Olga T. Lomakin
Olga T. Lomakin (née Yamchuk) (1912–2009) was the wife of the Russian-Soviet diplomat Jacob M. Lomakin.
Graduate of the Textile Institute, she married co-student Jacob M. Lomakin who in 1939 was summoned as TASS correspondent to USA.[1][2] In New York Olga taught math and physics at the Russian school. In March 1942 Jacob M. Lomakin was appointed Consul General in San Francisco. During World War II Olga took active part in meetings of numerous anti-fascist organizations for raising funds to aid the victims of war and the Red Army.[3][4] In January 1943, Olga gave birth to a son, this event was noted in the San Francisco Chronicle with a large photo and article “Mrs. Lomakin tells of women’s share in the World”.[5]
On June 9, 1943, Joseph A. Moore, owner of the Moore Dry Dock Company, recognizing Olga’s impact in the Russian War Relief Program, granted her the honor of “baptizing” the freighter ship “Sovereign of the Seas”. (According to an old maritime “luck-bringing” tradition, the descent from the stocks starts with the breaking of a bottle of champagne on the bow of the newly built ship).[6]
On March 19, 1944, Olga’s speech at the Scottish Rite Auditorium in San Francisco, organized by the Russian-American Society and Russian War Relief Program, was greeted with applause by an audience of two thousand people. This is the only speech ever to be presented by the wife of a diplomat in front of such a huge audience. Soon after D-day, Jacob Lomakin was ordered to return to Moscow. In July 1944, during the Pacific War, the Lomakin family sailed to Nakhodka. It was a long, dangerous, and stressful journey. Japanese jet fighters controlled all ships departing from the USA in order to identify their mission. Many ships were sunk. In March 1946, Jacob Lomakin was again summoned to the United States. In August 1948, the “immensely overheated by Mass media” Kasenkina Case broke out. The erratic behavior of a mentally unstable woman at the time of McCarthyism and the Berlin blockade “was promptly used as a welcome opportunity for effective anti-Soviet propaganda.”[7] Kasenkina’s letter to Lomakin was kept classified for 50 years to accuse Lomakin of “kidnapping and holding her against her will”. Any news concerning the case was a well-paid hot topic. Correspondents rushed to the families’ vacation rental in Rye, NY, but Olga and the children had left. [8][9] On August 27, 1948, when the family departed from the USA, correspondents failed to identify her as she boarded steamer “Stockholm”. Her fluent English and elegance appeared to defy the Soviet diplomats’ wife stereotype. For safety reasons, the children and both parents had to board the ship separately.[10] The family was photographed together only when the steamer docked in Sweden.[11]
In Moscow, Olga Lomakin went back to school. Her second diploma from the Moscow State Linguistic University together with her engineering expertise was an asset for teaching English to technical professionals with higher education. It also gave her income to support her two children after the early death of her husband.[12]
References
- ↑ "Archived Copy". Archived from the original on 2020-10-13. Retrieved 2019-10-29.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
- ↑ cdn.un.org/unyearbook/yun/pdf/1947-48/1947-48_1108.pdf
- ↑ Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art, Robert W. Cherny, Univ. of Illinois press, 2017
- ↑ https://sites.google.com/site/russianwarrelief
- ↑ San Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 1943, Calling on our Allies, Mrs. Lomakin tells of women’s share in the World, by Jane Maggard
- ↑ Moore dry dock and shipyard album, March 1943-July,1943, Sovereign of the Seas
- ↑ Ellis M. Zacharias, Behind Closed Doors: The Secret History of the Cold War, G. Putnam”s sons, New York, 1950, Chapter 8, 85
- ↑ Daily Mirror, Aug.23, 1948, page 2 and 3
- ↑ Daily Mirror, Aug.24, 1948, p.16, Lomakin booked tickets for departure 6 weeks before the Kasenkina case became an International incident
- ↑ New York Times, Aug. 29, 1948, Lomakin departs for Paris; Role in U.N. Assembly seen, by Harold Faber, page 1, 3
- ↑ Aftonbladet, September 7, 1948, page 1
- ↑ New York Times, Aug.17, 1958, Jacob M. Lomakin Soviet Aide, Dies
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