Diners sit elbow-to-elbow at bars that ring grills beneath ornate iron arches, the sun filtering in through skylights. In the cathedral-like space, it was hard to tell the difference between ...

Yezhov means ‘Hedgehog’, although Stalin called him affectionately Yezhevichka, ‘little bramble’. Despite the implicit prickliness, there was momentary relief in the USSR when, in autumn 1936, Stalin ...