Evdokia Petrova

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Royal Commission on Espionage - Exhibit 62: Large black and white photograph of Evdokia Petrov at Mascot Airport, Sydney, being 'escorted' across the tarmac to a waiting plane by two armed Russian diplomatic couriers.

Evdokia Alexeyevna Petrova (Russian: Евдоки́я Алексе́евна Петро́ва) (1915–July 19, 2002) was a Russian spy in Australia in the 1950s. She was the wife of Vladimir Petrov, and came to national prominence during the Petrov Affair.

She was born and raised in the Soviet Union. She worked as a bureaucrat in the state run forced labor camps or gulags. In 1951 she was posted with her husband as a diplomat to Australia, though her real work was as a spy, in the rank of captain, against the Australian government. In this capacity she provided clerical, cypher, and operational assistance to the Soviet embassy in Canberra. Evdokia married Vladimir Petrov, now know as Sven Allyson.

With her husband she defected to Australia in 1954. This happened at Darwin Airport, at the height of the Petrov Affair. The Petrovs' memoirs of the episode were contained in their book "Empire of Fear", which was ghost-written by Michael Thwaites.

To help protect their identities in Australia, the Petrovs took the names Sven and Maria Allyson. Although the press agreed not to identify them, they did not always observe this voluntary protection order. She became an Australian citizen in 1956. She found work as a typist for William Adams Tractors. Sven died in 1991, but Maria was not able to attend his funeral due to media attention.