There has always been a special attitude towards "dashing people" in Russia. They were not only feared but also respected. They often paid a very high price for their crazy prowess - they ended up in hard labor or lost their lives.
Kudeyar
The most legendary Russian robber is Kudeyar. This personality is semi-mythical. There are several versions of its identification.
According to the main one, Kudeyar was the son of Vasily III and his wife Solomei, who had been exiled to a monastery for childlessness. According to this legend, during the tonsure Solomonia was already pregnant, she gave birth to her son George, whom she handed over to “safe hands,” and announced to everyone that the newborn had died.
It is not surprising that Ivan the Terrible was very interested in this legend, since according to it Kudeyar was his elder brother, which means he could claim power. This story is most likely a folk fiction.
The desire to "ennoble the robber", as well as to allow oneself to believe in the illegitimacy of power (and therefore the possibility of its overthrow) is characteristic of the Russian tradition. With us, whatever the chieftain is a legitimate king. In relation to Kudeyar, there are so many versions of his origin that would be enough for half a dozen chieftains
Lyalya
Lyalya can be called not only one of the most legendary robbers, but also the most "literary" one. The poet Nikolai Rubtsov wrote the poem "The Robber Lyalya" about him.
Local historians also found information about him, which is not surprising, since to this day in the Kostroma region there are toponyms that remind of this dashing man. This is Lyalina Mountain and one of the tributaries of the Vetluga River, called Lyalinka.
Local historian A.A. Sysoev wrote: “In the Vetluga forests the robber Lyalya was walking with his gang - this is one of Stepan Razin's atamans ... who lived in the mountains near the Vetluga river not far from Varnavin. According to legend, Lyalya robbed and burned the New Exaltation Monastery on the Bolshoi Kaksha River near the village of Chenebechikhi. "
This may be true, since at the end of 1670 a detachment of Razin people really visited here. Lyalya with his gang appeared in the Kostroma forests after the suppression of the Razin uprising.
He chose a place for a robber camp on a high mountain in order to have a strategic advantage in robbing the convoys passing nearby along the winter road. From spring to autumn, merchants carried goods on ships along Vetluga, and along the way they often stopped at Kameshnik. The main business of the Lyali gang was the collection of ransoms from merchants, local feudal lords and landowners.
Legends paint him, as usual in folklore, strict, harsh and imperious, but fair. His exemplary portrait has also survived: “He was a broad-shouldered, muscular man of average height; the face is tanned, rough; black eyes under bushy frowning eyebrows; the hair is dark. "
They wanted to catch Lyalya's gang more than once, but the detachments sent to catch the robber constantly faced too loyal attitude of local men towards Lyalya - they treated him rather with respect, Lyalya was warned about the appearance of detachments, some village men even joined the gang. However, over time, the gang still thinned out, and Lyalya was more and more burdened by his craft. Therefore, he decided to bury his wealth - he drowned it in the lake (it is still called the Pantry) and buried it in the mountain. Where they are still kept. Of course, if the legend is to be believed.
Trishka the Siberian
Trishka-Sibiryak robbed in the 30s of the XIX century in the Smolensk district. News about him spread to other regions, leading to a state of awe of the nobles and landowners.
A letter to Turgenev's mother has survived, which she wrote to her son in Berlin in February 1839. It contains the following phrase: "We have Trishka appeared like Pugachev - that is, he is in Smolensk, and we are cowardly in Bolkhov." Trishka was caught the next month, he was tracked down and arrested in Dukhovshchinsky district. The capture of Trishka was a real special operation.
Knowing about the robber's caution, he was caught under the guise of pursuing another person. Almost no one knew about the true purpose of the search - they were afraid to scare away. As a result, when the arrest did take place, a message appeared in the "Smolensk vedomosti" about this as an event of extremely importance.
However, until the 50s of the XIX century, the legends about Trishka-Sibiryak continued to excite the nerves of the landowners, worried that someday Trishka would stand in their way, or penetrate into their house. The people loved Trishka and wrote legends about him, where the robber appeared to be the defender of the disadvantaged.
Roly Cain
The story of Vanka-Kain is dramatic and instructive. He can be called the first official thief of the Russian Empire.
He was born in 1718, at the age of 16 he met a famous thief named "Kamchatka" and loudly left the landlord's house, where he served, robbing him, and writing on the master's gate everything that he thinks about work: "Work the devil, not me ".
Several times he was taken to the Secret Order, but each time he was released, so rumors began to circulate that Ivan Osipov (that was Cain's name in fact) was "lucky." Moscow thieves decided to choose him as their leader. A little time passed, and Vanka was already "in command" of a gang of 300 people.
So he became the uncrowned king of the underworld. However, on December 28, 1741, Ivan Osipov recovered to the Investigative Order and wrote a "penitential petition", and even offered his services in trapping his own associates, became an official informer of the Investigative Order.
The very first police operation on his tip covered a thieves' meeting in the deacon's house - 45 people were caught. That same night, 20 members of the gang, Yakov Zuev, were taken to the house of the archpriest. And in the Tatar baths of Zamoskvorechye, 16 deserters were tied up and the underground with weapons was opened.
However, Vanka Cain did not live calmly. He had a penchant for profligacy and glamor, and got burned at the kidnapping of the 15-year-old daughter of "retired serviceman" Taras Zevakin, corruption and banal racketeering.
The case dragged on for 6 years, until in 1755 the court issued a verdict - to whip, wheel, behead. But in February 1756 the Senate commuted the sentence. Cain was whipped, his nostrils were ripped out, and Cain was branded with the word V.O.R. and sent to penal servitude - first to the Baltic Rogervik, from there to Siberia. Where he disappeared.
Mishka Yaponchik
According to the main version, the future "king" was born on November 30, 1891 in Odessa in the family of Meyer Wolf Vinnitsky. The boy was named Moisha-Yakov, according to the documents - Moisey Volfovich.
When Moyshe was seventh year old, his family was left without a father. To earn at least some money for food, Moishe got a job as an apprentice at Farber's mattress factory. In parallel with this, he studied at a Jewish school, and managed to finish four classes. At the age of 16, Moisha Vinnitsky went to work as an electrician at the Anatra plant. Moishe's life changed radically in 1905, when, following the publication of the tsarist manifesto on the granting of freedoms, Jewish pogroms began in Odessa.
In the bloody riots organized by the Black Hundreds in Moldovanka, the police preferred not to interfere, and the local population began to organize Jewish self-defense units. In one of these units, the future Mishka Yaponchik received his first combat experience. Since then, he has not parted with weapons. Moisha Vinnitsky joined the anarchist detachment "Young Will", which became famous for daring raids, robberies and racketeering.
In 1907, the hand of justice still grabbed Moisha by the collar. The anarchist received 12 years in hard labor. If Moisha was an adult, we would definitely not recognize Mishka Yaponchik. In the aggregate of all his actions, the death penalty was provided to him.
Yaponchik returned to Odessa in the summer of 1917. This was no longer the boy who could have been sent to carry the bomb to detonate the chief of police - during his hard labor Moishe managed to communicate with both "political" and "thieves".
Moishe quickly assessed the situation. Taking advantage of the riots constantly taking place in Odessa, Yaponchik quickly builds up his gang, "takes out" cash registers and shops. Adopts Moishe and revolutionary rhetoric. Now he is not only robbing, but expropriating for the needs of the revolution and the working class. He organizes a large revolutionary Jewish self-defense squad.
The story with the robbery of his gambling club by the gang became a textbook. Yaponchik's men were disguised as revolutionary sailors. The revenue was notable: 100 thousand from the horse and 2000 thousand from visitors. One of the visitors to the club literally died on the spot when he saw a crowd of armed people in front of him.
The “bandit-trample element” played a big role in the life of Odessa. And if it could not be suppressed, then it was necessary to lead him, putting his own man in the place of the "king". Yaponchik secured serious financial and organizational support from the Bolsheviks and became the commander of a Red Army detachment.
His regiment was assembled from Odessa criminals, anarchist militants and mobilized students. Before the regiment was sent to the front against Petliura, a gorgeous banquet was arranged in Odessa, at which Mishka Yaponchik was solemnly presented with a silver saber and a red banner.
However, it was not necessary to expect reliability and revolutionary consciousness from Yaponchik's people. Of the 2202 people of the detachment, only 704 people made it to the front. The thieves also did not want to fight for a long time and quickly "fought". On the way back to Odessa, Yaponchik was shot by Commissar Nikifor Ursulov, who received the Order of the Red Banner for his "feat".
Grigory Kotovsky
Kotovsky was born in 1881 into a noble family. His parents were not rich, his mother died when Grisha was only two years old. He did not graduate from a vocational school, dropped out of an agricultural school and worked as a trainee on the estate of Prince Kantakuzin.
From here the glorious days of Grishka-Kota began. The princess fell in love with the young manager, her husband, upon learning of this, whipped Grishka and threw him out into the field. Without thinking twice, the offended Kotovsky killed the landowner, and he himself disappeared into the forest, where he gathered a gang of 12 people.
Glory thundered - all Bessarabia was afraid of Kotovsky, newspapers wrote about him, calling him another Dubrovsky. There is somewhere in Pushkin: “Robberies are one more remarkable than the other, they follow one after the other. The head of the gang is famous for his intelligence, courage and some kind of generosity ... ". The generosity of Grigory Kotovsky, in the end, with all the palette of personal qualities, became the main one for the popular audience, creating the halo of Robin Hood for Kotu.
However, for that very "people" Gregory was often a "benefactor". So, Kotovsky and his 12 associates rescued peasants who were persecuted to the Chisinau prison and arrested for agrarian riots. They rescued loudly, one of the guards left a receipt: "Grigory Kotovsky released the arrested."
Kotovsky had to visit places of imprisonment twice. And run free twice. For the first time, Gregory was helped by a woman and bread. The wife of one of the heads of the Chisinau prison, who was visiting the hero at rest, gave Kotovsky a loaf and smoke, in other words, opium, browning, a rope and a saw.
Grishka got out, however, he had been out for less than a month. Then he went to Siberia for 10 years. Two years later, Gregory fled. While Kotovsky was running, the myth of his nobility grew stronger. They said that during a raid on the apartment of one of the owners of the bank, Kotovsky demanded a pearl necklace from the businessman's wife. Mrs. Cherkes was not taken aback and, removing the jewelry, broke the thread. The Kotovsky pearls did not pick up, smiled at the feminine resourcefulness.
Grigory Kotovsky certainly had an administrative streak, and if not for a love adventure with Princess Kontaktuzino, Kotu would not be a red commander, but an enemy of the proletariat. Kotovsky liked to manage: after another escape, having taken possession of someone else's passport, Kotovsky again served as the manager of a large estate. Kotovsky had another weakness - he wanted fame. Having given money to some fire victim, the manager said: “Build anew. Come on, thank you, they don't thank Kotovsky. "
In 1916, Kotovsky was sentenced to death. The court-martial agreed that there was no revolution in Kotovsky's actions, they condemned him as a noble bandit. Bessarabian Robin Hood was rescued by a woman and a writer. Nothing is known about General Shcherbakova, and the friendship between the writer Fedorov and Kotovsky continued for a long time. The revolution gave Kotovsky freedom. Somewhere in Odessa, he underwent military training, and then climbed into Romania.
Calling himself exclusively an anarchist, Gregory independently formed cavalry regiments. Kotovsky's regiments were formed from those who were close in spirit earlier. The former criminal, they say, served bravely, received two award crosses, had a reputation for mercy - he was loved by Jews and five thousand rescued white officers.
Being at the crosses, at the zenith of glory, preparing for the entry of the red army into Odessa, Grishka, disguised as a colonel, took out jewelry from the basement of the state bank. It took him three trucks to vacate the premises. However, this feat of Grigory Ivanovich did not destroy his military career.
Deceived by the success of the red commander once, but with extreme fatalism. On August 6, 1925, at the Chebank state farm, Grigory Kotovsky was shot dead by Meyer (Majorchik). There was a lot of talk of murder. They said that Majorchik, who was in love with Olga Kotovskaya, had eliminated his friend, they said that he was killed by order from “above”. The death of the commander gave rise to a lot of rumors, not overshadowing, nevertheless, the posthumous luck of Grishka Kota. On August 11, 1925, a daughter was born to Grigory Kotovsky.
Lyonka Panteleev
Lenka Panteleev (real name Leonid Pantelkin) was born in 1902, at the age of 17 he joined the Red Army, fought with the Whites, after the Civil War he got a job in the Pskov Cheka, from where he was soon dismissed. According to one version, “to cut staff,” according to the other, because he showed extreme unreliability by starting to steal during a search.
Then Panteleev moved to St. Petersburg, where he first tried to find a job, and then stepped on the path of banditry - he formed a gang and began to "rob the loot". The Panteleev gang carried out the raids extremely successfully and theatrically. The leader flew in first and introduced himself: “Keep calm, everyone! This is Lyonka Panteleev! " Of course, there was a hunt for Panteleev, but the operatives over and over again were left with a nose ... Today this can be explained very simply - Panteleev was undercover agents. This indirectly confirms that Lenka's gang included another former Chekist and former commissar of the Red Army battalion, a member of the RCP (b). In addition, Panteleev's gang has never robbed a government institution, and private entrepreneurs have always become victims.
In the fall of 1922, while attempting to rob a shoe store, Panteleev's gang was ambushed. Lyonka and his accomplices were arrested. The court sentenced them to be shot, but the next night they escaped from Kresty (the only successful escape from this prison in its entire history). How Panteleev managed to do this - history is silent ...
For a long time, however, Panteleev did not walk free. Already in February 1923, having resisted arrest, he was shot by GPU operatives.
People stubbornly believed that Panteleev was alive. To dispel this myth, by order of the authorities, the corpse was put on public display in the city morgue. Thousands of people came to look at the body, but relatives and friends never identified it. And it was impossible to do it - the bullet hit in the face.
If you believe Hollywood, then all members of criminal gangs are exceptionally kind and sweet people who were thrown into this environment by evil fate. The gangster seems to us to be a laconic handsome Italian in a suit from Armani, with a cigar in his teeth.
In reality, each country has its own organized crime syndicates. At the same time, with the growth of their number, the methods of influence also become coarse. There are probably few countries in the world that are not affected by organized crime.
If at the small level we are talking about racketeering and extortion, then at the international level we have to talk about the drug trade. Let's talk about the 10 most famous criminal gangs in the world, indicating not only the place of their action, but also the area of specialization, as well as the name of the alleged leader.
Five families. This group is based in the United States. Her field of activity is bookmaking and gambling, racketeering, drugs and usury. The names of the leaders are also known - these are Vincent Basquiano, Nicholas Corozzo, Carmine Persico, Daniel Leo, Vittorio Amuso. The group united five mafia families, which were mainly based in New York. It includes the Bonnano, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese and Colombo clans. These mafia structures have been controlling virtually all criminal activity in the country since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The FBI and the New York prosecutor's office are trying in every possible way to destroy the criminal syndicate, but all they succeeded in was to slightly reduce its influence. Among the five families, the most influential and numerous is the Genovese clan. The progenitor of the American "Cosa Nostra" is considered the infamous Lucky Luciano, who came to the United States from Italy in the mid-1920s. In addition to his luggage, he also brought methods of influencing the Italian mafia.
"Consolidated bamboo". The group is located in Taiwan. Her main occupation is contract killings and debt collection, bribery and gambling. It is still unclear who runs the syndicate, it is only known that there is more than one person, since there is a complex horizontal hierarchy here. It is the largest criminal group in Taiwan, with about 10,000 members. United Bamboo follows a rather old-fashioned principle: the members of the triad value unity and harmony with people most of all. United Bamboo is suspected of drug trafficking, and it is believed that the criminals are associated with politicians (in particular, with the ruling Taiwanese party KMT). The leaders of the group themselves, which is natural, deny such connections in every possible way. "Bamboo" operates not only throughout Asia and the Pacific Ocean, but also in Europe and the Americas.
Tijuana cartel. This mafia group operates in northwestern Mexico in the Tijuana and Baja regions. The main field of activity is drug dealing, banditry, bribery and contract killings. The leader of the group is Eduardo Arellano Felix. Colombian cartels reigned in South America until the 90s, but their collapse created a vacuum that was suitably filled by three Mexican cartels - Sinaloa with Jochin Guzman at its head, Juarez with Vicente Fuentes and the already mentioned Tijuana cartel. It is also called the Arellano Felix organization and is considered the most aggressive and violent of the trio. It is only natural that there is a constant war between cartels for spheres of influence, in which dozens of people die every year. It is rumored that more than a million dollars are paid weekly in bribes alone to keep the cartel afloat.
Tai Huen Chai. This gang operates in China. She does not have a clearly defined leader, but she is the largest and most influential in the country. Literally, the name of the group is translated as "Guys of the Big Circle", and they are still engaged in the same drugs, extortion, prostitution, usury and even human trafficking. The unification was the unexpected fruit of the cultural revolution of the great helmsman Mao Zedong. After his death, most of the Hunwenbin soldiers representing the Red Guard were sent to re-education camps, where they were subjected to brutal torture and monstrous humiliation. Is it any wonder that they left the camps even more embittered and cruel than they were? And so this gang was born. It differs from other crime syndicates in that there is no specific organizational structure. Often, gang members are compared to strangers who suddenly decided to play basketball together. The criminals are practically unknown among themselves, but the fame about them thunders all over Asia, even reaching Australia and America.
Sicilian Mafia. This organization is based on the Italian island of Sicily. The Mafia is not only involved in drugs and arms trafficking, but also in murder, arson, corruption and counterfeiting of money. The leader of the group is Matteo Messina Denaro. The community was originally organized on a territorial basis, it includes about 100 criminal families. This mafia emerged in the middle of the 19th century, but it acquired its influence and organization only at the beginning of the 20th century. With the export of the Lucky Luciano mafia to the United States in the 1930s, its membership began to skyrocket. Some experts believe that in America alone, the number of members of this group exceeds 2,500. In Sicily, the mafia was able to seize power thanks to its control over construction contracts. After receiving the first tangible fruits in the form of influence and funds, the group began to engage in the sale of weapons and drugs. The subsequent series of arrests did not change the situation - the mafia retained influence not only in Sicily, but throughout Italy. In the mid-90s, they started talking about the group again - the murders of two members of the Italian magistrate were organized.
14K. Based in Hong Kong, this triad is believed to be the strongest, largest and most ruthless there. She is engaged in extortion, contract killings, abductions, prostitution, drugs and counterfeiting of money. The leader of the group is still unknown. In the 90s, it was 14K that was considered the largest criminal community in the world, until one of the leaders of numerous cells was tried in Portugal. This slightly shaken the power of the group. The region of its influence now extends to the whole of Asia, while there are 14K cells in almost all major American cities. The triad has no special moral principles - it uses any means of earning money, the group is accused of almost all violations provided for by law.
"Battalion D". This structure is located in India and the United Arab Emirates. Criminals do not hesitate to trade drugs and weapons, extortion, contract killings and counterfeiting of money. The leader of the gang is Daud Ibrahim, who has long been on the international wanted list. India's leading gangster group is also accused of having links with Islamic terrorists, in particular with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and carrying out their orders in the country. It is "Battalion D" that is credited with a series of terrorist attacks in Bombay in 1993, when 257 people were killed and more than 700 were injured. Ibrahim is well known in India, they even say that he has his own professional interests in Bollywood. American intelligence has information that the leader of the gang is now hiding in Pakistan, while he has already managed to perform a number of plastic surgeries to change his appearance.
Ndranghetta. A group with such a difficult to pronounce name is based in Calabria, in the south of Italy. The main areas of activity are the same: drug dealing, extortion and contract killings. There is no pronounced leader here, the principles of horizontal hierarchy are used. The Ndranghetta, unlike other criminal organizations that are forced to narrow their sphere of influence, expand their controlled territories. The task of fighting criminals is complicated for the authorities by the fact that there are practically no cases of betrayal among the Calabrians. Today, the ndranghetta has more than 10 thousand people, the annual income of the family is estimated at tens of billions of dollars. This group is the largest supplier of cocaine in Europe, but the path to power and big money began with a chain of fast food restaurants.
"Yamaguchi-gumi". The group is based in Kobe, Japan. The bandits are engaged in gambling business, extortion, trade in weapons and drugs, prostitution and buying stolen goods. The leader of the gang is Kenichi Shinoda, also known as Shinobu Tsukasa. The Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest Japanese clan, founded back in 1915. Its status as the most influential and cruel clan was obtained thanks to the leader Kazuo Taoke. "Yamaguchi-gumi" almost disintegrated. Now the group consists of 40 thousand people. Since 2005, Shinobu Tsukasa has come to power in it, more diplomatic than the famous Taoke, but no less cruel. This criminal is currently serving a prison sentence for carrying a firearm, but from prison he leads a gang, trying to expand its sphere of influence to the north of the country.
Solntsevo lads. The legendary Russian group is based in Moscow. The scope of activity of the "brothers" is wide: extortion and murder, drug trafficking, weapons and stolen goods, car theft and money laundering, oil. Prostitution and even trafficking in nuclear materials. The leader of the gang is Sergey Mikhailov. Assessing the Russian mafia, former FBI special agent Bob Levinson called it the most dangerous criminal group on the planet. Such a statement inspires respect and horror, especially when you consider that, according to the most conservative estimates, there are about 300 thousand people in the criminal association. The "lads" generally include 450 groups, the most famous of which is Solntsevskaya. This syndicate stands out for its particular cruelty. Its leader is rumored to be Sergei Mikhailov, nicknamed Mikhas. A short stay in the camp gave him a connection with many criminal authorities, including the world famous Semyon Mogilevich. Small scattered gangs of racketeers of the late 1980s were united, based on the American model rather than the Italian one. The Russian flavor was also introduced. The bandits did a lot of work in gyms, they were prohibited from drugs and alcohol abuse. The strength of faith and family relationships was welcomed.
1888-1916
As a teenager, Nikolai Radkevich was trained in the Arakcheevsky cadet corps and had every chance to become an officer (and then flee to the Cote d'Azur, because all white officers in those days, almost immediately, immediately fled to the Cote d'Azur). However, fate decreed otherwise: at the age of 14, Nikolai fell in love with a 30-year-old widow, who soon abandoned her young lover, leaving him with a bouquet of incurable venereal diseases.
This incident significantly influenced Radkevich's psyche: the young man decided that the mission of his life would be to cleanse the world of depraved women. After moving to St. Petersburg, Nikolai began to kill prostitutes. In addition to the four priestesses of love, the victims of Radkevich were the hotel bellhop, who suspected something was wrong, and the maid, who seemed to Nikolai too beautiful for this world.
The killer was not particularly accurate in his actions, so he was quickly arrested. After being forcibly held in a psychiatric hospital on Pryazhka, Radkevich was sentenced to hard labor. However, he never got there: the inmates killed him at the stage.
Yakov Koshelkov, raider, murderer
1890-1919
Yakov Koshelkov (aka Kuznetsov) inherited his love for thieves' business from his father, a recidivist raider. By 1917, the young man had already passed through the Siberian police reports in the status of an experienced burglar-thief who had several convictions. Deciding to expand the field of criminal activity, Yakov moved to Moscow, where after another arrest he received the nickname "Elusive": he made a picturesque escape by shooting the guards with a pistol that his accomplices gave him in a loaf of bread.
Koshelkov quickly managed to put together his own gang, whose members successfully organized raids on Moscow enterprises and stole cars (at the beginning of the 20th century, stealing a car was much more difficult than it is now: first it was necessary to find it, because there were very few cars). On January 6, 1919, a gang hijacked a car, having previously confiscated all valuables from passengers and intimidated them half to death. Koshelkov would have escaped punishment this time, if not for one nuance: one of the passengers was a politician named Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
For half a year, the workers of the IBSC hunted Jacob, but every time he escaped pursuit, leaving behind mountains of corpses - both the Chekists and members of his own gang. Finally, on July 26, the famous hijacker was ambushed and killed in a firefight.
Nikolay Savin, swindler, thief
1855-1937
In 1874, 19-year-old cornet Savin was involved in a high-profile case about the theft of diamonds from the Marble Palace by the Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich. Cornet was in a romantic relationship with the American swindler and dancer Fanny Lear, for the sake of a seductive foreign woman, the prince went on a crime. In some magical way, Savin's surname did not appear in the documents about the diamond case.
In the 1880s, Savin pulled off a grandiose scam, promising the Italian Ministry of War to supply Russian horses for the needs of the army. After receiving the money, he fled to Russia, where in the early 1890s he was convicted of another fraud and sent to the Tomsk province. Savin fled from exile again, this time to the USA, where he lived for almost ten years under the romantic surname "de Toulouse-Lautrec Savin". Having received American citizenship, the swindler went to serve, and he returned to Europe as part of the American expeditionary force.
In 1911, Savin tried to pull off another scam, posing as a contender for the Bulgarian throne, but he was exposed and exiled to Russia. Nikolai spent six years in exile in Irkutsk and was released only after the revolution. Knowing that many in the West are aware of his scams, Savin set out to conquer Japan and China. Savin died in Shanghai in complete poverty, but at a decent 82 years of age.
Mother Superior Mitrofaniya, a swindler
1825-1899
Paraskeva Rosen was born into a noble family: her father was a general and hero of the Patriotic War, and her mother was a countess. By the time she came of age, the girl was appointed a maid of honor at the court of the empress, but soon changed her mind and entered the Alekseevsky monastery as a novice, taking a monastic name in honor of Patriarch Mitrofan.
The career of the ambitious and energetic Mitrofania developed rapidly, and by the age of 36 the Russian Orthodox Church had elevated a woman to the rank of abbess and entrusted her with the management of the Vladychny Monastery.
Having been the head of the St. Petersburg and Pskov communities of sisters of mercy, Mitrofaniya decided to start building the building of the Vladychno-Pokrovskaya community in Moscow. However, the abbess invested most of the monastic money in personal commercial projects. The projects turned out to be a failure, and Mitrofania had to look for other sources of funding for the construction.
From December 1896 to February 1897, the Old Believers, having served the memorial ceremony and donned shrouds, descended into the dug holes, which were laid with bricks outside and buried. Since suicide was considered a terrible sin, the villagers decided to entrust the laying process to Kovalev, who worked as a bricklayer. In this manner, Kovalev immured almost three dozen people alive, including his 22-year-old wife, two young daughters, mother and sisters. (What a resourceful disposal of all relatives at once!)
In April 1897, Kovalev was arrested and, by order of Nikolai II, was sent to the monastery prison in order to hide the details of the crime from the general public. Against the background of the general confusion of 1905, Kovalev was released from prison, remarried and became a father three more times. For some reason, he did not bury his new wife and children.
The criminal situation in the Russian Empire began to deteriorate rapidly from the second half of the 19th century. The main reason for this is the influx of visitors. By the beginning of the 20th century, experts identified 5 of the most criminal cities in Russia.
A growing threat
Back in 1718, under Peter I, the police was created as a state body for the protection of law and order, but only after the death of the reformer, organized crime reached the level of an independent social institution, opposing itself to the state and society.
The 19th century met the underworld of the empire matured and strengthened, but this was clearly not enough to resist the authoritarian state machine. The police apparatus successfully dealt with law and order violators. The main criminal contingent - runaway peasants, soldiers, monks-defrocked, orphans - was easily controlled by the state.
Everything changed after the reforms of Alexander II, which destroyed the estate structures of Russian society that had been taking shape for centuries. As a response to the increased level of crime - the police reform, which provided for an increase in the number of staff and police units, an improvement in the financial situation.
Selective crime statistics began to be kept in the first half of the 19th century, but it acquired an orderly and systematic character only in the second half of the century. The number of criminal cases, convicts and defendants was subject to registration.
The statistics clearly show the growth of the crime situation in Russia. So, from 1857 to 1865. the number of convicts increased by 1.5 times. Indicators for the period from 1874 to 1912 testify to an increase in the number of convicts already 3 times.
In one of the criminal reports of 1905, it was noted that "every year, by all judicial institutions in the empire, whatever their structure, an average of about 2 million persons of both sexes are convicted for all crimes and misdemeanors."
By the beginning of the 20th century, Russian criminality not only joined its ranks, but also increased the number of "trades". Horse-stealing was still considered the most profitable, the pickpocket was the most common, and the burglar was the most respected.
Saint Petersburg
The capital was rightfully called the center of street crime and prostitution. Swindlers and swindlers of various stripes flocked here from all parts of the great empire in search of easy money. Petersburg borderXIX-XX centuries - this is the neighborhood of dazzling luxury and hopeless poverty. The rich walked the same streets as the poor, arousing envy and provoking robberies.
The first house of preliminary detention was built in St. Petersburg in 1825. The Investigative Prison was then located immediately behind the District Court building betweenShpalernaya and Zakharyevskaya streets. The District Court building existed until the February Revolution of 1917, when it was burned down along with a huge archive.
One of the most prominent figures in the criminal environment of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg was General Olga von Stein. The swindler possessed a unique gift of luring huge sums of money from gullible fellow citizens, promising them a breathtaking career. The victims did not receive either money or positions, and it was useless to sue an adventurer who had connections in high society.
Among the centers of thieves' Petersburg, the Sennaya Market stood out. A group of herring thieves hunted here. They acted quickly and rudely: they grabbed goods from the counter and ran away. If the merchant managed to intercept the thief, then colleagues in the shop would immediately beat her off.
The bear artel stood out in the capital, especially for its personnel. So, one of the gangs was led by the former deputy of the State Duma from the Tver province Alexei Kuznetsov. The gang employed high-ranking police officers, office workers and bank employees as support personnel.
On the eve of the First World War, Vaska Cherny's gang raged. In one of the attempted robberies, the leader killed a soldier, which provoked massive police raids. In a short time, the leaders and active members of many gangs were captured.
The severity of the rampant youth banditry is evidenced by the congress of the Russian group of the International Union of Criminalists, convened in 1914, at which the possibility of introducing such concepts as "hooliganism", "mischief" and "dirty tricks" into the criminal legislation was considered. But the war prevented these undertakings.
The number of crimes in St. Petersburg since the beginningXXcentury grew at an alarming rate. In 1900, the St. Petersburg District Court considered 227 cases of murder, 427 cases of robbery, 1171 cases of bodily harm, as well as 2197 cases of theft and theft. In 1913, the statistics changed: 794, 929, 1328 and 6073 cases, respectively.
Moscow
Like St. Petersburg, pre-revolutionary Moscow attracted many representatives of the underworld with the possibility of a good profit - from petty thieves to crime bosses. The most troubled place in the First Throne was the Khitrovsky market area. Not only passers-by were afraid to enter the surrounding lanes, but also the servants of law and order, with the exception of local policemen.
"Grachevka", where the "paid girls" hunted, was a little calmer, but after the showdown in the local tavern "Crimea" the police often found corpses drowned in the Neglinka collector. The level of murder detection in Moscow often did not exceed 40%, and there is nothing to say about petty theft.
The head of the Moscow detective police Arkady Koshko wrote that “the theft more than a thousand in one day. " “Partial, small raids began to be carried out almost daily,” the detective continued, “but soon experience showed that this means was not enough; criminal elements, when a minor police detachment approached, some of them safely hid, and if there were people who did not have the right to reside in the capitals, then, being sent home in stages, soon fled from there and reappeared in Moscow.
The head of the statistical department of the Ministry of Justice, E.N. Tarnovsky, noted the tendency of an increase in crime in Moscow on the eve of the revolution. The statistics were as follows.For 1914-1918. crime in the First Throne in terms of the population increased 3.3 times, including murders - 11 times, armed robberies - 307, simple robberies - 9, thefts - 3.4, fraud - 3.9, misappropriation and waste - 1.6 times. For example, only inIn 1914, 2,500 armed attacks were recorded.
Odessa
Port Odessa was considered a place for a reasonconcentration of smugglers, thieves and raiders. Even during the reign of Emperor Paul, huge investments in the creation of the Odessa port "hurt the treasury and did not bring any sense." The audit revealed there "exorbitant covetousness and abuse."
In 1817, by the highest decree, Odessa was declared a free port, which was allowed duty-free import and export of goods. This contributed to the flourishing of the city. And the prosperity of crime. Austrian Serbs, German Mennonites, French aristocrats, as well as Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians hunted here. No wonder Odessa was nicknamed "Black Sea Babylon".
And there was something to hunt. A lot of money was spinning in Odessa. Suffice it to say that the port's cargo turnover increased from 37 million rubles in 1862 to 128 million in 1893, and in 1903 it was already 174 million.
The writer Efraim Sevela recalled: “Odessa was famous for such thieves, such bandits, which the world has never seen and I think will never see again. The people were crushing. Odessa was the capital of the thieves' world of the entire Russian Empire - for this reason she was affectionately called mother. " It was in Odessa in 1880 that the legendary adventurer "Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka" was arrested and convoyed to Moscow for major fraud.
Rostov-on-Don
The capital of the Don traditionally attracted fugitive peasants and criminals, recidivists. The rate of violent crime here was one of the highest in the empire. At the beginningXXcentury, the famous criminal transit "Rostov-Odessa" appeared, along which there was a continuous stream of exchange of experience, people and illegal goods.
The crime rate in Rostov grew along with the rapid development of the city. In the 1850sthe annual export of goods abroad averaged 3.5 million rubles, and in the seventies it exceeded 22 million rubles. At the beginningXXcentury the name "Russian Chicago" was fixed for Rostov, and not only because of its financial capabilities.
Representatives of the Rostov underworld lived mainly in slums, and worked near the Central Market. The loudest criminal fame belonged to Bogatyanovsky Spusk (today it is Kirovsky Prospekt) - a place where drinking establishments, brothels and slums are concentrated. The store here could have been robbed in broad daylight, just by breaking through the underground passage.
For every 100 thousand inhabitants in Rostov, 595 crimes. And he was second only to Kiev in this indicator.
Kiev
By the end XIXFor centuries, the mother of Russian cities retained the sad glory of the most criminal city in the country. According to the Ministry of Justice, three times more crimes were committed here per year than in the whole of the empire.
In Kiev, there was a catastrophic lack of money to maintain the police, which automatically led to a decrease in the effectiveness of its work.At the end of the 19th century, out of the 579 law enforcement officers planned for the state, only 394 policemen followed order. No wonder thatin the 1890s, an average of 650 crimes were committed here for every 100,000 inhabitants.
There are other reasons behind such high numbers. The main ones are joining the citythe former villages of Shulyavka, Lukyanovka and Kurenevka, as well as an influx of "migrant workers" from the south-west of Ukraine. So, on October 5, 1899, the Kiev police chief, in a letter to the governor-general of the region, stated that atrocities with the use of cold weapons began to be more often committed in the city. And the perpetrators of this are artisans, workers, day laborers.
Another reason is the corruption of the highest echelons of the police apparatus. For example, in 1908, the audit commission discovered that in the Kiev detective service, registration cards and photographs of criminals were missing from personal files, as well as statements from arrested persons that things and money were taken from them in the police. The corruption of the Kiev police gave a favorable opportunity for offenders to systematically evade responsibility.
