Ukraine 450,000 ethnic Germans from Ukraine and more than 200,000 Crimean Tatars were victims of forced deportations. Following the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the new leader of the USSR. Having served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukrainian SSR in 1938–49, Khrushchev was intimately familiar with the republic; after taking power union-wide, he began to emphasize "the friendship" between the Ukrainian and Russian nations. In 1954, the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav was widely celebrated. Crimea was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. By 1950, the republic had fully surpassed
Nikita Khrushchev unknown. The two soon separated, though Khrushchev helped Marusia in later years, especially when Marusia's daughter by a previous relationship suffered a fatal illness. Soon after the abortive marriage, Khrushchev met Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk, a well-educated Party organizer and daughter of well-to-do Ukrainian peasants. The two lived together as husband and wife for the rest of Khrushchev's life, though they did not register their marriage until 1965. They had three children together: daughter Rada was born in 1929, son Sergei in 1935 and daughter Elena in 1937. In mid-1925, Khrushchev was appointed Party secretary of the Petrovo-Marinsky "raikom", or district,