Inhumans of besieged Leningrad

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

The Russian proverb "to whom the war, and to whom the mother is dear" reflects well what is happening in the besieged Leningrad. The results of searches of thieves, speculators and other social parasites surprised even seasoned operatives.

On June 22, 1941, thousands of Leningraders lined up outside the military enlistment offices. But there were others - those who hurried to the grocery stores. They stocked up on sugar, canned food, flour, bacon, vegetable oil. But not in order to feed themselves, but in order to then sell all these reserves or exchange them for gold and jewelry.

For a loaf of bread or a can of condensed milk, speculators broke astronomical sums. The townspeople considered them almost the most terrible of the criminals who operated in Leningrad during the blockade.

Summer 1941 scenario

In the early days of the war, the leaders of Leningrad were confident that the enemy would never approach the walls of the city. Unfortunately, events began to develop according to a different scenario.

On the very first day of the blockade, September 8, 1941, the Badayev warehouses burned down, the city was left without sugar and many other products. And the rationing system in Leningrad was introduced only on July 18, when the Nazis were already at Luga.

In the meantime, cunning trade workers, speculators and other far-sighted people were already filling their pantries with everything that could be profitable, and that could then bring income.

Already on June 24, on the third day of the war, the OBKhSS officers detained the sisters Antipov … One of them brought home more than a centner of flour and sugar, dozens of cans of canned food, butter - in a word, everything that could be taken from dining roomwhere she worked as a chef. Well, the second brought home almost the entire haberdashery store that she was in charge of.

As the city's food supply deteriorated, the black market gained momentum, prices rose daily. Employees of the BHSS apparatus and other police services identified those who demanded jewelry, diamonds, antiques and currency for food. The results of the searches surprised even seasoned operatives.

Often, speculators, along with valuables and large stocks of products, were confiscated the listswith the names and addresses of communists and Komsomol members, family members of officers and soldiers of the Red Army. So to see in speculators only people who know how to make money and are not interested in politics is a mistake. The war and the blockade have convincingly proved this.

Waiting for the "new order"

The speculators sought to stock up on exactly gold and other values - in case the fascists come to the city and establish a "new order". There were few such people, and it is impossible to consider them as the fifth column of the fascists. But they brought a lot of grief. Typical in this regard was the case of a certain Rukshina and his accomplices.

Rukshin himself came to the attention of the OBKhSS employees even before the war. He was very nasty, pushing near the buying points "Torgsin" and "Yuvelirtorg". Shortly before the war, Rukshin was caught red-handed, convicted and was in a colony. But his accomplices remained at large.

Matched Mashkovtsev there were brother and sister Deichi … During the NEP they kept several shops. Then Faina Deutsch married Rukshin. They traded skillfully, and the proceeds were converted into gold coins and other valuables. The couple continued their business after the liquidation of the NEP. The hammered gang strictly followed the rules of conspiracy. They did without receipts, and all telephone conversations were carried out in allegorical form.

The cynicism of these people knew no boundaries. Although during interrogations they drowned each other, each asked the investigators the same question: will the confiscated valuables be returned to them? A lot was confiscated: three kilograms of gold bullion, 15 pendants and bracelets made of platinum and gold, 5,415 rubles in gold coins, 60 kilograms of silver items, almost 50,000 rubles in cash and … 24 kilograms of sugar, canned food. And that was August 41!

On September 8, 1941, the ring of the enemy blockade was closed. The shelves of shops were empty, queues for bread grew, city transport stopped, telephones were turned off, houses were left without electricity. Leningrad plunged into darkness. On November 20, 1941, dependents began to receive 125 blockade grams.

Products are worth their weight in gold

The number of crimes increased in the city. More and more often, the police reports flashed information about thefts "on a dash" (bags with bread rations were snatched from people), about murders because of food ration cards, about robberies of empty apartments, the owners of which had gone to the front or were evacuated. The black market started working.

A certain Rubinstein - an appraiser of one of the purchases of "Yuvelirtorg". He deliberately underestimated the cost of jewelry brought to the commission several times, then he bought it himself and immediately resold it - either to speculators or through dummies for the same purchase or Torgsin.

Rubinstein's active assistants were Mashkovtsev, Deutsch and his sister Faina, Rukshin's wife. The oldest member of the gang was 54 years old, the youngest - 34. All of them came from wealthy families of jewelers. Despite all the storms that swept over the country, these people managed not only to save, but even to increase their wealth.

In 1940, Mashkovtsev ended up in Tashkent on business. And there he found a gold mine - underground black exchangewhere you could buy gold coins and other valuables. The reward from the resale of the valuables bought in Tashkent was such that Mashkovtsev quit his job and completely switched to the resale of gold.

Products in the literal sense of the word were worth their weight in gold. For gold coins, jewelry with diamonds, one could exchange a piece of butter, a glass of sugar or semolina. In this case, it was necessary to look in four eyes, so that you would not be deceived. Often, ordinary sand or meatballs made from human flesh were found in cans. Bottles with natural drying oil, which was made in sunflower oil, were wrapped in several layers of paper, because the drying oil was only on top, and ordinary water was poured down. In the factory canteens, some products were replaced with other, cheaper ones, and the surplus that appeared again went to the black market.

Typical in this regard was the case of a speculator Dalevsky, in charge of a small grocery stall. Colluding with colleagues from other retail outlets, he turned his stall into a place for pumping products.

Dalevsky went to one of the shopping centers, where he looked after the buyer for his products. This was followed by a visit to the buyer. Dalevsky knew how to bargain. His room in a communal apartment gradually turned into an antique shop. Pictures hung on the walls, cabinets were stuffed with expensive crystal and porcelain, and gold coins, precious stones, orders lay in hiding places.

Operatives of the OBKhSS and the Criminal Investigation Department quickly took Dalevsky under surveillance and found out that he was especially interested in people with dollars and pounds sterling. It all started with a simple audit in a stall. Naturally, Dalevsky had everything in openwork - a penny to a penny, no surplus …

Dalevsky was not frightened, believing that this was just a planned check, and continued to work according to the established scheme. Soon, a stock of more than a centner of food was accumulated in his stall. And here the employees of the OBKHSS appeared. Dalevsky could not give any explanations. I had to confess …

Only confiscated coins and jewelry were pulled at state prices in the amount of more than 300,000 rubles. Crystal, porcelain and paintings were valued almost as much. It's not worth talking about products - in the winter of 1942, there was no price for them in besieged Leningrad.

Fake cards

The police officers paid special attention to the work of the card bureaus. And I must say that in the most difficult days of the blockade, they worked flawlessly. The most trusted people were sent here. However, no-no, and unscrupulous businessmen broke through to the cards. This is exactly what turned out to be the head of the card bureau of the Smolninsky district, a certain Shirokova … Attributing "dead souls" and fictitiously destroying the cards of Leningraders who left for evacuation, this lady made a decent capital. During the search, nearly 100,000 rubles in cash were seized from her.

Particular attention was paid to the fight against counterfeiters. I must say that no one printed counterfeit money in besieged Leningrad. At the household level, they meant practically nothing. But food ration cards were in the full sense of the word more expensive than any painting from the Hermitage.

To the credit of the Leningrad printers who made the cards, it must be said: not a single set from the workshop left to the left, not a single employee even tried to shove a set of cards into his pocket, although many had relatives starving to death. But still…

Enterprising people were printing cards. This is exactly what they did Zenkevich and Zalomaev … They had a reservation because they worked at a factory that manufactured products for the front. Having met the cleaning lady of the shop where the cards were printed, Zenkevich and Zalomaev persuaded her to bring used letters and scraps of paper.

The printing house is up and running. Cards appeared, but they had to be redeemed. This required establishing reliable contacts with trade workers. Soon Zenkevich and Zalomaev managed to find the right people.

The underground printing house existed for three months. Four tons of bread, more than 800 kilograms of meat, a centner of sugar, tens of kilograms of cereals, pasta, 200 cans of canned food migrated into the hands of smart businessmen … Zenkevich and Zalomaev did not forget about vodka either. According to their fakes, they were able to get about 600 bottles and hundreds of packs of cigarettes …

And again gold coins, jewelry, mink and fur seals were confiscated from the crooks.

In total, during the blockade, the staff of the BHSS apparatus liquidated, according to the most conservative estimates, at least a dozen underground printing houses. The counterfeiters were, as a rule, people who knew the printing business, had artistic training and strong connections among the trade workers. Without them, all the work of printing forgeries would be meaningless.

However, there were some exceptions. In the summer of 1943, OBKhSS officers arrested a certain Kholodkov, actively traded on flea market in sugar, cereals and other deficits. Taking Kholodkov under supervision, the operatives quickly found out that he had evacuated from Leningrad in the summer of 1941, made it all the way to Ufa, where he took up the card business. Local police officers grabbed the Ufa hucksters, as they say, on the hot, but Kholodkov was able to make himself the documents and returned to Leningrad.

He settled not in the city itself, but at the Pella station, where he rented half a house from some distant relatives. And although Kholodkov was not an artist, he made good cards. Seeing them, the director of one of the bakeries in the Volodarsky (Nevsky) district immediately set about boiling them. Large sums of money, gold, silverware flowed into the pockets of the crooks …

Well, and then - the verdict of the military tribunal. This audience was judged without mercy.

Afghan rice from Maltsevsky market

The most unusual case for the Leningrad police was the case of a certain Kazhdana and his accomplices. The threads of this story stretched from the banks of the Neva to Afghanistan.

Kazhdan was a supplier of the recovery train # 301 and on duty often traveled to Tashkent, where the main supply base was located. He went there in a personal - however, a freight - carriage and sometimes stood under loading for two or three days, since then military echelons were loaded first of all. During one of these breaks, Kazhdan met a certain Burlaka - An employee of a foreign trade company that bought food in Afghanistan.

Rice from Afghanistan came in thousands of sacks, and Burlaka managed to agree to put a few extra sacks in each batch for him personally. Then the rice was sold in Central Asian bazaars - as a rule, by a glass and at an appropriate price.

Burlaka and Kazhdan met, apparently, in a commercial teahouse by chance, but understood each other perfectly. Since each of them had an entire boxcar at their disposal, it was not difficult for them to hide a few bags of rice and dried fruit there. Navar from trips to Tashkent for Kazhdan and his accomplices was calculated in six figures.

At the Maltsevsky market there was a small photo studio, in which a smart guy worked Yasha Finkel … But he not only developed films and printed photographs. In a small cache Finkel kept rice and other products delivered from Tashkent, distributed them among the sellers, accepted money from them, and himself reported to Kazhdan. Actually, the chain began to unfold from Yashino's studio.

The ladies and men who often visited the photo studio attracted the attention of the operatives. Pure white rice, which was confiscated from speculators, began to fall into their hands more and more often. Leningraders did not receive such rice on ration cards.

It was established that this rice was Afghan, before the war it was supplied only for Intourist restaurants through Tashkent. We quickly found out which organizations have connections with Tashkent, who sends their employees there on business trips. Everything came together on the figure of Kazhdan.

The search of a three-room apartment at 10 Rakov Street took two days. Actually, it was not even an apartment, but an antique store. Expensive paintings, priest's and Kuznetsov's porcelain, expensive crystal glass, trimmed with silver …

The attention of the operatives was attracted by the crib. The child slept on two mattresses. In the lower one, almost 700,000 rubles and 360,000 US dollars in cash were sewn up. From flower pots, from under the baseboards, they took out jewelry made of gold and platinum, gold coins and ingots.

No less interesting were the results of searches at Kazhdan's accomplices - Fagina, Greenstein, Gutnik … Hundreds of thousands of rubles, gold products, silverware. In total, 1.5 million rubles in cash, 3.5 kilograms of gold items, 30 pieces of gold watches and other valuables totaling 4 million rubles were seized from Kazhdan and his six accomplices. For comparison: in 1943 the cost of a fighter Yak-3 or tank T-34 amounted to 100,000 rubles.

For 900 days of the blockade, the staff of the BHSS apparatus seized from speculators: 23,317,736 rubles in cash, 4,081,600 rubles in government bonds, gold coins totaling 73,420 rubles, gold items and gold bullion - 1255 kilograms, gold watches - 3284 pieces. On the line of the OBKhSS, 14,545 people were brought to criminal responsibility.