Why Kazan at the end of QoS?

Number24

I didn't find any threads that fitted this post, so here it goes...
At the end of QoS Bond finds the Quantum member who seduced Vesper into working for them. The Qantum member is with a Canadian agent who is about to get caught in his "honey trap". Locating this scene in Kazan in Russia seemed very random to me.

But after watching the Jennifer Lawrence spy thriller "Red Sparrow" I did some research. The movie is about "sparrows" - Russian inteligence agents who are are trained to use manipulation and sex to meet their goals. It turned out the KGB's "sparrow school" during the cold war was in Kazan. I'm probably reading to much into this, but it's possible there is a connection.

caractacus potts

finally Number24, a topic worthy of further research, field research I might suggest!
If the Russians have been turning out so many honey-pot spies, there must be a training school somewhere, and maybe we could find it in real life, and probably they need teaching assistants?
Cuz those local men obviously can't keep up with the demand, those sexy honey-pot spies-in-training must be leaving the local men in exhausted heaps, and besides, all they know is how Russian men "make love". That wont be relevant when its time to seduce a sophisticated, worldly, Western man. They need some Canadian or Norwegian volunteers, for example, to show those young ladies how its done in other parts of the world.

here's something relevant in the Bond related apocrypha:
In Christopher Wood's The Spy Who Loved Me novelization, Anya has just returned from a specialised training course called "Sex as a Weapon". There was a module called "controlled participation" with electrodes attached to the body to measure response. She earned a grade of "E-sensual", meaning she makes love well and enjoys it. This is where she met Sergei, the man Bond kills, and she broke the rules by falling in love with a fellow student. Films were made, and her creepy boss has been studying her class work. (this is all on pg29, Panther edition).
The location is given as a dacha on the south-east coast of the Crimea. Different part of Russia, I think? but same sort of training school.

Bond44

I thought the answer was simple Aldershot Barracks was closer that anywhere else )

I always thought it looked very 60's and Russian execept for the hairy arsed Paras living there and a Dakota on the front gate

I was there a few weeks before filming and never realised what was going on - gutted I should have stayed a few extra weeks but the Army had other ideas unfortunately.

Cheers :007)

Bond44

caractacus potts wrote:

finally Number24, a topic worthy of further research, field research I might suggest!
If the Russians have been turning out so many honey-pot spies, there must be a training school somewhere, and maybe we could find it in real life, and probably they need teaching assistants?
Cuz those local men obviously can't keep up with the demand, those sexy honey-pot spies-in-training must be leaving the local men in exhausted heaps, and besides, all they know is how Russian men "make love". That wont be relevant when its time to seduce a sophisticated, worldly, Western man. They need some Canadian or Norwegian volunteers, for example, to show those young ladies how its done in other parts of the world.

here's something relevant in the Bond related apocrypha:
In Christopher Wood's The Spy Who Loved Me novelization, Anya has just returned from a specialised training course called "Sex as a Weapon". There was a module called "controlled participation" with electrodes attached to the body to measure response. She earned a grade of "E-sensual", meaning she makes love well and enjoys it. This is where she met Sergei, the man Bond kills, and she broke the rules by falling in love with a fellow student. Films were made, and her creepy boss has been studying her class work. (this is all on pg29, Panther edition).
The location is given as a dacha on the south-east coast of the Crimea. Different part of Russia, I think? but same sort of training school.

You obviously have not seen Red Sparrow!!

Cheers :007)

superado

I really appreciate the treatment Wood gave to the novelization, sort of a version not yet sanitized for entertainment for the entire family, but I wonder about the adolescents who received these from parents who based their purchasing decision on the kid-friendliness qualities of the movie, lol. My mom actually bought me the MR novelization, which I did not bother to read until 30-years later...if only I had known I would have gotten my first taste of erotic literature much earlier!

Re: Red Sparrow, I was slightly disappointed that it didn’t heavily involve assassin training like the Black Widow character and her kind from the Avengers movies and Agent Carter TV series.

In the movie “The Kremlin Letter” a US covert intelligence group had members who were prepared on order to honeytrap enemy targets, whether one was identified as having a homosexual “vice” and in one situation surveillance on a Soviet diplomat’s daughter revealed an attaction to black females, which was leveraged in procuring the appropriate honeytrap. This “reality” seems closer to the kind of “pimping” that Bond does for the British government...that is if Bond was written to reflect what supposedly happens in the “real” world of espionage.

I know that the Daniel Craig arc was a rebooting of the Bond universe...of sort 8-) ...but if Bond would eventually circle back to the mission in TSWLM, I wonder if Bond would harbor a measure of distaste and repulsion for Anya, since the episode that sealed his resolve for his profession was being honeytrapped by Vesper?

Number24

I appriciate Your enthusiasm, Caractacus Potts. I hope you don't get too disapointed when I tell you the sparrow School in Kazan is most likely closed now. At the time it closed I wasn't there, I was in an all-male envirorment freezing bits and pieces off North of the Arctic circle. There are probably still individual sparrows working for SVR, but there is no sparrow program or school.

Thunderpussy

The American MK Ultra programme tried similar tactics.
With drugs, mind control and sex ........ Sounds like a good
Night out

Number24

Inteligence agencies know how to party )

caractacus potts

Bond44 wrote:

You obviously have not seen Red Sparrow!!

you got that right, but I have the dvd on cue from my local library, should be my turn in a couple more weeks. I generally like Jennifer Lawrence so I look forward to her doing a spy movie.
Nobody tell me the ending please!

The Domino Effect

Thunderpussy wrote:

The American MK Ultra programme tried similar tactics.
With drugs, mind control and sex ........ Sounds like a good
Night out

The Milton Keynes Ultra programme? Is that about League Two football hooligans?