Background
She was born Lydia Chkalov in Rostov, in the south of Russia, in 1890.
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Lydia Stahl
Edit ProfileCareer
She befriended the Finnish writer Hella Wuolijoki and was a regular visitor to her estate Marleback in Southern Finland, which was a meeting place for leftist intellectuals and politicians. Through her relationship with Otto Kuusinen, she met the American radical John Reed, and maintained a correspondence with him until his death in 1920. She joined the Soviet secret service while a refugee in Finland in 1921.
During the 1920s, Lydia established a photography studio in Paris where she copied secret documents for Soviet Military Intelligence.
In the spring of 1928 she was transferred to New York to help the GRU resident Alfred Tilton. She remained in New York until 1933, when she returned to Paris to work for the apparatus which included Robert Gordon Switz.
He provided information which led French counterintelligence to Lydia. Lydia was convicted of espionage in April 1935 and served a four-year sentence.
She disappeared after her release from French prison.
Membership
Lydia"s ami was the French professor Louis Pierre Martin, former attache of the Naval Ministry and member of the Legion of Honor.
