Intel history

‘Soviet chic’ restaurant favored by KGB spies reopens in Moscow

Moscow's Aragvi restaurant, once the legendary haunt of KGB spies and cosmonauts, has reopened with its Soviet-era grandeur restored.

The high-end eatery on the main Tverskaya street, which opened in 1938 at the height of Stalin's purges, has relaunched under the same name after a $20 million (17 million euros) restoration.

The restaurant opened on the initiative of Stalin's notorious security chief Lavrenty Beria for the use of officials from his NKVD agency, the Soviet secret service later renamed the KGB.

It grew popular with other officials and later in the 1960s under Nikita Khrushchev, in the so-called "Thaw" period when censorship and repression eased, lured a more bohemian crowd of artists and actors.