Speaker 1: There aren't many things about steed Lana Alujeva that are surprising.
Speaker 1: She's a Russian who doesn't like vodka. She's a princess
Speaker 1: who hates dressing up. Her favorite movie of all time
Speaker 1: is Weird Al Yankovic's uhf Okay. That last one is
Speaker 1: actually my favorite movie. But the point is the most
Speaker 1: unsurprising thing about Stetlana is that she fantasizes about a
Speaker 1: picture perfect, calm, loving nuclear family. And when I had
Speaker 1: my own children and I wanted them to have more
Speaker 1: normal life. Look, we're all trying to give our kids
Speaker 1: what we didn't have, a normalcy, or s fet Lana's
Speaker 1: fantasy of it was one thing she lacked growing up
Speaker 1: as Stalin's daughter, and any normalcy she'd managed to create
Speaker 1: for herself was thrown out the window when she left
Speaker 1: her kids behind and made her way to America. Since
Speaker 1: defecting three years ago, Svetlana hasn't really spoken to her children,
Speaker 1: Josef and Katia. Their response to her abandonment was understandably
Speaker 1: harsh and resentful, but she never stopped trying, even though
Speaker 1: her birthday cards and letters arrived back in her mailbox
Speaker 1: marked return to sender and she held out hope that
Speaker 1: eventually they would come around. Maybe in future, I hope
Speaker 1: I will be able to invite them to come to
Speaker 1: spend their vacations. Maybe that would be possible, that would
Speaker 1: not be possible. So now she's going to try and
Speaker 1: shape her life into the most fantastically normal existence anyone
Speaker 1: could ever dream of. At tally Essen, the least normal
Speaker 1: place of all time. My name is Dan Catroser, and
Speaker 1: this is sped Lana. Sped Lana. You wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning, you live your day, and then you do
Speaker 1: it tomorrow, and over and over again, and over again
Speaker 1: and over and over again. Act one Cash Cows. If
Speaker 1: you go to spring Green, Wisconsin, one thing people will
Speaker 1: be so excited to tell you about is how the
Speaker 1: geological area that encompasses southwestern Wisconsin, the area where the
Speaker 1: Rights made their home, is called the Driftless. Let's go there. Now,
Speaker 1: close your eyes, breathe in. Imagine softly rolling hills laced
Speaker 1: with babbling brooks. Give yourself permission to step back in
Speaker 1: time before the last Ice Age, to a region spared
Speaker 1: from glaciers, allowing it to retain its natural splendor. Now
Speaker 1: open your eyes and give yourself a pat on the
Speaker 1: back for watching a YouTube channel called slow TV Dreamy
Speaker 1: Views of Driftless Wisconsin. You must be really cool the driftless.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that just the perfect metaphor for ours ft Lana?
Speaker 1: And yet, ironically, after drifting around from Russia to India
Speaker 1: to New York to Princeton to Arizona, it was here
Speaker 1: in the driftless where she started to feel rooted. About
Speaker 1: a week after stet Lana and West arrived that summer,
Speaker 1: fresh off their blissful cross country road trip from Arizona,
Speaker 1: the local paper publishes a front page article missus William
Speaker 1: Wesley Peters enjoys being spring greenhousewife. When the reporter asks
Speaker 1: if she intends to continue her writing, Stetlana says, oh, no,
Speaker 1: two books were enough. She is planning to do quote
Speaker 1: nothing except be a good wife to my husband. That
Speaker 1: is a full time job. A good wife what does
Speaker 1: that really mean? You could watch Julianna Margalie's for seven
Speaker 1: seasons and still not know. And a good mom that's
Speaker 1: an even tougher one. But spent Lana is gonna have
Speaker 1: to figure it out, because when she and Wes arrived
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, she meets her new stepson, Brandoc. May I
Speaker 1: tell you how happy I am to have a twenty
Speaker 1: eighth year old son, Brando Kapeters, who is a charming
Speaker 1: young man. I am too lucky. Indeed, you've heard Brandoc's
Speaker 1: name before. He was once Wes's little boy, the one
Speaker 1: who survived the deadly car crash that killed his mother
Speaker 1: and little brother. Now all grown up at twenty eight
Speaker 1: years old, Brandoc is a little bit between jobs. An
Speaker 1: accomplished cellist, he had made it all the way to
Speaker 1: the Munich Orchestra, but because he wasn't first chair, his
Speaker 1: grandma Olgavana had apparently told him he didn't stack up.
Speaker 1: So Brandoc ditches the cello and moves back to Wisconsin
Speaker 1: to live in his father's farmhouse called Aldebren West fittingly
Speaker 1: chose the name, which in Arabic means the follower. Brandock's
Speaker 1: going through the sort of stunted What am I going
Speaker 1: to do with my life? How will I ever live
Speaker 1: up to my lineage? My grandfather is Frank Lloyd right,
Speaker 1: and I'm just a retired cellist arrested development phase, which,
Speaker 1: in my humble opinion, sounds perfect for someone likes svent Lana,
Speaker 1: who's in search of normal. He approached me that was
Speaker 1: about the farm when he wanted to run this agricultural
Speaker 1: business Brandoc has big dreams and spent Lana can help.
Speaker 1: He wants to start a cattle breeding venture that he
Speaker 1: and his father can manage. This whole thing sounds pretty
Speaker 1: quaint to me. A little farmhouse, a herd of Hareford's.
Speaker 1: It's like a family band that's all cowbell and stent.
Speaker 1: Lana is thrilled at the chance to do something for
Speaker 1: her men. As she calls them, outcomes the checkbook. Who
Speaker 1: started the farm operation in Aldeberan that puts lots of
Speaker 1: money into z Aldebra was originally built by Frank Lloyd
Speaker 1: Wright's uncle, and while it's within view of taliesin up
Speaker 1: on the Hill, it's a separate, single family home away
Speaker 1: from communal life. These days it's an airbnb. So obviously
Speaker 1: my producers and I stayed there. Here's Catherine, how much
Speaker 1: should they do? I think you gotta read the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Proudly Displayed on the wall is a framed advertisement for
Speaker 1: the Peters family business. Aldebra, the Hamford Star of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Cows that do not measure up to a high standard
Speaker 1: of production, or who fail to transmit their own good
Speaker 1: qualities to their offspring have no place in this herd.
Speaker 1: And then William Wesley Peters, operator is at the bottom
Speaker 1: in funt Now listen, all this is well and grand,
Speaker 1: but stet Lana is choosing to invest in her husband
Speaker 1: and stepson after having refused to invest in the Foundation
Speaker 1: to the tune of thirty thousand dollars a year. Wes
Speaker 1: and Brandock were her family, not tally Esen, not Olgavana,
Speaker 1: But to Olgavana, Lloyd Wright, these freaking cows must be
Speaker 1: a radical act of disobedience. Wes had always given everything
Speaker 1: to the Foundation, and Olgavana expected that his new wife
Speaker 1: would too. Here's harold, he had inherited a significant amount
Speaker 1: of wealth that was ultimately all turned over to tally
Speaker 1: Essen one way or another. Still, for a moment, let's
Speaker 1: ignore Olgavana's brewing discontent, because something bigger is brewing, something
Speaker 1: no one expected would happen, something very normal. Stretlana Stalin Peters,
Speaker 1: daughter of the late Soviet dictator, says she's expecting a
Speaker 1: baby next ry. A forty four year old missus Peters
Speaker 1: effective to the West four years ago, or two grown
Speaker 1: children by a previous marriage, or still in the Soviet Joe.
Speaker 1: This was everything set Lana could have asked for more,
Speaker 1: even she rushes to tell Wes, who is of course
Speaker 1: surprised a father again at fifty eight, But he's glad.
Speaker 1: He was rather pleased, who were rather pleased as as
Speaker 1: a surprise and speed. Lana is ecstatic. She had wanted
Speaker 1: another chance to be a good mother, and now, by
Speaker 1: some miracle, she's going to get it. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be because I lost my two children adults are were
Speaker 1: abroad and lost forever, so I was glad to have
Speaker 1: another one. So let's once again close our eyes and
Speaker 1: live inside this moment of warm than happiness and promise
Speaker 1: among the rolling hills of driftless Wisconsin, inside a moment
Speaker 1: where stet Lana is content and at peace and getting
Speaker 1: everything she wants. Because almost immediately after Wes learns of
Speaker 1: the pregnancy, he will run to Olgavannah and tell her everything,
Speaker 1: and Olgavana will react in a very not normal way
Speaker 1: after the break at two bullshit, I love it when
Speaker 1: friends call it tell me they're pregnant. As a uncle
Speaker 1: many times over I've gotten used to the text message, Hi,
Speaker 1: will you be around later for a FaceTime? Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: I feigned surprised two three eighty times. But it's always
Speaker 1: really sweet when people you love are letting you be
Speaker 1: a part of their great familial prologue. Okay, maybe it's
Speaker 1: not always sweet. For example, that one time Wes went
Speaker 1: ahead and told Olgavana that he and sp Lana we're expecting.
Speaker 1: West ran to her with the news that we're going
Speaker 1: to have a baby, you know, in our age, and
Speaker 1: then of course he returned from her with the gray
Speaker 1: face and saying that aren't you going to do something
Speaker 1: about it? She wanted me to make abortion. Not exactly
Speaker 1: the response you'd be hoping for as a middle aged
Speaker 1: woman yearning for a family. Still, Lana must have noticed
Speaker 1: there weren't many kids at tally Essen after Frank was
Speaker 1: right died. No children should be worn there. There's some
Speaker 1: kind of prohibition, you know, no babies here. Here's biographer
Speaker 1: Rosemary Sullivan again. And if there were kids, they were
Speaker 1: put in tents on the edge of the property. Olga
Speaker 1: Vana considers the pregnancy a problem to be dealt with.
Speaker 1: She said to him, how could you be so careless
Speaker 1: when he told her kids Lana was pregnant. Olgavana begs
Speaker 1: West to reason with his wife. She even calls Fetlana's friends,
Speaker 1: the Kennon's, and demands they interfeed. It's a full court
Speaker 1: press as Frank Lloyd Write's widow tries to abort Joseph
Speaker 1: Stalin's American grandchild. What a sentence those Fetlana was religious.
Speaker 1: From what I can gather, she wasn't opposed to abortion.
Speaker 1: She told one prospective biographer she'd had three abortions back
Speaker 1: in Russia, but those were her choices. She asks Wes,
Speaker 1: why does that dictator always interfere with human lives? Words
Speaker 1: that will eventually make their way back to Olgavana. In
Speaker 1: this world that is so fiercely overseen by its matriarch,
Speaker 1: Stetlana is getting a bitter taste of the life she
Speaker 1: thought she left behind. She had a way to impose
Speaker 1: herself on other people, which she was like my father.
Speaker 1: She was a born dictator. She had this mandus tyrannical
Speaker 1: dictatorial ways. Moreover, Svetlana is forty four years old, and
Speaker 1: this pregnancy is her last chance to build the life
Speaker 1: she always wanted. She's going to keep that baby. She's
Speaker 1: going to fight for her family, which puts Wes in
Speaker 1: a bit of a tough spot. He's become the human
Speaker 1: rope in a game of tug of war between Stetlana
Speaker 1: and Olga Vanna. But it's not a fun game of
Speaker 1: tug of war like at theater camp where everyone is
Speaker 1: gay and hates rope. This is like tug of war
Speaker 1: at a sports camp where everyone is closeted and likes rope.
Speaker 1: Don't think too hard on that one. The point is
Speaker 1: this tug of war will last years. It will cost
Speaker 1: s Fetlana a lot of heartache and a lot of money.
Speaker 1: There's a letter we found in the archives from Stetlana
Speaker 1: to her friend Don Loveless, dated January twenty fifth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one. She's about six months pregnant and nine months
Speaker 1: into her marriage, and the pictures she paints is bleak.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that we are doing something in
Speaker 1: a wrong way which might turn out to be fatal
Speaker 1: for both of us in the long run. Wes, she writes,
Speaker 1: is so good, so trustful, that he is enslaved mentally
Speaker 1: and financially by his loyalty to tally Essen. One by one,
Speaker 1: she lists her grievances. Before she and West were married,
Speaker 1: she had a million dollars and was living on twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars a month in Princeton. Then enters one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty thousand spent on paying down as two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars worth of debts Chiching, one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand to save his farm, Chiching two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand to launch the family cattle business Chiching. She
Speaker 1: said she's happy to do it. I enjoyed looking at
Speaker 1: father and son being so close. I still continue to
Speaker 1: feel clayteppy doing all these changes and arrangements, signing lots
Speaker 1: of to me, but it's starting to add up spent.
Speaker 1: Lana ditches the lawyers that oversee her money in New
Speaker 1: York and hires Wes's firm instead. She pays to renovate
Speaker 1: their rooms at Talis and West, which takes months and
Speaker 1: goes one hundred and fifty percent over budget. Twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars paid to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Chitching,
Speaker 1: Oh And if anyone cares. Spent Lana is also paying
Speaker 1: for a hospital in India in honor of her late husband,
Speaker 1: Brajesh Singh, just sing, it is clear we have to
Speaker 1: stop doing that, or very soon nothing will be left here.
Speaker 1: I am not writing more sensational books. Yet Wes continues
Speaker 1: to spend NonStop. That is after all his m He
Speaker 1: apparently mails ball gowns for some reason to spe Lana's
Speaker 1: friend Joan Kennon. He buys so many cologns and perfumes
Speaker 1: that he and speed Lana call their bathroom the fragrance garden.
Speaker 1: For some with no money, he sure knows how to
Speaker 1: spend it. It is good for him that I happened
Speaker 1: to be near, but even Rockefeller or Ford would not
Speaker 1: be enough to replace the money, which, in this abnormal
Speaker 1: situation is just going into the send. And this send
Speaker 1: is a vast Sahara desert, and there is only a
Speaker 1: small brook in my possession to feed it. West clearly
Speaker 1: has a problem and spent. Lana knows she cannot be
Speaker 1: the one to solve it indefinitely, so she summons the
Speaker 1: new lawyers who represent both her and the Franclay Wright
Speaker 1: Foundation and demands that her husband be paid for his
Speaker 1: architectural work. They laugh and tell her the foundation has
Speaker 1: no money to pay him. So after a brief ray
Speaker 1: of happiness and hope, a new marriage, a new baby,
Speaker 1: a new life spent, Lana finds herself with a husband
Speaker 1: and stepson who are either willingly or carelessly bankrupting her,
Speaker 1: a quasi mother in law who wishes the baby inside
Speaker 1: of her had never existed, and an entire fellowship of
Speaker 1: architects who now shun her in the hallways. Other letters
Speaker 1: in the archives revealed that Olgavana shouts at spet Lana
Speaker 1: and says she behaves just like Stalin, and Olgavanna's daughter Vanna,
Speaker 1: who'd once wished spet Lana could be your sister, curses
Speaker 1: her out, writing you are the worst thing that ever
Speaker 1: happened to poor West, and I feel nothing but pity
Speaker 1: for him, and curses for myself and getting him involved
Speaker 1: with you. And then Wes, who is still working tirelessly
Speaker 1: for zero dollars a year, is sent to Tehran to
Speaker 1: work on a palace. Obviously, so spet Lana is pregnant
Speaker 1: and alone in a strange, suffocating place, and she decides,
Speaker 1: for her final trimester she's going to get the hell
Speaker 1: out of tali Essen and finish out her pregnancy in
Speaker 1: California with Wes's sister and brother in law. Finally, can
Speaker 1: we all just breathe a sigh of relief for stet
Speaker 1: in this moment. I've never been pregnant before, but even
Speaker 1: if I didn't have a fetus jes dating inside of me,
Speaker 1: I'd probably want some space from Olgavana, Yavannah and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Taliessen troope. And to be fair, I've
Speaker 1: never had to care for a woman who is forty
Speaker 1: four years old and pregnant with my dead daughter's husband's child.
Speaker 1: So spent Lana focuses on her bun in the oven,
Speaker 1: in peace and quiet, away from Olga, Vanna and the
Speaker 1: rest of them. And on May twenty first, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: at a hospital outside of San Francisco, she gives birth
Speaker 1: to a baby girl. Spent Lana Peters, the emigrant daughter
Speaker 1: of Joseph Stalin, gave birth yesterday to a daughter. Like
Speaker 1: any new parents, the Peters were proud to show off
Speaker 1: their baby girl, named Olga wait in it a healthy
Speaker 1: seven pounds nine ounces. Did you catch that? Spet Lana
Speaker 1: names her baby girl Olga? Remember how Speta's grandmother's name
Speaker 1: was Olga, which was also Olga Vanna's given name, and
Speaker 1: how Olga Vanna had believed there was a mystical connection
Speaker 1: between the two of them because her dead daughter's name
Speaker 1: was speed Lana and spent Lana's name was Fetlana. Well,
Speaker 1: now to complete the cycle, spent Lana, our spent Lana
Speaker 1: is naming her daughter. That's right, Olga, Yes, Olga the
Speaker 1: name Bullshita's back baby. Now, Wes isn't there for the birth,
Speaker 1: not because he's in Tehran building a palace at this point.
Speaker 1: He's actually in California, but no one can get a
Speaker 1: hold of him because he's out to dinner with Olga
Speaker 1: Vanna and the Talies and crew. He does eventually make
Speaker 1: it to the hospital to high five his wife and
Speaker 1: meet his kid, but in tali es In fashion, he
Speaker 1: doesn't come alone like an older male. Valerie Cherish West
Speaker 1: saunters into speed Lana's hospital room with news cameras in
Speaker 1: tow And if there is any irony in the birth
Speaker 1: here in the United States of a granddaughter of Joseph Stalin,
Speaker 1: the baby's mother prefers not to see it for the
Speaker 1: funding them just to hit the mother sharing this child,
Speaker 1: and I only hope that she will being the joys
Speaker 1: to my life. Can you imagine giving birth without your husband?
Speaker 1: And then he shows up a day late with an
Speaker 1: entourage of reporters who want to remind you of your
Speaker 1: tortured lineage. Unfortunately, West loved to be in the mid
Speaker 1: public identy. He allowed, He loves to talk, and he
Speaker 1: thought this is promoting architecture. Nevertheless, she writes that he
Speaker 1: was giddy like a young father, even though he was
Speaker 1: nearly sixty. He wanted the world to know and for
Speaker 1: a woman that would swoon when he called her his
Speaker 1: wife publicly Spetlana must have seen this whole charade as
Speaker 1: proof of his love for her, for their family. For
Speaker 1: a while after the birth, things seem better spent. Lana
Speaker 1: loves motherhood, She loves her daughter. She loves staying with
Speaker 1: Wes's sister in California for two glorious months. They get
Speaker 1: to be a family away from the Fellowship, and in
Speaker 1: this time away perhaps svent Lana dreams that they really
Speaker 1: can have it all, that Wes can carry on at
Speaker 1: tally Essen and she can forge her family on her
Speaker 1: own terms inside of it when sped Lana and West
Speaker 1: fly from California to Wisconsin that summer, Olga Vana, as
Speaker 1: a gesture of goodwill, gives them an extra room for
Speaker 1: the baby. Wes, who is so often withholding, tells her
Speaker 1: you brought me back to life after all those years.
Speaker 1: Sped Lana is in a suspended heaven. Sped Lana had
Speaker 1: this fantasy, and I found it so poignant. She's at
Speaker 1: the farm. She's sitting on the bench in the front
Speaker 1: open porch. Olga had just been born three months ago,
Speaker 1: and I was sending the baby buggy. While sitting on
Speaker 1: the wooden porch of a small farm. We had got
Speaker 1: a dog at her feet. She has her baby in
Speaker 1: the carriage. A big Irish wolfhound was peacefully lying at
Speaker 1: my feet as I rocked in an old comfortable rocker.
Speaker 1: Her two men, as she calls them, Wesley and his
Speaker 1: son are coming over ther horizon. A herd of cows
Speaker 1: was returning home down the road with cowbells tinkling. I
Speaker 1: could see down the road near the gate Wesley and
Speaker 1: his grown son, hens in their pockets, slowly walking home
Speaker 1: while discussing farm affairs. And she's happy. She thought she
Speaker 1: could turn Wesley Peters into this pastoral romance. The rocker
Speaker 1: was rocking, Olga was sleeping, and then here it is
Speaker 1: the greatest, happiest moment of my life. Stop hold this
Speaker 1: moment forever. I have a family, a home in my
Speaker 1: new country, and from here on my life will be
Speaker 1: like this, harmonious, secure and filled with evening light. So
Speaker 1: you know, we all fictionalized our lives somewhat so that
Speaker 1: Lana wants to stay in this beautiful moment. But we
Speaker 1: can't hit the pause button on our lives. Time has
Speaker 1: an unrepentant way of flicking forward, no matter how hard
Speaker 1: we try to stop it. More after the break, Act three,
Speaker 1: Grave Danger, Svetlana really loved Wisconsin. She loved watching her
Speaker 1: baby Olga grow healthy and strong, walking her in the
Speaker 1: sunshine under rustling trees, nursing her on the warm earth,
Speaker 1: and playing with her toes in the green grass. This
Speaker 1: was her Motherland's Svetlana writes, this was home. In fact,
Speaker 1: Svetlana loved Wisconsin so much that she would eventually die there,
Speaker 1: just twenty five miles from tally Essen. Its hold on
Speaker 1: her would last her lifetime. When my team and I
Speaker 1: went to Spring Green. We were skeptical. We'd read Harold
Speaker 1: and Roger's book about the Fellowship, We'd read Svetlana's manuscripts
Speaker 1: tinged with cynicism. But there really is some magic in
Speaker 1: the driftless peace and wonder and so many delicious cheese
Speaker 1: kurds hashtag lactad hashtag fart. I stayed in that farmhouse.
Speaker 1: I sat on that porch where s Lana rocked her
Speaker 1: baby and looked out at her men coming up over
Speaker 1: the hill, golden in the setting sun. I started to
Speaker 1: understand the intoxicating allure, the dream she was projecting onto
Speaker 1: everyone and everything around her. But I think that's what
Speaker 1: it was, a fiction at odds with reality, and the
Speaker 1: fantasy quickly shatters speed. Lana dreams of moving her family
Speaker 1: away from the hubbub of tally Essen and into the
Speaker 1: farm she's bankrolling Aldebran, but Brandoc says no, he and
Speaker 1: his girlfriend live here and they need privacy. Okay, cool
Speaker 1: cool Cool West starts to become distant again, seemingly resentful
Speaker 1: that his new spet Lana doesn't more closely resemble his
Speaker 1: first spet, Lana. Of course, Susana was part of the establishment,
Speaker 1: and I was supposed to get into this thing too
Speaker 1: and become part of it. Instead, spet is bad mouthing
Speaker 1: tali Esen's traditions so openly that Olga Vanna bands the
Speaker 1: young fellows from stopping by her room to chat, calling
Speaker 1: her a bad influence. And oh yeah, the cattle venture
Speaker 1: is bleeding money chi ching not exactly the cash cow
Speaker 1: they'd hoped for. When September comes and Olga Vanna prepares
Speaker 1: the fellowship to travel back to Arizona, she calls s
Speaker 1: fet Lana into her private chamber for a chat. I
Speaker 1: had one too, and she kind of almost hypnotized me.
Speaker 1: You describe it about how you ended up kissing her hand, Yes,
Speaker 1: tete a tete hypnosis hand kissing. Olga Vanna wants to
Speaker 1: know spet Lana's beef with tally Esen. Spet Lana bites
Speaker 1: her tongue, but Olgavana isn't having it. She suddenly took
Speaker 1: my both hands in ours and pulled me to herself,
Speaker 1: so close that there is almost no spacelift between us.
Speaker 1: I tried to loosen the gripe and to step backward
Speaker 1: a little bit. She held my hands tightly. Algabonna stares
Speaker 1: deeply into Spelana's eyes, locking her into her gaze. She
Speaker 1: began to breathe deeply and slowly, still staring. I lost
Speaker 1: all my volition and stood there terrilyzed. Fear entered me
Speaker 1: like a cold wave. But I could not move after
Speaker 1: a moment of strain, and broke down in tears, still
Speaker 1: holding my hands. Then something incredibly out of character happens.
Speaker 1: I have done something I would never have done on
Speaker 1: my own accord. I kissed those hands of hers several times.
Speaker 1: Only then did she release me. Who she was pleased
Speaker 1: stet is shuck. I said goodbye, my tears with my
Speaker 1: poems and left. I could only do that under her
Speaker 1: will you know I wouldn't do that, my old sort
Speaker 1: of I was scared of her. When Splana returns to Wes,
Speaker 1: she's trembling, crying, Convinced that Olgavana has the power to
Speaker 1: hypnotize her into submission. She can never be alone with
Speaker 1: her again. She hopes West will hold her, soothe her,
Speaker 1: and take her away from this terrible place, but instead
Speaker 1: he chastises her, tells her that it is a privilege
Speaker 1: to live at tally Essen and that if she doesn't
Speaker 1: change her attitude. He doesn't know what the future of
Speaker 1: their marriage will be. Remember, Wes was the first apprentice
Speaker 1: of the Fellowship and he stayed at tally Esen for
Speaker 1: close to forty years. He named his cabin Aldebra, which
Speaker 1: means the Follower. He's not going to suddenly change teams
Speaker 1: just because this woman happens to be his wife and
Speaker 1: mother of his child. Before summer's end set Lana takes
Speaker 1: a stroll with her little baby to Unity Chapel, a tiny,
Speaker 1: quaint little church just at the bottom of a hill.
Speaker 1: Aside from being a lovely spot, Unity Chapel is also
Speaker 1: the Lloyd Wright family Cemetery. It's maybe a few hundred
Speaker 1: feet from where we were staying at Aldebren so we
Speaker 1: strolled down there too at night. I'm gonna pull him
Speaker 1: right here, all right, We're going at night to a
Speaker 1: cemetery and hopefully Bilby ghosts. It was kind of a
Speaker 1: tally essent scavenger hunt my producers and I in the
Speaker 1: middle of Wisconsin in the middle of the night. Odd
Speaker 1: to be stumbling across the tombstones of the different members
Speaker 1: of this weird history that we'd all been sucked into.
Speaker 1: This is wood Sydney. Yes, oh my god, that's my
Speaker 1: brother's name, Jeffrey. Oh Stu Schwartz. There is a jew here.
Speaker 1: That's comforting. We found the master's grave, Alison May. This
Speaker 1: is Franklin writs grave. And then Adam found stat Lana,
Speaker 1: the first one you found her speed Lana Peters, Daniel Peters,
Speaker 1: William Wesley Peters. Oh my god, stet Lana might have
Speaker 1: come here in the day, not at midnight with a baby,
Speaker 1: not a gaggle of producers. But she stood where I
Speaker 1: stood and saw what I saw, her own name spent
Speaker 1: Lana Peters on a gravestone, and it shook her to
Speaker 1: her very core. Nice, oh my name Setlana Peters. So,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's what That's how it will finish.
Speaker 1: Was me, she writes, I was here to repeat this
Speaker 1: woman's life, to marry her former husband. I would surely
Speaker 1: end up one day in something terrible, and perhaps my
Speaker 1: little daughter too. The grave Steed Lana is certain was
Speaker 1: an omen one that meant she was condemned to the
Speaker 1: same fate as the first fet Lana, That baby Olga
Speaker 1: was condemned to the same fate as baby Daniel. It
Speaker 1: must have been terrifying steed Lana had been here before,
Speaker 1: thwarted by fate, trapped in cycles. She thought she'd broken.
Speaker 1: She had risked everything to step out of Stalin's shadow
Speaker 1: to tell her own story, only to find herself sucked
Speaker 1: into the orbit of a woman who reminded her of
Speaker 1: her father. She'd taken chances on love, only to have
Speaker 1: her heart broken over and over and exactly the same place.
Speaker 1: She had tried to create a new family, only to
Speaker 1: find herself haunted by a woman who had lived her
Speaker 1: same life, who had had her same name. But now
Speaker 1: she had this tiny baby that she had to protect
Speaker 1: at all costs. For stent Lana, it was clear she
Speaker 1: and Olga were under threat, and that threat was Olga Vanna.
Speaker 1: If she wanted them to escape their fate, to not
Speaker 1: end up in the ground, she'd have to protect them
Speaker 1: from missus Wright. Their lives st Lana was sure depended
Speaker 1: on it. On the next episode of s Lana, svent Lana,
Speaker 1: spent Lana. St Lana is a production of iHeart Podcasts
Speaker 1: and the documentary group I'm Your Host Dan could Rocer.
Speaker 1: The show was written and produced by me Adam Webber,
Speaker 1: Alison Joy and Katherine Isaac. We also serve as executive
Speaker 1: producers at the Documentary Group. Our executive producer is Joe Batzilhouetz,
Speaker 1: with production oversight by Stacy Kleiger an additional support from
Speaker 1: Tom Yellen and Gabrielle tenenbau our iHeart Team is supervising
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram and executive producer Maya Howard. Editing assistants
Speaker 1: from producers Christina Lorenger and Joey pat Original music by
Speaker 1: Elan Izakov, Production counsel by Slas ekhous dasty Haynes Lockoe,
Speaker 1: clearance counsel by Ballard Sparr. Fact checking assistance by Meghan Trout.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to my husband Jordan Siegel and Roger Friedland
Speaker 1: and Harold Zelman, authors of the book The Fellowship, who
Speaker 1: kindly granted permission to include excerpts from their taped interview
Speaker 1: with spet Lana Excerpts from sphet Lana Alujeva's book The Faraway.
Speaker 1: Music are performed by Cassie Greer.