, the
Speaker 1: admirers of my father thought I did not pay enough
Speaker 1: respect and attention to his memory. Either Slana was hated
Speaker 1: as the daughter Stalin or loved as the daughter Stalin
Speaker 1: and as speed. Lana is yearning for home, yearning for family,
Speaker 1: Feeling lost and confused and pulled in different directions. She
Speaker 1: finally hears from her daughter Katya, who closes her incendiary
Speaker 1: letter with the Latin phrase dixit, meaning she has spoken great?
Speaker 1: Is anyone else getting a little deja vu? Like? Haven't
Speaker 1: we been stuck inside of the Soviet Union? Feeling like
Speaker 1: upon feeling misunderstood, cast hopelessly in the eternal role as
Speaker 1: a child of Stalin before. It's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that would make someone want to undeffect Ah, not Russia anymore,
Speaker 1: away with the Soviets and the handlers and the people
Speaker 1: obsessed with Stalin, and not in a good way. The
Speaker 1: story of how spet Lana and her daughter Olga got
Speaker 1: out of Russia in the spring of nineteen eighty six
Speaker 1: is really interesting, and I would so tell it to you,
Speaker 1: But the thing is you already know it. It's happened before.
Speaker 1: This second Soviet defection is begging for passports, leaving in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, working diplomats on both sides
Speaker 1: of the globe, even a pit stop in Switzerland. There
Speaker 1: are car chases and paparazzi for Olga, and no certainty
Speaker 1: for spet Lana until she touches down in the United
Speaker 1: States of America. Even set Lana can see it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: In the fut beg the movie infot amateurish screen the
Speaker 1: play with a fledgling writer dare to arrange all the
Speaker 1: events in facts so as to repeat the final scene
Speaker 1: with the opening scene in such detail. In my life,
Speaker 1: it was as if some joker playwright was doing just that,
Speaker 1: forcing me down his chalk line in a repeat of ACTE.
Speaker 1: For the record, that joker playwright is me. Olga goes
Speaker 1: back to boarding school in England, where all of her
Speaker 1: classmates have carried on without her. The late Soviet dictator
Speaker 1: Joseph Stalham's granddaughter went back to school in the West. Today,
Speaker 1: Olga Pedios arrived at the Quaker boarding school she attends
Speaker 1: in England. It was a tearful reunion with the classmate
Speaker 1: she left eighteen months ago when she went back to
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union with her mother. Olga speaks to reporters
Speaker 1: waiting for her at her school, telling them that she
Speaker 1: doesn't regret the experience, she's glad to be back, and
Speaker 1: that she and her Russian family simply quote, didn't know
Speaker 1: what to say to each other. And Stetlana goes back
Speaker 1: to the US and hides out in a farmhouse in
Speaker 1: the driftless Wisconsin. Stetlana, I'll llow you Jeva is back
Speaker 1: in the United States tonight, after once again abandoning the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. The daughter of the late Soviet dictator Joseph
Speaker 1: Stalin is staying with friends in Wisconsin. That's right, of
Speaker 1: all the places she could have gone, Stetlana is living
Speaker 1: once again, mere miles from tally Essen. When I think
Speaker 1: about this chapter of stet Lana's life, bursting out of
Speaker 1: Moscow again, landing with international fanfare. Back in the English
Speaker 1: speaking West again, I can't help but think that Stetlana
Speaker 1: had not only repeated her escape from Soviet Russia, but
Speaker 1: she had unwittingly forced Olga to do it too. So
Speaker 1: now look at them, tornadoing around the globe, uprooting themselves
Speaker 1: and everything in their path. Olga wants stability, speed, Lana
Speaker 1: wants home. What do they have left each other? And
Speaker 1: the story of it all on the next and final
Speaker 1: episode of Setana spet Lana. St Lana. Stet Lana is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Podcasts and the documentary group I'm
Speaker 1: Your Host Dan Katroser. The show was written and produced
Speaker 1: by me Adam Weber, Alison Joy, and Katherine Isaac. We
Speaker 1: also serve as executive producers at the documentary group. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Joe Batzilouts, with production oversight by Stacy
Speaker 1: Kleiger an additional support from Tom Yellen and Gabrielle tenenbau Our.
Speaker 1: iHeart team is supervising producer Casey Pegram and executive producer
Speaker 1: Maya Howard, editing assistants from producers Christina Lorenger and Joey
Speaker 1: pat Original music by Elan Iszakoff. Production counsel by Slas Eckhouse,
Speaker 1: Dasty Haynes, Locko, Clearance counsel by Ballard Sparr. Fact checking
Speaker 1: assistance by Megan Trout. Special thanks to my husband Jordan Siegel.
Speaker 1: Excerpts from Spetlana Alieva's book, A Book for Granddaughters are
Speaker 1: performed by Cassie Greer