Early Life
Andropov was the son of a railway official Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, who was a member of an Don Cossacks noble family. His mother was Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein, a daughter of a wealthy Moscow businessman, Karl Franzovich Fleckenstein, a German Russian from Vyborg. Andropov was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College. Both of parents died early, leaving Yuri an orphan at the age of thirteen. . As a teenager he worked as a loader, a telegraph clerk, and a sailor for the Volga steamship line.
Read more about this topic: Yuri Andropov
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