How does a girl in a red biкini live, who escaped from the USSR 40 years ago through the porthole of a ship
She was only 18, she was wearing only a red bikini, and inside — a burning desire to never again try the Soviet stew and forget what the queues are.
After her escape from the cruise ship, the Australian press wrote that people were ready to flee the Union even in shorts.
Simple Soviet girl Lilya made the red bikini mainstream long before Pamela Anderson. True, now she is known to the world under a different name — Liliana Gasinskaya.
Thanks to her, the Australians were convinced how beautiful Soviet women are, and most importantly, how brave. Escape from the country by swimming, at night, in one swimsuit, through a bay with sharks — all for the sake of a beautiful life from a picture from a magazine.
Lilya was born in a small village near Odessa. As a teenager, she realized that communism was not her way. So, probably, other Soviet citizens also thought,
but only a select few could buy a ticket and wave abroad, as people do now. For the rest, there were two options — to endure or run.
From the age of 14, she began to prepare an escape plan in secret from friends and family. The plan was risky and capital. For the sake of this, Lilya entered the Odessa School of Sailors, so that one day she could get a job as a waitress on a cruise ship bound for Australia,
and in the parking lot quietly slip away into a happy new life. By the way, when later in an interview she was asked why Australia, the girl, like a robot, repeated the learned phrase,
they say she saw a photo in a magazine, some kind of Australian landscape, and realized that this is the best place on earth.
In fact, everything turned out to be not so simple. In January 1979, Lily got a job as a waitress on the Leonid Sobinov cruise liner.
She made her first attempt to escape at the Fremantle parking lot, but one of the crew members prevented her. Then in Melbourne, too, did not work out.
The stop time at Sydney was running out, and the girl did not want to return to the Union. Therefore, at night, when the ship anchored near Sydney Bay, Lilya decided to swim to the shore.
I was not even afraid of the sharks that are found in the bay. The thought of her compatriots seemed much more terrible to her. Those who will rush in pursuit, and even more — those with whom a conversation will take place in the homeland.
In the morning she put on her red bathing suit, from the things she could grab only a ring, the rest she left in the cabin. She climbed through the porthole and plunged into the water.
She swam for about 40 minutes. I had to dodge the searchlight beam: either go under water, or float up.
It was cold, and now, exhausted, already swimming to the ground, she realized that she would also have to climb onto the pier. This took at least half an hour.
Blue from the cold, covered in abrasions and bruises, a girl in a red bikini was seen by passers-by. More precisely, Lily herself rushed to the man walking the dog.
In broken English, she explained that she was a Soviet citizen, had fled the country and was seeking asylum in Australia.
With this «enchanting» appearance on Australian soil, the history of the popularity of the Soviet fugitive began. Lily instantly became a sensation.
On the same day, the editors of the Australian Daily Mirror took her under the wing, Lily was settled in the house of the publication’s photographer.
In the meantime, Soviet diplomats made a request to their colleagues from Australia demanding that the USSR citizen be returned to the ship. Liliana begged to be left in Australia and wasted no time.
One after another, the newspaper published interviews with a girl who «ran away from the» red «ship.» 18-year-old Lilya easily agreed to a photo in a bikini, and soon the photographer of the Daily Mirror, Graham Fletcher, a husband and father of three children
, left the family for the Odessa woman. He became her first patron, helped to obtain a residence permit. However, Liliana became a celebrity in Australia without his help — the authorities,
the press and society were on the side of the fugitive. Gasinskaya received refugee status on the second day of her arrival in a foreign country.
At the suggestion of her lover, the young girl graduated from modeling school, later took up dancing, was a DJ, participated in a TV show, and even starred in the Young Doctors program.
To live as she dreamed — “beaches, cocktails and freedom”, money was needed. Therefore, in 1979, Gasinskaya agreed to a candid shoot for Penthouse magazine. She appeared on the cover. The inscription read: «Girl in a red bikini without a bikini.»
Liliana posed in a thong and a mesh cape that were inaccessible even to the thoughts of Soviet citizens. It was the first Soviet woman on the cover of a men’s magazine. Inside, the photos were even more revealing.
“In Australia, Liliana needs to acclimate to a warmer lifestyle, in many ways. People are warmer here too. In a new country, she feels like a part of it,
opens up new career opportunities and an unfamiliar feeling of being famous, ”the article accompanying the photos says.
The romance with the photographer did not last long. In 1984, she married a prominent Sydney businessman and investor, Ian Hyson. After that, Liliana disappeared from the screens and newspapers.
Apparently, the husband wanted to see the image of a more modest wife next to him. They broke up after six years. Just as quietly as they lived in marriage.
No scandals, no information about the division of property. No one knows how much money Hyson left the beauty during the divorce. It is only known that after parting, she left Australia, with which she «was one.»
And she began to consider herself a part of Britain: Gasinskaya settled in London, received a passport of a British citizen. She remarried and had two sons. Passionate about spiritual practices and meditation. She stopped answering questions from the media: Liliana lives a closed life and tries not to remember her turbulent past.
