Cover blown on secret museum

The KGB museum: 'an outsider cannot just walk in'

Russian TV has given viewers a rare but fleeting glimpse of what it describes as "one of the most secret museums in the country".

The building in central St Petersburg houses memorabilia and archives dating back to the early days of the secret intelligence service, the KGB, then known as the Cheka.

"This is probably one of the most secret museums in the country. Over half of the exhibits carry a tag of Top Secret or For Official Use Only," the reporter said.

Some documents date back to Lenin's time

"It is forbidden to film most of the display cases. Photographs of agents currently still in service do not have labels - one either knows them through their work, or one does not need to know."

Arrest warrants

The museum's exhibits include the very first criminal investigations registration journal, opened by the Petrograd, or St Petersburg, Cheka in March 1918, concerning a case of "counterrevolutionary propaganda".

Warrants of the period include orders to "arrest driver Nikolayev, search the house and take everything", or to "arrest Blash and all the men".

But, according to the TV, there is only one poignant item to represent the tumultuous events of the 1930's, in which thousands died at the hands of Stalin's secret police. It is a list of chiefs of the Leningrad directorate and other security personnel executed between 1933-39: a total figure of 22, 618.

Nazi memorabilia is also on display

Other exhibits cover guerrilla warfare operations behind German lines in the Leningrad Region during the Second World War and the exposure of Hitler's secret agents.

There is also material on the Cold War period, including photographs of foreign agents, hiding-places and items of spying equipment.

No need to know

But old habits die hard: members of the public who want to visit the museum for themselves are likely to be disappointed.

An official told the TV that "certain regulations" covered visits to the building, known by the nickname Bolshoy Dom, or Big House.

"After all, this is a security organization. Certainly, an outsider cannot just walk in," he said.

"Much very interesting, but confidential, information about the present-day work of the intelligence services is on display, but the time has not yet come for the public to see it," the reporter concluded.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.