TheCodeBreakers
elite of the Soviet Union, yet their jobs in this workers' paradise were
anything but heavenly. Ciphering was done by hand, and early in his
career Petrov often worked until midnight to clear up the day's backlog of
telegrams. Later, as deputy section chief, Petrov did no actual
enciphering or deciphering, but read the telegrams, corrected them, and
signed them.
The cryptanalysts were divided into geographical and linguistic
subsections—Chinese, Anglo-American, and so on.* The future Mrs.
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
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