This article, which appeared in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on Sunday, puts
our recent discussion of mis-information given on tours in a whole new
light.
http://www.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisSlug=KGB08&date=08-A
pr-2001&word=museum&word=kgb
Published Sunday, April 8, 2001
The Cold War, frozen in time at the KGB museum
Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker / Washington Post
MOSCOW -- "Murders, killing, drug trafficking -- that's American-style
democracy," says the KGB veteran-turned-tour guide, his friendly chitchat
taking on a confrontational edge. "We never had such things on such a scale
here before."
At the KGBMuseum, debates on the nature of democracy definitely aren't
encouraged. If the Cold War is once again alive and well, this is the place
to find evidence of it.
There's no exhibit yet about Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent accused in
February of being a Russian spy, or the bitter fallout, with 50 Russian
diplomats ordered to leave the United States and an equal number to be sent
home from Moscow.
The museum is a historical reminder of the days when the Soviet Union was a
superpower and spycraft really meant something.
Founded in 1984 by Yuri Andropov, the former KGB chief who had become leader
of the Soviet Union, the museum, behind the agency's infamous Lubyanka
headquarters, was opened to foreigners in 1991, although by invitation only.
It traces the lineage from the revolution-era Cheka to the KGB's present-day
domestic successor, the Federal Security Service, or FSB.
More than 2,000 items are on display: gory photographs of World War II-era
shootings, James Bond-like gadgets, Chicago gangster-style machine guns and
many worshipful official portraits of KGB men honored as "heroes of the
Soviet Union."
British spy Kim Philby is on the wall. In the display cases are a tiny
camera, a Robert Goulet album with secret writing and the recording device
planted by a U.S. submarine on Soviet telephone cables at the bottom of the
ocean.
It would take eight hours, says the guide, to see everything. And many more,
of course, to recount what isn't mentioned -- such as the KGB's notable role
in repressing the Soviet Union's own citizens. There are no exhibits on
dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov.
Grim topics are hinted at, but only as they affected the KGB's own. Running
through a list of secret police chiefs put to death during Stalin's era, the
guide says, "Thank God for the end of the firing squads."
After Lavrenty Beria's execution following Stalin's death, he says proudly,
the rest of the KGB leaders "died of natural causes."
Stalin's purges are recounted as if the secret police were the victims, not
the executioners. "Our best people were eliminated," the guide laments,
claiming that more than 20,000, or "practically one-third," were killed.
"Not a single organization suffered as much as ours," he adds, neglecting to
mention Stalin's 19,980,000 or so other victims.
For the museum, the point is the celebration of the craft. "It's like any
sports game -- who outplays whom," says the guide. "We have failures and we
have victories, like any sports game."
The sport has undergone a revival of sorts during the presidency of Vladimir
Putin, a former KGB spy. Putin is represented by little more than a photo
and a dry bureaucratic resume.
After the tour, our guide expounds on his own views. "Nobody wants to go
back to the period of the Cold War," he says, "especially us."
--
Eugene Dillenburg
Exhibit Developer
Science Museum of Minnesota
120 W. Kellogg Blvd.
St. Paul, Minnesota 55102
(651) 221-4706
"One thought driven home is better than three left on base." -- James Liter
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