Invitation to America

After twelve years of teaching political science at my university, I unexpectedly received an invitation to visit the United States from the U.S. State Department’s political section. However, the American diplomats were not the only ones interested in the trip. Officers from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) also wanted to know why I had been invited—and what connections I might have with the Americans.

Tula, late 2010s

By the time I received the invitation, I had been teaching political science at my home university for twelve years. The offer came suddenly: I was invited to travel to the United States as part of a small group of Russian political scientists and sociologists for a professional exchange program.

I had never applied for such a program. The political section of the U.S. State Department discovered me on its own—among the winners of a nationwide academic competition on election law organized in 2016 by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.

At least, that was how a secretary from the political section, who traveled to Tula to meet me in person—perhaps to ensure I was a suitable candidate — explained it to me.

He spoke Russian fluently. Our conversation flowed easily, and the invitation was accepted.

My meeting with the American diplomat impressed not only me. It also drew the attention of the counterintelligence department of the FSB’s Tula regional office.

They also wanted to meet me and find out what exactly had captured the U.S. State Department’s interest.

That’s how I first met the security officer Gryzlov.

In Russia, security service employees are often called “chekists.” The term originates from the Cheka — the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission created in December 1917. Today, the FSB sees itself as the successor to that organization.

There is another nickname — gebeshnik or simply gebnya — that originates from the KGB era. However, the most common term is ‘chekist.’ Security officers use it themselves and wear it with pride.

They dislike the word gebnya, but I prefer it.

Gryzlov had a comfortable office on the first floor of the university’s main building. He served as the university’s resident security officer: monitoring professors’ behavior, overseeing international contacts, and conducting preventive conversations about the hostility of the “collective West.”

He seemed particularly eager to have those conversations with young female instructors from the Faculty of Foreign Languages.

Gryzlov wanted to know why the Americans had invited me specifically and what connections I had with the U.S. State Department.

Unfortunately for him, I had no answers he wanted.

Eventually, he stopped trying to interrogate me and started trying to persuade me not to go.

He warned that American intelligence agencies might plant drugs on me and throw me in prison — so that I could later be exchanged in a prisoner swap. He assured me they would force me to spy for the United States by falsely accusing me of a serious crime.

Initially, his attention appeared amusing. Then it got boring.

I had read Alexander Solzhenitsyn and was familiar with the chekist style. Since the Stalinist purges, it had hardly changed. Of course, they were not torturing me. Not yet.

But everything else was present: the quiet voice, the friendly tone, the careful warnings, the show of concern, the scanning gaze, and the constant reassurances that we were surrounded by enemies.

A few days later, it became evident that Gryzlov had failed his assignment.

Another security officer contacted me. His name was Alexander Kuznetsov.

Years earlier, when we were students, we had only been lovers briefly. I was sixteen, and he was three years older. One day, he left for an archaeological field school and slept with a classmate there. We ended things and never saw each other again.

Then he called and invited me to meet at a café for an “important conversation.”

By that point, I already knew what the conversation would be about, but I agreed due to unhealthy curiosity.

It turned out he was now a major in the FSB. Counterintelligence.

Kuznetsov sat across from me with a serious expression, chewing a croissant and washing it down with lukewarm tea.

“I came to warn you,” he said. “As a friend.”

I have no idea where all these friends in the security services suddenly appeared from.

He went through the same circle of warnings and threats as Gryzlov. After about twenty minutes, I was bored. 

“Sasha, this is all very interesting,” I said. “But this meeting has gone on long enough. Are you planning to arrest me? If not, I’m going home.”

“For now, there are no grounds for arrest,” he replied, hesitating. “But we could invite you for a conversation somewhere other than a café. At the Directorate.”

“And what exactly is this, then?” I asked, starting to lose patience. “Do you at least have handcuffs? I sometimes like those.”

Kuznetsov froze. He set his cup down and looked at me calmly.

“You haven’t lost your sense of humor,” he said. “I don’t have handcuffs, but I could borrow some from any police officer on the street.”

“Alexander,” I replied, “it would be pretty undignified for a major in the FSB to go around town asking the police for handcuffs. People might laugh.”

I believe he realized that the conversation had ended.

Once upon a time, Kuznetsov was a student in the history department. He studied hard, practiced karate, and wrote me love letters in Old Russian.

Later, he became a chekist. Life shows no mercy to anyone.

The history department had many future FSB officers among its students. They highlighted their ongoing connection to the Cheka and the KGB and took pride in it.

In the courtyard of the Tula FSB headquarters sat a bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka.

December 20th is observed in Russia as Chekist Day. April 18 commemorates the anniversary of the founding of the Tula provincial Cheka.

For decades, these institutions terrorized the country, destroyed science, robbed peasants, and executed political prisoners.

Today, they are both feared and revered. Russians have become accustomed to violence.

For some members of the younger generation, service in the state security agencies is viewed as glamorous, associated with power and immunity — the feeling of being part of a special class.

Students in the history department were well aware of the bloody history of the chekists from their lectures and textbooks. Some of them liked it. Recruiting them was easy.

The FSB headquarters was located right across from the university campus.

I often saw security officers at city events, party meetings, press conferences, and public lectures. They always worked in plain clothes, but I could easily recognize them in a crowd.

They brought with them the coldness of basement interrogation rooms.

I could feel their gaze — like how people sense when someone is watching them and turn around instinctively.

A typical chekist is of average height, thin, with a short haircut and narrow facial features. But the most distinctive thing is the look in their eyes: empty, cold. It seems to pass straight through you, somewhere beyond, as if following instructions from an invisible manual on how an ideal chekist should behave.

Their biographies often lack a father — or sometimes any parents at all.

Orphaned chekists tend to make others orphans.

Two security officers tried to persuade me not to go on the trip. 

The university administration refused to approve the travel.

But that only made the trip even more attractive.