The birthday of the spy, who betrayed his country, was a real treat for Russia, The NY Times said. Former British intelligence officer George Blake received highest honors. Vladimir Putin personally congratulated him, a documentary "The Two Lives of George Blake" will be made in his honor, whereas newspapers published a rare interview with Blake.
"I consider myself a very happy person, I'm very lucky," - George said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta. - "I do not believe in the price that one has to pay for the sins of the past, there is no punishment for bad things after death, nor there are rewards for good ones," the man, whose work may have killed dozens of British agents, said.
George Blake has restored all contacts with his children, who arrived in Russia for his ninetieth birthday.
George Blake served in the British intelligence, but defected to the Soviet intelligence on his own convictions. Nowadays, he is a colonel and professor of the Academy of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Mr. Blake lives under the name of Georgy Ivanovitch Bekhter. He escaped from a British prison with the help of a rope and knitting needles, and was then secretly taken to Berlin in a wooden box.
His story is in stark contrast to another British spy, who stayed in Russia, Kim Philby, who suffered from alcoholism and depression and died in 1988.