Zarubina, Zoya Vasilyevna

(1922– )

   The daughter of Vasily Zarubin and Elizaveta Zarubina, Zoya Zarubina entered the service at the time of the Battle of Moscow as part of a team of partisans established to sabotage the city should the Germans occupy it. She later served as Joseph Stalin’s interpreter at the Tehran (1943) and Yalta (1945) conferences, where Stalin met with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On one occasion when she was interpreting for Stalin, Roosevelt complained about the frogs keeping him up all night. Having forgotten the word for frog, Zarubina told Stalin that the American president was bothered by the animal that sits in ponds and croaks. She was forgiven and promoted, and she went on to become one of the country’s premier interpreters.