2 Soviet Acrobats Flee Circus, Defect to U.S.

Two Soviet high-wire performers, who slipped away from the Moscow Circus while performing in Buenos Aires, were granted asylum in the United States today.

“We didn’t come here to buy blue jeans or clothes. We came here for freedom,” Bertalina Kazakova told reporters through an interpreter.

“We want to be free people. We don’t like our Soviet life,” she said.

She and her husband, Nikolai Nikolski, both 35, were quickly cleared through customs at Miami International Airport early today and taken away in a blue government car for hours of interviews with immigration officials.

Perry Rivkind, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said he granted political asylum because the two “had a well-founded fear of persecution if they returned home.”

“It’s our dream to live in America all our life,” Kazakova said after clearing customs.

Given Visas by Embassy

The couple, part of a five-person, tightrope act for the Moscow Circus, said they slipped away from their Buenos Aires hotel Monday while top officials were greeting the circus general director at the airport.

They fled to the U.S. Embassy and were given visas to travel to Miami.

Before leaving Buenos Aires Wednesday night, the performers were interviewed by Soviet diplomats trying to persuade them to stop their defection, the couple said.

They said they were fearful of reprisals against their relatives in the Soviet Union despite assurances by Soviet officials that no action would be taken against them.

The couple have no children, but their parents live in the Soviet Union.

The performers said they kept their defection plans a closely guarded secret even from two relatives in the high-wire troupe.

Cite Artistic Freedom

The circus arrived in Buenos Aires on June 30 and, after a month of performances in Argentina, is scheduled to move on to Rio de Janeiro next week.

The couple said they chose to defect because of restrictions on their artistic freedom of expression in the Soviet Union.

Nikolski, who developed and headed the Moscow Circus’ high-wire act, said they planned to seek work with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus based in Florida.

The couple are among the Soviet Union’s most famous acrobats, known for performing dazzling feats on 66-foot-high tightropes without nets.