A Soviet interpreter and translator who worked in Cuba during the first years of the Revolution, in Moscow and Havana, is in Cuba after 45 years of absence. She spoke to Juventud Rebelde newspaper recently.

Natacha Borisova is a Russina woman who is proud of having met Fidel and Raúl Castro, guerrilla warrior Ernesto Che Guevara, President Osvaldo Dorticós, and heroic Cuban women such as Celia Sánchez, Vilma Espín, Haydée Santamaría and Melba Hernández.

She studied in the Faculty of History in the Department of Latin America at the University of Lomonosov. In 1960, while she was in her junior year, she wrote a paper about agrarian reform in Cuba. The article was published in Moscow in a book by a collective of authors. At that time she was working in a Latin American Seminar and was lecturing in our countries.

Many years have passed and this woman recalls with love her first visit to Cuba, in December 1962, when she finished her fourth year of university studies.

“For my degree I had to collect information on Cuba’s July 26th Movement. At that time the movie Soy Cuba was being shot.”

“It was a Cuban and Soviet production. It is now famous in Europe, and starred Sergio Corrieri under the direction of Mijail Kalatozov. The script was written by poet Evtuchenko and Miguel Barnet.”

“I helped as a translator and as a history advisor. That work made me stay two months here.” Then she became a representative and a translator and interpreter for the Soviet embassy in Havana.

Natacha smiled when she says that she is always seen with her mouth open in the photos of those early days, because she was always translating and interpreting everything that was said.

Recently arriving to see her daughter, son-in-law and a friend who is a translator and music writer, she was able to visit places conserved in her memory and to see old friends. She is happy to be on Cuban soil once again.

All of this now revolves in her memory, now that she has returned to Cuba after 45 years since her last stay on the island as a government employee and one of the first translators for the Soviet Embassy in Havana. She consented to speak with Juventud Rebelde.

- When did you meet Fidel and Raúl? 
 

-In 1962. I accompanied a delegation that attended the 1st National Congress of Culture. I was 20 years old then. A few days after my arrival, a reception was held at the Soviet Embassy, and our ambassador introduced us to Fidel. He was Alexander Alexeiev, who had also studied Latin America history at the University of Lomonosov.

“He could not finish his studies because of the war. I was fourth year student and told that to Fidel. Then, on another job assignment, I met Raúl.

“When explaining to Fidel that had to write my graduate thesis on his underground July 26th Movement, I requested a brief interview and learned from him how everything was. He told me that the events were like a mountain, that if you are its side, you don't see as much as when you go moving away from it. “You have to distance yourself to be able to get the whole picture, to be able to see the facts in all their magnitude,” he told me.

“In Cuba I toured with different Soviet delegations, for example, with some cosmonauts, among them was ValentinaTereshkova. I performed as a functionary, and though I wasn't an official translator, I served in that role.”

Natacha was born on September 5, 1941 in Moscow, where she still lives. Her parents are also from Moscow. She finished high school in 1958 and began to study at the University.

“Now I wanted to see how Cuba was doing in its struggle of almost half a century, with the purpose of recalling things. The Cuban people taught me that remembering was living again, isn’t it?”

“By the way, I was really sad of learning of the deaths of Celia, Haydée and more recently Vilma. They were people of a lot of tenderness, nobility, love and kindness.”

He also visited these days the Centro de Estudios Che Guevara, the Museum of the Revolution and other institutions. She met with the member of the Political Bureau and Minister of Culture, Abel Prieto, and with Dora Carcaño Araújo, who was the General Secretary of the Cuban Women Federation in the first years of the Revolution and currently is the coordinator of the Regional Office for America of the Women’s International Democratic Federation, the WIDF.

She also held meetings with José Carlos Vázquez, dean of the Faculty of Phylosophy and History of the University of Havana, with pianist Frank Fernández and representatives of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples.

—When did you learn about Cuba?

—Ah!, in school. But I started to have a higher interest for Cuba when a delegation of Rebels from the Sierra Maestra came to Moscow, and by the news about the beginning of Fidel’s struggle.

—What have you done in this 45 years away from Cuba?

—After I graduated, I went to work in the Institute of Marxism and Leninism attached to the Central Committee of the PCUS as a researcher. I worked there in the Department of the International Communist and Workers’ Movement.

“I married a man from Moscow who died in 1993. His name was Vladimir. He worked at the Ministry of Foreign Trade. He spoke German and he was sent to that country. I had to travel a lot with him for his work. I have two daughters: Marina, who is 42 years old, and Yulia, who is 35 years old. I also have three granddaughters: Marina has a son who is 21 years old, he is a student. Yulia have to young children, Miguel and Juan.”

“Taking care of my grandchildren is a one of my ways of entertainment. Since I worked for 30 years and had many things to do, I could barely be a mother and take care of my daughters. Now I make that up by taking care of my daughters’ children.”

—What message will you send to Raul, now?

—I wish he has the strength to continue Fidel ‘s work, his line and I wish him success in a work so complex and important. I want him to know that he is known in Russia, he is admired and appreciated, like Fidel is. They share the same ideology and carry the same genes.

Natacha said that she regretted the disintegration of the USSR. She said that life in the former soviet republics is not like it used to be, but that the problems typical of wild capitalism that has historically affected the world have emerged. “Socialism, when it is well done, without growing detached from the masses, is able to solve great human sufferings that harm the societies of the planet in all continents,” she said.

http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/cuba/2008-04-09/soviet-translator-returns-to-cuba/