Samantha

5 hrs. 29 min.

Children's Books, Audio Fairy Tales & Poems

Language Russian

Author Yury Yakovlev

Narrator Alexey Tsvetkov

Description

Samanta was only 13 at the time of her death, but the whole world knew her. It all began in the autumn of 1982, when in the USSR, after the death of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov came to power. In the West, the former head of the KGB of the USSR was known as a hard man who would not ignore President Ronald Reagan’s attempts to launch a “crusade against communism.” The Cold War was heating up again, and the rhetoric of both sides suggested it could become “hot” as well. On the cover of the American magazine Time, a photo of U.S. President Reagan and the new Soviet leader Andropov was published as Man of the Year. One of the articles said that the new head of the USSR was a very dangerous person and that under his leadership the Soviet Union posed a threat to the security of the United States like never before.

“One day on a Sunday, Time Magazine was read at home by a resident of the town of Houlton, Jane Smith. She read the article about Andropov and told her ten-year-old daughter Samanta: ‘It would be great if Andropov had fresh ideas about how the USA and the USSR could live in peace.’ Samanta listened with interest, immediately asked a lot of questions about the Cold War and the new Soviet leader. ‘If people are so afraid of Andropov, why don’t they write to him and ask whether he plans to start a war?’ the girl asked her mother. ‘Well, write to him yourself,’ Jane joked. Samanta went to her room and, after a while, appeared with a letter in her hands.”