Word: ninel
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...accounts, the Ovechkins of Siberia were a remarkable family. After giving birth to the tenth of her eleven children, Ninel Ovechkin was awarded the Soviet title of "Hero Mother." After her husband died in 1984, she reared her seven sons and four daughters by herself in the city of Irkutsk, about 2,600 miles east of Moscow. The boys started a popular local jazz band called the Seven Simeons and recently performed in Japan...
That made it all the more puzzling last week when the family attempted to hijack a Soviet airliner, an incident that climaxed in a moment of supreme horror. According to Soviet press reports, Ninel and ten of her children boarded an Aeroflot Tu-154 jetliner at Irkutsk, bound for Leningrad 2,900 miles away. Their luggage included a double-bass case, which was too big to pass through the airport X-ray machines but which family members insisted was too valuable to put in the cargo hold. About halfway through the long journey, the trouble began. Two of the Ovechkin...
...hijackers apparently set off an explosive device, and a shoot-out ensued. Realizing that the attempt had failed, two of the Ovechkin sons shot and killed their mother, then turned their weapons on themselves. A total of nine people died, including the flight attendant, three passengers, Ninel and her four eldest sons, ranging in age from 25 to 17. At least 20 others were hospitalized. Ninel, described by the Soviet news agency TASS as a "plump, fashionably dressed woman of over 50," apparently gave the orders throughout the incident...
...Eyewitnesses pointed to three leaders among the criminal team--Vasily and Oleg Ovechkin and their mother Ninel Ovechkin, a plump, fashionably dressed woman of over 50," Tass said...
That faith is nowhere more evident than in the U.S.S.R., which has been beset in recent years with controversial sensitives. One, Ninel Kulagina, was appraised as capable of causing objects to float in midair. As Martin Gardner notes, "She is a pretty, plump, dark-eyed little charlatan who took the stage name of Ninel because it is Lenin spelled backward. She is no more a sensitive than Kreskin, and like that amiable American television humbug, she is basically show biz." Indeed, Ninel has been caught cheating more than once by Soviet Establishment scientists...
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