Kremlin starlet: Stalin's niece honestly told the family story

The Alliluyev family, Joseph Stalin's inner circle, has long remained one of the most closed and mythologized spaces in Soviet history. Irina Deshkova's book "Kirusya. Stalin's Niece", based on the diaries and tape recordings of Kira Alliluyeva-Politkovskaya found in 2025, for the first time gives the floor to a person who grew up inside this reality. She spent her childhood in the Kremlin and the Government House, her youth in the theater, and her maturity was broken by arrest and exile, followed by rehabilitation, work on television, and late publicity. In her first—person account, the family chronicle is intertwined with vivid portraits of key figures of the twentieth century, from Lenin and Kirov to Vysotsky and Raikin. On the eve of the premiere, Izvestia publishes an exclusive fragment of the book.

Irina Deshkova, "Kirusya. Stalin's Niece" (fragment)

House No. 2 on Serafimovich Street, the so-called Government House, later, after the publication of Yuri Trifonov's novel, became known as the House on the embankment, was intended for "state Kremlin people."

Now few people remember that until 1933, this street was not at all proletarian named Vsekhsvyatskaya and only then was named after the writer Alexander Serafimovich, I don't know for what reason. Perhaps because he was also on the list of important people and, as they said, moved into his apartment in our house one of the first.

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Perched between the Moskva River and the Obvodny Canal, the Government House looked huge and very uncomfortable, a colossus with different heights from 9 to 11 floors, and even a terrible gray color. The lives of those who moved in there turned out to be so terrible later.… There were rumors that all this was not for nothing, that gravestones from the cemetery located near the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on Bersenevka were used to build the foundation. At first, they decided to demolish it, but then they changed their minds, only the bell tower was destroyed, and the graves were razed to the ground. It turned out to be a strange neighborhood — a government house and a church very close by, albeit closed…

By the way, everyone says "house" out of habit, but in fact it is a large residential complex consisting of eight buildings, it has 25 entrances and 505 apartments. Moscow has never seen such huge buildings. I read somewhere that until 1952 it was the tallest in the capital. And yet, according to the original plan, it was supposed to coat its walls with pink granite chips so that the building would harmonize with the color of the Kremlin walls. As they say, no comments.

The Government House was designed by architect Boris Mikhailovich Iofan. Born in Odessa and educated in Italy, he apparently decided that Moscow had the same climate as in the south, and built us such porches and such huge windows that the wind was blowing in the rooms. We moved into our apartment when it was still snowing. The building was unfinished, and of the 25 entrances, only those facing the Kremlin were ready. In addition, countless hordes of cockroaches lived there, which, no matter what they did, they could not bring out. They were brought in from their barracks by construction workers.

The apartments with oak parquet floors were large, but uncomfortable, with rooms of 30 meters, long corridors and back passages. The kitchens had gas stoves, hot and cold water in the taps, and bathrooms, which at that time was considered an unheard-of luxury. Most people cooked on kerosene stoves and went to the baths or washed at home in troughs.

Instead of today's Variety Theater, there was a club with different clubs. He was named A.I. Rykov, probably because it was he, then a big man in the Kremlin, who headed the commission for the construction of this complex. And Alexey Ivanovich lived right there in the house. This is where he was arrested in 1937.…

I didn't go to the club, I didn't like it there. Here, in the house, there was a kindergarten and a nursery, tennis courts and a sports hall, a cinema "Udarnik", a post office, a store, a grocery store downstairs, an industrial goods store upstairs, and a hairdresser.

I accompanied my mother there more than once. At that time, they washed their hair with simple soap — there were no shampoos — and made soap suds in the basin. Later, stores began selling soap, grated and packaged in bags.

Then short haircuts became fashionable, and hair was curled and styled in waves. Mom also cut her hair short. But she had a braid that was kept in a special box, and from time to time she "put it on" for special occasions.

Our apartment No. 34 was located in entrance No. 2 on the seventh floor, after some time we moved to entrance No. 10, to be honest, I don't remember why. But that happened later, but for now… Seven people lived in five rooms. Besides our family, grandfather Sergey Yakovlevich and my mother's sister, Aunt Katya. Grandmother Olga Evgenievna, who no longer got along with her grandfather at that time, lived separately in the Kremlin as Stalin's mother-in-law.

The furniture in the apartment is all official, with inventory numbers, but solid. Every year, a special person came to us with a large barn book. And according to the records in it, I checked whether all the state property was safe and sound with the residents. My mother was not upset by this state of affairs, she had an amazing talent for creating comfort around herself with the help of the simplest things: an elegant tablecloth, several paintings. They loved flowers in our house, they were always placed on the table in a large room. Dad preferred lilies of the valley, and Mom preferred forget—me-nots. They brought roses and peonies for my birthday, and in the spring they brought a sprig of mimosa.

In the large room, several delicate watercolors hung on the wall: landscapes and barefoot dancers. Perhaps they were not among the masterpieces of world painting — we would not have had enough money for masterpieces in Germany — but they looked very elegant (in 1926, Stalin sent Kira's father, the brother of the leader's wife, to Germany to work at the Technopromimport, and a year later his family. — Ed.). And there were two oil paintings. I especially liked the one where the two dancers from the Music Hall were painted; I don't know where they went after that.

One of our family's privileges was the "Kremlin lunch." He relied on the old Bolsheviks, that is, his grandfather, cost him half the price and was very tasty. At first, dinners were served on Granovsky Street, and then in our house near the entrance to the club.

Lunch could be eaten in the dining room, but many preferred to take it home. We had pans for this occasion — such convenient pots with a common handle that were placed on top of each other.

I often brought my classmates home to feed them, because they lived very poorly. I was terribly embarrassed that I was living better, but I brought them anyway: at least they would eat normally.

Then, when my mother, my father's sister, Anna Sergeevna, and I were imprisoned, my four brothers — two relatives and two cousins aged 16 to 19—were saved from starvation by these "Kremlin dinners." Grandma Olga Evgenyevna shared them with the guys, but I'll tell you about that later.

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My grandfather also had the right to use a car from the Kremlin garage. He was assigned an old Lincoln, which Lenin once drove. A black convertible with leather all over the inside. My grandfather used it to go to his dacha in Zubalovo with me. He also got a Lenin driver, he had a funny snub nose, and like his former boss, he wore a cap.

He loved to remember: "And sometimes, Vladimir Ilyich ..." And took his hands off the steering wheel, the car rolled by itself! I was just petrified. Of course, there was no such traffic in the city as there is now, but the road is the road. Grandpa treated such "revelations" calmly, you know, he chuckled into his moustache, but for the sake of order, he still said: "It doesn't hurt to let go of the steering wheel!" The driver caught himself, apologized, and we drove safely to Uncle Joseph's dacha, that is, Stalin.

Gradually, I got used to our new home. Life went back to normal. Dad began to wear a military uniform again — armored troops, he worked in the GUM building. Then it was divided into two parts. One part is a store, the other is different institutions, military departments. From there, Dad was taken to the hospital and taken away with strange signs of poisoning.…

Mom took care of the household and our upbringing. We also had a housekeeper. However, these housekeepers often changed, because most of them came from the village. They work for a few months, and then they get a job at the factory, from servants to real proletarians; not old aunts, but almost girls, 17-18 years old. I was only 14 years old at the time. I quickly found a common language with them, and we bullied together. They treated my mother very well. She was a quick, handy woman, and usually did everything herself without waiting for outside help. People she knew would say to her, "Evgenia Alexandrovna, why do you need a housekeeper, you do everything yourself!"