Zhai Yunying

Zhai Yunying, born in 1928, her father Zhai Fengqi was from Shandong and had served in the Chinese Detachment of the Soviet Red Army; her mother Anna Kazmilovna was Russian and had worked at the Ivánovo textile factory. In April 1929, at about one year old, she returned with her parents from Russia to Dalian. She taught at Xianglujiao Primary School in Dalian, later graduated from East China Medical University, and became an internal medicine physician at the General Hospital of the Air Force.

On May 1, 1947, in Dalian, she married Liu Yalou, who was then the Chief of Staff of the Northeast Democratic United Army; the wedding was reviewed by Luo Ronghuan, approved by Lin Biao, and hosted by Han Guang. In 1948 they had a son, Liu Yubin.

In July 1949, she accompanied her husband to the Soviet Union on a state mission, signing agreements with the Soviet side on aid to China in aircraft, dispatching experts, and establishing a flight school, among other matters. The trip was originally planned to locate relatives, but this request was not made. After Liu Yalou’s death, during the Cultural Revolution Zhai Yunying was publicly criticized and persecuted, labeled as the leader of the “Widow Group”; Building 19 was attacked, and her mother Anna was referred to as the “White Russian old lady,” with their lives constrained. Their family documents were hidden and not made public. In the early 1980s, as Sino-Soviet relations warmed, Zhai Yunying sought to reconnect with dispersed relatives through the Soviet Red Cross.

In 1989, Zhai Yunying and three generations, nine people in total, fulfilled their wish to return to China to visit their relatives. On January 5, 1990, Anna died in Beijing at the age of 94. On October 17, 2019, during the Air Force’s 70th anniversary celebration and an aviation open event in Changchun, Jilin, Air Force leaders returned to Beijing to visit Zhai Yunying, who, 109 years later, was still alive and drew attention. On December 5, 2021, Zhai Yunying passed away in Beijing at the age of 93.