Is it true that Stalin read up to 500 pages a day? And is it true that a 14-year-old peasant girl bore him a child? Let’s see which of these are true and which of them never happened.
Legend No. 1: Stalin had a fear of flying so he banned all top party officials from traveling by air
For all appearances, this is true, because in his entire life, Stalin traveled by air only twice, flying 500 km each time: In November 1943, when he flew from Baku to Tehran to meet Roosevelt and Churchill and, in December that year, when he flew back. In all other cases, he preferred land or water transport, regardless of how long it would take. Even to attend the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Stalin didn’t go by air. He just posed for a photo by a set of steps and then went to Germany by train.
