Locks and Security News: your weekly locks and security industry newsletter
17th April 2024 Issue no. 701

Your industry news - first

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American-born locksmith trapped in Russia for 77 years suddenly speaks English again after stroke

An American man trapped in the Soviet Union 77 years ago - deep in Stalinist times - has suddenly reverted to speaking in his native English instead of the Russian he was forced to learn to survive his epic Communist ordeal.

Kenneth Edwards, now 95, recently suffered a stroke which left him unable to communicate with his Russian family and children.

'I am having to learn Russian all over again,' he said in a halting American accent in Zlatoust, an industrial Ural Mountains outpost where he worked in a watch-making factory for 60 years, latterly as the locksmith to the head of his department.

15th June 2011