The ice ax, which was killed by Leo Trotsky, lay for half a century under the bed in Mexico. Now it will be exhibited in the International Spying Museum

On September 13, the collector Kit Melton transferred about five thousand subjects to the International Museum of Spying, which he collected for forty years. Among them - and an ice ax, which in 1940, the NKVD agent Ramon Merkader cut Leo Trotsky in Mexico. The murder gun was long considered lost until it was found literally under the bed of the daughter of a Mexican policeman. "Medusa" talks about the fate of this historical subject (and about Melton, who found it).

On August 20, 1940, the Spanish Stalinist Ramon Merkader recruited to the NKVD, having implemented Trotsky’s entourage under the guise of the Canadian Frank Jackson, came to visit him. Trotsky and his wife by that time had been living in the Mexican Coyoacan for three years, next to Diego Rivera and Frida Kalo. The Merkader brought the disgraced revolutionary to read his manuscript-and when he delved into reading, he took an ice ax from under his cloak and hit Trotsky on the head. The next day, Trotsky died in the hospital. Mercader was arrested and put for 20 years, and the ice ax went to the police archive. There he lay for several years, and then disappeared and was listed as missing - until he appeared in 2005 in an unexpected place.

For several decades, it was believed that the sadly famous murder weapon was stolen - but who and why, is unknown. It turned out that for a long time he simply dusted under the bed of the Mexican Ana Alicia Salas. According to Salas herself, her father Alfredo seized the gun of the murder of Trotsky from the archive of the police station in Mexico City to save for descendants. According to another version , in the 1960s, colleagues gave Salas the ice ax as a memorable souvenir before retirement. One way or another, an ice ax (on which traces of blood was preserved) went to Anai Salas in the inheritance, and in 2005 she decided to put him up for auction.

The authenticity of the gun aroused doubts; The great -grandson of Trotsky Esteban Volkov even volunteered to pass the DNA test to compare his results with the traces of blood on the ice ax. True, he set one condition-if the subject turns out to be the instrument of the murder, Salas will have to transfer it to Trotsky’s house-museum (located in the very building in Koyoacan, where he was killed). The owner of the ice ax refused, citing the fact that she would like to get something for him. “I am interested in the monetary benefit. If this is such an important thing for the story, should it cost something? " - Salas The Guardian quotes the words.

The icebreaker had to lie under the Salas bed for another three years before the buyer was found. In 2008, he was acquired by a rich businessman from Florida and the author of books on espionage Kit Melton, who collected the largest private collection of spy objects in the United States. The collector spent forty years in search of an ice ax-by his own admission of Melton, he even checked the version that the ice ax belongs to the Mexican president who uses it instead of a press-part. Three times Melton traveled to Mexico City to check the history of Salas - and making sure the authenticity of the ice ax, made a deal with her. The amount that the collector paid to the Mexican is not disclosed.

On September 13, 2017, it became known that Keith Melton transferred his entire private collection to the International Spying Museum in Washington, a member of the Board of Directors of which he is. These are about five thousand items; Among them is the Enigma encryption machine, which was used during the Second World War, a piece of sheathing Gary Powers, shot down over Sverdlovsk in 1960, and even the British invented by a motorized diving canoe (that is, a submarine for one person) “Sleeping Beauty” almost four meters long.

The Melton collection should become the core of the exposition of the new building of the International Spying Museum; Experts estimate its total cost at about $ 20 million. At the same time, the collector himself admits that some exhibits went to him for a penny - and a number of long -awaited finds eventually turned out to be fakes.

Melton calls his fascination with spy things only a hobby: he is a military engineer by education. After graduating from the US Naval Academy in 1966 and having won Vietnam, Melton wanted to become a scout, but in the end he chose a business. He made his fortune on fast food: according to the Associated Press, at one time Kit Melton was the largest owner of the McDonald 'S franchise in the USA.

“My goal is not the number of exhibits that I can collect, but what I can learn from them. I love investigations. Each artifact in my collection is part of a detective story, ”Keith Melton explained his passion. “You have to go to very strange places around the world and sometimes spend too much money, but in the end you remain under a huge impression of everything you see.”

It will be possible to see the items collected by Kitu Melton in 2018.

Olga Strachovskaya