The State - News from Oct. 10, 1985

A Soviet woman’s letter contending that her life could be endangered by the breakup of her marriage was ruled by a Placer County judge to be a formal legal response to her American husband’s divorce petition. Superior Court Judge James D. Garbolino did not grant the default petition filed by Sierra ski instructor Gary D. Talanov, who met and married Elena Kaplan while studying Russian at Moscow University. The estranged wife, who has not been allowed to leave the Soviet Union since the 1978 marriage, wrote the court that the degree of protection given her by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow will vanish if she is divorced by her American husband and “my life will be in danger.”