Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: KGB spied in name of aid to foreigners Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 15:07:56 EST Message-ID: \SE A \HD KGB spied in name of aid to foreigners \SH Russia confirms what visitors knew \BY Gerald Nadler \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES \DT MOSCOW MOSCOW - For decades, the set of initials that struck fear into foreigners in the Soviet Union was not KGB, but UPDK. UPDK (pronounced ooh-peh-dah-kah) is the state agency that provides housing, drivers, translators and other services to businessmen, diplomats and journalists. UPDK's new boss, Uri Proshin, 47, a former submarine commander, revealed last week what foreigners long knew: UPDK worked hand in glove with the KGB. The obfuscatory English of the Itar-Tass news agency said in reporting Mr. Proshin's news conference, "A curtain shrouding the mystery . . . has fully been unveiled by the new chief of UPDK at a news conference here in Moscow." The scope of the effort that produced stool pigeons and placed them in the vast holdings of UPDK is staggering. "UPDK paid constant attention and provided aid to 140 embassies, 295 foreign media missions, and over 800 foreign companies, banks and airlines . . . or staff and families reaching 20,000," Tass said. It also provided standard services to 57 international organizations. In all, UPDK rents 7,500 apartments, chiefly in the dozens of large compounds where foreigners live separately from Russians - the practice in this country since the time of the earliest czars. The apartments, far more luxurious than the standard Russian living spaces but with rents thousands of times higher, can be rented only with freely convertible currency. UPDK earned $80 million a year in hard currency and employed 2,500 people. And the foreigners paid for the KGB's eyes and ears in their apartments and offices. In the pre-glasnost era, swapping UPDK stories was a highlight of all parties in the foreigners' colony. The wife of one Western diplomat grew tired of having to rearrange her apartment after her family's vacation abroad and the obligatory KGB search in the family's absence. So she left a note on the kitchen table before her last trip. "Please put things back where you found them. Thank you." The same woman found under her dog's tongue the tablets used to knock it out while the intruders were busy. The animal, found on a bed, was not himself for days. Foreigners frequently complained about the vacation practices of the UPDK maids. Rather than take their breaks while their families were on leave for a month, they used that time to "tidy the place up." Their own vacations came at another time, giving them eight weeks off a year. Foreigners could hire only UPDK-supplied helpers. Each had a pass in a little walletlike case flashed to the militiaman guarding each compound in a heated booth. If foreigners fired a maid, translator or driver, they were given a choice of others, all trained by the KGB. Today, the monopoly is broken. Foreigners can hire whomever they want. The veteran UPDK workers refer to these newcomers as "off the street." The UPDK employees work "in the system." UPDK and its services have been a two-edged sword. Foreigners who used to complain about living in guarded compounds now shudder at reports that the militiamen will be removed while crime and attacks against foreigners mount. These guards, never paid by UPDK, were assigned by the Interior Ministry. On hearing the news, a man said the hooligans will "stream in like bees to honey." Like all state organizations, UPDK is privatizing in ways that make foreigners understand when Russians say the "free" market is a sham. Recently, the foreigners at one compound suddenly found a barrier blocking access to their parking lot. Free parking, long part of the exorbitant rent, had come to an end. The cost now is $2.50 a day, and you pay eight months in advance. No ifs, ands or buts. But the offices of the new private firm running the parking lot are in the offices of the manager of the UPDK building. "This is the way it is done in all other countries," he said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM