Yuri Andropov
There has been much contention over his family background. According to the official biography, Andropov was born in stanitsa Nagutskaya (modern-day Stavropol Krai of Russia) on 15 June 1914. His father Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov was a railway worker of Don Cossack descent who died from typhus in 1919. His mother Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein (none of the official sources mentioned her name) was a school teacher who died in 1931. She was born in the Ryazan Governorate into a family of town dwellers and was abandoned on the doorstep of a Finnish citizen, a Jewish watchmaker Karl Franzevich Fleckenstein who lived in Moscow; he and his wife Eudokia Mikhailovna Fleckenstein adopted and raised her. Later researches has shown that many details about Andropov's biography were largely falsified during his lifetime which has contributed to the confusion connected to his family history.
Yuri Lavrov
In 1919, aged 14, Yuri Sergeevich Lavrov made his acting debut on stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) in St. Petersburg. There his stage costumes were designed by none other than the legendary theatrical artist Alexandre Benois. Yui Lavrov also continued his acting studies. In 1924, he joined the troupe of "Molodoi Theatre of Leningrad" together with his fellow actress, Olga Gudim-Levkovich. That same year he married actress Olga Gudim-Levkovich and they lived on Ozerny Pereulok in the historic district of St. Petersburg. Their son, Kirill Lavrov was born in Leningrad and was baptized at the nearby church of St. John the Divine of Leushinsky Monastery. At that time Yuri Lavrov was a promising young actor and his future acting career looked bright. He made his film debut at Lenfilm studio in 1928, in "Tretya molodost" (1929) by director Vladimir Shmidtgof.