Kerttu Nuorteva
Kerttu Nuorteva (November 10, 1912 in Astoria, Oregon, United States – August 29, 1963 in Karaganda, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union) was a Soviet intelligence agent. She was the daughter of Santeri Nuorteva, the president of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and was parachuted into Finland by the Soviet Airborne Troops in 1942. She was arrested and deported to the Soviet Union at the end of the war. Family and education Nuorteva was born in Astoria, Oregon, United States, where her father had lived since the 1910s, when he was deported from Tampere, Finland. In the Soviet Union, Santeri had a good relationship with Lenin and became the president of Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Kerttu Nuorteva was raised and went to school in Petrozavodsk and later attended university in Leningrad. She married the Finnish-born Jalmari Aho, a member of the Finnish Red Guards. She later married a journalist, Leo Varshavski. In 1937, Nuorteva was accused of treason and arrested by the NKVD. She was held for two years and then sentenced to three years at hard labor. During the Second World War, in December 1941, the NKVD suggested that she could join intelligence training and sent her