Liliana Gasinskaya
Liliana Leonidovna Gasinskaya (Russian: Лилиана Леонидовна Гасинская; Ukrainian: Ліліана Леонідівна Гасинська, Liliana Leonidivna Hasynska) is a woman who defected from the Soviet Union in 1979. On board a Soviet cruise ship, SS Leonid Sobinov (Black Sea Shipping Company), in Sydney Harbour, Gasinskaya slipped out of a porthole wearing only a red bikini (earning her the nickname "The Girl in the Red Bikini").[1][2][3]
A debate ensued over whether then Immigration Minister Michael MacKellar should grant Gasinskaya asylum or deport her, as was customary for other ship deserters. Despite her unspecified claims of repression, which one commentator sneered may have been "the shops in Russia are boring", she was allowed to remain.[3][4]
She later earned $15,000 as the first nude centerfold in Australia's edition of Penthouse magazine.[3]
References
- Soviet defectors: the KGB wanted list. Hoover Press. 1985. pp. 135–. ISBN 9780817982331.
- Anderson, Zoe (2012). "Borders, babies, and "good refugees": Australian representations of "illegal" immigration, 1979". Journal of Australian Studies. 36 (4): 499–514. doi:10.1080/14443058.2012.727449. ISSN 1444-3058.
The most striking contrast in the ways in which refugees/boat people were depicted was through the high-profile story of Liliana Gasinskaya...
- "Cabinet papers 1979: Liliana Gasinskaya: Red Bikini Girl". The Sydney Morning Herald. 1 January 2010. Retrieved 10 May 2013.
- "Liliana no braver than Viet refugees". The Age. 23 January 1979. Retrieved 10 May 2013.
External links
- Eduard Anriushchenko. A girl in red bikini. Declassified KGB case (Дівчина в червоному бікіні. Розсекречена справа КГБ). Istorychna Pravda (Ukrayinska Pravda). 10 December 2020.