Russian Spies Get Vocal
Dec. 21 -- Theirs is a cloak-and-dagger world, but after an 80-year tradition of secrecy, Russian spies can finally sing their songs out loud.
Back in the dark days of the Cold War, at least some Soviet spies apparently relaxed between missions with a round of music.
The songs were of blood, sweat and patriotic tears, and for the first time, they have been compiled on a 22-track CD of favorite spy songs titled This Difficult Job Is Called Intelligence.
Some of the songs of subterfuge include “From Kabul to Washington,” “I Obey Orders” and “Profession: Espionage.” Most of them have been written and performed by intelligence officers themselves, the Moscow Times reported.
The unusual CD was issued to mark Chekist’s Day, a Soviet-era holiday commemorating the Dec. 20, 1917, establishment of the secret police, the Cheka.
The Cheka later developed into the KGB, the dreaded repression machine that executed and imprisoned millions under the Soviet Union.
But things have changed since the 1991 Soviet collapse. In a telling sign, this year the heads of the KGB’s successors — the FSB, or Federal Security Service, and the SVR foreign intelligence agency — broke with their usual secrecy and gave rare media interviews.
And it isn’t even called Chekist Day anymore, but a more politically correct “Day of Security Organs.”
The Country Is Safe
In the spirit of good anniversary cheer, security heads largely glossed over the excesses of the past.
“Being an intelligence officer means being reliable, itmeans dedication, dedication to one’s homeland, to one’scomrades, it means being noble,” SVR chief Sergei Lebedev told the newspaper Izvestia .
The lyrics from one of the songs mirrors his sentiment: “We travel on land, in the sky or by sea./ As long as intelligence work is being done, the country is safe.”
The country is also being run by a former spy. President Vladimir Putin, a KGB veteran, marked the occasion by urging former colleagues to learn from the past.
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