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, after moving from Tampere, Finland. In 1920, her father first moved to Canada, then to England, from where he was deported to Soviet Russia that same year. 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 on a mission to Finland. Her brothers Matti and Pentti had been sent on similar missions, but both were arrested in occupied Petrozavodsk and executed by the Finnish forces.

Mission in Finland Nuorteva parachuted into Vihti on March 30, 1942. Her mission was to acquire information about the German troops in Finland and the political sentiment there.

She was to make contact with the Social Democratic politician Väinö Tanner. For equipment, she had a radio transmitter. One of her two contacts was the playwright and politician Hella Wuolijoki, whose code name was "the Poet." Her jump was not well targeted, and she was dropped 100 km to the west of her final destination. Her parachute became trapped in a spruce tree, and she injured her foot as she disentangled herself. After the jump, she managed to find only the radio transmitter, and her other equipment were missing.

Nuorteva hid in a barn and ate chocolate and biscuits. The wrappers of the chocolate with Russian-language text were later found, as well as a small tube of lipstick, which was used as evidence that a woman had been there. A Russian-language map of Southern Finland with markings was also found.

A beautiful and well-dressed woman got a ride from a young boy to the center of Vihti. Her presence had already been noted earlier and she was suspected of being a "desant," as Soviet spies and saboteurs parachuted into Finland were called. The jump place was located, but the boy who had given Nuorteva a ride lied about her description.

Nuorteva's undercover mission was to work as a trainee cosmetician in a beauty salon in Aleksanterinkatu, Helsinki. Nuorteva's residence was located at Vuorimiehenkatu 19, in the district of Ullanlinna. Nuorteva was discovered when her radio transmitter was found in a bag that she had left in a local laundry.

In 2009, the Finnish film director Jörn Donner made the film Kuulustelu about Nuorteva's interrogation.