Ep 2: Teddy Meets the KGB

Teddy Goes to the USSR

Teddy assumed the KGB would monitor his travels around the Soviet Union. In Kiev, Teddy discovers that someone went through his luggage. And half-century later he learns his suspicions were correct. The KGB wrote a report on him, complete with excerpts from his diary. What was in this report? What did the KGB hope to learn from Teddy? And what was this vast network for keeping tabs on tourists anyway?

Teddy Goes to the USSR is written, edited and produced by Sean Guillory.

Sera Passerini did voice over of Marina Kenderovskaya.

Thanks to Dina Fainberg, Alex Hazanov, and Andrew Jacobs for their participation. Special thanks to Teddy Roe for sharing his story, diary, and photographs.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions, Kevin MacLeod and Eliot Holmes.

Funding for Teddy Goes to the USSR was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh and monthly patrons of the SRB Podcast.

If you want to learn more about Teddy’s trip and the Soviet Union go to the series website teddytoussr.com.

And if you’re enjoying Teddy Goes to the USSR, please consider becoming a patron of the SRB podcast so we can do more narrative audio. You can become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/seansrussiablog

You can follow Teddy Goes to the USSR on your favorite podcast app.