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But Kedrinsky presses on: I am writing a book about the Great Task. The manuscript is top secret.' These words are whispered. 'How we rebuilt the Motherland, restored our bombed-out palaces. Bardovskaya says I cannot die until I complete it. And the work must be ready for publication in May 2003.'

Bardovskaya. That name again. But before we can ask about her Comrade Kedrinsky produces from his schoolboy desk drawer a sheaf of Soviet-era paper, thin leaves that curl like ferns with the first touch of a warm hand.

'All of my research,' he says. Some pages are typed and others are filled with meticulous and tiny handwritten Cyrillic letters. Outside, the snow is falling in great folds, the windows creaking as ice crystals blind them. Kedrinsky reads: '"22 June, 1941. Summer was coming into its own. The fresh green foliage of the old parks, gardens and squares perfumed the air. From early morning orchestras were playing, bold and happy songs, full of energy and joy. Through the streets streamed a variegated crowd."'

But Kedrinsky said he wasn't in Leningrad in June 1941. Whose recollections are these, we ask?

He pauses and looks up over the thick black frames of his glasses. 'Your friend Anatoly Kuchumov's. His memories. He was here in that summer of 1941.' Where did Kedrinsky get Kuchumov's diary from, we ask?

'Pah. No matter,' he snaps. I must have access to everything for my book about the Great Task.' Kedrinsky pulls out dozens of papers: official Soviet reports, his own recollections and extracts from his colleagues' personal papers, material embossed with the stamp of the Catherine Palace archive. The pages in his hand are part memoir and part reference material.

Kedrinsky goes back to Kuchumov's diary entry for 22 June 1941:

In one flow the holiday crowd moved towards the palaces. There, old men rested on the lawn while young people danced to the music of the bayan. Others played volleyball and, in a constant stream, crowds flocked into the museum to see the work of those artists of genius - Rastrelli, Cameron. One group after another flowing as if on a conveyor belt through the golden enfilades.'

How passionate Kuchumov seemed about his Russia. His words don't sound like those of an uneducated man. He seems a very different character from the one presented by the dogmatic old comrade sitting before us.

Kedrinsky continues:

'Everything was as it had always been, then Klava, the supervisor, rushed into my study with the breathless news that Comrade Molotov [Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's Commissar of Foreign Affairs] was to go on air with an emergency announcement. I ran through the rooms to the palace colonnade, where there was a loudspeaker.

'A large crowd was already gathering, listening to Molotov's gruff voice, full of emotion, uttering simple, terrible words: "Men and women, citizens of the Soviet Union, the Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following announcement. At 4 a.m., without any declaration of war and without any claims being made on the Soviet Union, German troops attacked our country..."'

Zhitomir, Kaunas, Sevastopol and even Kiev, Mother of Rus, had been bombed in flagrant contravention of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact signed by Molotov and Hitler's Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop on 23 August 1939. Now it fell to Molotov to rouse the Soviet people: '"The government calls upon you, men and women, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally even more closely around the glorious Bolshevik Party, around the Soviet government and our leader, Comrade Stalin. Our cause is just. The enemy will be crushed. Victory will be ours."'

In his diary, Kuchumov recalled how he stood motionless: '"War. New trials. New disasters. The whole happy new life of summer vanished and in its place there was only trouble and the premonition of terrible grief."'

Kedrinsky straightens the research papers on his desk and turns to us: 'Kuchumov didn't have long to ponder the war, as within hours he had been ordered before Comrade Vladimir Ivanovich