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There was also gossip about his possible Jewish parentage -- an issue that could have explosive implications for a politician in this country where anti- Semitism is still widespread. According to Zhirinovsky's own account, his father was Volf Andreyevich Zhirinovsky, a legal adviser with the Turkish- Siberian railway, who died in a car crash before Zhirinovsky was born. But an American reporter working for the Associated Press and CNN recently unearthed a set of alleged family documents in Alma-Ata suggesting that Zhirinovsky's real father was a man named Volf Isaakovich Edelshtein, a name most Russians assume to be Jewish. Zhirinovsky claims the documents are forged, and has vigorously denied Jewish heritage.
In any event, after completing high school in June 1964, Zhirinovsky boarded a plane for Moscow to attend the prestigious Oriental Languages Institute at Moscow State University. The move was surprising for a provincial boy with no family connections, and it has fueled speculation that he must have had help from his school's KGB sponsors. Suspicions increased when Zhirinovsky, after studying Turkish and English for five years and then landing a job as a translator in the Turkish city of Iskenderun, was kicked out of the country eight months later.
The circumstances of his expulsion are not clear. According to Nuzhet Kandemir, the Turkish ambassador to the U.S., Zhirinovsky was arrested and expelled from Turkey in 1969 as a KGB agent. Students back at the Oriental Languages Institute heard that the Turks had thrown him in prison for passing out Soviet badges to Turkish boys and that, after the Soviet consulate sprang him on bail, Zhirinovsky jumped bail. It was widely assumed that the KGB had played a role in his release.
Whatever happened in Turkey, the incident left a bad odor with the ; authorities and seemed to set back Zhirinovsky's career. Even though he graduated with a red diploma of excellence, he was not offered the kind of lucrative employment that his academic record warranted. Instead, he was drafted into the Soviet army.
Returning to Moscow in the spring of 1972, he spent two years working with delegations from French-speaking countries, then joined a state-run law firm that handled inheritance and pension cases for Soviet citizens with relatives abroad. "He was not much of a lawyer," recalls a former associate. "He disliked responsibilities and shirked any job that might entail them, but he loved to be in the thick of things and loved making public speeches." What he did have was the gift of gab. "Boy, could he talk!" says another colleague. "Whenever he stood up, there was a whisper in the audience: 'Now Volodya is going to show 'em!' The only problem was that he could never offer a reasonable solution."