Hello, children. I am Evdokia Petrov. You may have heard my name before; I was part of what is now known as the Petrov Affair. The Petrov Affair can be hard to understand and there are many misconceptions surrounding it. I hope that after today everything will be cleared up.
Before my husband Vladmir and I arrived in Australia, we had been part of the Soviet State Security system or the KGB for twenty years. We worked on cyphers and cryptanalysis which means deciphering codes without being told the key. You may have heard about something called Stalin’s Great Terror. During the 1930s, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin killed anyone who he considered disloyal and sent around 20 million people to labour camps, called Gulags in which half of them died. I was involved with administering the Gulags. My husband and I were part of those purges and survived them.
We arrived at the Soviet embassy in Canberra in 1951 and upon arriving I was given the position of a
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He assured me that I would be safe and
Both Vladmir and I were granted Australian citizenship on 12 October 1956. In addition to this we were promised protection and a safe house located in Melbourne. However, despite this Vladmir and I lived and still live in constant fear of being assassinated and we have good reason to be. The KGB have placed us on a wanted list and are condemned to death. As you can imagine, this is not pleasant.
We are now trying to start a new life. We have been given new identities- we are no longer Vladmir and Evdokia Petrov but Sven and Maria Allyson. We have new jobs- Vladmir has a job at a photographic company and I am a typist for a private company. In my spare time I volunteer at Meals on Wheels and in his, Vladmir likes to watch Australian Rules football and partake in rabbit shooting. Last year in 1974, Vladmir had a series of strokes. He is now at Mount Royal Geriatric Hospital in Parkville. Hopefully he will get out