PHOTOS: KGB Spy Museum Lifts Curtain On Soviet Secret Service

CHELSEA, NY — A father-daughter duo from Lithuania is opening a museum in Chelsea dedicated to one of the world's most notorious spy organizations.

The KGB Spy Museum, set to open mid-December at 245 W. 14th St., will showcase a collection of 3,500 espionage artifacts from the storied history of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, commonly known as the KGB.

The collection is the labor of Julius Urbaitis, 55, and his daughter Agne Urbaityte, 29, from Kaunas, Lithuania, who've spent the better part of the last decade amassing objects that were used in Soviet spycraft.

Among them is a handbag with a built-in camera, a Cold War cipher machine and the infamous concealed gun umbrella used to assassinate Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov in 1978 by firing a ricin pellet into his leg, according to Urbaityte, who says the museum's goal is to pull back the curtain on Soviet espionage.

A purse with a built in camera. (Photo courtesy of the KGB Spy Museum)

"You can touch, see and you can understand people and how they had to be really creative in that period to spy and how that technology was more high-tech than we imagine," said Urbaityte, who teamed up with her father to run the museum.

"Now things are easy, we have smart phones, tablets, a lot of technology and we give away information ourselves."

The KGB Spy Museum is an offshoot of a similar museum based in a Lithuanian nuclear bunker that Urbaityte's father founded in 2014. Across both museums, the father-daughter pair have amassed some 5,000 items, which kicked off with an assortment of gas masks and gradually branched out into espionage.

A hairbrush with a built in radio. (Photo courtesy of the KGB Spy Museum)

“It began with gas mask equipment, it moved forward to the KGB topic and my dad has a real collector spirit so it took off," said Urbaityte, who says her expertise lies with encryption machines and covert telephone communications.

Museum-goers will be able to peruse artifacts to learn about the evolution of the KBG from the various groups that proceeded it and delve into the ways in which spies have influenced history.

A ring with a hidden camera crammed inside. (Photo courtesy of the KGB Spy Museum)

"That Cold War period, it was a big deal for Americans. We want to show how it impacted everyone here in America but also people like me from an ex-soviet reality," said Urbaityte.

“We’re completely apolitical, we’re a history museum and we wanted to show real history that has never been shown before."

(Photo courtesy of KGB Spy Museum)

Interactive displays will also immerse visitors, letting them use morse code and telephone switchboards and even strapping themselves into an interrogation chair for a visceral understanding of the KGB's brutal tactics.

Urbaityte and her father decided to venture across the globe and open the KGB Spy Museum in Manhattan after noticing many of their visitors were Americans who would happily pick their brains for hours on guided tours.

A pair of shoes with a hidden compartment in the heel. (Photo courtesy of the KGB Spy Museum)

“It’s the biggest collection of KGB artifacts in the world so we thought that we should share it with the whole world by bringing it to Manhattan," said Urbaityte. “We have a lot of stories to tell in the museum.”

The KGB Spy Museum in Chelsea at 245 W. 14 St. will open mid-December and will be open Monday through Sunday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tickets for adults go for $28; children 7-17, students and seniors pay $20; children under 6 get in free. Guided tours with at least five people can also be booked for $43.99.

Agne Urbaityte in the KGB Spy Museum's sister location at a nuclear bunker in Kaunas, Lithuania. (Lead photo courtesy of Vladimir Antaki/The Guardians)