Children of Nikita Khrushchev: how was their fate? Yulia Khrushcheva: “Nikita Sergeevich's favorite dish was potato pancakes with sour cream. And he ate watermelon ... with white bread Nikita Khrushcheva Julia
Not all wives and descendants of the famous Soviet political leader were lucky in life
In almost all modern sources, the date of birth Nikita Khrushchev indicated on April 15th. It is this day that appears in the civil registry in his native village. However, Nikita Sergeevich himself celebrated his birthday on April 17. He was one of the few Soviet party leaders who can be called a father of many children. He had three marriages and five children ..
Khrushchev's wives
The first time Khrushchev got married when he was 20 years old. A red-haired beauty became his chosen one Efrosinya... After two years of marriage, she gave birth to his daughter Julia, and a year later - the son of L eonis... But Euphrosyne herself, Frose as Khrushcheva's mother called her, it was not possible to see how her children would grow up. A young mother three years after the birth of her son Leonidas died of typhus.
With his first wife. Source: Wikipedia.org
Two years after the death of his first wife, he became friends with a single mother named Maroussia... Their relationship did not last long, even the name of this woman is unknown. But the household later recalled that the reason for the breakup between Nikita Sergeevich and Marusya was largely Khrushchev's mother.
Ksenia Ivanovna, a domineering and decisive woman, essentially survived Marusya from home. True, even after parting, Nikita Sergeevich continued to financially support his second darling.
In 1924, four years after the death of his first wife, Nikita married a 24-year-old Nina Kukharchuk... Ksenia Ivanovna did not like Nina either, she said that she was in no way comparable to her beloved Frosya. But, nevertheless, it was Nina who went down in the history of the country as the first "first lady". It was she who became the first of the wives of the leaders of the USSR, who accompanied her husband at official receptions, traveled with him abroad and met with the heads of foreign states.
with Nina Kukharchuk. Source: Wikimedia.org The third wife gave birth to four children to Khrushchev (one of the daughters died as an infant), raised his children from his first marriage, shared the care of a large family with her mother-in-law Ksenia Ivanovna, lived with the leader of the USSR all her life and took him on his last journey.
Yulia Khrushcheva
Almost nothing is known about Khrushchev's eldest daughter. The girl, who lost her mother at the age of four, was first raised by her grandmother, and then Nikita Sergeevich's third wife joined this process. It is known that Julia was married to Victor Gontar, who was more than 10 years older than her.
Khrushchev in 1954 made his son-in-law director of the Kiev Opera. Yulia Nikitichna died at the age of 65, in 1981, 10 years after the death of her father and three years before the death of her stepmother Nina.
Leonid Khrushchev
About Julia's younger brother - Leonida Khrushchev- much more is known than about my sister. Moreover, his death is still shrouded in secrets and speculation.
Leonid Khrushchev. Source: Wikipedia.org During his youth, Leonid brought a lot of trouble to his father. There were a lot of rumors about his drunken antics and rudeness, that everything was allowed to the son of the party “bigwig”.
During one of the parties of the Moscow golden youth, Leonid met the artist Esther Etinger, the daughter of a famous aircraft designer. Their romance was as turbulent as it was fleeting. But it didn't work out easily - Esther became pregnant. Leonid decided that this news did not bind him to anything, and soon began a new romance - with an actress Rose Treivas, the niece of a politician who was shot with the direct participation of Khrushchev. Moreover, Leonid almost immediately took his new darling down the aisle.
According to Rosa's recollections, when Nikita Sergeevich found the newlyweds at home with a fresh marriage certificate in his hands, he immediately tore up the document and drove his daughter-in-law away. Khrushchev forbade his son to meet with the daughter of an enemy of the people and forced him to recognize his son from Esther Etinger. When the boy was born, Leonid Khrushchev was 17 years old. His relationship with Esther never worked out.
Four years later, Leonid married a pilot named Love... At this time, he himself was already graduating from an aviation school, preparing for military service. Soon a daughter appeared in the family, the girl was named Julia... And a year later, the Great Patriotic War began.
In the next few years, Khrushchev's son made many combat missions, was presented to the Order of the Red Banner. At the front, he showed courage and courage, but outside the battlefield he remained the same reveler.
In the fall of 1942, at one of the drunks, Leonid and his comrades decided to compete in accuracy. The military took turns placing bottles and other targets on their heads and shooting at them. It all ended with the drunken Khrushchev Jr., inadvertently, shooting the sailor. But it’s wartime — they won’t be sent further than the front. Therefore, Leonid after that simply found himself on the battlefield again.
On March 11, 1943, 25-year-old Leonid Khrushchev did not return from a sortie. The comrades saw that his plane was shot down and crashed to the ground. But the area in the area of the crash was covered with forests and swamps, so neither the crashed plane nor the body of Khrushchev's son was ever found.
Because of this, there were many rumors that in fact Leonid did not die, but fled to the Germans. According to one of these conspiracy theories, Khrushchev's son was returned from captivity and shot by personal order. Stalin... But all these theories appeared only after the resignation of Nikita Sergeevich himself and therefore hardly have anything to do with reality. Yulia Khrushchev was adopted by the grandfather, as the girl's mother was accused of espionage and exiled. Julia subsequently graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. She died tragically in 2017.
Rada Adjubey
Rada was the first joint child of Nikita Sergeevich and his third wife Nina. Before her, Nina gave birth to Khrushchev's daughter, but she died in infancy. Rada spent almost all her life in the shadow, first of her father, and then also of her husband - Alexey Adjubei.
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Biography, life story of Yulia Leonidovna Khrushcheva
Yulia Leonidovna Khrushcheva is the granddaughter of the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
Childhood
Julia was born in 1940 in Moscow in the family of a military pilot Leonid Nikitovich Khrushchev, the eldest son, and his wife Lyubov Illarionovna Sizykh. When Yulia was only 2 years old, her father went missing after a combat mission near Orel. Immediately after that, Lyubov was arrested on suspicion of espionage, convicted and sent to the camps. After 5 years, Lyubov Sizykh was released, but immediately, along with other former prisoners, they were exiled to Kazakhstan. The girl left without parents was adopted. Until the age of 16, Julia thought that she was her father, and Nina Petrovna, his third wife, was her own mother. The truth was revealed only when Yulia was filling out the documents for joining the Komsomol. Julia saw Lyubov Sizykh only in 1957 - a year after the woman was finally released.
Since 1944, Julia has lived in Kiev. In 1949, together with her family, she again moved to Moscow. By that time, Yulia had no memories of Moscow life, she considered Kiev her hometown. For some time the girl was terribly homesick, but soon she got used to it.
Education. Labor activity
After graduating from high school, Julia Khrushcheva entered the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University. Having received a diploma of higher education, Yulia Leonidovna got a job by profession in the Novosti press agency. A few years later, Khrushcheva, disillusioned with journalism, left Novosti and became the head of the literary department at the Moscow Drama Theater named after M.N. Ermolova. Later, Julia entered the same position at the Theater named after, where she worked until retirement age.
CONTINUED BELOW
A family
Julia and her husband raised their daughter Nina. Nina graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Moscow state university, then studied at Princeton University. Remained to live in the USA. I got a job as a teacher international relations to New School University in New York.
In the 2000s, Yulia Leonidovna actively fought against the falsification of the history of the Khrushchev family in general and the biography of her father in particular, sued the leadership of Channel One, statesman and politician Dmitry Yazov and writer Vladimir Karpov for libel.
Doom
On the morning of June 8, 2017, at the Solnechnaya station of the Kiev direction of the Moscow Railway on the Michurinets platform, a 77-year-old woman was hit by a train. The body was found a day later. After identification, it was announced that the deceased was Yulia Leonidovna Khrushcheva. According to the first version, Yulia Leonidovna crossed the rails in the wrong place while the train was moving and did not react to the driver's signals. The second version says that Khrushcheva accidentally stumbled on the platform and fell onto the rails.
Farewell to Yulia Leonidovna and her funeral was decided to be held at the Troekurovsky cemetery on June 13 of the same year.
NS Khrushchev with his first wife E. I. Pisareva.
For the first time, Nikita Khrushchev married at the age of 20 to the beautiful Efrosinya Pisareva, who gave her husband two weather children, Julia and Leonid. The son was only three years old when Nikita Sergeevich's first wife died of typhus. Julia and Leonid were first raised by their grandmother, and after their father's marriage to Nina Kukharchuk began to live in his new family... Later, the Khrushchev family was replenished with three more children.
NS Khrushchev with children from his first marriage, Julia and Leonid. The eldest daughter of Nikita Khrushchev, Julia, immediately adopted her stepmother. She never called her mother, only Nina Petrovna, but the relationship between them was very warm. Julia dreamed of becoming an architect and even entered a specialized institute, but her health did not allow her to graduate. Julia fell ill with tuberculosis, she had to be treated for a long time, but she had to forget about her studies. On the eve of World War II, a young woman underwent a complex lung operation, which allowed her to live another 40 years.
Julia worked as a laboratory chemist, was married to Viktor Petrovich Gontar, who worked as the director of the Kiev Opera House. They lived a happy life together, only the spouses did not have children. Julia passed away at 65, having outlived her father by only 10 years.
Leonid and Yulia Khrushchev. Unlike his older sister, Leonid was never able to establish normal relations with his stepmother. They were very different: calm and conflict-free Nina Petrovna and explosive emotional Leonid. He was capable of any pranks and hooliganism. Perhaps it was because of this that rumors and speculation constantly arose around him.
After leaving school, the young man entered the FZU, began to work as a mechanic at a factory. However, after the transfer of Nikita Khrushchev to Moscow, Leonid entered the Balashov School of Civil Aviation. The young cadet was very attractive, which allowed him to enjoy success with women. Rosa Treivas became his first wife, but the daughter-in-law did not come to the court of an influential father and the marriage was immediately dissolved.
At the same time, Nikita Khrushchev demanded that his son recognize the child born to Esther Etinger. The son of Leonid and Esther, Yuri, later became a test pilot, died in 2003 after an accident.
Lyubov Sizykh became the second legal wife of Leonid in 1939. She surprisingly suited her husband, jumped with a parachute, skillfully drove a motorcycle. But at the same time, Love was distinguished by a more rational approach to life and managed to curb a little the violent temper of her husband. She was already growing up a son from her first marriage, and soon after the marriage, their joint daughter Julia was born. At this time, Nikita Sergeevich was already the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine.
Leonid Khrushchev and Lyubov Sizykh. Rumors about Leonid's involvement in bandit groups engaged in robberies are associated with this period. Some historians insist that Leonid Khrushchev was prosecuted for this. Others argue that nothing of the kind happened, since not a single document was found, according to which Leonid Khrushchev was prosecuted for criminal or any other crimes. The only mention of this is only in the book of Sergo Beria "My father is Lavrenty Beria". Khrushchev's relatives all, as one, claim: Leonid's connection with dubious personalities and his participation in crimes is an outright lie. Historians have never come to a consensus on this matter.
Whatever it was, Leonid Nikitovich began his military service back in the Finnish war, and from the first days of the Great Patriotic War he was already at the front, sitting at the controls of a bomber. He fought heroically, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. After being wounded, he was sent for treatment to Kuibyshev, where the whole family of Nikita Khrushchev was at that time. In the fall of 1942, Leonid Khrushchev accidentally killed a sailor, shooting for a bet at a bottle standing on the latter's head.
He was sentenced to 8 years with serving a sentence at the front, then a similar practice was applied. Returning to the front, Leonid Nikitovich got on a fighter plane and fought bravely again. In March 1943, while returning from a combat mission, the plane of Leonid Khrushchev was shot down. The area where the fighter fell was wooded and swampy. Attempts to find the crash site of the plane were unsuccessful, and after a month and a half, Leonid Khrushchev was declared missing.
The fact that Leonidas' body was not found also became the basis for speculation and provocations. They even claimed that Leonid Nikitovich surrendered and then began to cooperate with the Germans. However, pilot I. A. Zamorin, a witness to the crash of Khrushchev's plane, claims that Nikita Sergeevich's son saved his life by exposing his car, which fell apart right in front of the rescued person, under the armor-piercing attack of the Fokker.
Nikita Khrushchev with his wife and granddaughter Julia. Leonid's wife Lyubov Sizykh was arrested shortly after his death on charges of espionage. Among her acquaintances were numerous wives of foreign diplomats, and she herself allowed herself to go to a restaurant in the company of a French consul. After the arrest of his daughter-in-law, Nikita Khrushchev adopted his granddaughter Yulia, but the girls passed the half-brother to an orphanage. And even when he ran away and appeared on the threshold of the apartment where Nina Kukharchuk and her children lived in Kuibyshev, Anatoly was still returned to the orphanage.
Julia, until the age of 17, considered Nikita Sergeevich and Nina Petrovna to be her parents. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, worked at the Press Agency, and later headed the literary section of the Yermolova Theater. At all levels, she defended the honor and dignity of her grandfather, when already in the post-perestroika time, impartial programs and articles about him began to appear. She died in 2017 after being hit by a train.
Rada Adjubey. The daughter of Nikita Khrushchev and Nina Kukharchuk Rada was born two years after their first girl, Nadezhda, died. Rada graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, in her student years she married her classmate Alexei Adzhubey, who later became the chief editor of the Izvestia newspaper. Having come to work in the journal "Science and Life" I decided to get a second higher education and graduated from the Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University. Having passed all the steps of the career ladder, she became deputy editor-in-chief and worked at Science and Life until 2004.
The second son of Nikita Sergeevich graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, became a designer of rocketry, defended his doctoral dissertation and received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1991 he was invited to the United States to give a course of lectures on the history of the Cold War. There Sergey Nikitovich was offered favorable conditions for work and life. He decided to stay in America forever.
True, after emigration, he no longer studied science, but became a political scientist. Now a professor at the Institute of International Studies, he lives in the city of Providence.
Nikita Khrushchev with his daughter Elena. The youngest daughter of Nikita Sergeevich was very sick almost from childhood. In those days, they did not know how to treat systemic lupus, but Elena fought desperately with her disease. She worked at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, was married. She died at the age of 35, a year after the death of her father.
Granddaughter and stepdaughter Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev 77 year old Yulia Khrushcheva .
According to the source, the tragedy occurred in the area of the Michurinets platform of the Kiev direction of the Moscow railway, on the territory of New Moscow, at 10:35 on June 8. An elderly woman crossed paths in an unidentified place.
Information about the fact of fatal injury of an elderly woman on the railroad tracks was confirmed by the press service of the Transport Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Central Federal District.
The eldest son of Khrushchev did not return from the battle
77-year-old Yulia Khrushcheva was the daughter of Nikita Khrushchev's eldest son Leonidas.
Her mother was the second wife of Leonid Khrushchev Love Sizykh.
Leonid Khrushchev was a military pilot, took part in the Soviet-Finnish war. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War fought in the 134th Bomber Aviation Regiment, was presented to the Order of the Red Banner. After being seriously wounded in July 1941, Leonid Khrushchev recovered for a long time, and then underwent retraining as a fighter pilot, and in December 1942 he was sent to the 18th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment.
On March 11, 1943, Leonid Khrushchev did not return to the airfield after a combat flight. According to the testimony of fellow soldiers, his plane was shot down in battle. To establish the fate of the son of a prominent party leader, large-scale searches were organized, but they did not produce any result. Leonid Khrushchev was excluded from the lists of the unit as missing.
Why Nikita Khrushchev's granddaughter became his adopted daughter
It was suggested that Khrushchev's son could be captured, or even surrender deliberately and begin to cooperate with the Nazis. However, no real evidence of this version was found.
During the years of perestroika, another hypothesis became popular, according to which Leonid Khrushchev was shot by order Stalin for some crime, and the decision to shoot was not canceled, despite all the pleas of Nikita Khrushchev.
However, in this case, no evidence could be found. According to the testimony of people close to Nikita Khrushchev, in particular, translator Viktor Sukhodrev, the Soviet leader remembered his son as having died in the war.
Shortly after Leonid Khrushchev went missing, his wife was arrested on espionage charges. She was sentenced to 5 years in prison, after which she was exiled to Kazakhstan.
Little Julia was taken to his upbringing by her grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev. The granddaughter became the adopted daughter of a politician. That is why Yulia Khrushcheva called him "dad" and not grandfather all her life. Julia met her mother only in 1957.
Nikita Seregeevich Khrushchev with his daughter Julia. Photo of 1967. Photo: RIA Novosti / A. Solomonov
Lyubov Sizykh survived her husband by seven decades - she passed away in 2014, at the 102nd year of life.
Yulia Khrushcheva worked as a journalist, but became disillusioned with the profession and went to the theater
It should be noted that there were two Yulias in the Khrushchev family. Yulia Nikitichna Khrushcheva, the eldest daughter of Nikita Khrushchev, was born in 1916. He was married to Viktor Gontar, director of the Kiev Opera... Khrushchev's daughter died in 1981.
Yulia Leonidovna Khrushcheva, granddaughter and adopted daughter of Nikita Khrushchev, was born in 1940. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of the Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, worked for a long time at the Novosti Press Agency.
Then, disillusioned with journalism, she got a job at the theater. M.N. Ermolova, the head of the literary department. Among her acquaintances were Vasily Aksenov, Evgeny Evtushenko,Vladimir Vysotsky.
"New York is a terrible city!"
Yulia Khrushcheva's daughter Nina has been living and working in New York for many years. Yulia Khrushcheva herself, in a few interviews, admitted that she happens to her daughter, but she cannot live in New York permanently, since she does not like the city.
Yulia Khrushcheva with her daughter Ksenia. Photo: RIA Novosti / A. Solomonov
In 2011, in an interview with the Ukrainian newspaper Fakty, Yulia Khrushcheva said: “It is very difficult for me to get used to this city. I remember how dad, talking at some event about his first trip to America, said: “I must tell you, comrades, that New York is terrible city! ". Now, having visited my daughter, I understand how this metropolis suppressed it. Nikita Sergeevich loved the forest, the river, the field, nature, and the protruding tall houses and gorges-streets between them simply oppressed him. And every time I go out on the street in New York - and it is especially "impressive" in the summer - I must say: "I must tell you, comrades, that New York is a terrible city!"
According to the REN TV channel, law enforcement agencies are considering several versions of the tragedy at the Michurinets station, including suicide.
Exactly 40 years ago, the former head of the Soviet state Nikita Khrushchev died
The first granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, Julia, was born in 1939 in Moscow. When the war began, her grandmother, Nina Petrovna Khrushcheva, evacuating with her three children to Kuibyshev (now Samara), took her daughter-in-law Lyuba and her granddaughter with her. Julia's father, Leonid Khrushchev, died at the front in 1943. Shortly thereafter, her mother was arrested on suspicion of espionage. The four-year-old girl stayed in Kuibyshev with Nina Petrovna, called her mom, and Nikita Sergeevich - dad. And he still treats them like family.
Now 72-year-old Yulia Leonidovna lives in Moscow.
“On the day of the funeral, the newspaper Pravda published a short message:“ Personal pensioner Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev died ”
- On September 1, 1971, Nikita Sergeevich called us home from his dacha in Petrovo-Dalny, - says Yulia Khrushcheva... - On this day, my daughter Nina went to first grade, and great-grandfather congratulated her on the beginning of her working life. A few days later, he was hospitalized with a heart attack at the Kuntsevo hospital. There dad was treated, he felt a little better. But the heart of a 77-year-old man still could not stand it. Doctors are not gods, especially since this heart attack was not the first ...
On the day of Nikita Sergeevich's death, the weather was warm and sunny in Moscow. As soon as I found out about my dad's death, I immediately went to Granovsky Street, where he lived with Nina Petrovna. There were already Sergei, Rada (son and daughter of Nikita Sergeevich. - Author). We were going to discuss the place and time of the funeral, but from the Administrative Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU we were told: "We are burying on Monday at the Novodevichy cemetery." Actually, it was not help, but the organization of the process. For some reason, the civil funeral service in the hospital morgue was scheduled for 11 a.m. We asked to postpone the beginning of the farewell for a couple of hours later so that the relatives could move in, but they refused us, they say, we need to strictly adhere to the schedule.
I think all this was done on purpose. The fewer people who came to say goodbye to Khrushchev, the better for the authorities.
- And they got their way?
- Not really. On Saturday, my father died, and on Monday the newspaper Pravda published a short message: “Personal pensioner Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev died”. Then there were no such radio stations as Kommersant-FM or Echo of Moscow - people learned the news from the morning newspapers. And we also have many relatives in Kiev (including the daughter of Nikita Khrushchev from his first marriage, Julia with her husband Viktor Gontar. - Auth.), and in other cities - not everyone had time to arrive.
Nevertheless, many people came to say goodbye to Khrushchev. Then the procession moved to the Novodevichy Convent, where they suddenly announced ... a cleaning day. Therefore, all approaches to the monastery were blocked by militiamen. Only foreign journalists and some of the Soviet ones were allowed through, with their IDs. However, one of my acquaintances, completely not Russian in appearance, who looked like a Tatar, introduced himself as the grandson of Nikita Sergeevich, and, oddly enough, he was also allowed to pass.
The funeral bus drove into the monastery gates at high speed and, bypassing the farewell platform, drove right up to the freshly dug grave. So they wanted to get rid of Khrushchev as soon as possible! Although, as you understand, there could not have been any worries then. People stood silently near the grave. A pouring autumn rain began to fall. Sergei Nikitich said: “Today even nature says goodbye to Nikita Sergeevich. Father was a man to whom no one was indifferent. He was either loved or hated ... "
Then came a woman, one of the victims of the GULAG, and Vadim, Sergei's classmate, the son of the repressed. That's the whole funeral service!
Mom arranged the funeral at the dacha. There we discussed with her, Sergei Nikitich and Sergo Mikoyan, which monument to put on the grave. We decided to contact Ernst Unknown. A couple of days later, Sergei contacted the brilliant sculptor, and he got down to work.
True, the monument was not allowed to be erected for a very long time. They said: "Make it smaller and not black and white, but red, not marble, but some other." Finally, in 1973, they gave the go-ahead. When the monument was being erected, it rained again, as on the day of the funeral.
“If our whole class left the astronomy lesson, only my parents and the parents of Nina Budennaya were called from school”
- Having become a member of the family, as they say now, of a government official, did you go to an elite school in the first grade?
- Well, what are you! The school was the most ordinary, a stone's throw from home, so that it was convenient to walk. Until the fourth grade, I studied at the 61st Kiev school on Melnikova Street, on Lukyanovka. We lived nearby, in a mansion on Osievskaya Street (now Artem Street. - Author). For some time after the liberation of Kiev, we still lived in Moscow, and in 1944 we settled in this mansion among the greenery, chestnuts and birdsong. It was this nature that Nikita Sergeevich adored.
In January 1949 they moved to Moscow. We lived in a state-owned apartment in the Government House on Granovskogo Street. Here the school was also a stone's throw from home, on Semashko Street, now it's some kind of Sredny Kislovsky Lane. I remember there was a terrible frost on the street, and I really missed Kiev in cold Moscow.
- You, the granddaughter of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, did you receive concessions in your studies?
- If our whole class left the astronomy lesson, only my parents and the parents of Nina Budennaya were called from school. Nobody else. And so - for any reason. We studied in the same class with Nina Budyonnaya, lived in the same house and are still friends.
The humanitarian subjects were given to me very well, but I don't remember anything from the natural sciences. Unless, how many will be twice two. Once Nikita Sergeevich helped me solve a math problem. He easily grasped any technically difficult things. If dad had graduated, he could have become an outstanding engineer. I didn’t go for any medal, but I got a pretty decent certificate, with several grades in subjects I didn’t like.
- You graduated from high school in 1956. At the same time, the historical XX Congress of the CPSU took place, at which Nikita Khrushchev made a closed report on the cult of personality ...
- This report of Khrushchev was sent out for acquaintance only to party organizations. But in our school the wonderful teacher Amalia Arkadyevna taught history. In one of the lessons, she told us about the personality cult. In fact, in 1956, the topic of the personality cult was not discussed in schools. I don’t think that Amalia Arkadyevna had any special instructions in this regard, it’s just that she, as a professional historian, decided to tell the high school students about it.
- Did you know that Nikita Sergeevich and Nina Petrovna are your adoptive parents?
- I knew. But the fact that my father died at the front in 1943, and my mother lives and works in Kazakhstan, only learned before entering Moscow State University. Nina Petrovna told me about this so that I could fill out the applicant's application form correctly. A year later, when I turned 17, I met my mother.
Nina Petrovna was strict, restrained, very correct. It had everything: household, children, school. I think that she consulted with her husband only on global issues and did not jerk him over trifles.
Nina Petrovna treated her duties as a wife and mother very responsibly. I cooked, cleaned, embroidered well and taught me a lot, even darn, which no one does now. Mom was always collected and energetic. When she was already living alone in Zhukovka - and Nina Petrovna died at 84 - she maintained perfect order in the house.
For some time before entering the university, my daughter Nina lived with her great-grandmother and became very friendly with her. Sending my daughter to Nina Petrovna, I knew that everything would be all right with her.
I am insanely grateful to Nikita Sergeevich and Nina Petrovna for everything, including the severity that reigned in our house.
“The day after his resignation, Nikita Sergeevich recited Nekrasov:“ Late autumn. The rooks flew away ... "
- What holiday was loved the most in the Khrushchev family?
- May Day. And Nikita Sergeevich's favorite dish was potato pancakes with sour cream. As well as mine. And he called them in the Ukrainian way, because the Russians say "draniki". Nina Petrovna cooked them wonderfully. When, after the death of her husband, she lived in the country, I tried to come to her without warning. Because my mother was definitely preparing for my arrival: she cooked Ukrainian borscht, fried potato pancakes.
- Deruny go well with vodka.
- What do you! Dad was absolutely indifferent to drinking. Once, at the dacha in Petrovo-Dalny, I sipped wine. And then he did not allow me to get behind the wheel in order to go back, although I did not drink, but simply lifted the glass to my lips!
Nikita Sergeevich also loved to eat watermelon ... with white bread. I think I learned this when I lived in Ukraine.
-Did your grandfather like to remember the Ukrainian period?
- Nikita Sergeevich loved Ukraine very much, but he said almost nothing about this period of his life. He was not a very talkative person, most often he spent time thinking. He loved to listen to Ukrainian songs on the "Dnepr" tape recorder. We recorded the singing of Ukrainian nightingales for him on a tape recorder. And Khrushchev preferred to rest in the Crimea, in Livadia.
On the beach, he always read, swam a little. I have never played dominoes or cards. I thought that these activities were stupid. I agree with him. When I see cards in people's hands, I am a beast, just like Nikita Sergeevich.
Our large family was fond of theater. We listened to all the operas at the Bolshoi. And they didn’t try, as the theater-goers do now, to get exclusively to the premiere. Then, and such a word was not heard. Nikita Sergeevich could raise his eyes from the newspaper and say: "Shouldn't we go to the theater?" I still love opera, I recognize Eugene Onegin from any note. We walked to Bolshoi from Granovskiy Street, through Aleksandrovskiy Garden and Manezhnaya Square.
- Do you remember the day of the resignation of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU?
- It happened on October 13, 1964. It was a dry, warm autumn in Moscow. I lived with my little daughter in the country. The fact that the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU satisfied the application of 70-year-old Khrushchev on retirement, I learned on October 14. I immediately went to the Lenin Hills, where Nikita Sergeevich's family lived in a government mansion. Mom was not there, she was resting in Karlovy Vary, and my dad and I spent the whole day together. He asked: "Are you free?" - "Free". - "Do you want to go to the dacha?" - "Of course!"
In the evening I was expecting guests, so I wanted to call back home, warn and clarify something. But Nikita Sergeevich said: "The phone is off!" and asked: "Do you need to come back?" “No, I'll go later,” I replied.
He and I collected fallen red-crimson maple leaves and talked about Nekrasov. Dad was very fond of the work of this poet, he knew many of his poems by heart. And on October 14, on the Lenin Hills, Nikita Sergeevich recited “Late autumn. The rooks flew away ... "
- What expression of Nikita Sergeevich do you remember?
- My daughter Nina has been living and working in New York for 20 years. And it is very difficult for me to get used to this city. I remember how dad, talking at some event about his first trip to America, said: "I must tell you, comrades, that New York is a terrible city!"
Now, having visited my daughter, I understand how this metropolis suppressed it. Nikita Sergeevich loved the forest, the river, the field, nature, and the protruding tall houses and gorges-streets between them simply oppressed him.
And every time I go out on the street in New York - and it is especially "impressive" in the summer - I must say: "I must tell you, comrades, that New York is a terrible city!"