Thousands of miles away, back in Leningrad, an eight-year-old girl stood among her classmates at school as the death of Stalin was announced. She watched with dry eyes as a portrait of the leader was hung in the meeting hall and the students around her sniffled and wept.

The girl's name was Nina Alekseyevna Gorelik, and in the late 1960's, she would marry Gennady Shalyopa and become Lia's daughter-in-law. But on this day, she was still just a little girl -- one who wasn't quite sure what to make of all the fuss around her on the death of the revered leader.

"My grandmother always hated Stalin," she says. "She called him the anti-Christ. But my mother and father loved him. When they would broadcast one of Stalin's speeches on the radio, my father would say to my sister and me, 'Come listen, children! You may never get a chance to meet Comrade Stalin, but you need to listen when he speaks.' My sister and I were never quite sure what to think.