Man Halts Divorce Proceedings Against Soviet Wife

AUBURN, Calif. —  Ski instructor Gary Talanov asked the Placer County Superior Court on Tuesday to drop divorce proceedings against his Soviet wife who can’t get out of the Soviet Union.

Talanov’s attorney, Gary Peasley of Auburn, said one reason his client changed his mind about divorcing Elena Kaplan of Moscow is that he is “frustrated and disturbed” that the case has made him an involuntary celebrity.

Peasley said expense was another factor. While Talanov assumed that California’s no-fault divorce law would facilitate the proceedings, there have been court rulings that could stretch the case out to one or two years--with Talanov having to pick up the legal fees for both sides.

The two got married in Moscow in 1978 when both were students at Moscow University.

Talanov said in a signed statement early in the proceedings that they never lived together and never intended to. He said he married Kaplan out of sympathy, and to help her immigrate to the United States.

Kaplan has written to the court from Moscow, saying that Soviet officials are making her life miserable because of her marriage to an American. She says that if divorced, she would no longer have the right to go to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for protection.

When Talanov filed for divorce, he said that after seven years of futile efforts to get Kaplan out of the Soviet Union, he wanted to get on with his life.