The head of the SVR, Sergey Naryshkin, plans to massively rename streets in honor of Soviet spies, learned The Insider*. The experimental site became the Yasenevo district, where the SVR headquarters is located, and since 2018, four "spy" toponyms have already appeared here.
In November 2018, a nameless square, next to which are the departmental houses of the SVR, was named after the star of international espionage Kim Philby, a member of the "Cambridge Five." Philby simultaneously led a division of the British intelligence bureau MI-6, responsible for combating Soviet agents. During the years of World War II alone, he transmitted at least 914 secret documents to Moscow. In 1963, Philby fled to Moscow and subsequently served as an unofficial advisor to the KGB's First Chief Directorate. For special merits, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee awarded the defector with the Orders of Lenin, the Red Star, and a 120-meter apartment in Trehprudny Lane.
In 2020, a street named after the head of Soviet foreign intelligence Pavel Fitin appeared in Yasenevo, and in 2022, his name was given to school No. 1694. Pavel Fitin joined the NKVD in 1938 and, against the backdrop of repressions in the department, made a dizzying career — within a year, he headed foreign intelligence. At that time, the 31-year-old Fitin was nicknamed Beria's favorite, and after the latter's arrest, Fitin was dismissed from the agency.
Following Philby Square and Fitin Street, two more "spy" addresses appeared near the SVR headquarters: the scout Deitch, who recruited the "Cambridge Five," and Gevork Vartanyan, who became a hero of the myth about saving the Big Three at the Tehran Conference in 1943. As the publication writes, later Vartanyan worked in the line of KGB political intelligence in NATO countries. He maintained unofficial contacts with the future Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, and allegedly introduced him to Putin.
According to a source from The Insider in the city hall, Naryshkin proposed to Sergey Sobyanin to assign the names of Soviet spies to at least twelve more squares and streets. In the next five years, it is planned to immortalize the names of Yuri Shevchenko, who worked in Spain and Portugal under the guise of a UNESCO employee, the head of the KGB residency in Tunisia Vadim Kirpichenko, the former head of the SVR Vyacheslav Trubnikov, who was called the "knight of the Cold War," Evgeny Kim, who spied in Asian countries, and the former KGB resident in Iran Vladimir Lokhov. The publication's source also reported that one of the streets is planned to be named after Pavel Sudoplatov, who organized the murders of Leon Trotsky in Mexico and the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Yevhen Konovalets in the Netherlands. In addition, he developed plans for the murders of the former People's Commissar of Education of Ukraine Alexander Shumsky, Greek-Catholic Bishop Theodore Romzha, shipbuilding engineer Naum Samet, and former Comintern member American Isaac Ogins. In 1953, Sudoplatov was arrested as Beria's accomplice and sentenced to 15 years in prison. So far, the SVR has limited itself to installing a bust of Sudoplatov in the Bryansk region and a street named after him in occupied Melitopol. However, there are plans to rename a street in Moscow soon. Moreover, as The Insider writes, there are talks in the Yasenevo municipal administration about renaming the district to Fitino.
* Recognized in Russia as a "foreign agent" and "undesirable" organization.
Photo: Sergey Mikheev/RG