KGB files reveal Chelsea owner Abramovich's tragic family secrets

The London News.Net
Sunday 20th December, 2009 (ANI)

London, Dec. 20 : Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich has named his newborn son Aaron Alexander. And the tragic secret behind the name of billionaire's sixth child was so far hidden in KGB files.

The secret KGB file, found in a dusty building on the outskirts of Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, has the family history of Abramovicius, the original surname of the Blues tycoon's family.

And its 100 pages tell the story of the appalling fate suffered by his father, uncles and grandparents at the hands of Stalin, explaining why Abramovich named his new son with ex-model partner Daria Zhukova, Aaron, News of the World reports.

Abramovich's father has been widely referred to as Arkady. But secret KGB documents reveal that Abramovich's father was originally named Aaronas, the Lithuanian equivalent of Aaron.

According to the file, on or around June 14, 1941, little Aaronas and his family were taken at dawn from their comfortable home in the town of Taurage and frogmarched at gunpoint to the local railway station.

They were among 16,246 Jews and 'capitalists' being sent into exile over a three-day period.

Somewhere near Moscow, the carriages were decoupled and Aaronas's father, Nachmanas, then 54 was sent to Siberia; the rest of the family were dispatched to Syktyvkar.

In their bleak new home, the family were forced to endure untold hardships. Aaronas' name was Russianised to Arkady. His brothers Abramas and Leiba became Abram and Leib.

Taube was forced to use the name Tatyana and Soviet officialdom decreed the family would henceforth be called Abramovich.

"They were starving and scavenged for berries. Taube did any work she could find and sewed underwear like bras and corsets. One of her clients helped her get a job at a workers' canteen," said family friend Olga Cheremisina, 72.

"To feed her kids, she stole food from the canteen. She put thin layers of meat against her breasts and slipped through the security checks with it hidden in her bra. This is how she raised her sons."

Aaronas was the first of the family to be released from internal exile.

"He met his wife Irina in Saratov in the south of Russia, where he went to study the building trade. They were very beautiful couple. But Roman's father was such a womaniser. Very easy-going, smiling, he could and did charm every woman. It's why Irina got angry with him and went home to Saratov to give birth to little Roman,"

A year later, she was pregnant again but a botched back-street abortion led to her death.

Taube helped raise young Roman. Then tragedy struck again. Roman's father perished in a building site accident, leaving the boy an orphan at the age of four.

He was then raised by his uncles. The final entry in the KGB file is a note in 1988, to say the family had been "rehabilitated."

By now, Taube was dead - but a young Roman Abramovich was already beginning a stunning business career that would bring him remarkable riches and one of the world's most famous football clubs.

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