The intelligence war was once an important part of the fierce confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Moscow (Russia) used to be a place with a high concentration of spies from all over the world.
Illustration of a spy.
Russian foreign affairs website RBTH introduces the top places in Moscow where the KGB (National Security Committee of the Soviet Union) fought with the CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency):
Pekin Hotel
This impressively famous complex brings together both restaurants and hotels.
Pekin Hotel.
In 1961-1962, at the Pekin Hotel, British spy Greville Maynard Wynne held meetings with Colonel Oleg Penkovsky of Soviet military intelligence (GRU).
At Pekin, Oleg Penkovsky often sent spy Wynne photos of secret documents related to Soviet weapons systems.
Kosmodemyanskaya Street, number 36
GRU Colonel and CIA agent Penkovsky lived in an apartment on Kosmodamianskaya Street, number 36 (then Maxim Gorky Street).
Kosmodemyanskaya Street, number 36. Photo: Google Maps.
On the balcony of the floor above Penkovsky’s apartment, KGB agents hid a small camera inside a vase of flowers.
Penkovsky was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to death that year.
Krasnoluzhsky Bridge
The Krasnoluzhsky Bridge located southwest of Moscow was the meeting place between CIA agents and employee Alexander Ogorodnik of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Krasnoluzhsky Bridge.
Secret information exchanged between Ogorodnik and the CIA was transferred through boxes disguised as stones or wooden sticks.
Ogorodnik was arrested on June 22, 1977 but committed suicide afterward.
On July 15, 1977, US Embassy employee and CIA agent Martha Peterson was trying to hide a jar containing information for Ogorodnik at the Krasnoluzhsky bridge when she was arrested by KGB agents.
The Krasnoluzhsky bridge has now been replaced by the new Luzhnetsky bridge at the beginning of the 21st century. However, the old bridge pillars are still there, including the pillars that once hid boxes containing secret information in the Ogorodnik espionage case.
Train station platform “Severyanin”
In 1985, the KGB tracked CIA spy Paul Zalaki, who hid a box of secret information disguised as a stone not far from the “Severyanin” train station on the Moscow-Yaroslavl line.
“Severyanin” station platform.
A few weeks later, Soviet intelligence agents arrested Leonid Poleshuk, a KGB agent working for the CIA, who had come to retrieve the above-mentioned box of classified information.
The aforementioned secret box was filled with money, up to 25,000 rubles (at the price at that time, this amount was enough to buy 4 cars).
Saint Basil’s Cathedral
This church is located in Red Square, right in the center of Russia.
Saint Basil’s Cathedral.
A spiral staircase from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor of this building is an ideal place to secretly pass secret documents.
Furthermore, if foreign diplomats left central Moscow for the suburbs, they could easily arouse suspicion among Soviet counterintelligence.
In 1985, KGB Colonel and British intelligence agent Oleg Gordievsky prepared to defect from the Soviet Union.
Yet Gordievsky still managed to cut off the pursuit of KGB agents and successfully escaped to England.
According to Trung Hieu
