Gennady Shevchenko. Escape from the corridors of the Foreign Ministry

Chapter 9 confiscation of property WITHIN,
the guidelines are the KGB.
Correspondence death sentence

A few days after the funeral, my mother V. Schneerson - familiar lawyer my first wife, who lived in a neighboring apartment on Rustaveli Street - advised to take out a few things from the apartment the parents, because they assume the confiscation of property. Grandmother allowed to give three suitcases of things (some $ 25 thousand rubles, then it was a lot of money), which at that time could be considered as a subject of speculation. They, including malachite boulder (more than 2 kilograms), were taken to the car my father-in of Lieutenant General Boris Smirnov to his apartment in a military town in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha. It is interesting that, according to a retired KGB colonel Vladimir Molodtsova (he was interviewed in the documentary film about his father, "a fateful decision," saying he was "guardian angel" of the family), the KGB decided not to conduct a search and seizure of property A. Shevchenko immediately after the funeral, not to injure his son, an elderly mother in law and young daughter. "We knew that some things have been taken out to search for an apartment in-law Gennadiy" - said Molodtsov, and the KGB did not prevent this.
However, I have great difficulty persuaded her grandmother to give even the above items, which are not accounted for and the thirtieth part of the remaining assets. In my opinion, removal of even a small bit of the things his father to search and seizure of his property could not pass unnoticed. This will surely accelerate further developments.
Two days later, May 22, 1978, the parents came to the apartment armed KGB investigators - 13 people, along with the notion that there must have been former KGB (perhaps they expected resistance from the patriotic son Shevchenko, his 72-year-old mother-and 16-year-old daughter?), with the head of the investigative group of the Investigations Division of the KGB Major OA Dobrovolsky. The group included members of the KGB Molodtsov, Yu Shitikov, H. Leitão, Plohotnov and KGB investigators widow, Lomov, Valchenko, Posevin.
In the apartment at that time was my first wife. I had to give her $ 800, which she put in her bra. MI Kurysheva I spoke to seizures that the apartment is about 5000 U.S. dollars, and in fact they were more. A year later, his wife gave me the money (apparently, it was terrible to keep the currency). My sister helped me to sell them. I got a $ 1 3 rubles 30 kopecks. The money was used to make a monument to her mother. True, 2000 rubles added grandmother.
Investigators were amazed by what they saw. "This is not a flat, and the museum" - they cried. Indeed, it was to be surprised. The 120-meter apartments were made (for the passage remained very little space) expensive antique furniture XVIII-XIX centuries: marquetry, boules, etc. The apartment was like a living room. Most of the things I like the investigators saw the first time. On dressers were unique bronze clock and old French clock with enamel. The huge buffet XIX century mahogany table stood and tea sets: Factory Popova, Gardner, other known pre-revolutionary firms. On the walls were large and small collectible plates imperial times and produced by the French company "Sevres". All the rooms of our great apartments were gilded antique lamps and chandeliers, and from the ceiling hung a huge gilt bronze chandelier XVII-XVIII centuries with crystal pendants handmade. On the ladies' marquetry secretaire stood unique silver mirror with the Count crest of enamel. All rooms are two-meter mirror XVIII century gilded frames. In the largest room was a huge priceless Venetian mirror in the crystal frame, on which was engraved a beautiful pattern. Dear American-made electric fireplace closed unique, vintage red glass screen with hand-painted with a black wood frame with carved black roses. The apartment has two historic bronze gilded table, one with malachite top, the other with a marble. On the walls hung pictures, however, the parents do not have time to buy very expensive. Perhaps the value was only a watercolor of the famous Russian artist VD Polenov. Small antiques were not counted. Having sold in 1981, an old inkstand, I was able, along with his second wife Nina to go on honeymoon for a month in Sochi, and we have not been able to spend a thousand rubles received for the specified item.
At the beginning of the search grandmother cried "It's all mine! I brought antiques and furniture from Austria and Romania in 1948-1949. " I said nothing, but he knew that most of these items were purchased with the money of his father, when he was appointed to the post of Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1973. Then my mother and grandmother carried away collecting beautiful antiques.
They had connections in almost every thrift shop in Moscow. Once there appeared some rare antique, my grandmother and my mother (when she came to the Soviet Union from New York) just bought it. Generally most Foreign Ministry employees bought abroad scarce in Moscow at things and then take them to the pawnshop, thereby obtaining a fairly large profit. Grandmother entrusted this mission, as a rule, their relatives and friends. In 1969, an old friend of my mother passed to the pawnshop for about 60 yards of tulle. Naturally, it immediately attracted the attention of investigators. Criminal proceedings were instituted. We were in the apartment came inspector. My grandmother told him about high correlation father, including AA Gromyko. As a result, my grandmother gave him a gold watch, a few hundred rubles, and the case was closed.
In the late 60's my father had the idea that the U.S. can sell at a profit old Russian silver coins. And my grandmother was the tie due to the collectors. Was purchased quite a large number of coins. They were transported to the United States with friends diplomats. I was going to New York for the holidays. In May 1969, I was seventeen years old, and the son of a senior diplomat (his father was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR, the second class, a senior adviser to the Permanent Mission of the USSR to the UN in New York), I was entitled to a diplomatic passport. My grandmother sewed the most valuable coins in my jacket pockets, especially rare and expensive silver ruble was Peter's time, cast in honor of the victory of the Russian emperor Peter I Gangut over Sweden in the battle in the Great Northern War (1714). My grandmother bought this coin for 700 rubles, while it was big money. Now, I think it's worth a few thousand dollars. At the airport Sheremetyevo-2 I passed customs and father brought dozens of expensive silver. Now I, as a professional lawyer, I think that this pure contraband could easily detect and not to dismiss it. Not so high was when my father's position. While much high-ranking officials, such as deputy ministers, "fall" quite low due to the much smaller transgressions, for example due to a mistress. Gromyko was not then a member of the Politburo, and possibly career father could then be completed. It's one thing to pay bribes without witnesses, and another thing - the airport Sheremetyevo-2. Remember, as I wrote above, that, in particular, in the mid 70's (by the way, Gromyko was already a member of the Politburo) of the "gray cardinal" of the CPSU, MA Suslov, not very fond of Gromyko, won the struggle for the MGIMO, when the Minister of Foreign Affairs arranged where children of their friends and relatives. And the ambassador VL Israelian stung just because of a few VCRs (one or two could bring), which in the period of perestroika considered as a subject of speculation. Consequently, the father risked not only his career, but my fate. Interestingly, corresponding with his father on the coins, I used code "Dancing Men", which he invented, read the relevant story of Conan Doyle. Father, cursing, transcribe my letters to him. In 1974, when I visited him again in New York (when I wrote a thesis), the father told me that he knowingly contacted the transportation of ancient silver coins in the U.S.. According to him, to capitalize on this "especially", he could not. By the way, my grandmother also used code names for items sent from New York for resale. In particular, the fashion in the late 60's - early 70's lurex shawls, which were sent to Moscow by the thousands, in his letters to my grandmother in-law called "flowers." Antique jewelry grandmother bought through the Director repair shop jewelry, which was on the Old Arbat. The father of the director promised Belyaev organize trip to the U.S..
From 1966 to 1973, our apartment on Frunze Embankment was furnished quite simply, modern furniture and almost no antiques. All savings father and grandmother went partly to the acquisition in 1966 of cooperative apartments and cottages in the village Valentinovka that parents later exchanged for more of the same dacha cooperative with surcharge. In 1966, parents paid 16,000 rubles (at the time a huge amount), to change the one-bedroom apartment (where my grandmother lived with her third husband, a father, mother, me and my sister Anna juvenile) for a four. Several thousand parents gave the chairman of the cooperative VP Trepelkov for "clearance" apartment. In 1963, my grandmother retired after working for the last few years the director of the grocery store, near the outpost Ilyich, where I was born in 1952. Although the products have no problems, we lived quite modestly. After all, the director of shops at that time were attributed tribute (150-200 rubles a month, by the way, the monthly salary of the director) shopping district authorities. Zhdanov headed raypischetorg while NP Tregubov, who later became the Chief of the trade of Moscow. He remembered his grandmother and in the early 80's, when my father was already in the U.S., and considered it almost relative. Then it was a criminal case against the store manager "Ocean" on Komsomol prospectus, get grandma caviar, which she sent in large quantities through a friend diplomat father to receptions in the UN (New York, one kilo of caviar cost a thousand dollars, thus his father was a good extra income.) Grandma called Tregubova, and the case against the director of "Ocean" was discontinued. True, and very soon, "chief commander of the Moscow trade" prosecuted and, apparently, was shot as director Eliseevsky deli Sokolova.
To get a two-bedroom apartment grandmother lived in a room in a shared apartment on Aviamotornaya street. Her furniture, imported from Austria and Romania, did not have any collectible value and was taken to our cottage is not heated in the winter. All money and valuables brought from these countries, the husband of my grandmother passed before his death in the mid-50's to the son from his first marriage. By the way, once in the early 90's I got a call one Arsentiev (apparently, the one son), it is unclear how to find out my phone (on the telephone exchange was not given, and my ex-mother-in-law, with whom I met at her request in 1993 year, got my phone via the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia). Arsentiev Jr. asked me to read a book his father "break with Moscow." However, at that time I did not have this book - I gave her to read AA Immortals. More Arsentiev not called.
Only great value, purchased abroad grandmother was thrown with 56 diamonds, which mum Gromyko gave his wife in 1972. Picture mom and I gave this brooch MI Kurysheva month after the confiscation, saying that there must be no evidence, at least indirectly, to blackmail AA Gromyko.
In the monthly "Top Secret» (№ 1, 1999) published an article by T. Belousova "Payback. Why took his own life the wife of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR, "which put forward a fantastic version of the reasons for the escape of his father. The article states, in particular, that in 1974 Anna Ksaverevna brought to the famous art critic male portrait by the Flemish painter and asked to estimate how much it might cost in the West. Being a man of delicate art did not ask how it got a priceless painting from the collection of burnt in Auschwitz the famous collector-Jew. The article suggests that, perhaps, in Germany, on the occasion of his grandmother bartered with any soldier in a couple of bottles of vodka (as you know, my grandmother was in 1948 in Austria and Romania, not Germany. - GS) . And perhaps, continues the author, someone offered to buy it for my daughter, and Anna Ksaverevna before reporting on the picture, decided to evaluate it. The latest version can be true. However, the picture may be intended for Gromyko, and for Kurt Waldheim (former Wehrmacht officer), if it existed at all. In 1974, I lived in an apartment with his father and grandmother, and she showed me all the antiques that she bought, including old silver samovar, intended for the UN Secretary General. Picture I mentioned in our apartment ever seen.
Painting, according to the author, could be the recruitment father Americans. So he allegedly remained in the U.S.. Even if it is delusional, not based on any factual assumption were true, then I have no doubt that it would have no impact on the career of his father. Recall the treatment of Jews in the 70's and 80's, instructions prohibiting their employment in the Foreign Ministry and the KGB. Father wrote in "The New Russian Word" in an article on April 22, 1993, that, based on his personal experience of many years of public service, anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union took place. Except for the initial period of Bolshevik power in the party and government apparatus of the Soviet Union almost no persons of Jewish nationality. In MGIMO, which forged the staff of diplomats, journalists and party workers, spies for the KGB and GRU and other needs of the Central Committee and Politburo, the Jews did not accept. The Foreign Ministry did not take the Jews after the destruction of Beria and Molotov Litvinovsky NCID. And this was not the separatist machinations of HR-Semitic. It was approved at the highest level of official policy. According to rumors, this policy, in particular, held the "gray eminence" of the CPSU, MA Suslov.
By the way, much of the diamonds and jewels of gold, which were seized during the search, a modern American production.
Grandma said that in general, all hers, and literally fighting for every little thing, such as Japanese umbrellas modern production, and tried to win from the investigators. She even snatched from the hands of one umbrella KGB man, saying: "This is mine!" (Umbrella grandmother left.) So in the end a KGB had enough. They stopped to listen and pay attention to it. Head of the investigation team came to me that I have, what things can belong to my grandmother, and what his father. OA Dobrovolsky several telephone calls and consulted his superiors about the extent to which the need to confiscate. That's what cost the laws under the Soviet regime!
By the way, the KGB superspy (1985-1994), the responsible officer CIA O. Ames and his wife (also sent to prison for several years), who was aware of her husband's espionage activities only in the last two years of his nine-year collaboration with the KGB and not reported on the CIA, and confiscated all the property, a house, car, Swiss bank accounts. Ames was even deprived of the right to use the money owed to him for the books and movies that are likely to be devoted to it in the future. At the same time, agents issued Ames Soviet Union, were arrested and executed, and all their property confiscated. Their relatives have selected departmental apartment, forbade them to work in public institutions. They are the dregs of society. True, the wife of Lieutenant General GRU Polyakov, who was already retired and was shot by Ames, the chairman of the KGB Chebrikov allowed to keep the cottage built by Polyakov. All the rest of their property was confiscated, and the traitor was waiting unmarked grave. OA OA OA Y. OA

Link to original