Marina Prusakova was 19 years old when she met Oswald. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1395, [p. 270].) She was born on July 17, 1941, at Severodvinsk (formerly Molotovsk), Arkhangel Oblast’, Russia.[A13-645] A few years later, her mother, Klavdiya Vasilievna Prusakova, married Aleksandr Ivanovich Medvedev, who became the only father Marina knew.[A13-646] While she was still a young girl, Marina went to Arkhangel’sk, Arkhangel Oblast’, to live with her maternal grandparents, Tatyana Yakovlevna Prusakova and Vasiliy Prusakov. Her grandfather died when Marina was about 4 years old; she continued to live with her grandmother for some time.[A13-647] When she was not more than 7, she moved to Zguritva, Moldavian SSR (formerly called Bessarabia) to live with her mother and stepfather, who was an electrical worker.[A13-648] In 1952, the family moved to Leningrad,[A13-649] where her stepfather obtained a job in a power station.[A13-650] Marina testified that neither he nor her mother was a member of the Communist Party.[A13-651]
In Leningrad, Marina attended the Three Hundred and Seventy-Fourth Women’s School. After she had completed the seventh grade at the school in 1955,[A13-652] she entered the Pharmacy Teknikum for special training, which she had requested on the ground that her mother was ill and Marina might need to have a specialty in order to support herself. While she was at the Teknikum, she joined the Trade Union for Medical Workers[A13-653] and, in her last year there, worked part time in the Central Pharmacy in Leningrad. She graduated from the Teknikum with a diploma in pharmacy in June 1959.
Marina’s mother had died in 1957, during Marina’s second year at the Teknikum; she continued to live with her stepfather, but had little contact with him. She testified that she did not get along with her stepfather, whom she displeased by her fresh conduct; she said that she was not easily disciplined[A13-654] and was a source of concern to him.[A13-655] Because of the friction between them, Marina regarded her childhood as an unhappy one.
After her graduation, Marina was assigned to a job preparing and packing orders in a pharmaceutical warehouse in Leningrad; as a new employee she had the right to leave this job within 3 days after the assignment,[A13-656] and she did so after the first day. She took no job for the next 2 months, at the end of which she went to live in Minsk with an aunt and uncle, the Prusakovs, who had no children. She had known them since she was a child and there was a mutual affection between her and them.[A13-657] Her uncle, a member of the Communist Party,[A13-658] was assigned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and headed the local bureau concerned with lumber. The Prusakovs had one of the best apartments in a building reserved for MVD employees.[A13-659]
Marina was 18 when she arrived in Minsk. She had had boyfriends in Leningrad but was not interested in marriage. In October 1960 she started work in the drug section of the Third Clinical Hospital where she earned about 450 rubles per month;[A13-660] at about the same time she became a member of the local Komsomol, the Communist youth organization.[A13-661] Her friends were mostly students, whose social life consisted of meeting in cafes to sip coffee, read newspapers, gossip, and carry on discussions. The group of friends “ran together,” and Marina did not attach herself to a particular boyfriend. She enjoyed this life, which she had been leading for about 7 months when she met Oswald at the dance at the Palace of Culture in March 1961.[A13-662]
When Marina met Oswald, she thought he was from one of the Russian-speaking Baltic countries because he spoke with an accent; later that same evening she learned that he was an American.[A13-663] She met him again at another dance a week later.[A13-664] They danced together most of the evening, at the end of which he walked home with her. They arranged to meet again the following week.[A13-665] Before the scheduled time, Oswald called to say that he was in the hospital and that Marina should visit him there.[A13-666] Medical records furnished to the Commission by the Russian Government show that Oswald was admitted to the Clinical Hospital—Ear, Nose, and Throat Division, on Thursday, March 30, 1961.[A13-667] Marina visited him often,[A13-668] taking advantage of her uniform to visit him outside regular visiting hours, which were only on Sunday.[A13-669] On Easter Sunday, the first Sunday after his admission to the hospital, she brought him an Easter egg.[A13-670] On a subsequent visit, he asked her to be his fiancee, and she agreed to consider it.[A13-671] He left the hospital on April 11.[A13-672]
During these visits, Marina apparently discussed with Oswald his reasons for coming to Russia and his current status. According to her later account, he told her that he had surrendered his American documents to the Embassy in Moscow and had told American officials that he did not intend to return to the United States. He did not say definitely that he was no longer an American citizen, but said in answer to a question about his citizenship that he could not return to the United States.[A13-673]
Oswald visited Marina regularly at her aunt and uncle’s apartment; they were apparently not disturbed by the fact that he was an American and did not disapprove of her seeing him. He continued to ask her to marry him and, according to her recollection, she accepted his proposal on April 20;[A13-674] Oswald’s diary puts the date 5 days earlier.[A13-675] Marina testified that she believed that Oswald could not return to the United States when she agreed to marry him, and that she had not married him in hope of going to the United States.[A13-676]
After filing notice of their intent to marry at the registrar, obtaining the special consent necessary for an alien to marry a citizen, and waiting the usual 10 days, they were married on April 30.[A13-677] The diary entry for the wedding day reads:
two of Marinas girl friends act as bridesmaids. We are married. At her aunts home we have a dinner reception for about 20 friends and neboribos who wish us happiness (in spite of my origin and accept [accent?] which was in general rather disquiting to any Russian since for. are very rare in the soviet Union even tourist. After an evening of eating and drinking in which * * * [Marina’s uncle] started a fright [fight?] and the fuse blow on an overloaded circite we take our leave and walk the 15 minutes to our home. We lived near each other, at midnight we were home.[A13-678]