During his work in the “counterintelligence subdivision” Putin “was noticed by agents of the foreign intelligence”, after which he was proposed to move in the First Central Department (the foreign intelligence) and was sent (again!) to Moscow to one year preparatory courses. After returning to Leningrad, “four years and a half”, from 1979 to 1983 he worked in the first section of Leningrad’s KGB department.
In 1984, after receiving the rank of a major, Putin was directed to Moscow’s KGB Higher School, where he studied under the pseudonym “Platov”. He specialized in German speaking countries: Austria, Switzerland, FRG, and GDR. It has been nine years that Putin is being prepared to become a spy, but he will not become one. Moreover, as you remember, most probably he was in Bonn in 1975 and failed. So what is he preparing for?
From 1974 I live in the West. Already in 1977 I become close with the famous American industrialist Peter Sprague, from 1979 I work for him, I live in his house. I get acquainted with the elite of international business. Instead of preparing Putin in Leningrad, the gentlemen from the KGB would have better done by addressing me. During those years and always I was and I stay a Russian patriot and I would have helped my country’s special services. But no… They were preparing Putin and did not finish the job. In 1980 I move to France, to Paris. There I become a writer, I get close with the leaders of the French Communist Party. I write for the Revolution journal, CP’s intellectual body. I visit CP’s famous bunker on Colonel Fabien Street. Among my acquaintances there are National Assembly deputies and senators and even the head of the National Assembly Chaban-Delmas. I would seem to be the ideal influence agent. But nobody has ever contacted me.
After graduating from school in 1985 Putin is finally (after ten years!) sent to a foreign trip, but only to a group of soviet troops in Germany, in the “otstoynik”, as it was cynically called then. People who were sent there did not have any perspectives in the special services. In the GDR their famous Stasi security service was headed by the talented Markus Wolf. How could the major Putin have helped him? Actually, he could not. The soviet foreign intelligence had nothing to do in GDR, since East Germany de facto was USSR’s internal territory, another national republic, that is all. Most probably, the information about Putin’s early failure in Bonn, which made a successful spy career impossible, is true, or his professional level was so low that his place was in the “otstoynik”. Whatever it was, in 1985 Putin appears in the city of Dresden, in the Waldschlosschen district, on Angelikastrasse, 4. His office was on the first floor. The fact that this was not a dangerous mission is demonstrated also by the fact that in front of the soviet residence building was the building of the district department of GDR’s State Security Ministry. Putin was among a group of eight soviet agents headed by the general Vladimir Shirokov. The Germans called the soviet agents “friends”.
When he arrived in Dresden Putin received an apartment with two rooms and a half on Radebergestrasse. A few minutes away from his workplace. Like Angelikastrasse, this is a prestigious district. The safety of the James Bonds was total, in addition to the neighboring Stasi building they were close to the soviet military base. Lyudmila Putina went shopping there and the Putin couple often went there to watch movies in Russian in the theater.
Here we should stop on the personality of V. V. Putin’s spouse. So let us interrupt the fascinating description of the “otstoynik” in order to continue it after the chapter about Lyudmila Putina.
THE SPOUSE
Lyudmila Alexandrovna Shkrebneva (Putina after her marriage) was born on January 6th 1958 in Kaliningrad. She was born the same year as my late wife Natasha Medvedeva, a singer and a writer, who died in February 2003, at that time I was behind bars in Saratov’s central prison. Lyudmila Putina attended Kaliningrad’s 44th School and then School Number 8. She finished her 8th grade with a good work certificate but in her school-leaving certificate she already had three Bs. In school she liked needlework (she knitted), was an active Komsomol member. In the theatrical circle of the Young Pioneers’ House she played in The Cherry Orchard, The Inspector and dreamed of becoming an actress. L. Putina’s mother Ekaterina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva lives in Kaliningrad for almost forty years now. She worked as a cashier in an autocade. Her husband Alexander Abramovich worked in Kaliningrad’s machinery factory. He died. (I do not have information about the time he died or his function in the factory). In 2003 Ekaterina Tikhonovna still lived in Kaliningrad. She had a dacha in the town of Pregolski.
Lyudmila Putina has a younger sister – Olga. Olga is married to Viktor Tzomaev. She works as a stewardess in Kaliningrad’s squadron.
In 1975 Lyudmila graduated and did not become an actress, but started to work as a post woman. Later she went to work in Kaliningrad’s Torgmash factory as a capstan lathe operator (she is a second class operator) but did not stay there. Still in 1975 she attended Kaliningrad’s technical institute, but dropped out during the second session.
Some time after dropping out she worked as a stewardess in Kaliningrad’s squadron. On that job Lyudmila proved to be a shy and a quiet employee.
So we see a somewhat frivolous soviet girl who switches jobs and does not stay long at any of them. In those years such an ardor was not welcome and caused suspicion. Many stamps in a workbook made the human resources employees frown.
In 1978 the stewardess Lyudmila Shkrebneva, she is twenty years old, was spending her vacations in the city of Leningrad. With a friend. There she visited the show of the comic Arkady Raykin in the Lensovet Theater. There she met Vladimir Putin, as we know, he was already working in the KGB. The trip to the show with the girls was organized by Putin’s friend, he has invited Lyudmila’s friend. VVP was providing tickets for the whole group. From this time Lyudmila frequently visited Leningrad on her vacations. And in 1980 she moved to Leningrad finally – she entered the preparatory courses for Leningrad’s State University and then for the philological faculty.
In university Luydmila specialized in “Spanish language and literature” (although she supposedly wanted to study German) and lived on the campus on Mytninskaya Street.
In June 28th 1983 Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila Shkrebneva registered their marriage in the Wedding Palace on Petr Lavrov Street. Lyudmila was then in her third session. The event was celebrated on a Neva steamship. We do not know if they rented the whole steamship or modestly partied in the bar. After the marriage the newly weds started to live in the house of Putin’s parents. Again we do not know if it was in the communal apartment or the country house in Tosno.
According to their neighbors in Saint Petersburg, Lyudmila was a shy and a friendly person. She rarely used make-up. We do not know if children were afraid of her.
IN THE “OTSTOYNIK” (CONTINUED)
There are many rumors about Putin’s activities in the GDR. Obviously, both Russian and German mass media became interested in these activities only after VVP became president of the Russian federation. I will enumerate here the principal rumors, pointing out that KGB officials of that time do not confirm these rumors. Particularly the KGB chairman under Gorbachev V. Kryuchkov did not confirm one of them.
So, here are the rumors. Unconfirmed. Supposedly the group Putin was part of, was trying to obtain western technologies. Supposedly, through foreign specialists who were visiting Dresden’s Robotron factory (it was producing computers for all socialist countries) and also through western specialists who were visiting Dresden’s university. Supposedly, the specialists and businessmen were lodged in the Bellevue hotel where they were attended by prostitutes recruited by Stasi. It is unclear what did the soviet agents do in this case? Supervised the prostitutes recruited by Stasi? It is not the most worthy activity for a future president. The Moskovski Komsomoletz newspaper from 18. 08. 1999 has advanced the version that Putin was supervising the behavior of soviet students in the GDR. The German Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper was then affirming that Putin was controlling the secretary of Dresden’s department of GDR’s Socialist United Party Hans Modrov and was also tracking drown anticommunist protest actions in the GDR. Although Rundschau situates Putin’s stay in the GDR in 1980.