Farewell by Sergei Kostin

castles, or the Atlantic coast. They often stayed overnight in Normandy or in Brittany, by the ocean.
    The Vetrovs were not the only ones indulging themselves in such treats. Three or four other families of intelligence officers enjoyed the same freedom. They would even take really long trips all together. One year, they had a four-day vacation for May Day celebrations. Four KGB member families left Paris, heading south to the Mediterranean coast. Near Lyon, the Vetrovs “lost” the convoy and toured the Riviera, Nice, and Monaco.

A radiant future is smiling at Vetrov, who is smiling back at it. His Paris posting promised him a brilliant career within the KGB.

After hard work in a demanding and sometimes risky job, Vetrov is pictured spending a few peaceful and happy moments with Svetlana.

    On the way back, they traveled through the Alps. Not far from Grenoble, they stopped for lunch in a small restaurant where no Russian had ever set foot. The owner made them taste his wine. Vetrov pulled out a bottle of vodka from the car trunk. The patrons of the restaurant pushed all the tables together, and for a few hours, everybody present celebrated French-Soviet friendship in style, a moment Svetlana still remembers vividly.
    In the summer, civil servants’ families lived in the countryside. The trade mission owned a dacha, much nicer than the embassy’s second home. Actually, it was a castle that used to belong to the finance minister of the Vichy government. At the Liberation, the collaborator fled to Germany, and the communists, who formed the new municipal council of Montsoult, sold his property to the Soviets for a bag of occupation money. It did not take long before the Russians ruined this little corner of paradise, just the same way they let the once luxurious estates of their own country fall into complete disrepair. In 1969, when the castle’s former owner saw the state of her lovely property, she broke into tears.
    In any case, that is where the Vetrovs spent a significant part of their time. Montsoult is located in the Val d’Oise, twenty-four kilometers north of Paris. Men commuted back there every evening after work. On Sundays, they played volleyball. Often, Svetlana was the one active on the field, while Vladimir babysat their son. Then, the losers would go get a case of beer at the local grocery store, and it was time for picnics and joke telling, with the children playing nearby.
    Those who liked volleyball and country life had another place they could go to, a small town called Mantes-la-Jolie, where the Soviet ambassador generously opened the secondary residence to the embassy staff and, in fact, to the entire Paris-based Soviet colony. It was in this official dacha that all the major receptions were organized to celebrate the Great October Revolution, Soviet Army Day, and May Day. Guests would come from other cities, like Marseille. Ambassadors and advisers from “brother countries” were also invited. However, there were never any French guests. Besides, the Soviets, except for higher posts, such as ambassador, military attaché, or adviser for cultural affairs, were not allowed to invite French people to their place, probably because they could not let the outside world see their Soviet-style communal life.
    As in Montsoult, country life would start in earnest with the return of warm weather. Stanislav Sorokin met with the Vetrovs for the first time on the volleyball field. 2 Sorokin belonged to the First Chief Directorate (PGU) and worked in internal counterintelligence. He was in charge of monitoring intelligence officers in particular, and Soviet citizens living abroad in general, to prevent intelligence services of the opposite side from recruiting them. He was operating under the cover of the USSR permanent delegation to UNESCO.
    “They would not go unnoticed, the Vetrovs,” he recalls. “They made such a lovely couple. Svetlana looked like a model—very pretty, slender, with long legs. Most