Liliana Gasinskaya

Liliana Gasinskaya is a Ukrainian woman who defected from the Soviet Union in 1979. On board a Soviet cruise ship, SS Leonid Sobinov, in Sydney Harbour, Liliana slipped out of a porthole wearing only a red bikini (earning her the name The Girl in the Red Bikini).

"A debate ensued over whether then Immigration Minister Michael MacKellar should grant Ms Gasinskaya asylum or deport her as was the customary fate for other ship deserters. Despite her unspecified claims of repression which one commentator sneered may have been "the shops in Russia are boring", she was allowed to stay.

She later earned $15,000 as the first nude centerfold in Australia's edition of Penthouse Magazine.