Toy store ads depict kids roleplaying as KGB interrogators

A new toy store in downtown Moscow has released a series of advertisements to promote its grand opening. The Central Children’s Store is located in Lubyanka Square, an area best known for housing the headquarters of the KGB and its post-Soviet successor, the FSB. The commercials play on precisely this legacy, depicting two children roleplaying as police interrogators, intimidating their parents into taking them “to Lubyanka.”

In a video titled Use of Force, the children stop their interrogation and pretend to resort to torture, with the daughter crying loudly on cue. When the parents beg for mercy, they’re told that the family is headed for Lubyanka.

At the end of each advertisement, an announcer repeats the slogan, “Love your kids? Take them to Lubyanka!”

Update: after Meduza first wrote about the Lubyanka commercials, the Central Children’s Store deleted them from YouTube. Copies republished by other users remain online, some on YouTube and others on Facebook.