And if this cult had a shrine, it was the KGB museum tucked away behind the Lubyanka. Here the holy relics and trophies of the past were lovingly displayed.
Admission is still by special arrangement only.
A tour this week revealed that those exhibits were still in place and that little else has changed. One difference is that back then the KGB was in retreat, bulwark of a system on the brink of self-destruction. Much of the old KGB ethos has been rehabilitated as patriotism for the new era. Normal service has been resumed in the murky world of international espionage, with Washington and Moscow expelling each other's spies in numbers not seen since the Cold War. Superficially, huge changes have swept through the Lubyanka, headquarters of what is now called the FSB, but once also a gateway to the hell of Lenin's and Stalin's prison camps.