Liliana Gasinskaya

On board a Soviet cruise ship, SS Leonid Sobinov (Black Sea Shipping Company), in Sydney Harbour, Gasinskaya slipped out of a porthole wearing only a red bikini (earning her the nickname "The Girl in the Red Bikini").

[2][3][4] She was born in 1960 in Alchevsk in Luhansk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR to a musician father and actress mother, but later moved to Odesa.

[5] When Gasinskaya was 14, she decided to attempt to leave the USSR and thus graduated from the Odesa Marine Tourism Service Vocational School with the qualification of a ship waitress.

Gasinskaya was later nearly apprehended by staff from the Soviet embassy, but managed to hide from them with the help of journalists from The Daily Mirror, which subsequently interviewed her.

[5] A debate ensued over whether then Immigration Minister Michael MacKellar should grant Gasinskaya asylum or deport her, as was customary for other ship deserters.