Soviet Woman Who Defected Via Arctic Goes Home

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway —  A waitress who leaped from a Soviet cruise ship into the icy waters off Norway and trudged through arctic wastelands to seek refuge in the West changed her mind after a Soviet official visited her in the hospital, officials said today.

The 29-year-old Ukrainian woman flew home Wednesday after meeting with Soviet Consul Viktor Jurgens at a hospital in Longyearbyen, a coal mining town on the Spitsbergen islands.

“She originally told us she wanted to leave the Soviet Union,” said Erik Framstad, a government official on Spitsbergen, a Norwegian territory 500 miles north of Norway’s North Cape. “But after talking to the consul today, she decided to return to the Soviet Union.”