The extraordinary defection of the ‘Red Bikini Girl’: Secret file reveals how a glamorous Soviet teenager, 18, jumped off a cruise ship into Sydney Harbour to start a new life 41 years ago
- Ukrainian Liliana Gasinskaya jumped off a cruise liner in Sydney Harbour in 1979
- Gasinskaya, 18, was wearing only a swimsuit and was dubbed the ‘Red Bikini Girl’
- The glamorous teen, who posed naked for Penthouse, was given political asylum
- She later became a dancer and actor in TV shows including The Young Doctors
- Papers from the KGB file into Gasinskaya’s defection have finally been released
Soviet defector Liliana Gasinskaya, 18, jumped from a cruise ship in Sydney Harbour and swam ashore seeking asylum in 1979
It was a rare splash of colour in the Cold War when a young Soviet woman wearing only a red bikini squeezed through a porthole of a cruise liner to swim ashore in Sydney Harbour.
‘BEAUTY FLEES RED LINER’ the Daily Mirror afternoon tabloid’s headline read two days after 18-year-old Liliana Gasinskaya’s arrival.
Gasinskaya was given political asylum in Australia and became a nude centrefold for Penthouse magazine which ran the cover line: ‘The Red Bikini Girl – Without The Bikini.’
The glamorous Ukrainian made her brave swim for freedom 41 years ago, but only now have papers from the KGB file into her startling defection been released.
Gasinskaya was a lift attendant and waitress on the crew of cruise ship SS Leonid Sobinov which operated from the Black Sea port of Odessa.
After her defection she made international news as the ‘Red Bikini Girl’, having swum ashore in Pyrmont and in broken English asked a man walking his dog for clothes and assistance.
The Mirror found her before Soviet or Australian authorities could track her down and kept Gasinskaya under wraps in a secret location for a series of exclusive reports and bikini photographs.
‘I put on my red bikini and left my ring on my finger because I knew that I could not carry anything at all with me otherwise I might be caught,’ Gasinskaya (pictured) told a reporter. ‘I climbed on to the bed and squeezed through the porthole and fell into the harbour’
After her defection Gasinskaya made international news as the ‘Red Bikini Girl’, having swum ashore in Pyrmont and in broken English asked a man walking his dog for clothes and assistance. She is pictured on board SS Leonid Sobinov before reaching Sydney
Gasinskaya was given political asylum in Australia and became a nude centrefold for the first issue of Australian Penthouse which ran the cover line: ‘The Red Bikini Girl – Without The Bikini’
Readers loved Gasinskaya’s story of first falling in love with Australia when she saw pictures in a magazine and the hatred she had felt her communist homeland since childhood.
‘I put on my red bikini and left my ring on my finger because I knew that I could not carry anything at all with me otherwise I might be caught,’ she told the newspaper.
‘I climbed on to the bed and squeezed through the porthole and fell into the harbour.’
We now know the Leonid Sobinov’s KGB officer himself followed her ashore, asking Australians in the port area if they had seen her, showing them her photograph.
When this failed, the liner continued without Gasinskaya to Melbourne and a Young Communists – or Komsomol – meeting was called on board.
Her KGB file shows that the group’s secretary Y Makhlaichuk minuted his disgust at Gasinskaya’s betrayal.
‘It is bitter and insulting,’ he concluded. ‘For peace on earth, our parents shed blood, gave their lives.
The Daily Mirror found Gasinskaya before Soviet or Australian authorities could track her down and kept her under wraps in a secret location for a series of exclusive reports and bikini photographs. Pictured: The 18-year-old’s Soviet passport
Readers loved Gasinskaya’s story of first falling in love with Australia when she saw pictures in a magazine and the hatred she had felt her communist homeland since childhood. News clippings about her exploits from around the world were kept in her KGB file (pictured)
‘Gasinskaya’s treacherous act amazed me, shocked everyone who is on duty here, far from their homeland and their relatives.’
The night before she fled, Gasinskaya had complained of a headache and avoided a crew party, the file noted. That was January 14, 1979.
A piece of paper was found on the ship on which she had practised key English words she might need in Australia, including how to ask for ‘refuge’.
Gasinskaya, the daughter of a musician father and actress mother, swam ashore without her money, passport or other documents, which remained in her cabin.
Meanwhile, back in the USSR a criminal case was opened against her by the KGB with senior lieutenant Nikolai Shumilo, 29, put in charge.
He analysed Gasinskaya’s press conference in Australia and concluded that she had been coached ‘by the secret services or an anti-Soviet organisation’, but he also noted that she had no access to state secrets.
The glamorous Ukrainian made her brave swim for freedom 41 years ago, but only now have papers from the KGB file into her startling defection been released. Pictured is the cover of the criminal case against Gasinskaya. The blue stamp in top right corner says ‘Declassified’
Gasinskaya, the daughter of a musician father and actress mother, swam ashore without her money and passport, which remained in her cabin. Pictured from top left to right are Gasinskaya’s birth certificate, domestic passport, sailor’s passport and other documents
Still, Shumilo did not rule out that Western intelligence had somehow contrived her escape as a propaganda coup.
Cuttings from Western papers were stashed in the file, now declassified by the SBU, the secret service in modern-day Ukraine, where Gasinskaya originally came from.
After Gasinskaya’s defection a criminal case was opened by the KGB headed by senior lieutenant Nikolai Shumilo (pictured)
It was noted that before leaving Odessa on her first foreign cruise Gasinskaya had social contact with sailors from Greece, Italy and the United States, as well as Iraqi cadets.
She bought ‘fashionable foreign items’ from them, to which she was ‘clearly not indifferent’.
The ship had voyaged from Odessa to Southampton where it picked up passengers for the trip via the Mediterranean and Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean to Australia.
The operator was a British travel agency, which leased the Soviet ship and its crew.
The file indicates there was a retrospective attempt to besmirch the Red Bikini Girl.
Gasinskaya had bad working habits and tried to socialise with foreign passengers which was strictly prohibited, it stated.
‘As I learned, she began to meet with some foreigners and kiss at night on the passenger decks,’ stated the ship’s captain Konstantin Nikitin in his KGB interrogation over her defection.
Soviet investigator Nikolai Shumilo analysed Gasinskaya’s press conference in Australia and concluded that she had been coached ‘by the secret services or an anti-Soviet organisation’, but he also noted that she had no access to state secrets. Pictured is her sailor’s passport
Gasinskaya had been reprimanded on the voyage over her supposed interest in foreign men, but she ‘defiantly’ ignored the warnings saying she wanted to improve her English.
She was twice transferred to other positions, to keep her away from foreigners.
The file claims Gasinskaya had secretly gone to the cabin of an English musician on board, and then denied a charge of theft when he complained that his possessions were missing.
It also made clear Gasinskaya was being watched by the crew and that during shore leave in Fremantle before reaching Sydney she had sought to flee but was stopped by loyal Soviets.
‘We studied everything – what this person did, how she was brought up, her character, hobbies, what she was interested in, what she read, in order to substantiate the motives for committing a wrongful act,’ said Shumilo, now a well-known lawyer and university professor in Kiev.
A piece of paper was found on the ship on which Gasinkaya had practised key English words she might need in Australia, including how to ask for ‘refuge’. The note (pictured) formed part of her recently released KGB file
Unlike many defectors, Gasinskaya (left) was not prosecuted in absentia for treason, which was punishable by up to 15 years in jail or even execution. Her passport is pictured right
The file concluded ‘the motives that prompted Gasinskaya to illegally go abroad were her political naivety, frivolity, moral decline, desire for a “beautiful life” and unwillingness to work.’
Gasinskaya was granted Australian residency by the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Michael Mackellar who accepted her refugee status just four days after she swam ashore.
Unlike many Soviet defectors, Gasinskaya was not prosecuted in absentia for treason, which was punishable by up to 15 years in jail or even execution.
She was charged in the USSR only with ‘illegal travel abroad’.
Her KGB file also states that Gasinskaya’s letters back to her family from Australia were confiscated.
She told how she had settled in her new country and ‘asked forgiveness from her relatives’.
Posing for the first Australian edition of Penthouse, for which she was paid $15,000, Gasinskaya said: ‘In Russia, we don’t do these things or anything that could be considered sexy.’ She is pictured recently
There was criticism at the time in Australia that refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia had more credible grounds for asylum, risking their lives on rickety boats fleeing war-torn countries.
But Mr MacKellar said that Gasinskaya had ‘showed initiative’ and others rejected claims the Ukrainian had been given favourable treatment simply because she was white and filled out a bikini.
One newspaper commentator wrote, ‘Without being sexist I would say that being young and nubile makes her a desirable immigrant for the simple social reason that our past immigration programs have left us with a surplus of young, single men.’
The year after her escape Gasinskaya was stripped of her Soviet citizenship.
Gasinskaya had a relationship with Daily Mirror photographer Graeme Fletcher under whose management she found work as a professional disco dancer and DJ and appeared on TV shows including The Young Doctors.
Posing for the first Australian edition of Penthouse, for which she was paid $15,000, Gasinskaya said: ‘In Russia, we don’t do these things or anything that could be considered sexy.’
A marriage to Sydney property developer Ian Hayson in 1984 faltered four years later and Gasinkaya moved to London where she and her family have lived out of the limelight.
Gasinskaya (pictured) married Sydney property developer Ian Hayson in 1984 but that union faltered in 1990. She moved to London where she and her family have lived out of the limelight
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