Episode 2
Enter Natasha
Debbie travels to Russia and things go downhill quickly. Jake makes an important discovery.
Transcripts
Finding Natasha, Episode 2
Jake Warren The 1970s felt like a decade of change. The Beatles, one of the UK’s biggest cultural exports, rocked the Western world when they announced their split.
VO The event is so momentous that historians may, one day, view it as a landmark in the decline of the British Empire. The Beatles are breaking up.
Jake Warren Cold War tensions that have been building up over the last decades began easing, starting with the US deciding to pull out of Vietnam.
VO After nearly eight years of fighting and more than four years of negotiations, US troops will withdraw in sixty days.
Jake Warren There was a sense that an era of cooperation might be arriving. In 1971, Communist China was permitted to join the UN.
VO The moment was a turning point in history, foreshadowing vast changes in international relations.
Jake Warren And two years later, the UK became the ninth country to join the European Economic Community.
VO Almost the final chapter in ten years of hard bargaining, with the signing of the Treaty of [INAUDIBLE].
Jake Warren In 1974, a Labour Government led by Harold Wilson was elected. VO And the story has a night. Labour is now set for having a clear, overall
majority.
Jake Warren They were expected to be far less anticommunist than their conservative predecessors. That year, especially, new possibilities were opening up. My mum, for one, had made a huge life-changing decision: To study dance at one of the world's greatest ballet academies in the Soviet Union.
Debbie Gayle I didn't know how it's gonna do it. I mean, it was a very, very tricky time. This is 1974.
Jake Warren I'm Jake Warren. And from Message Heard, this is Finding Natasha.
So, my mom's dance teacher, Anna Northcote, knew that her dream was realistic. This kind of trip to the Soviet Union wasn't unheard of. It was actually one of the British government's main diplomatic tactics during the Cold War. Their military power didn't compare to that of the Americans or the Soviets. And so, they did a lot of cultural
diplomacy. They were sending British ideas and culture straight to the Russians. That, Anna Northcote explained to my mum, was how her trip to Russia could actually happen.
Debbie Gayle She said there's an organisation called the British Council, and the British Council was the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
Jake Warren The British Council is an organisation within the British Foreign Office. They had done this kind of work with the Soviet Union since 1955. And then, in 1959, this relationship was formalised when the two governments signed an agreement to establish relations in the scientific, technological, educational, and cultural fields. This meant exchanges of scientists, artists, or students.
Debbie Gayle And they had had quite a few up until the early seventies. I think they'd had a pianist who went to the Moscow Conservatoire. They'd had a few exchanges. But they had never had a ballet exchange scholarship between the school. They'd never had that. And Anna Northcote thought, Well, this is possible. Although when this process started, there was a lot of things against me.
VO Mikhail Baryshnikov of Leningrad doing a Solor’s dance from Bayaderka. Baryshnikov’s technique is faultless. His interpretation, magnificent.
Jake Warren Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the greatest living legends of ballet and stars of the Kirov, defected from the Soviet Union in June 1974. Back then, he was a star all over the world. He is still considered one of the best to have ever danced. Although, to some, even more impressive than his ballet, was his role in Sex and the City as Carrie's boyfriend, Aleksandr.
Carrie Bradshaw Well, it’s very red downstairs.
Aleksandr Petrovsky They said that it's what's expected of Russia.
Jake Warren But anyway, back to June 1974. Baryshnikov was on tour in Canada with his ballet company, the Bolshoi. And one day, while walking around Toronto in between performances, Baryshnikov somehow managed to get away from his KGB handlers. He dodged into a crowd of people. He lost the secret agents who had been watching his every step. He jumped into a waiting car and head out until the Canadian government granted him asylum. It was an embarrassment for the Soviet Union. And the defection happened right around the same time as the plans for my mum's potential exchange were being made, thanks to Anna Northcote.
Debbie Gayle I don't know actually whether she knew someone in the British Council. But the British Council were made aware of my violent wish to go. I think it was the synchronicity, really. Because I think they were looking for a cultural exchange that would give them a bit of... A bit more high profile. And the British Council agreed to fund a scholarship for a young ballet dancer, either to the Bolshoi or the Kirov.
Jake Warren But before giving the scholarship to my mum, they needed to make sure she was good enough.
Debbie Gayle I remember they asked the most important person in British ballet to come and watch me in a class, and that was the great Dame Ninette de Valois, who founded – sat as well as founded what went on to become The Royal Ballet. She was the Mother of Ballet in England. And she amazingly agreed to come. I was in a class with quite a few other people. And I remember her coming in with several other important-looking people. And she sat down and she watched the class. And I was terrified. But at the end of the class, I was introduced to her and I shook her hand. And she had these amazing Irish twinkly, blue eyes. And I curtsied and said something inane. And she smiled at me and said, “That's interesting, isn't it?” is what I remember her saying. “That – that would be an interesting thing, for – for a young Englishperson to go to the Soviet Union.” And, uh, she obviously, uh, agreed that it was worth sending me. I don't think she saw any spectacular talent in me. Otherwise, I would have thought she would have wanted me for The Royal Ballet. But she saw I had a physical aptitude and some talent. And she obviously just said yes, you know. And I was then awarded the scholarship.
Jake Warren She’d be going to the Kirov in Leningrad for a full year. This kind of success is what her mum had wanted for her ever since that first ballet class. And she was hoping that, maybe, her dad would also finally be impressed. She couldn't wait to tell her parents.
Debbie Gayle My mother was delighted. My father wasn't really around at that time. The day before I went, which is, obviously, many months later— ‘cause there's so much to organize—my father returned to our family home, maybe to collect some stuff. He said he wasn't living there. And he knew I was due to travel, I think, the next day. And he was in his study. And I went in there and I have a very clear memory, because it's the first and only time I ever saw my father cry. Um, and I said to him, “Well, daddy, aren't you excited for me?” Um, you know, I was just so unbelievably naïve and had no idea what I was going into. And his eyes filled up with tears and he said, “No. I'm
frightened.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “You don't know what they’re like.”
I didn't understand his comment. He appeared to be very negative about Russia and Russians. And, of course, I – I had no idea at that time that, uh, he had a brother, a older brother. Um, Lóczy / László, a beautiful young man. Uh, he ... We believe he perished at the age of twenty-four on the Russian front. He was made to fight. The Russians made the Jews fight for them. Young men fight them. And he died of typhus on the Russian front, we believe. And, uh, it's difficult for me, because my – I grew up under a wall of silence. My father never, ever discussed. It was just simply too horrific, what had happened.
Jake Warren If you remember, my grandfather arrived in the UK as a child refugee. He was able to get here for a British rescue program called Kindertransport. But only he was allowed to immigrate this way. And so, his older brother Lóczy had to find a different way out. He had two options. He could stay where he was and risk being taken to a concentration camp or he could try going east, to the Soviet Union, which is what he did and then died fighting for the Soviets during World War II. My grandfather repressed thoughts about his brother's death. And my mom's trip must have awakened something deep within him. He was afraid for her, afraid of history repeating itself.
Debbie Gayle You know, the Russians, they had quite a brutal history. And, um, he was scared for me. And rightly so. And he wept. And I remember being extremely shocked and a bit annoyed, because I thought he wasn't giving me the support and he should be just [INAUDIBLE] me with great praise and telling me everything was going to be wonderful. And it wasn't like that. But interesting as well. I remember saying to my mother just before I left that daddy had burst into tears when he said goodbye to me. And I remember her crying, because she could not bear the thought of him crying. So very sad, really, ‘cause, obviously, she had still had very deep feelings for him and she was immensely distressed to think of him distressed.
But I mean, it was all irrelevant to me, really. I just was too busy in my fantasies, that I was going somewhere absolutely marvelous, that someone's going to wave a magic wand, and I was suddenly going to have this marvelous training and become this marvelous ballerina. And, uh, looking back, I mean, it all sounds so, so stupid, really. I had just no idea what I was going into. But I suppose, to be fair to myself, not – not many people at that time had any idea how tough it was in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. And the few people that had gone and experienced life that they'd been allowed to see and experience. And I was actually joining a school, you know, living a life and seeing things
and experiencing things that the Soviet girls and boys were, um ... We didn't really know how tough that was. And as it proved to be particularly tough for a rather spoiled, mollycoddled, privately-educated, soft girl of seventeen, I, you know ... It was a pretty horrendous shock.
Jake Warren Of course, this was going to be more than just a trip. It was also a diplomatic operation. The foreign office was planning the exchange in great detail. And because it could actually be dangerous for mum, they tried to prepare her for it.
Debbie Gayle I was asked to go and did go to this very scary, officious- looking office in the mall, a white hall where three men in grey suits sat on the opposite side of the table. And I sat in front of them. And they told me a lot of peculiar things that didn't make any sense to me. Like things I mustn't discuss, things I must show interest in, things I mustn’t ask, things I should be careful of. I mean, they may as well have been talking to me in Mandarin, really. I just remember sort of gazing around the room, being far more interested in this fusty office and just wanting to get out of there as soon as possible, really. I... It was all just a bit surreal. I do remember one of the men saying to me, “You do understand, Debbie, don't you, that if a Russian person is found with foreign currency, it’s – that’s actually punishable by death. So, if you have actually got any sterling on you or you take sterling with you, you better make absolutely sure you don't give it to anybody.”
Jake Warren At first, I wasn't sure whether to believe what these officials apparently told my mother. But it turns out that having foreign currency was punishable by death, sort of. For example, for illegally trading large amounts of Western money. But neither warnings from these men nor her father before them put her off. She found a way to train at the Kirov, the greatest ballet academy in the world. Nothing would spoil that.
Mum arrived in Leningrad in autumn 1974, just before the start of the school year. And for all her excitement, pretty much as soon as she got there, it became clear that something wasn't right.
Debbie Gayle I realised I wasn't actually wanted. Uh, I had been thrust on this school. I was obviously gonna be a major inconvenience. And the other girls had been told to not have anything to do with me. You know, I was seen as a very suspicious. I was a westerner. I mean, if you saw a westerner, normally, in the Soviet Union at that time, you'd – they'd be greeted with great suspicion. And it was no different being a – a student in the school. And the girls, the few boys, they were told, basically, “Don't speak to her.”
Sandra Ferrari Did you find out at the time that you weren't wanted or did you find out after?
Debbie Gayle In my feeble attempts to be friendly to the four other girls that I shared this dormitory with. Simply wouldn't engage with me. I mean, obviously, my Russian was pretty awful and pathetic. But they didn't really respond. They ignored me. There was nothing in place, you know. No – nobody was put in place. Say, for example, you know, “Take her to the cafeteria” or “Show her where she gets her meals,” “Show her where she keeps her clothes or her...” You know? There was nothing like that. I was literally just dumped on them. The school didn't want me. And I was just simply left to get on with it. And I actually wandered around this huge building just trying to find out where to go. It was a huge shock and a brutal realisation that I was not gonna be welcomed and I was not gonna helped in any shape or form.
Jake Warren She came here as someone who'd never belonged anywhere. At home and at school, she felt a distance between her and everyone else. Here in Russia, it was meant to be different. But the same thing was happening again.
Debbie Gayle This is when Natasha comes in, because it was only a few days in. I think I started the crying then. And I remember sitting on some stairs outside of an office where I heard her typing. And I was crying. And this girl came out and she put her arm around me and she said to me in broken English, “What is wrong? What is the matter?” And, uh, I was like a drowning person, attaching myself to a log. There was this human being who was warm and kind and actually spoke a couple of words of English. And, of course, I immediately burst into floods of tears. And, you know, I think... And that was that. She was stuck with me. I found out where she works. She was a secretary in school, who loved the ballet, passionately loved the ballet. And that was as near as she got to it, working in – in one of the school offices. And she'd obviously heard about the English girl. But now, she was confronted with me and crying. And she helped me. She showed me where the cafeteria was. She showed me other things. She showed me where I could get... For example, I had no towels to wipe my face when I washed or... All these things, you know.
Jake Warren Natasha helped my mum in so many practical ways. Knowing how to get food or where to find towels made a world of difference.
Debbie Gayle She became my saviour.
Sandra Ferrari What did she look like at the time? How would you...
Debbie Gayle She was beautiful. She was a year older than me, about a year and a half older than me. I – I think she was eighteen-and-a-half. Something like that. She had green-y color eyes and brown hair and a lovely oval face. Very Russian-looking. Sweet. And the thing that I remember most about her was her innocence. She was incredibly innocent. And also very bright and hungry to know about the West. She was like lots of young people. She was obviously, you know, fascinated by the secret world that they suspected and seen a few little glimpses of. She had that sort of bravery. There was a bravery about her, you know. Um, she called herself a dissident even then.
Jake Warren Mum latched onto Natasha pretty much immediately. When she was with her, she felt something. Something that she hadn't really experienced much before. And their dynamic must have been a bit odd.
Sandra Ferrari So, would you say you – you two were friends then?
Debbie Gayle Well, it was impossible in the sense of friends that communicate. She had a few words of English, and I had a few words of Russian. It was more a younger girl collapsing hysterically, obsessively following around, and waiting for her outside the door of the office for her to come out, because she was the only friendly face. I looked towards her for everything. She took me out into the street. She bought me apples. She – she was kind and she was the only person who – who showed me any companionship or kindness.
Jake Warren In just a few weeks, it seemed like everything had changed for my mum. Her friendship with Natasha quickly led to making another friend.
Debbie Gayle Oh, yeah. She had a friend, Jenya, who also worked in the school. A little bit older than her. Um, and Jenya had this... I don't know if it was an office or a room, what she was doing quite in the basement. And we used to... She stayed down there. And Jenya to brew up this... It was like Turkish coffee in this funny little pot. And I remember being absolutely thrilled at the smell and taste of this coffee, because all we had, really, was that lukewarm Russian tea in a glass, which is quite disgusting. Yeah. And we used to go down there. And she and Jenya used – Natasha and Jenya used to gobble away in Russian. And I just loved it, because I felt warm and there were two girls who were just warm and friendly to me.
Sandra Ferrari So, you were a part of something? Debbie Gayle I felt part of something.
Jake Warren Coming up after a very quick break, a pretty big development in our search for Natasha.
[MIDROLL]
Jake Warren A few weeks after we first spoke, Olga, the Russian investigator who I enlisted to help me find Natasha, got back in touch.
Jake Warren Hi, Olga. How's it going?
Olga Kuzmenkova Hi. Fine. I'm fine. How are you?
Jake Warren I'm good. Thank you. Um, so it sounds like you have uncovered exciting information.
Olga Kuzmenkova I have found something. That is true. So, um, I found Natasha.
Jake Warren So, it turns out finding Natasha wasn't as difficult as my mum thought it would be.
Olga Kuzmenkova I think she lives in St. Petersburg, uh, still. Jake Warren Wow.
Olga Kuzmenkova And probably by the same address.
Jake Warren At least not when you're a professional people finder, have access to the Internet, and are actually able to use it unlike my mom.
Olga Kuzmenkova What I did is I checked her address, and it seems that she still owns the flat.
Jake Warren Not to sell Olga short, though. She did have to do some detective work. Olga Kuzmenkova The paper you have given me with the details on Natasha
and holding her name, they have her name spelt in the wrong way.
Jake Warren Which, in our defense, Olga says it's pretty common. Russian names are usually spelt differently than how they're pronounced. But once she figured out the spelling, she found two women with Natasha's name, living in what is now St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad. One of them...
Olga Kuzmenkova Is sort of prominent, and she is known for her historical novels. So, she's a writer.
Jake Warren This Natasha was a few years younger than our Natasha would be. But Olga couldn't cross her off the list just yet. Only then, she found a picture of the right Natasha.
Olga Kuzmenkova And I was absolutely sure that this is her and that this is the person we've been looking for.
Jake Warren Olga cross-referenced the name with the address that my mum remembered.
Olga Kuzmenkova And, basically, I just Googled everything else.
Jake Warren So, this was probably not the toughest case Olga’s ever taken on. But
she found out that Natasha has lived in St. Petersburg her entire life.
Olga Kuzmenkova She used to study at the State Institute of Performing Arts and became qualified as a theatre expert.
Jake Warren After graduating, Natasha became a cultural journalist who has been writing articles about ballet ever since the seventies.
Jake Warren Also, I think what's important from my mum's perspective is, for fifty years, she's kind of had a bit of a cloud over her, fearing that by Natasha helping her and, you know, saving her life, that she would have been punished and, you know, suffered, because of her intervention and helping her. And I think, you know, just from the information that you've given us there, that, clearly, she's prominent in, you know, the St. Petersburg and Russian ballet world. You can kind of gather from that that maybe that's not the case and, maybe, actually she didn't suffer any consequences for helping mum. And I – and I think she will be so glad to hear that, because I think it will be, like, a weight off their shoulders.
Olga Kuzmenkova Yeah. I think we have to connect with Natasha and ask her about this story. Like, was she getting some sort of punishment for what she did? It might be the case that she was sort of punished by being prohibited to be a dancer, because that's something that was done in that years.
Jake Warren It turns out that before Natasha became a critic, she was a dancer herself. Mum remembered Natasha being a secretary of the school. Some of the smaller details are understandably hazy for her, hidden beneath a fog of time and trauma. So, Olga is right. The only way I can find out what really happened is by actually talking to Natasha herself.
Jake Warren Well, thanks, Olga, as always. It was nice to chat to you.
Olga Kuzmenkova You’re welcome.
Jake Warren In the next episode, we reach out to Natasha.
Jake Warren So, I guess we'll just wait to hear from you once you’ve – once you’ve kinda chatted to her.
Jake Warren The woman who, back in 1974, saved my mom's life.
You can hear what happened right now in the same feed. Finding Natasha is a Message Heard production. It’s hosted by me, Jake Warren, and produced by Sandra Ferrari and Jake Otajovič. Edited by Jake Otajovič and exec produced by Sandra Ferrara. A huge thank you goes to Olga, without whom we could have never pulled this off. The theme music is by Matt Huxley.
#