Translated material
Current story
Exhibition “State security of Russia. 1881--2006" in the hall of the federal archives
How beautiful was the Caucasian convoy of Emperor Alexander II: Cossacks, Lezgins, Ossetians, a uniform tied at the waist with gazyrs, epaulettes, elegant daggers in the belt! The colors varied depending on the nationality of the unit. You can see from the uniforms what stately handsome men were recruited into His Imperial Majesty’s Own convoy. Uniforms, weapons, photographs of the Caucasian convoy open the exhibition. And - one of the most powerful exhibition techniques seen in recent times - among them in the window is the emperor's uniform. The one he was in on March 1, 1881. Or rather, what was left of the uniform: everything below the waist was in shreds, a shredded jacket (they cut it while trying to remove it from the wounded man), fringed trousers (Alexander’s legs were crushed by a bomb), stains, shreds of cotton wool crawling out of the lining. The luxurious convoy did not save us.This is how the history of the Russian service for the protection of senior officials of the state begins.
The exhibition, prepared with the active participation of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (which is apparently a new area of activity for the FSO), certainly succeeded. This is news even for historical science - the history of the security service has not yet been studied, and such a topic has not even been raised.
So, on March 1, 1881, it became clear that in addition to the convoy, less flashy, but more serious security was needed for beauty. Staffing schedules, instructions, exit logs: the king, queen, and senior dignitaries were no longer supposed to take a single step without bodyguards. Layout of palace guards. Impressive Cossacks of the convoy in children's drawings of the heir Alexei Nikolaevich. Rules for living in the imperial palaces, the procedure for access of outsiders (guests could not spend the night without special permission). By the number of bodyguards of each of the dignitaries, one can judge the degree of supposed interest in them by revolutionary terrorists: the ministers of internal affairs, justice, and education are guarded more carefully than others (the minister of justice - because of the trials of revolutionaries, education - because of the suppression of student riots) . Technical innovations: the guards of Nicholas II now have cars, but his bodyguards have mastered bicycles. Public initiative - "Russian Society for Encouraging the Use of Dogs in Police and Guard Service." It turns out that there was a voluntary guard, something like vigilantes.
The main plot of the exhibition is the endless duel between security guards and terrorists. Terrorists have won more than once. Socialist Revolutionary Kalyaev killed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, right in the carefully guarded (but open to entry) Moscow Kremlin. The photo shows the skeleton of a carriage, from which all that remains are wheels, springs and a shapeless pile of something in the snow. The body of the Grand Duke, as is known, was collected in small pieces. Kalyaev’s gloomy, puffy face looks out from the photograph. Murder of Stolypin. Nicholas II took command in the First World War and went to headquarters - for whom is this a headache? That's right, for security. And the fact that everything soon collapsed has nothing to do with the security. She did her job.
The designers placed voluminous royal monograms above the doors of the first hall of the exhibition. In the next hall they are replaced by red flags, stars, and hammers and sickles. What worries the new people's power? Organization of Kremlin security. A funny battle between the Kremlin commandant and the Council of People's Commissars: who should obey whom? The commandant won, focusing on security issues.
Instead of the uniform of Alexander II, the center of the exhibition is Lenin's coat with a hole from Fanny Kaplan's bullet. The small hole on the sleeve of the drape coat is neatly mended and almost invisible. Later it was marked with a red cross. An incomparable ugliness painting depicting the assassination attempt by Kaplan. Passes, mandates, instructions for sentries. Comrade Dzerzhinsky is worried: “In the fifth house of the Soviets live a number of responsible workers, like Voroshilov, Beloborodov and others. They live mixed with strangers. Reversing is available to anyone. We need to think about what to do for greater security.”
The third room begins with documents about the murder of Kirov. The main exhibit here is his bullet-ridden cap. Then the troubles about protecting the leaders from the 30s to the present day. In the center of the hall are Stalin’s uniform, a table, and telephone sets from the Kuntsevo Blizhnaya dacha. Documents and photographs about several very little known attempts to assassinate Soviet leaders. In the summer of 1933, while on vacation in Sochi, a truck crashed into Stalin's car; a month later, near Pitsunda, Stalin’s boat was accidentally fired upon by overly vigilant border guards. (In both cases, Beria and Stalin’s head of security, Nikolai Vlasik, proved that there were no assassination attempts, just an accident.)
War. A photograph of the Kremlin taken on July 22, 1941 by a German reconnaissance aircraft. On November 6, 1942, Mikoyan’s car was fired upon right on Red Square - the shooter was an air defense corporal, a peasant, a former Komsomol member who had read a lot of German leaflets. After this incident, security was reformed and made even stricter.
In 1952, General Vlasik was removed from Stalin’s guard; in 1955, he was convicted of official violations: drunkenness, neglect of his duties, revealing secret agents to an outside friend and drinking buddy. But a year and a half later he was pardoned.
1969 - another assassination attempt on Red Square, a government car carrying astronauts was fired upon, the driver was killed, and an escort motorcyclist was wounded. But these are rare emergencies. Escorts, armored vehicles, vigilance.
On the wall of the last room is an enlarged photograph of a powerful, impressive formation of armored vehicles ("member carriers") with an escort of motorcyclists - this is Tito's visit to Moscow. The awkward wooden box is a device for the Moscow-Washington hotline, which appeared in 1963 after the Cuban Missile Crisis. A hilarious photo: old Brezhnev in a rubber cap is swimming in the pool, two bodyguards are swimming nearby, and two more in swimming trunks are on the side.
A symbolic photograph: security management is posing at the entrance to the Mausoleum: the Kremlin commandant, the head of the “nine” (security department) and the KGB chairman Semichastny, they are in the center of the picture, at a normal, earthly level, and above, on the podium, they are either celestial beings or not then it’s just an entourage, a background for those posing - Nikita Khrushchev, Yuri Gagarin.
Regimes change, history flows - the guard stands where it stood.