Yakov Blumkin

[Ya Sam]

Since the involvement of the Nazis with the search for Shambhala has been mentioned, I think I should bring up this Pynchonian character who worked for the rivalling camp: the Soviet GPU. 

"At the insistence of Dzerzhinsky, Blumkin rejoined the foreign department of the GPU. In the 1920s, the GPU financed several expeditions to Tibet in search of the mythical city of Shambhala, where it was rumored the inhabitants possessed telepathic powers. Two expeditions in 1926 and 1928 led by the well known Russian artist and theosophist, Nicholas Roerich, visited Lhasa. Blumkin was the chief agent in these expeditions and went about disguised as a Kalmyk Mongol officer and Buddhist lama. It is said he met with the Dalai Lama and proposed an alliance with the Soviet Union that would guarantee the independence of Tibet.

In 1929, Blumkin was the chief illegal resident in Turkey, where he was selling Hebrew incunabula from the Lenin Library in Moscow to finance an espionage network in the Middle East."


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