Tatyana Andropova

Lebedeva was born in 1917.[2] She graduated from a pedagogical school and joined the Komsomol activities where she was appointed to the Komsomol in Karelia in 1940.[3] The same year Tatyana met her future husband at the Komsomol work in Petrozavodsk where she was the secretary of the Zaretsk district committee.[4][5] At that time Yuri Andropov was serving as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.[3] Andropov's wife and two children did not move to the region with him when he was appointed the post.[4] Following his contact with Tatyana Yuri Andropov divorced his first wife.[5] Tatyana and Yuri married in Summer 1941 and had two children, Igor and Irina.[1][6][7] Igor was born shortly before their marriage which was harmonious.[7]

In 1951 the family began to live in Moscow when Yuri Andropov was assigned to the central committee of the Communist Party.[8] From 1954 to 1957 Yuri Andropov served as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Soviet Union to Hungary.[6][9] Tatyana and their children accompanied him.[6] In the late October 1956 extensive protests against the Soviet Union occurred in Budapest, and their residence was besieged by the protestors which had negative long-term effects on Tatyana's health.[6] She left Budapest, but returned there after two months.[6] As a result of this incident Tatyana would experience hypertension and suffer from acute headaches during her lifetime.[6] In addition, since then, she was terrified of crowds and open spaces.[5]

The family lived at Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow where Suslov and Brezhnev also lived.[10] Due to health problems Tatyana did not fulfil the official duties when Andropov was the general secretary of the Communist Party and lived as a recluse in their apartment.[5] She died in 1991.[2][11]