Ekaterine "Kato" Svanidze (2 April 1885 – 22 November 1907) was the first wife of Joseph Stalin and the mother of his eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili. Born in Racha, in western Georgia, Svanidze eventually moved to Tiflis with her two sisters and brother, and worked as a seamstress. Her brother Alexander was a confidant of Stalin, then still known by his birth name of Ioseb Jughashvili, and introduced him to Svanidze in 1905. They were married in 1906 and she gave birth to Yakov a few months later. The family moved to Baku to avoid arrest, though Svanidze got quite ill there and returned to Tiflis in 1907, dying shortly after her return, likely from typhus or tuberculosis. Her death had a profound effect on Stalin, who deeply cared for Svanidze. He abandoned Yakov to be raised by the Svanidze family, and rarely saw them again, fully immersing himself in his revolutionary activities. Svanidze family Ekaterine Svanidze was born in Baji, Georgia, a small village in Racha, a region of Georgia, which was then part of the Kutais Governorate within the Russian Empire. Her parents were Svimon, a railway worker and landowner, and Sepora, a descendant of minor Georgian nobility. She had two sisters, Aleksandra (Sashiko; c. 1878–1936) and Maria (Mariko; 1888–1942), and a younger brother, Alexander (Alyosha; 1886–1941). Early life in Tiflis While their parents would move to Kutaisi, the four Svanidze siblings moved to Tiflis (now Tbilisi) and lived together in a house near Erivan Square (now Freedom Square) and behind the South Caucasus military district headquarters. Alyosha was a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) in Georgia and a confidant of Ioseb Jughashvili (later known as Joseph Stalin). The three sisters took up working at an atelier for a French seamstress, Madame Hervieu, making uniforms and dresses for military officers and their wives. Sashiko would marry Mikheil Monaselidze, another Bolshevik who also knew Jughashvili when they were students at the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary. In 1905, Alyosha invited Jughashvili to live with him, his three sisters and his brother-in-law, Mikheil Monaselidze. The atelier was frequented by the sisters' upper-class clientele, which combined with its central location, made it ideal for a hideout. "Our place above the suspicion of the police. While my fellows did illegal stuff in one room, my wife was fitting the dresses of generals' wives next door," Monaselidze later wrote. It is