Legendary swimmer Kapitolina Vasilyeva became famous for her sports victories throughout the Soviet Union. In the 1940s, she several times became the USSR champion in swimming in different styles and at different distances, broke records and won international competitions. But it was not her sports career that brought her much more fame, but her marriage to Vasily Stalin, the son of Joseph Vissarionovich.
Biography facts
Little is known about the biographical facts about the childhood and youth of Kapitolina Georgievna Vasilyeva. She was born in the Vladimir province, in the village of Melenki, on August 27, 1918. Kapitolina's maiden name is Osipova, and Vasilyeva is the name of her mother, Evdokia Sergeevna (1899-1985). It is not known when and under what circumstances Kapitolina decided to change her father's surname to her mother's.
The girl grew up strong, strong and strong-willed, and over time she turned into a tall blue-eyed beauty. Kapitolina received her higher education at the P. F. Lesgaft in Leningrad.
Sports career
Kapitolina Vasilyeva made a significant contribution to the development of Soviet sports. The heyday of her sports career came in the late 1930s - 1940s. She became the champion of the Soviet Union 19 times in crawl, sideways, freestyle swimming, at distances from 50 meters to one and a half kilometers. She was the winner of very prestigious swims on the Moscow River. In 1945 she came from Berlin with a victory in the so-called Championship of the occupying forces. Vasilyeva won other international competitions, and she also holds several USSR records at long and medium distances.
For each sports victory, Vasilyeva was awarded medals, of which the swimmer has accumulated a lot over ten years. The career of a successful athlete contributed to the strengthening of material well-being: for each updated record, the sports committee of the USSR paid good money - from eight to ten thousand rubles. The name of Kapitolina Vasilyeva was known to many Soviet sports fans in the 1940s. Her victories and achievements were often talked about on the radio and wrote in newspapers.
During the heyday of her sports career, Kapitolina Vasilyeva gave birth to her daughter Lina. Perhaps she was even married: this is evidenced by the fact that at the 15th USSR Swimming Championships, held in 1946 in Moscow and Baku, the swimmer was listed among the winners as K. Vasilyeva (Mirzoyans). There is no other information about this page of Vasilyeva's biography.
Personal life
In 1949, fate brought Kapitolina Vasilyeva together with Vasily Stalin, the son of the “father of nations”. Vasily was a pilot, was interested in sports and, in particular, supervised CSKA. The beautiful and famous athlete made a strong impression on him, and he wanted to meet her. Kapitolina was the only companion in Vasily's life, whom the formidable father-in-law liked.
The marriage of Stalin and Vasilyeva was not registered at the registry office, since Vasily was already officially married. Then, in 1949, he just broke up with his second wife Yekaterina Timoshenko, who bore him two children. From his first (official) marriage with Galina Burdonskaya, Stalin also had two children: son Alexander and daughter Nadezhda, whom he took from his ex-wife.
The newly-made family settled in Moscow in a mansion house number 7 on Gogolevsky Boulevard in a large composition: husband and wife Vasily and Kapitolina, Vasily's children from their first marriage, Kapitolina's mother Evdokia Sergeevna and Kapitolina's daughter Lina, whom Vasily Stalin adopted.
The furnishings in the house were luxurious, life was rich and well-fed. But the relationship between the spouses was very difficult. On the one hand, Vasily loved Kapitolina, affectionately called her "mother", "birthmark", in a fatherly way he treated his adopted daughter Lina, singling out and pampering her, unlike his own children. At the request of his wife, Stalin initiated the construction of an indoor 50-meter swimming pool for CSKA, where Vasilyeva worked as a coach and trained herself.
On the other hand, Stalin was a very oppressive person, and the first thing he did was put an end to his wife's sports career, because he was jealous of her success and self-sufficiency. Kapitolina was awarded the title of Honored Master of Sports, and she had to go to the Sports Committee to pick up her certificate and badge. Upon learning of this, Stalin ordered to cancel the conferral of the title, saying at the same time: "The sport is over!" In a rage, Kapitolina threw her medals in her husband's face, shouting "On, choke!"
The main problem that Kapitolina faced in her marriage to Vasily Stalin was his addiction to alcohol. Vasilieva tried her best to cure her husband, looked for the best specialists, but everything turned out to be unsuccessful. In a state of intoxication, Vasily became uncontrollable. Once he hit Kapitolina very hard because she was unfriendly talking to Stalin's friend, who brought his mistress to their house - despite the fact that his wife was on friendly terms with Vasilyeva. Kapitolina received a serious eye injury, which subsequently led to an almost complete loss of vision.
Divorce from Stalin
The relationship between Vasilyeva and Stalin quickly cracked, and the main reason was her husband's drunkenness. A week before the death of her father-in-law, Stalin Sr., on February 27, 1953, Kapitolina Georgievna left Vasily Iosifovich and, asking for help from Marshal N. A. Bulganina, moved to an apartment near the Sokol metro station.
Two months after the death of his father, Vasily Stalin was arrested and sentenced to 8 years. Kapitolina, still continuing to love her ex-husband, periodically visited him in the Vladimir Central, where he was sitting, brought him various delicacies - baked veal leg, black caviar, as well as cigarettes and tea; alcohol was banned, which was very useful for the chronic alcoholic Vasily. The ex-husband wrote very gentle letters from prison to his "mother-birthmark", recalled moments from family life, constantly asked about his daughter Lina - how she lives, how she studies. When Vasily Stalin died in exile in Kazan in March 1962, only his son and daughter from their first marriage and the third wife of Kapitolina Vasilyeva came to bury him.
Coaching work
Kapitolina Georgievna began working as a coach even before meeting with Stalin: in the period 1945-1949 she was a physical education teacher at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. And since 1949 she became a trainer in the same pool, which was built at the direction of Vasily Stalin. Here Kapitolina Vasilieva worked in a children's and youth sports school, and was engaged in preparation for competitions of adult swimmers, including N. Torchinskaya, N. Krivdina, I. Petukhova, O. Stepanova, Vasilyeva's niece, the famous synchronized swimmer Olga Osipova and many others. For some time Vasilieva coached the Armenian SSR national skiing and swimming team. For her contribution to the education of young athletes, she was awarded the title of Honored Trainer of the RSFSR.
Kapitolina Georgievna was engaged in pedagogical and coaching work until 1974, before going on a well-deserved rest. Then came the retirement period of her biography. She still lived in the same apartment on Sokol, in the last years of her life she was sick. She was visited almost daily by her daughter, Lina Vasilievna Vasilieva, who became a doctor of biological sciences, an employee of the Institute of Microbiology. Vinogradsky, gave birth to a daughter Eugene, a granddaughter of Kapitolina.
Kapitolina Georgievna Vasilyeva died on June 1, 2006. She was buried at the Mitinskoye cemetery, in the same grave with her mother.
