Bazarov graduated from the Vilno Military Academy and joined the
Imperial Russian Army 105th infantry regiment to take part in the First World War (1914, platoon leader, 1917 company leader). After the Russian Revolution, as a man with military experience, he volunteered for the Soviet secret police (
OGPU). From 1921, he specialized on covert operations in the Balkans (
Bulgaria and
Yugoslavia in 1924). In 1924–1927 he was a Soviet representative in Austria as a member of the Soviet embassy in
Vienna, where he supervised
Austrian, Bulgarian, Yugoslavian, and
Romanian agents. After 1927, Bazarov returned to
Moscow, where he supervised the
Balkan sector of
OGPU intelligence. A year later he ran the OGPU "
illegal resident" operations from
Berlin, which included
France and the Balkans. His covert station controlled eleven agents in
Paris, six in
Bucharest, four in
Sofia and
Zagreb, and one for
Belgrade and
Istanbul. Beginning in 1930 his network supervised the penetration of the
Foreign Office by recruiting a code clerk,
Ernest Holloway Oldham, to relay coded communications. In 1935, Bazarov entered the
United States illegally and stayed there until 1937. His agent team there at the time included
Iskhak Akhmerov, Norman Borodin, and
Helen Lowry. ==Death and legacy==