Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

In 1941 she worked in the rezidenturain Washington with her hus-

band Vasily Zarubinand was successful in recruiting and running

agents. In order to gather information about the U.S. nuclear weapons

program, she persuaded Maria Konnenkova, a female NKVDstaff

officer, to seduce Albert Einstein and recruit him as a source. Ac-

cording to NKVD records, the seduction was successful although the

recruitment was not.

An American counterintelligenceagent for the Federal Bureau of

Investigation remembered Zarubina as a “frail, pretty, middle-aged

woman with an aristocratic manner.” The agent noted: “she was sort

of a Red Joan of Arc, a saint whose faith in the Soviet Union was pure

and bottomless.” Zarubina was recalled to Moscow with her husband

in 1944. She served in Moscow from 1944 to 1946, when she retired

from the service with the rank of colonel. She was apparently the first

woman to hold that rank in Russian foreign intelligence.

ZARUBINA, ZOYA VASILYEVNA (1922– ). The daughter ofVasily

Zarubinand Elizaveta Zarubina, Zoya Zarubina entered the ser-

vice at the time of the Battle of Moscowas part of a team of parti-

sansestablished to sabotage the city should the Germans occupy it.

She later served as Joseph Stalin’s interpreter at the Tehran (1943)

and Yalta (1945) conferences, where Stalin met with U.S. President

Franklin D. Roosevelt. On one occasion when she was interpreting

for Stalin, Roosevelt complained about the frogs keeping him up all

night. Having forgotten the word for frog, Zarubina told Stalin that

the American president was bothered by the animal that sits in ponds

and croaks. She was forgiven and promoted, and she went on to be-

come one of the country’s premier interpreters.

ZAVENYAGIN, AVRAAMI PAVLOVICH (1901–1956).As the di-

rector of many NKVDindustrial programs, Zavenyagin was re-

sponsible for the construction of the massive Norilskmining com-

plex, as well as many of the facilities for the Soviet nuclear weapons

program. In August 1945 he was one of six senior Communist

Partyand state officials mandated by Joseph Stalinto be responsi-

ble for the construction of nuclear weapons. He took part in negoti-

ations with the Bulgarian government in 1945 to obtain uranium ore.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he served as chief of theMGB’s

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