"He drank and said to everyone that he was the son of the leader." How Vasily Stalin lived and died in Kazan

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

15 years ago, in November 2002, the remains of Stalin's youngest son were reburied in Moscow. The ashes were transported from Kazan at the request of one of the adopted daughters of Vasily Dzhugashvili.

The body of Stalin's youngest son (the eldest Yakov died in German captivity - Ed.) Has been resting for 15 years at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow. However, in Kazan, at the Arsk cemetery, there is still a black marble monument with the inscription "Vasily Iosifovich Dzhugashvili". There is no grave mound in the fence, but it is always carefully removed, decorated with flowers. The fence and the monument are maintained by a dedicated cemetery employee. Not free of charge, employees explain. Relatives from Moscow pay for these services.

AiF-Kazan tells the story of the last year of the leader's son's life.

Stalin's house

“They opened the grave very quickly,” recalls the events of 15 years ago, one of the cemetery workers. “They put up a fence, took out the body, then took them away … There were more journalists than relatives.”

“My friend lived with Vasily in the same house on Gagarin Street,” adds another necropolis employee. - He said that Stalin's son was very fond of alcohol. So much so that sometimes I could not walk to the apartment myself - the janitor and neighbors helped. At the same time, they spoke well of him. Like, he was the most humane of the entire Stalinist family."

Vasily Stalin arrived in Kazan in April 1961 accompanied by KGB officers. After eight years in prison, he was exiled to a city closed to foreigners, which was then Kazan. After Stalin's death, Vasily, at that time in the rank of lieutenant general of aviation, who commanded the air forces of the Moscow district until 1952, was arrested for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, as well as abuse of office.

“Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda are accusations of the country's leadership, including Khrushchev, of Stalin's death,” explains the historian Alexei Litvin, who studied the case of Vasily Dzhugashvili in the archives of the Tatar KGB in the 1990s. - Stalin's son believed that his father was poisoned. It is difficult to comment on this, because the case of Stalin's illness has not been published in full until now. In the 90s, all political charges were dropped from Vasily Dzhugashvili, he was amnestied. But accusations of abuse of office, waste of money remained."

With a cane, blue glasses

A resident of Kazan, Lyudmila Kutuzova was 12 years old when she accidentally met Vasily Stalin. Her father worked as a photographer for a newspaper published by a construction trust. He had a photographic laboratory in the basement of one of the houses on Gagarin Street. After school, Lucy often came to her father, helped him wash the photos, gloss them.

“One day a young man came to my father - thin, reddish, in civilian clothes, with a cane,” the woman recalls. - I remember his blue glasses in thin frames, in Kazan I have not seen such - maybe it was fashionable or he had vision problems … Later I often heard that Stalin's son was fond of alcohol, but at that moment he was not a drinking person was similar.

My father looked at him in surprise - apparently, he also saw him for the first time. The stranger brought some films: either he wanted to reshoot the photo, or he decided to take up photography himself and was advised to contact his father. What they were talking about, I did not know. Realizing who exactly came to him, my father quickly escorted me home. Everyone knew that Vasily Stalin was under surveillance all the time. This is probably why my father never spoke about him in the family.

But after he came to the darkroom, they began to communicate. Dad went to Vasily's home - to the "Stalinist" house on Gagarina, 105, as all residents called him. He was acquainted with the wife of Stalin's son. Her girls, whom Vasily adopted, went to our school (# 99 - Approx. Ed.), Also on Gagarin Street.

His wife (nurse Maria Shevargina took care of Vasily Stalin in the hospital, where he was treated after he was released from prison - Ed.), Came to school for her daughters. A prominent woman with an unusual color of eyes - green-blue. One of the daughters had the same eyes."

“Out of 11 volumes of the Vasily Dzhugashvili case, only three were readable,” says Aleksey Litvin. - The remaining eight had data "wiretapping". She was everywhere in his one-room apartment, even in the toilet."

It is known that in Kazan Vasily met his colleague Anvar Karimov. During the war, he served in a division commanded by Vasily. Dzhugashvili and Karimov lived in the same house. During interrogation at the KGB, Karimov said that they recalled how they served together, that Vasily shouted that he was in vain, that he was not guilty of anything, he simply doubted whether his father died a natural death.

“What kind of life did Stalin’s son lead in Kazan? He walked, drank, told everyone that he was the son of the leader. He enjoyed great authority among the Georgians in the markets, who were always ready to provide him with any assistance, were proud of him, - continues Alexei Lvovich. - Moreover, there was a legend that when he was buried, a team of 10 Caucasians arrived in Kazan who wanted to reburial him in Georgia …

I do not presume to judge how Vasily Stalin fought, in what hostilities he participated. For me, boys of the war years, absolutely all participants in the war who fought for the USSR are heroes. In my opinion, he was not an outstanding person, only a representative of the golden youth”.

In Kazan, he was offered to change his surname "Stalin" to "Dzhugashvili" or "Alliluyev", as his sister did. He refused for a long time (in the end he agreed, as he was promised to give him a bigger apartment - ed.). Said:

"I was born and will die by Stalin." Although his father himself at one time instilled in him that Stalin was alone in the country, it was himself. Vasily held on to this surname, because they knew him by this surname. Without her, he would be an ordinary person, not known for any deeds. He was known only as the son of Stalin, about whom some remembered the bad, others - the good."

400 rubles - for the funeral

On the day of Vasily Dzhugashvili's funeral, Alexey Litvin taught a lesson at school # 99. I saw through the window that a hearse was driving up to the "Stalinist" house, jumped out into the street with my 10th grade, for which he then received a scolding from the headmistress for disrupting the lesson. But the teacher and the students were late - the hearse had already left.

“According to the KGB, about 300 people came to Stalin's funeral - mostly residents of nearby houses. “Among his relatives were his real children: his son Alexander Burdonsky, who later became the director of the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army, and his daughter Nadezhda, who later married the son of the writer Alexander Fadeev, but who bore the surname“Stalin”all her life.

The funeral was held at the expense of the KGB of Tatarstan - a little more than 400 rubles were spent on them. And the monument was erected by relatives, including one of his first wives - the daughter of Marshal Timoshenko. Later, the inscription "from Dzhugashvili" appeared on it.

To find out the causes of death of Vasily Dzhugashvili, a medical commission was created, headed by the director of the GIDUV, Khamza Akhunzyanov. The day before, the Dzhugashvili family was visited by Major Sergei Kakhishvili, a teacher at the Ulyanovsk Tank School. The commission checked all the bottles of alcohol that the guest brought him. No poison was found in them, and Kakhishvili, who was arrested after Vasily's death, was released.

"Acute heart failure, which developed as a result of pronounced atherosclerosis against the background of alcohol intoxication," - this was the cause of death of Stalin's son, established by the commission.

Several years ago, representatives of the Communist Party proposed to install a memorial plaque on the house where Vasily Dzhugashvili lived in Kazan. This idea was not supported. Nevertheless, myths and legends about Stalin's son are still circulating. Alexey Litvin explains this by feelings of fear, flattery, the idea of a "strong hand" that will deal harshly with corrupt officials and swindlers. Such associations are evoked in many, especially the older generation, by the name of the "leader of the peoples", as well as everything connected with his family.

“Although in Stalin's times there were a lot of crooks, the trials over them - they just did not talk about them - were shot, and that was all,” says Aleksey Litvin.