LETTER FROM MOSCOW: Sitting behind the broad desk where Josef Stalin used to write, Capt Boris Ivlyushkin says he has no qualms about captaining the dictator's personal pleasure cruiser, writes Dan McLaughlin
Smoothing his hands over the desk's green baize, surrounded by the dark wood panelling demanded by the Soviet despot, he says he feels only pride in a ship that now hosts parties for Russia's glitterati rather than one of the world's most notorious leaders and his fearful retinue.
Thick twists of electrical wire hang above Capt Ivlyushkin's head as he discusses the continuing restoration of the Maxim Gorky, a ship made according to Stalin's specifications in 1933 and named after a writer he admired.
"Stalin and the ship's builders wanted to surprise the world with what they could do," Capt Ivlyushkin said, casting an eye over the sleek 70-metre long craft, resplendent in blue and white and enjoying the attentions of more than a dozen engineers and restorers.
Stalin's boatbuilders made an elegant ship with a powerful heart - two navy submarine engines capable of sweeping the autocrat and his companions along Russia's waterways at a swift 37 k.p.h.
Inside, dark hallways of rare wood give onto cabins and bathrooms that offered huge luxury in the 1930s, complete with hot and cold running water, electric lighting and air conditioning and radio.
Now the rooms are being restored, with workers adhering as closely as possible to the original design.
However, when the ship's chief designer is a man with a mania for secrecy who killed tens of millions of people in fear of his own safety and that of his country, it can be hard to pin down the full history of his creation.
"The restorers work from photos of the time, but not very much is known about what Stalin did on board or who he invited here," said Capt Ivlyushkin.
"We don't think he welcomed many people and he preferred to spend his holidays at the dacha, where he probably felt safer and better guarded - the man was obsessed with the suspicion that he might be betrayed.
"Even the plans for the ship and the details of where he went on it were secret - it's a unique but mysterious ship."
Photographs and archive documents have revealed, though, that some of Stalin's most notorious henchmen spent time with him on the Maxim Gorky ; men such as secret police chief Lavrenty Beria and Georgi Malenkov, who briefly succeeded Stalin as Soviet premier in 1953.
Now, the dining room has been refitted with the simple, straight-backed chairs and long tables which Stalin demanded for his guests and the ship still has an aura of the man who brought it into being, Capt. Ivlyushkin says.
"The darkness of the wood, the strictness of the layout, its formality - you can get some idea of what appealed to him."
At the top of a marble staircase, beneath a glass dome, a huge mirror is flanked by lamps from the original Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow - a vast, marble and gold building which Stalin had razed in 1931.
After Stalin's death, the Maxim Gorky served as a government ship for the likes of Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev and official visitors.
Now only Russian partygoers tread the polished parquet of the veranda and pay about $350 an hour to eat, drink and dance on the ship.
Stalin's office is locked during parties and only occasionally opened for particularly inquisitive guests, but a forthcoming addition to the room may prompt greater interest - and the occasional shudder.
Soon Stalin will again sit behind his desk, former Bolshevik luminary Mikhail Kalinin will sit rapt before him, and the writer Gorky will take notes on the big leather couch. The waxworks should be in place in a few months time.
"It won't worry me to see them," says Capt Ivlyushkin, "but if any of our guests has a heavy conscience, then he may get a nasty fright."