[2] Having rejected the advances of NKVD police head Lavrentiy Beria, the affair was exposed[3] resulting, initially, in a death sentence later reprieved to work camp imprisonment in Siberia; she was released after eight years.

The family of the future actress was far from any form of art: Zoya's father Alexei Fyodorov was a worker, and after the revolution, he became the head of the passport service in the Kremlin; His wife was a housewife.

Artistic by nature, Zoya dreamed of being an actress since childhood and was successful in the school theatre group, but her parents considered the girl's hobby to be a whim.

The talented student, Zoya quickly attracted the attention of directors and began her career with cameo roles in Counterplan (1932) and Accordion (1934) feature films.

Fyodorova was a well-known Russian film star starting in the 1930s, and some of the movies she appeared in were also seen in the United States, including Girl Friends, her first major role after graduating from drama school.

Zoya's personal life was as hectic as her career: as a student, she married actor Leonid Weizler, but the marriage soon fell apart.

To rescue her father, Zoya Fyodorova, who had become a winner of the Stalin Prize by that time, reached out to Lavrenty Beria, a people's commissar of Internal Affairs.

Oddly enough, but the fate of the "daughter of the enemy of the people" did not affect Fedorova's career in any way, but she became the object of close attention and harassment of Beria.

In 1945, a fateful meeting took place in the life of Fyodorova: at a reception in honour of the Day of the Red Army, she met the head of the US military mission, 46-year-old Jackson Tate.

Meanwhile, Zoya realized that after the expulsion of Jackson, the danger was threatening her: the role in the stage play was given to another actress, and the portrait of Fyodorova was removed from the theatrical foyer.

By a court verdict in 1947, all property and money were confiscated from Zoya and, despite her poor health and the existence of an infant daughter, was sent to Temlag for 25 years.

Among the actress's cellmates was the singer Lydia Ruslanova, who was imprisoned because of the sensational "Trophy Case" (The campaign of the state security bodies of the USSR aimed at identifying abuses of power by the generals.

The last motion picture, where the actress appeared in a cameo role, was Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980) which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980.

Judging by the furnishings, a large number of antiques, and the originals of paintings of famous artists on the walls, the financial health of the actress had improved significantly.

This was facilitated by connections: Fedorova made friends with Galina, the daughter of Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev, and Svetlana, the wife of Interior Minister Nikolai Shchelokov, who were her housemates on the Taras Shevchenko embankment.

At the suggestion of Brezhneva, literally obsessed with diamonds, Fyodorova began speculating in precious stones, gold, antiques, and rare paintings.

University of Connecticut professor Irene Kirk learned of Victoria's story in 1959 and spent years trying to find Tate in the United States.

Victoria was granted permission and arrived in the United States in March 1975 on a three-month travel visa, and spent several weeks in seclusion in Florida with Tate.

Nevertheless, according to some reports, in early 1981, she still managed to get the coveted paper; however, Fyodorova was denied an exit visa by the Soviet government to leave the country and visit her daughter.

On the night of 10 December, Zoya spoke on the phone with one of her friends about the upcoming trip to Krasnodar, and at about 13:00 the actress received a call from a Mosfilm employee.

After the murder of Fyodorova, her relatives recalled a strange detail: shortly before her death, Zoya complained that recently someone had been sending her photographs of the gouged-out eye by mail.

Also, the investigation was not particularly helped by the fact that Fyodorova was shot when the phone rang in the apartment and she picked up the receiver because it was not possible to establish the subscriber's number.

This was indirectly indicated by the fact that there were two cups and a plate of cakes on the table; obviously, Zoya and the mysterious shooter had a friendly tea party.

All the relatives of the murdered woman immediately fell under suspicion, including the young grand-nephew, who was removed from the school lesson for interrogation.

Investigators did not rule out that Fyodorova's nephew Yuri could have killed her, but he had a strong alibi: on the day of the crime, he was at a reporting and election conference.

There were no obvious traces of a robbery in the apartment, but a ring worth 50 thousand rubles, silverware, and Matisse's original painting disappeared.

The detectives did not rule out that after another refusal of permission to leave the country, Fyodorova could blackmail some high-ranking member of the "diamond" chain and receive a bullet in the head.

Several years ago, the grandson of Zoya Fyodorova, who flew in from the United States, appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia with a request to recognize him as a victim in the case and resume the investigation into the murder of the actress, but this was never done.

Screenwriter Eduard Volodarsky expressed his version of the crime: in his opinion, Fedorova could have been dealt with by her son-in-law, a pilot who often flew from New York to Moscow.

In the documentary Diamond Hunters (2011), from the series The Investigation, the opinion is expressed that Fyodorova was killed by Odessa raider Anatoly Betz.