KGB Museum, A Slice of the Soviet Union in Prague

The KGB museum in Prague consists of two rooms, a basement and an enthusiastic owner who explains to his visitors every single exhibit. The collection is entirely devoted to the Russian secret service. The exhibits features uniforms, weapons and other items used by the once-feared KGB, the Committee for State Security, in other words the Soviet intelligence agency.
The collection in the KGB museum is composed of the private collection of the owner who originally is from St Petersburg, but now lives in Prague. In Russia, there is little interest in these historical objects. Russians do not want to be reminded of those KGB days. Many western tourists come to Prague and many of them are interested in the KGB history. That is why he opened his museum in Prague.

KGB MUSEUM IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED

KGB Museum

The KGB Museum: the Collection

The collection in the Prague KGB Museum includes all kinds of objects that we know from spy movies and books. You will see a walking stick with a poison hidden mechanism to inject poison similar to the one used for the ‘umbrella murder’ in 1978 on the writer Georgi Markov by a Bulgarian secret service in London. Markov walked down the street and felt a stab in his leg, then turned to see a man with an umbrella walking away. Three days later Markov was dead. In his leg was a tiny ball that contained traces of the poison ricin.

Eavesdropping Devices and Hidden Cameras

Eavesdropping microphones were widely used. In the KGB museum you can see a beautifully embroidered pincushion with a hidden microphone. Numerous different devices to tap telephone conversations like a telephone with two microphones and two earpieces. Unique is the telephone from Smolny Institute in Petrograd now St Petersburg which Lenin used as the Bolshevik’s headquarters during the October revolution in 1917.
Unique are the cigarette case in which a photo camera is hidden. Only a few copies were made, as is the microscopic camera from 1948.

KGB Museum

Lenin, Trotsky and Beria in the KGB Museum

Unique in the KGB museum are Lenin’s death mask, the weapon with which Trotsky was murdered and the radio of Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, the dreaded boss of the secret services. On the wall is a photo-reportage ‘Prague 1968 seen through the eyes of a KGB officer’. Beautiful street scenes of Prague not showing one single burnt-out tank or collapsed building.

Camouflage Uniforms in KGB Museum

The camouflage uniforms for women had tassels made of horsehair. When tracking dogs smell horses, they don’t attack. Also many other uniforms with hand-embroidered emblems made of wool from Scotland. They were worn under a long leather coat which may remind you of the one Herr Otto Flick in ‘Allo ‘Allo wore.

KGB Museum

Lenin’s Chamber Pot and More

Numbered strands of human hair to identify the prisoner’s hair colour, stamps to forge passports, kalshnikovs and pistols in all sizes. Lenin’s chamber pot from the Gorky Museum in St Petersburg. A portable medical laboratory that was used during interrogations, Typewriters for coded messages and many more objects the secret service used to eavesdrop and report on fellow countrymen.

How to get there

At the end of your visit you don a military cap and with an authentic kalasnikov in you pose for your KGB photo.
The KGB Museum is located in the Mala Strana district close to Malostranska namesti. Take tram 5, 12, 15,20, 22 , 25 to the Malostranske namesti stop.

Address KGB Museum Prague, Vlašska 13, Mala Strana, Prague
Open daily 10.00-17.00

photos Marianne Crone

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