Sexual blackmail, Russia style: a history of ‘kompromat’

Russia has a well-documented record of using kompromat to discredit Kremlin foes

Updated: Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 13:55
Andrew Higgins, Andrew E Kramer

A guest room in a Moscow Intourist hotel in 1971. When the Soviet Union set up the Intourist hotel and travel company under Stalin, the bellboys, drivers, cooks and maids all worked for the NKVD, the secret police agency later known as the KGB. Photograph: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images

A guest room in a Moscow Intourist hotel in 1971. When the Soviet Union set up the Intourist hotel and travel company under Stalin, the bellboys, drivers, cooks and maids all worked for the NKVD, the secret police agency later known as the KGB. Photograph: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images

When the Soviet Union set up the Intourist hotel and travel company under Stalin, the bellboys, drivers, cooks and maids all worked for the NKVD, the secret police agency later known as the KGB. Also on the payroll were the prostitutes deployed to entrap and blackmail visiting foreign politicians and businessmen.

Russia’s Intourist hotels have since been sold off, including the travel company’s once dowdy flagship hostelry just down the road from the Kremlin. Lavishly refurbished and fitted with a spa and special security features, the hotel is now the Ritz-Carlton, a five-star temple of luxurious living that promotes itself as an “unforgettable retreat in the heart of the city”.

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