TheCodeBreakers
Ekdovia Petrov, who had studied Japanese for two years at a language
school in Moscow, was assigned to the Japanese section. Among her co-
workers were Vera Plotnikova, daughter of a professor of Japanese and a
long-time resident of Japan; Galina Pod-palova, who liked things
Japanese so much that she wore kimonos at home; Ivan Kalinin, who
came in occasionally as a consultant; and Professor Shungsky, old,
distinguished, vigorous, the section's supreme authority on Japanese. He
gave Doosia (the future Mrs. Petrov's nickname) an affectionate kiss on
the cheek when, after four years of his tutoring, she translated a difficult
sentence to his liking at her final examination.
Shungsky had served in the czarist Army, and many others in the
cryptanalytic section were elderly former Russian aristocrats, including
counts and barons. This shocking breach of Bolshevik polity resulted
from a serious shortage of linguists, who were needed in codebreaking.
annaabi.ee 
