When Irina and Woodford McClellan got married, they never imagined it would be another 11 years until they could be together.
In the early 1970s, Irina was living in Moscow working for the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. It was there that she met an American professor named Woodford McClellan. Irina and Woodford fell in love and married two years later in May 1974. Only a short while later, in August, Woodford’s visa expired and he had to leave the Soviet Union and return home.
Woodford tried to visit his wife in Moscow but was repeatedly denied entry. In turn, Irina was denied permission to leave the country, without explanation. The two newlyweds marked their anniversaries with cards, photographs, and phone calls.
Over 11 years later, Irina finally received the green light to move to the United States. In late January 1986, she flew into the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Her husband, whom she had last seen a decade ago in an airport thousands of miles away, greeted her with excitement and open arms. Reporters there captured the heartwarming reunion, and Irina further captured the experience in a book—Of Love and Russia: The Eleven-Year Fight for My Husband and Freedom.
