Secrets and subterfuge: Russia's espionage history revealed in the KGB's Moscow museum
Martine Self
January 26, 2006
If you think the latest in espionage chic might be spectacles which contain cyanide capsules in their frames to help you commit suicide quickly, or if you want to uncover the secret of why the Russians always managed to capture American spies with just a few drops of water, you will find a visit to the KGB museum just off Lubyanka square near the heart of Moscow, a fascinating, if not exactly enjoyable experience.
Though the initials of the KGB are no longer in use and have been replaced by those of the FSB (Federal Service Bureau), the ominous acronym still features in lexicons the world over, representing a sinister force that was at one time a byword for repression, stealth and dastardly deeds, and for what was once the world’s largest and most feared secret service organization.
As if to fool you about its dark and disturbing history and, in typical espionage style, a bustling and inconspicuous supermarket is situated just adjacent to the building’s front door. A lady in a tight olive-green serge suit, straight out of Soviet military fashion history, monitors the entrance to the building.
Once inside the gloom of the cavernous hall, you instantly feel the hopeless chill that former Soviet citizens must have felt on being brought to this menacing place. For the visitor, this evokes a fear that you are about to be taken for interrogation in underground cells. You wonder if you should have, after all, left details of your planned visit to the museum with your embassy.
At the museum’s entrance on the third floor, look out for a plaque: "To the Chekists, Soldiers of the Revolution." These were the secret police set up under Lenin. Plastic flowers lie underneath the plague in startling commemoration.
Known to Russians who are seemingly fond of cumbersome titles, as the Hall of the Federal Service of Security of Russia, it was opened in 1984 by Yuri Andropov, who was chairman of the KGB before becoming chairman of the Communist Party, initially to act as part of the training process for KGB recruits. Much later, it was opened to the public, ostensibly in an attempt to improve the KGB’s public image. It is not actually on Lubyanka Square, which is the site of the FSB headquarters and jail cells, but slightly behind the square on Bolshaya Lubyanskaya ulitsa, though it forms an integral part of what has come to be known as ‘Lubyanka’.
Today, the building houses KGB offices, conference rooms and a clubroom for retired KGB officers, while even including a disco. As the museum’s website says in the best no-nonsense Soviet tradition: “The Hall was created for perfecting professional training of the State Security organs’ employees, as well as for education of young employees in the best traditions of special service organs.”
The museum itself does not look very exciting at first, being mostly a collection of framed photographs on the walls and some 2,000 exhibits such as guns, spy cigarette lighters and false moustaches in glass cases. But it is in the two-hour-long presentation by our tour guide that its contents really come to life.
We were first told about the evolution of the KGB from its roots as the Cheka (or secret police) created by ‘Iron’ Felix Dzherzhinsky under Lenin, until it became the KGB and through to its present day format as the FSB (Federal Security Bureau) after some 13 name changes. Such luminaries as Dzerzhinsky, Beria, Yezhov (who oversaw the Great Purge of the 1930s) former President Andropov and former KGB spy in East Germany, President Vladimir Putin, featured as leaders. When the guide explains that several of these past leaders were murdered by rivals, you almost nod your head knowingly and ponder how these leaders must have had to incessantly watch their backs .
On display is the intriguingly American-made desk which belonged to Stalin’s notorious henchman, Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret police throughout the 1940s, a period when millions were arrested and deported to the gulags in Siberia.
Although you won’t be able to read the documents, unless you can read Russian, the guide explains details regarding the display of the victories and mistakes of the Soviet and now Russian security forces, in their fight against espionage and terrorism, right from events leading up to the 1917 revolution up to the present day collaboration of the Russian FSB with the US CIA in the fight against global terrorism.
You will see some of the most harrowing detail of the mass repressions of Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, in particular, a letter protesting the innocence of a concentration camp prisoner, which was scrawled in his own blood.
We saw a gruesome but strangely artistic ‘wreath’ of bullets and knives, supposedly the secret service’s alternative to flowers, which, we were told, was laid on the grave of Dzherzinsky after his death.
We also heard about military espionage and intelligence activities during the Great Patriotic War, which ended in 1945, and how paranoid Stalin had become. He went to the extent of blaming his operatives, and executing them, for providing mis-information about Hitler’s activities, which no doubt led to Russia’s lack of preparedness during that war. Some 20,000 secret service personnel were executed by their colleagues.
Quite naturally, much of the museum’s content focuses on Cold War work of American spies in Russia, rather than on the activities of Russian spies in the US.
One simple ploy used by the Soviets to detect whether a suspected American spy was American or Russian was to apprehend him overnight, put a drop of water on the staples in his passport and see whether by the following morning, rust had developed. This worked for the simple reason that American staples were made from stainless steel and would not rust, whereas Russian staples, not being made out of stainless steel, would rust. This enabled the Soviets to quickly and repeatedly unmask American spies who, though equipped with a Russian passport, spoke fluent Russian and being dressed like native Russians, had found their way onto Soviet soil. No amount of training or the latest in spy gadgets could hide what a few drops of water could reveal overnight. It must have taken the Americans a while to figure out this simple but brilliant ruse.
There are a number of photographs of a US spy, Martha Petersen, being apprehended red-handed in the 1970s after making a ‘drop’ in a dead-letter box on a Moscow railway bridge and then appearing in court, looking suitably crestfallen.
The son of Gary Powers, the American U-2 espionage pilot who ran high-altitude reconnaissance flights in Russia in 1960, at the height of the cold war, and who was shot down over Russia and captured, has presented the museum with a letter bearing a strand of the carpet woven by his father during his year in a Russian jail. History buffs can see the remains of his plane in the Red Army Museum in the north of the city.
We saw what appeared to be a plastic ‘tree stump’ planted by Western spies close to rocket test sites which contained technical spying equipment, an electronic device built into a branch of a tree found near a military airport, several short range and satellite radio stations disguised as cigarette lighters, watches, pencils and trinkets.
Many of the exhibits are the stuff of James Bond movies: the listening, or explosive devices fitted in beer cans, cigarette packs and calculators. One such calculator contained a radio-transmitting device enabling foreign agencies to overhear the complete conversations held amongst the heads of Russian secret service agencies. This trick was uncovered after it was noticed by outside security personnel that during the meeting, vehicles from foreign embassies were repeatedly and surreptitiously driving around the building.
Intensely proud of their tradition of espionage, which recalls the era when the Soviet Union was still a superpower, the Russian museum authorities have devoted one section to the infamous group of British spies – the Cambridge Five – that operated during the Cold war. The recruitment of the spies who, in the 1960s, gave the Soviet authorities an insight into vital Western intelligence, was considered one of the KGB’s greatest triumphs. The five consisted of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. A pipe that once belonged to Kim Philby, the most notorious of the Cambridge Five, is ostentatiously displayed.
It was surprising to learn that the Cambridge Five undertook their espionage activities on behalf of the UK solely for ideological purposes and that they were not paid for their work, though their living and traveling costs were reimbursed.
One British double-agent, George Blake, whose smiling image photographed on Red Square is displayed in the museum, is now in his eighties and still lives in a state-subsidised flat in Moscow after escaping from a jail in the United Kingdom.
In recent years, the museum has hosted visits by the heads foreign secret services, such as the CIA and the film star, Robert de Niro.
In addition to extensive material on anti-tank weaponry, the final exhibition hall focuses on the Russian war on terrorism and FSB anti-narcotic smuggling activities.
Even though relations between Russia and the West have thawed since the fall of communism, and both sides continue to spy on each other, there is, quite politically correctly, no mention of that fact during the tour. One wonders whether the spying 'rock' that four alleged British spies recently used to download classified information, will eventually be displayed in similar vein.
At the end of the tour, a vivid contrast was created between the gloomy and sinister tone of the museum with the warm and effusive greeting by its cuddly and rosy-cheeked deputy-director.
One almost felt that the KGB couldn’t have been so gruesome if people like Colonel Valery (whose surname he does not share with us) staffed it, who, as well as being a KGB historian, still serves in the present day FSB. In the past he presented the tours that were then translated by an English-speaking guide, making the tour twice as long as it is today. These days the tour guide simply presents the tour in English, though still managing to fill two hours.
Tourists are not able to simply turn up at the museum and a special appointment must be made. One of the best-guided tours is organised once a month by Patriarshy Dom Tours of Moscow (http://russiatravel-pdtours.netfirms.com; alanskaya@co.ru; telephone: Moscow: 795-0927).
Though the initials of the KGB are no longer in use and have been replaced by those of the FSB (Federal Service Bureau), the ominous acronym still features in lexicons the world over, representing a sinister force that was at one time a byword for repression, stealth and dastardly deeds, and for what was once the world’s largest and most feared secret service organization.
As if to fool you about its dark and disturbing history and, in typical espionage style, a bustling and inconspicuous supermarket is situated just adjacent to the building’s front door. A lady in a tight olive-green serge suit, straight out of Soviet military fashion history, monitors the entrance to the building.
Once inside the gloom of the cavernous hall, you instantly feel the hopeless chill that former Soviet citizens must have felt on being brought to this menacing place. For the visitor, this evokes a fear that you are about to be taken for interrogation in underground cells. You wonder if you should have, after all, left details of your planned visit to the museum with your embassy.
At the museum’s entrance on the third floor, look out for a plaque: "To the Chekists, Soldiers of the Revolution." These were the secret police set up under Lenin. Plastic flowers lie underneath the plague in startling commemoration.
Known to Russians who are seemingly fond of cumbersome titles, as the Hall of the Federal Service of Security of Russia, it was opened in 1984 by Yuri Andropov, who was chairman of the KGB before becoming chairman of the Communist Party, initially to act as part of the training process for KGB recruits. Much later, it was opened to the public, ostensibly in an attempt to improve the KGB’s public image. It is not actually on Lubyanka Square, which is the site of the FSB headquarters and jail cells, but slightly behind the square on Bolshaya Lubyanskaya ulitsa, though it forms an integral part of what has come to be known as ‘Lubyanka’.
Today, the building houses KGB offices, conference rooms and a clubroom for retired KGB officers, while even including a disco. As the museum’s website says in the best no-nonsense Soviet tradition: “The Hall was created for perfecting professional training of the State Security organs’ employees, as well as for education of young employees in the best traditions of special service organs.”
The museum itself does not look very exciting at first, being mostly a collection of framed photographs on the walls and some 2,000 exhibits such as guns, spy cigarette lighters and false moustaches in glass cases. But it is in the two-hour-long presentation by our tour guide that its contents really come to life.
We were first told about the evolution of the KGB from its roots as the Cheka (or secret police) created by ‘Iron’ Felix Dzherzhinsky under Lenin, until it became the KGB and through to its present day format as the FSB (Federal Security Bureau) after some 13 name changes. Such luminaries as Dzerzhinsky, Beria, Yezhov (who oversaw the Great Purge of the 1930s) former President Andropov and former KGB spy in East Germany, President Vladimir Putin, featured as leaders. When the guide explains that several of these past leaders were murdered by rivals, you almost nod your head knowingly and ponder how these leaders must have had to incessantly watch their backs .
On display is the intriguingly American-made desk which belonged to Stalin’s notorious henchman, Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret police throughout the 1940s, a period when millions were arrested and deported to the gulags in Siberia.
Although you won’t be able to read the documents, unless you can read Russian, the guide explains details regarding the display of the victories and mistakes of the Soviet and now Russian security forces, in their fight against espionage and terrorism, right from events leading up to the 1917 revolution up to the present day collaboration of the Russian FSB with the US CIA in the fight against global terrorism.
You will see some of the most harrowing detail of the mass repressions of Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, in particular, a letter protesting the innocence of a concentration camp prisoner, which was scrawled in his own blood.
We saw a gruesome but strangely artistic ‘wreath’ of bullets and knives, supposedly the secret service’s alternative to flowers, which, we were told, was laid on the grave of Dzherzinsky after his death.
We also heard about military espionage and intelligence activities during the Great Patriotic War, which ended in 1945, and how paranoid Stalin had become. He went to the extent of blaming his operatives, and executing them, for providing mis-information about Hitler’s activities, which no doubt led to Russia’s lack of preparedness during that war. Some 20,000 secret service personnel were executed by their colleagues.
Quite naturally, much of the museum’s content focuses on Cold War work of American spies in Russia, rather than on the activities of Russian spies in the US.
One simple ploy used by the Soviets to detect whether a suspected American spy was American or Russian was to apprehend him overnight, put a drop of water on the staples in his passport and see whether by the following morning, rust had developed. This worked for the simple reason that American staples were made from stainless steel and would not rust, whereas Russian staples, not being made out of stainless steel, would rust. This enabled the Soviets to quickly and repeatedly unmask American spies who, though equipped with a Russian passport, spoke fluent Russian and being dressed like native Russians, had found their way onto Soviet soil. No amount of training or the latest in spy gadgets could hide what a few drops of water could reveal overnight. It must have taken the Americans a while to figure out this simple but brilliant ruse.
There are a number of photographs of a US spy, Martha Petersen, being apprehended red-handed in the 1970s after making a ‘drop’ in a dead-letter box on a Moscow railway bridge and then appearing in court, looking suitably crestfallen.
The son of Gary Powers, the American U-2 espionage pilot who ran high-altitude reconnaissance flights in Russia in 1960, at the height of the cold war, and who was shot down over Russia and captured, has presented the museum with a letter bearing a strand of the carpet woven by his father during his year in a Russian jail. History buffs can see the remains of his plane in the Red Army Museum in the north of the city.
We saw what appeared to be a plastic ‘tree stump’ planted by Western spies close to rocket test sites which contained technical spying equipment, an electronic device built into a branch of a tree found near a military airport, several short range and satellite radio stations disguised as cigarette lighters, watches, pencils and trinkets.
Many of the exhibits are the stuff of James Bond movies: the listening, or explosive devices fitted in beer cans, cigarette packs and calculators. One such calculator contained a radio-transmitting device enabling foreign agencies to overhear the complete conversations held amongst the heads of Russian secret service agencies. This trick was uncovered after it was noticed by outside security personnel that during the meeting, vehicles from foreign embassies were repeatedly and surreptitiously driving around the building.
Intensely proud of their tradition of espionage, which recalls the era when the Soviet Union was still a superpower, the Russian museum authorities have devoted one section to the infamous group of British spies – the Cambridge Five – that operated during the Cold war. The recruitment of the spies who, in the 1960s, gave the Soviet authorities an insight into vital Western intelligence, was considered one of the KGB’s greatest triumphs. The five consisted of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. A pipe that once belonged to Kim Philby, the most notorious of the Cambridge Five, is ostentatiously displayed.
It was surprising to learn that the Cambridge Five undertook their espionage activities on behalf of the UK solely for ideological purposes and that they were not paid for their work, though their living and traveling costs were reimbursed.
One British double-agent, George Blake, whose smiling image photographed on Red Square is displayed in the museum, is now in his eighties and still lives in a state-subsidised flat in Moscow after escaping from a jail in the United Kingdom.
In recent years, the museum has hosted visits by the heads foreign secret services, such as the CIA and the film star, Robert de Niro.
In addition to extensive material on anti-tank weaponry, the final exhibition hall focuses on the Russian war on terrorism and FSB anti-narcotic smuggling activities.
Even though relations between Russia and the West have thawed since the fall of communism, and both sides continue to spy on each other, there is, quite politically correctly, no mention of that fact during the tour. One wonders whether the spying 'rock' that four alleged British spies recently used to download classified information, will eventually be displayed in similar vein.
At the end of the tour, a vivid contrast was created between the gloomy and sinister tone of the museum with the warm and effusive greeting by its cuddly and rosy-cheeked deputy-director.
One almost felt that the KGB couldn’t have been so gruesome if people like Colonel Valery (whose surname he does not share with us) staffed it, who, as well as being a KGB historian, still serves in the present day FSB. In the past he presented the tours that were then translated by an English-speaking guide, making the tour twice as long as it is today. These days the tour guide simply presents the tour in English, though still managing to fill two hours.
Tourists are not able to simply turn up at the museum and a special appointment must be made. One of the best-guided tours is organised once a month by Patriarshy Dom Tours of Moscow (http://russiatravel-pdtours.netfirms.com; alanskaya@co.ru; telephone: Moscow: 795-0927).
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