About the deceased George Blake, Kim Philby, his furniture and about Kolya Zhuravlyov

Great Britain paid him the entire fee for the book about how he went over to the side of the USSR and gave out the plans and secrets of "Secret Intelligence Service". And in addition, she paid a £ 7,000 fine.

Sergey Baimukhametov

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences on the death of George Blake: “Colonel Blake was a brilliant professional - with special vitality and courage. Over the years of hard and intense work, he made a truly invaluable contribution to ensuring strategic parity and maintaining peace on the planet".

A British intelligence officer, Secret Intelligence Service, George Blay began working for the USSR in 1953, when he was a British resident in Korea. His loudest case was the transmission of information that American and British intelligence had built a tunnel in Berlin and connected to the communication lines of Soviet troops in the GDR. For a long time our CIA and ICU used this channel to drive full-fledged disinformation! In 1961, Blake was arrested and sentenced to 42 years in prison. Four years later, he made a fantastic escape and ended up in Moscow.

In 1991, Comrade Blake, Colonel of the Foreign Intelligence Service, holder of the Soviet Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner, wrote a book of memoirs "There is no other choice." She enjoyed great success in England. But the British authorities arrested the fee on the grounds that it was "an attempt to make money on treason." The proceedings dragged on for a long time. In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights told the British authorities: espionage is separate, and property rights and copyrights are separate. And also ordered to pay 83-year-old Russian citizen George Blake 7 thousand pounds sterling fine.

Upon learning of this, I immediately remembered my, alas, late friend Nikolai Zhuravlyov, his stories about other legendary spies - Kim Philby and Donald McLean. From the very famous "Cambridge Five", which worked for Soviet intelligence - Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, John Kerncross and Donald McLean. The most famous of them are Kim Philby, deputy director (!) Of Secret Intelligence Service for counterintelligence operations, and Donald McLean, head of the US Department of the British Foreign Office.

Nikolay Zhuravlyov is a historian, culturologist, publicist. There is such an expression "bright personality". It suited Kolya like no one else, because he did not live for himself, not for his works, not for his books, but for his friends. He was attracted by everything talented, and he, forgetting about his affairs, engaged in people who were interesting to him. Kolya was the son of the famous film director Vasily Zhuravlyov. The older generation remembers his film "The Fifteen Years Captain" - the Soviet "blockbuster" of deafening popularity. And you can imagine what kind of family it was, what kind of environment - famous artists, painters, writers of that time. Kolya, with his external data, could become a popular artist. He could enter any prestigious institute, for example, VGIK. The road is open. But he was not interested in it. The Soviet playboy, the "golden youth" - he went to the "boring", little-known then and not at all "prestigious" historical and archival institute, he was fascinated by the search in the dusty repositories of documents. That was how he was.

A year before his death, in 2004, Nikolay Zhuravlyov published a book "Fundamentals of Culturology", which is rare in his thoughts and richness of knowledge, published by the Russian University of Chemical Technology named after D.I. Mendeleev.

Once I told Kolya how, as a boy, in the mid-60s, one day I discovered that America is far from what they say in newspapers and say on the radio. In the reading room of the regional library, in the weekly "Abroad", I came across a small photograph of a dark-skinned man in a light soft hat. The note under the photo stated that it was the newly elected governor of Alabama. But how is that ?! After all, Alabama, in my view, formed by Soviet propaganda, is one of the most racist states in America, with the Lynching and the Ku Klux Klan. And suddenly - a black governor!

"And I had a similar case!", - Kolya jumped up, - "With Kim Philby and Donald McLean!"

It must be said here that Kolya's father, Vasily Zhuravlyov, was also the director of films about Soviet intelligence officers. And therefore, in addition to the cinema and literary public, people from the special services also gathered in their house. But that romance did not captivate my friend. Maybe because he already had other interests. Or maybe because one of our knights of the cloak and dagger once said to Kolya when they were smoking on the landing: “Your dad makes romantic films about us, and that's right, but if they order me to stab you now, I will stab you. , and then I'll come home, have tea and go to bed without any remorse..."

In one of the companies, Kolya met a young man named Fergus. And then with his father - a scientist Mark Petrovich. Which turned out to be the same Donald McLean. And he won his authority and respect for his ability to prepare tea leaves from a complex mixture of Indian, Ceylon and Krasnodar tea.

- In that spy story, it struck me, - Kolya said, - that Kim Philby in a Moscow apartment works at his London writing desk, sits in a London chair, uses the books of his London library - and he received all this from England after he was there. declared enemy number one! I even thought then that ours carried out a special operation to secretly take out Philby's property! Nonsense, of course. But who of us could have thought that the enemy is the enemy, and if you please send his things by English mail to Moscow! I learned that my dear Mark Petrovich, who is Donald McLean, quite calmly corresponds with his English relatives, receives parcels that his wife and three children have moved to Moscow with him without any obstacles. Melinda McLean left Mark Petrovich here and married Philby. And Fergus then returned to England...

Speaking of relatives. Nikolai did not know until 1956 that he had a maternal grandfather. Until his return from the camp and rehabilitation. The house was silent about him.

“According to English law, Philby and Maclean are criminals and traitors. But this does not apply to furniture! - Kolya laughed. - And if confiscation is not provided, then tables and chairs can be safely sent in luggage to the Moscow address of the traitor. This amazed me so much that I completely ignored their adventures and spy fame! After all, then for the first time they officially announced them all over the country, everyone around just kept repeating: “Kim Philby! Kim Philby!". And I was thinking about his furniture...

This is what came to my mind when I heard that on December 26, at the 99th year of life, the scout George Blake died.