Women sentenced to death in the USSR. The case of Berta Borodkina Education and bribes

Berta Naumovna Borodkina, who was called Zheleznaya Bella, during the years of Brezhnev's stagnation led a catering in Gelendzhik, although she began her career from a modest position as a barmaid. The case against her was brought against the backdrop of Andropov's Kremlin intrigues. For embezzlement, she, as a woman, was threatened with a maximum of 15 years with confiscation of property, but the verdict shocked both the defendant herself and everyone who followed this high-profile case.

In the era of developed socialism, death sentences for women were extremely rare. After the war, there were only three such precedents. The exceptions were Tatyana Ivanyutina, Antonina Makarova and Berta Borodkina.

She poisoned more than 40 people (13 of them fatally) out of personal dislike or simply “so as not to interfere with her life and steal” from the canteen in which she worked. Tonka the machine-gunner shot about 1,500 people during the war and said during the investigation: “I do not repent of my deed, and those whom I killed do not come to me in nightmares.”

But the Soviet authorities equated the crime of Berta Borodkina with the murders of tens and hundreds of people, believing that the theft of socialist property on an especially large scale deserves just such a punishment. Numerous petitions for clemency were repeatedly denied to her, and a year later the sentence was carried out.

1st Secretary of the Krasnodar Regional Committee of the CPSU S.F. Medunov and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU L.I. Brezhnev

At the same time, few people know that Berta Naumovna Borodkina or "Iron Bella", as her colleagues called her, turned out to be a "bargaining chip" in the struggle for power. This struggle unfolded between the current Secretary General L.I. Brezhnev with his "favorite" S.F. Medunov, who from 1969 to 1973 was the sole and sovereign owner of the Krasnodar Territory on the one hand, and Yu.V. Andropov (Chairman of the KGB of the USSR) and his protégé M.S. Gorbachev - the head of the Stavropol Territory on the other.

On the Black Sea coast, a festive atmosphere has always reigned, which means it “smelled” of big money. Citizens who came to rest by the sea allowed them to earn millions of rubles on themselves. Every day, thousands of people used catering services, and no one noticed the shortfall, underweight and reduced portions. But this fact was extremely interesting for the employees of the prosecutor's office and the employees of the OBKhSS. In one season, trade workers managed to earn millions of “left” rubles, and the head of the Gelendzhik public catering was the first to “fall under the distribution”.

Berta Borodkina in her youth (maiden name - King)

Berta Naumovna Borodkina since 1974 headed the trust of canteens and restaurants in the city of Gelendzhik, received the title of Honored Worker of Trade and Public Catering of the RSFSR. She began her career as a simple barmaid in one of the Sochi cafes.

Much later, this woman was called "iron Bella." She was a born leader, respected and feared. But when Andropov decided to discredit the "king" of the Krasnodar Territory Medunov, the prosecutor's office began a total check of the catering system in the cities and districts of this region. Even the most self-confident "masters of life" lost their nerves. Many of them committed suicide. There was a real panic, but Bella Borodkina believed that everything would work out ...

She knew how to receive "dear" guests. Most Moscow officials of various levels knew that the head of the catering of Gelendzhik sets the tables for Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself, and her best friend is Sergey Medunov - the owner of the region. If this spectacular woman took on the organization of the banquet, then there will definitely be red and black caviar, the best Krasnodar and imported fruits, expensive cognac and collection wine on the table.

When arrested, the "iron Bella" behaved very calmly, even defiantly calmly. She told the investigators: “Guys, what are you talking about, tomorrow I expect your release and apologies.” She did not yet know that all the sins in the city catering of Gelendzhik would be attributed only to her - Bert Borodkin. A month later, "iron Bella" turned into an old woman - she cried and complained about the torture.

“Daily bullying. Teeth were pulled out “for life”, mercilessly beaten, especially in the evenings,” Elena Korol-Grebenyuk, sister of Borodkina, retells the words of the prisoner.

Later, this deeply unhappy woman was sentenced to death. They say that when she learned about this, she went crazy, and at night a terrible howl was heard from her cell. Her only daughter begged the authorities for mercy.

It’s hard to believe now, but the entry in the description “did not participate in mass cultural and significant political events” during the imprisonment became one of the reasons for the heartbreaking: “pardon denied”. Borodkina was shot in the Novocherkassk prison in 1983, and her relatives could not even get her ashes ...

Andropov was sure that the arrest of Medunov was a matter of time, but Brezhnev himself stood up for the Kuban "lord". The already mortally ill Secretary General still could not refuse his favorite in the last service - Medunov did not appear before the court. He was demoted, recalled to Moscow and allowed to live to a ripe old age, while being removed from the Central Committee and expelled from the party. The almighty "lord" of the Krasnodar Territory turned into a simple Soviet pensioner and died in 1999, lonely and deeply unhappy. In the last interview, he did not remember “who the shot Berta Borodkin was”!

Berta Borodkina - Iron Bella

Today, many people remember the USSR with nostalgia. And they do not just remember - they idealize, while forgetting about the total deficit, sausage trains, trade from under the floor and corruption of government officials. All this reached a particularly magnificent flowering during the era of stagnation. One of the most high-profile corruption cases of those years was the Sochi-Krasnodar one. Then, for embezzlement of socialist property on an especially large scale, they sentenced to death the honored worker of trade, the “Queen of Gelendzhik”.

Borodkina (nee Korol) began her career in 1951 as a waitress in a cafe in Gelendzhik. Even then, she preferred that everyone called her not Bertha, but Bella. Working conscientiously, she along the way made useful contacts in the resort town, and the promotion was not long in coming. Soon Bella became a barmaid, and then the head of the dining room.

Despite the fact that the girl did not shine with beauty, she had an incredible number of patrons. Not least thanks to them, in 1974 she became the director of the trust of canteens and restaurants in Gelendzhik. But Borodkina did not even have a certificate of secondary education! Bella was patronized by the first secretary of the city committee of the CPSU, Nikolai Pogodin. As the investigation later found out, from 1974 to 1982, an enterprising lady gave him 15 thousand rubles - then this amount was equal to the cost of three brand new cars.

"Line" before the opening of the restaurant

A giant web was woven in the resort town, in which every employee, from barmaids and bartenders to employees of the Glavkurortorg of the RSFSR, knew where and to whom money should be transferred. In fact, the whole city was taxed, no one could imagine their life without theft and bribes.

Divorce in the south of the USSR

Standard techniques were used to dilute everything that could be diluted. The cutlets contained more bread than meat. What was not reported to cutlets was transferred to barbecue houses - this was one of the profitable types of earnings of that time. Burnt sugar was added to tea and coffee to enhance the color. The real products were sent for resale or employees took them home.

But the most effective way for illegal profit, of course, was alcohol. Underfilling and dilution were the favorite methods of waiters, bartenders, as well as anyone who had access to strong drinks. A slight dilution of strong alcohol was almost imperceptible to visitors, so no one was outraged. Fraudsters took advantage of the fact that people who came to rest in the south walked to the fullest. The tipsy could no longer remember exactly how much and what they ate and drank, and paid for everything that they were “drawn”.

The favorite victims of the scammers were shift workers from the Arctic and Siberia - they came from the frosty north to the hospitable and warm Gelendzhik to bask in the sun, carrying large sums of money, and always walked in a big way. Their calculation often exceeded the required amount by 5-10 times!

Scheme of Berta Borodkina

More than 10 million people a year passed through the Bella Borodkina network. She came up with a very effective scheme, following which, all workers subordinate to it and included in this network, very tangibly increased their well-being. And of course, Bella herself. True, in the resort town, the private sector was widely involved in the service sector, and it created significant competition for Borodkina's cause. He took away, so to speak, her daily bread.

But Bella found a way to deal with competitors - her people, under the guise of vacationers, settled in the private sector, and then made scandals about poor service, wrote negative reviews in all instances, up to articles in local newspapers. This was very effective in driving customers away from local canteens and caterers.

Informed tourists, of course, went to dine in canteens and restaurants, which were led by Borodkina. She was not afraid of checks and inspectors of the OBKhSS - the first secretary provided her with reliable cover.

Bella's favorite clients were high-ranking party and government officials who often came to Gelendzhik. From her bins she got the most delicious food, expensive alcohol. In addition, Bella invited local girls of easy virtue, that is, she tried to do everything in order to enter into the trust of officials
and later get their location.

By the way, one of her patrons was the head of the Krasnodar Territory, Sergei Medunov. Even members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR went to the powerful patrons of Borodkina. But especially Bella was friends with the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Fyodor Kulakov, she was a member of his family.

Thanks to these connections, Bella could cook her affairs with complete impunity. The people even called her Iron Bella. Therefore, the arrest was a big surprise for Borodkina, so big that at first she did not take it seriously and even tried to threaten the police officers.

Exposing Berta Borodkina

It is curious that Iron Bella was exposed by accident. Here is how it was. An ordinary client of one of the cafes managed by Borodkina somehow found out that adult films were being shown to some, so to speak, chosen ones, and reported this to the police. The organizers of illegal activities were caught red-handed and charged under article 228 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which meant up to three years in prison, for distributing pornography. During interrogations, the employees of the cafe confessed to everything and said,
that the authorities were aware of what was happening and in general they share profits with him.

Borodkina was charged with taking a bribe and complicity in a crime. Of course, powerful patrons could easily brush off Iron Bella. But this case turned out to be under the control of the powerful head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, and the patrons fled like rats from a ship. During the search, Bella found huge sums of money - they were stuffed into jars of pickles, under carpets, behind wallpaper, in radiators and other hiding places. The total amount found in Borodkina's house was more than half a million rubles! In addition, jewelry, furs, paintings, crystal and other shortages were found.

During interrogations, Bella refused to testify, still tried to put pressure on the investigation, saying that she would be released soon. But then, realizing the seriousness of her situation, she began to cooperate with the investigation - she just wanted to live.

Case of Berta Borodkina

The Iron Bella case ran for more than 20 volumes. The investigation revealed many facts of crimes, on which several more criminal cases were opened against her and other defendants. It was possible to establish the involvement in the corruption network of more than 70 people, whom the investigation did not even suspect. After the arrest of Borodkina, the head of the Central Committee of the party of the city of Gelendzhik, Nikolai Pogodin, fled. He told his wife that he was leaving on business, and she never saw him again. There were rumors that he could leave the country on a ship. Amazingly, to this day nothing is known about the fate of the former party leader of Gelendzhik.

The Sochi-Krasnodar case caused a big stir. The investigation was obstructed, but still it was not stopped thanks to the chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. He was Medunov's main enemy. In November 1982, thanks to the election of Andropov as General Secretary of the USSR, the investigation launched its actions even more actively. More than 5,000 party and Soviet leaders were removed from high posts, they were released from their positions and expelled from the ranks of the CPSU.

More than 1,500 people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Medunov escaped with a slight fright - he was only removed from his post as First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the CPSU and removed from the Central Committee.

While in a prison cell, 57-year-old Bella Borodkina tried to feign insanity, but this number did not work. She was charged with repeatedly taking bribes totaling 561,843 rubles 89 kopecks. She was also accused of embezzlement of state property on an especially large scale, however, the investigation failed to fully prove her involvement. Nevertheless, this was enough for the court to sentence her to capital punishment. The Supreme Court of the RSFSR upheld the verdict. Bella Borodkina did not file a petition for pardon ...

Berta Naumovna Borodkina, also known as Iron Bella, was one of three women whose death sentence was carried out during the late Soviet period. But unlike other executed women, Borodkina was not tried under the "execution" article. She was charged with taking bribes and stealing socialist property on an especially large scale. However, the presence of patrons at the very top, with whom she did not miss the opportunity to brag about her acquaintance, played a cruel joke on her and cost Borodkina her life.

From waitress to director of the trust

The dizzying career of Borodkina Berta Naumovna (maiden name Korol) began in 1951, when she got a job as a waitress in one of the catering establishments in the city of Gelendzhik. Then she worked as a barmaid and head of the dining room. Her career reached its peak in 1974 - Berta Naumovna took the position of director of a public catering trust. At the same time, Berta Naumovna did not even have a completed secondary education.

Obviously, the appointment to such a high position of a person who did not even finish school could not take place without a patron from above, who Berta Naumovna was the first secretary of the city committee of the CPSU Pogodin Nikolai Fedorovich. As the investigation would later prove, Pogodin repeatedly received bribes from Borodkina for assistance and support in work. From 1980 to 1982, the first secretary of the Gelendzhik city party committee received more than 15,000 rubles in bribes in the form of valuables, money and food, which in the meantime is comparable to the cost of three Zhiguli.

The Art of Deception

On the way from a waitress to a director, Zheleznaya Bella perfectly managed to master all the tricks of consumer deception that were widespread in Soviet times at catering points. For catering visitors, this could be completely unnoticeable, but not clean-handed staff earned huge unaccounted income from food fraud.

It was common to dilute sour cream with water, and tint tea or coffee with burnt sugar. Reducing the prescribed norm of meat in the first and second courses by adding cereals or other products, with the subsequent resale of the “saved” meat to local barbecue houses, has truly become a “bonanza”. According to the investigator, only two recent years of her work, Borodkina earned at least 80,000 rubles from meat substitutions.

But the most profitable, of course, were manipulations with alcohol. We used schemes well known to any catering worker: underfilling and dilution. It is almost impossible for visitors to notice the “loss” of several degrees of vodka, but the seller will receive an excellent “left” income. It was especially profitable to dilute expensive Armenian cognacs with cheap rye vodka infused with apple leaves. At that time, even experts could not determine whether cognac was diluted or not.

The "classic of the genre", of course, was a primitive cheating. They counted not only individual visitors to bars, restaurants and cafes, but also large companies. At that time, during the season, large groups of shift workers who worked in Siberia and the Arctic often flew to the Black Sea resorts for the weekend. Such companies could afford not to delve into the details of the invoice, and therefore did not hesitate to cheat on tens, and sometimes hundreds of rubles.

In the catering system of Gelendzhik, which was led by Zheleznaya Bella, not only everyone tried to deceive the visitor, but also clearly knew how much “left” income should be given further down the chain, otherwise there was a risk of losing their job, and hence the “left” income . Ultimately, all the “fraudulent” money either ended up in the hands of Borodkina, or was transferred as bribes to leaders of various levels for patronage and various indulgences.

Tell me who is your friend

In Soviet times, more than ten million people vacationed on the Black Sea coast per year, which made the source of illegal income inexhaustible.

Vacationers for Borodkina were divided into several categories. One of them she called rats. These included those vacationers who rented small rooms in the private sector, ate at the cheapest establishments and often left angry notes in the complaint books about the poor quality of dishes, short cuts or underfilling. But from all sorts of audits associated with such complaints, the catering, headed by Iron Bella, reliably kept her connections and bribes.

The second category included vacationers who could somehow be useful to Berta Naumovna. Basically, high party and state officials who came to the resort from Moscow or the Union republics fell into this category. For them, Borodkina was hospitality itself and everything she did to please distinguished guests. The main goal that she pursued at the same time was to make useful contacts at the very top. Iron Bella not only covered feasts bursting with delicacies for distinguished guests and provided off-site picnics in nature or in the mountains with scarce products, but she could also organize a female escort for a company of respectable men. At the same time, all such expenses were cleverly disguised by Borodkina in the reporting documents so that it was almost impossible to find them.

Among the patrons of Zheleznaya Bella were not only Sergei Medunov, the first secretary of the Krasnodar Regional Committee of the CPSU, as well as the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Fyodor Kulakov, but also several members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

By the way, only two invited representatives from the Krasnodar Territory were present at the burial of Kulakov - Borodkina and Medunov.

Patrons in the highest echelons of power reliably protected Borodkin not only from discontent and constant complaints from deceived consumers, but also provided immunity to any checks.

Borodkina herself asked to be called Bella, because given name she really did not like, and for the immunity received, her subordinates called her behind her back Iron Bella.

Films for adults

The arrest of Borodkina was largely an accident. Once in the cell, Iron Bella considered this a misunderstanding and promised the operatives not only the need for as soon as possible let her go and apologize, but also further big official troubles.

And it all started with the fact that the local prosecutor's office received a complaint from a resident of Gelendzhik informing that in one of the city's institutions illegal screenings of adult films were being held for a select audience. The director, production manager and bartender were captured during one of these shows. They were accused of producing and distributing pornography. At that time, criminal liability was provided for the distribution of goods for adults. The accused were threatened with a term of up to three years and confiscation of both the goods themselves and the means of their production and distribution.

During the interrogation, the arrested said that the screenings were held with the unofficial permission of Borodkina, in addition, she received part of the proceeds from the activities of the underground cinema. Thus, initially, Iron Bella was charged only with complicity in the distribution of intimate products and taking a bribe.

A search was carried out at Borodkina's place of residence, after which the case went far beyond the boundaries of an illegal cinema. During the search, not only luxury items, jewelry and furs were found, but also large sums of money. At the same time, the investigators found hiding places not only throughout the house, but also in the yard. In total, during the search, 500,000 rubles were found and seized from Borodkina.

Help is nowhere to be found

Immediately after her arrest, Iron Bella refused to testify and continued to threaten investigators with trouble for the unfounded charges against her and her arrest. The confidence that connections among high-ranking officials would allow Borodkina to get away dry from the water did not weaken for a long time.

She did not yet know that at that time many criminal cases were opened in the Krasnodar Territory. The reason for everything was the repeated revelation of the facts of receiving bribes and large-scale theft by officials. Later, these criminal cases received the general name of the Sochi-Krasnodar case. The so-called "Master of the Kuban" Medunov, being a close friend of Brezhnev and Cherenko, tried by all means available to him to hinder the work of the investigators of the Prosecutor General's Office. But in the capital, he had too strong an opponent in the person of the chairman of the KGB. After being elected at the end of 1982 as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, no one could interfere with the investigation.

As a result of the most significant anti-bribery campaign carried out in the USSR, more than 5,000 party and state leaders lost their posts and were expelled from the members of the CPSU. More than 1,500 officials were sentenced to different terms deprivation of liberty. The Deputy Minister of Fisheries was sentenced to death by the court.

After the arrest of Borodkina, her main patron, Pogodin, disappeared without a trace. On June 14, 1982, after a conversation with Medunov in the Krasnadar Territory Committee, Pogodin went to the city committee of the CPSU of Gelendzhik in an official car, and when he got out, he refused to get into the official car and left in an unknown direction. Nobody saw him again. According to the main version of the investigation, Pogodin could board one of the international sea vessels that were at that time in the port of Gelendzhik and leave the country. But there is no evidence for this.

The Master of the Kuban himself was dismissed from his post and expelled from the party.

End of story

When Iron Bella realized that there was no point in continuing to wait for help and the only way to commute the sentence was a sincere confession, she changed her position and began to speak. Borodkina's criminal case consists of 20 volumes. Her testimony became the starting point for the initiation of about 30 other criminal cases, in which more than 70 officials of various levels were involved.

To avoid the threatened punishment, Borodkina tried to feign mental disorder- schizophrenia, and was convincing enough, but she did not succeed in deceiving the forensic medical examination. She was declared sane, and the case was referred to the Krasnodar Regional Court for consideration.

Read related material: Antonina Makarova - a woman to whom, in the Soviet post-war period, capital punishment was applied, execution

4 Sep 2018

In 1983, the court heard the case Berta Borodkina, Honored Worker of Trade of the RSFSR. The woman, whom her subordinates respectfully called Iron Bella, led the trust of canteens and restaurants in Gelendzhik. In fact, Borodkina held in her hands the entire service sector there.

During the Brezhnev stagnation, no one dared to touch Berta, and many workers in the resorts of the Kuban and the Krasnoyarsk Territory were entangled in the networks of the insidious speculator. People expected that high-ranking bribe-taker will be imprisoned for 15 years. But the judges who worked under the conditions of the "Andropov purge" had other plans...

Bertha Korol was born in the city White church near Kyiv. Having married, the woman moved to Odessa and changed her surname for the first time. In total, Berta had four husbands, and the investigation does not exclude that one of them was deliberately drunk by the catering queen.

Borodkin, a retired sea captain to whom the woman became engaged in Gelendzhik, eagerly consumed the alcohol that his waitress wife brought home from work. Soon, the man, who did not know the measure, gave up, and all his property went to his wife.

Berta, who eventually changed her name to Bella, began working in the trading field waitress and barmaid. The woman quickly realized what prospects a large resort city promises her.

Having received a specialized education, the grasping and cunning Borodkina quickly climbed the career ladder, simultaneously acquiring acquaintances and contacts. The scheme of corrupt connections of the speculator, drawn up by the investigation, was amazing!

By 1974, Berta-Bella had become a director of the trust. High-ranking officials appreciated the subordinate, because she not only ensured the uninterrupted flow of tribute from restaurants and cafes of Gelendzhik, but also knew how, like no other, to organize dear guests decent leisure.

Rumor has it that the matter was not limited to culinary masterpieces alone: ​​Borodkina was also in charge of local priestesses of love, and films for adults were clandestinely played in restaurants and cafes.

In the resorts where Bella ruled, Brezhnev personally liked to relax, so during the reign of the eyebrow-browed general secretary, no one dared to touch a woman. Accustomed to power, Borodkina stole astronomical sums.

When the head of the trust was finally arrested in 1982, the police who searched her apartment gasped. The law enforcement officers had the feeling that they were not in a residential building, but in the storerooms of some museum!

Sables, crystal vases, jewels and money - Berta had all this beyond measure. The impossibly prudent speculator also stockpiled any scarce things.

This, for example, explains the huge amount of bed linen. Armfuls of banknotes were shoved at Borodkina into three-liter cans, stuffed into battery pipes, hidden in piles of bricks piled in the yard.

According to subordinates, Berta has reached perfection in the art of hanging ordinary people. Meat disappeared from soups, and cheap cereals appeared instead. I diluted sour cream with milk with water, but very carefully.

Catering workers recalled: at the planning meeting, the director of the trust could arrange terrible dressing for the fact that the product was diluted with raw, not boiled water. Cautious Borodkina came to trial only when her patrons collapsed!

The protege of the owner of the Kuban, who fell into disgrace, who stole goodness for a million Soviet rubles, was an ideal target for " andropov purges". Bella's case became indicative, and the speculator was not particularly ceremonial.

The woman herself did not fully understand why all high-ranking friends refused to defend her. Officials, on the other hand, simply handed over the careerist to the court, trying in this way to save their own skins.

Nevertheless, received by Borodkina the highest measure came as a complete surprise to most of those who followed her case. The most severe prognosis for Bella was a 15-year prison term with confiscation of property. But guided by the instructions of Andropov, the judges were determined to go to the end.

Officially, in all the post-war years, three women were executed in the USSR. The death sentences for the representatives of the weaker sex were handed down, but not carried out. And then the case came to a head. Who were these women, and for what crimes they were still shot. The history of the crimes of Antonina Makarova.

Case with a surname.

Antonina Makarova was born in 1921 in the Smolensk region, in the village of Malaya Volkovka, in a large peasant family Makar Parfenov. She studied at a rural school, and it was there that an episode occurred that influenced her future life. When Tonya came to the first grade, because of her shyness, she could not give her last name - Parfyonova. Classmates began to shout “Yes, she is Makarova!”, Meaning that Tony's father's name is Makar.
Yes, with light hand teacher, at that time almost the only literate person in the village, Tonya Makarova appeared in the Parfyonov family.
The girl studied diligently, with diligence. She also had her own revolutionary heroine -
Anka the gunner. This film image had a real prototype - the nurse of the Chapaev division, Maria Popova, who once in battle really had to replace a killed machine gunner.
After graduating from school, Antonina went to study in Moscow, where she found the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The girl went to the front as a volunteer.

Camping wife surrounded.

and the share of the 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova fell all the horrors of the infamous "Vyazemsky cauldron". After the most difficult battles, only soldier Nikolai Fedchuk was surrounded by the young nurse Tonya. With him, she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They did not look for partisans, they did not try to get through to their own - they fed on whatever they had to, sometimes they stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his "camping wife". Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.
In January 1942, they went to the village of Red Well, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tony alone. Tonya was not driven out of the Red Well, but the locals were already full of worries. And the strange girl did not seek to go to the partisans, did not strive to break through to ours, but strove to make love with one of the men who remained in the village. Having set the locals against herself, Tonya was forced to leave.

Paid killer.

Tonya Makarova's wanderings ended near the village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The notorious Lokot Republic, an administrative-territorial formation of Russian collaborators, operated here. In essence, they were the same German lackeys as in other places, only more clearly formalized.
A police patrol detained Tonya, but they did not suspect a partisan or underground worker of her. She liked the policemen, who took her to their place, gave her a drink, fed and raped her. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.
The role of a prostitute under the policemen did not last long for Tonya - one day, drunk, they took her out into the yard and put her behind a Maxim easel machine gun. People stood in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who had completed not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not a big deal. True, the dead drunk woman did not really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.
The next day, Makarova learned that she was now an official - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with her bunk. The Lokot Republic ruthlessly fought the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground workers, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. The arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.
The cell held 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones. Neither the Germans, nor even the local policemen, wanted to take on this job. And here, Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere with her shooting abilities, came in very handy.
The girl did not go crazy, but on the contrary, she considered that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot enemies, and she shoots women and children - the war will write everything off! But her life is finally getting better.

1500 lost lives.

The daily routine of Antonina Makarova was as follows: in the morning, the execution of 27 people with a machine gun, finishing off the survivors with a pistol, cleaning weapons, schnapps and dancing in a German club in the evening, and at night, love with some pretty German or, at worst, with a policeman.
As a reward, she was allowed to take the belongings of the dead. So Tonya got a bunch of outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes immediately interfered with wearing.
However, sometimes Tonya allowed a “marriage” - several children managed to survive, because because of their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out together with the corpses by the locals, who buried the dead, and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a female executioner, "Tonka the machine gunner", "Tonka the Muscovite" crawled around the district. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but they could not get to her.
In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.
By the summer of 1943, Tony's life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved to the West, starting to liberate the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but then she very conveniently fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Great Germany.

Honored veteran instead of a war criminal.

In the German hospital, however, it also soon became uncomfortable - Soviet troops approached so quickly that only the Germans managed to evacuate, and there was no longer any case for accomplices.
Realizing this, Tonya fled the hospital, again finding herself surrounded, but now Soviet. But survival skills were honed - she managed to get documents proving that all this time Makarova was a nurse in a Soviet hospital.
Antonina successfully managed to enter the service in a Soviet hospital, where at the beginning of 1945 a young soldier, a real war hero, fell in love with her. The guy made an offer to Tonya, she agreed, and, having married, the young people after the end of the war left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, to her husband's homeland.
So the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and the honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg took her place.

She's been looking for thirty years

Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous deeds of "Tonka the machine gunner" immediately after the liberation of the Bryansk region. The remains of about one and a half thousand people were found in mass graves, but only two hundred were identified. They interrogated witnesses, checked, clarified - but they could not attack the trail of the female punisher.
Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg led the usual life of a Soviet person - she lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the deeds of "Tonka the machine gunner".
The KGB spent more than three decades searching for it, but found it almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfenov, going abroad, submitted questionnaires with information about relatives. There, among the solid Parfyonovs, for some reason, Antonina Makarova, by her husband Ginzburg, was listed as a sister.
Yes, how that mistake of the teacher helped Tonya, how many years thanks to it she remained out of reach of justice!
The KGB operatives worked as a jeweler - it was impossible to accuse an innocent person of such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses were secretly brought to Lepel, even a former policeman-lover. And only after they all confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was “Tonka the machine gunner”, she was arrested.
She did not deny, she talked about everything calmly, said that she had no nightmares. She did not want to communicate with her daughters or her husband. And the husband, a front-line soldier, ran around the authorities, threatened Brezhnev with a complaint, even at the UN - he demanded the release of his wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya was accused of.
After that, the dashing, brave veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. What these people had to endure, you would not wish on the enemy.

Retribution.

Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the autumn of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors in the USSR and the only trial of a female punisher.
Antonina herself was convinced that, due to the prescription of years, the punishment could not be too severe, she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. She only regretted that, because of the shame, she again had to move and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about the post-war exemplary biography of Antonina Ginzburg, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR.
However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.
At the trial, her guilt was documented in the murder of 168 people from those whose identities could be established. More than 1,300 remained unknown victims of Tonka the Machine Gunner. There are crimes that cannot be forgiven.
At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for clemency were rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.

Bert Borodkin.

Berta Borodkina, known in certain circles as "Iron Bella", was one of 3 women executed in the late USSR. By a fatal coincidence, Berta Naumovna Borodkina, a well-deserved worker of trade, who did not kill anyone, was included in this mournful list along with the murderers. She was sentenced to death for embezzlement of socialist property on an especially large scale.

Among those who patronized the catering director of the resort town were members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as well as the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Fyodor Kulakov. Relations at the very top for a long time made Berta Borodkin invulnerable to any auditors, but in the end they played a tragic role in her fate.
In April 1984, the Krasnodar Regional Court considered criminal case No. 2-4/84 against the director of the trust of restaurants and canteens in the city of Gelendzhik, Honored Worker of Trade and Public Catering of the RSFSR Berta Borodkina. The main point of accusation of the defendant - part 2 of Art. 173 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (taking a bribe) - provided for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of five to fifteen years with confiscation of property. However, reality surpassed the worst fears of 57-year-old Borodkina - she was sentenced to death.
The decision of the court came as a surprise to lawyers who followed the high-profile trial with interest: an exceptional measure of punishment “up to its complete abolition”, according to the then current Criminal Code of the RSFSR, was allowed for treason (Article 64), espionage (Article 65), terrorist act (art. 66 and 67), sabotage (art. 68), banditry (art. 77), premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances specified in art. 102 and paragraph "c" Art. 240, and in war time or in a combat situation - and for other especially grave crimes in cases specially provided for by the legislation of the USSR.

Pay or lose...

The successful career of Borodkina (maiden name - Korol), who did not even have a complete secondary education, began in the Gelendzhik catering in 1951 as a waitress, then she successively occupied the positions of a barmaid and head of the dining room, and in 1974 her dizzying rise to the nomenclature took place. post of the head of the trust of restaurants and canteens.
Such an appointment could not take place without the participation of the first secretary of the CPSU city committee, Nikolai Pogodin, his preference for a candidate without special education was not openly questioned by anyone in the city committee, and the hidden motives for choosing the party leader became known eight years later. “During the indicated period [from 1974 to 1982], being an official in a responsible position,” the indictment in the Borodkina case says, “repeatedly personally and through intermediaries in her apartment and at her place of work received bribes from a large group of subordinates to her for work. Of the bribes she received, Borodkina herself transferred the bribes responsible employees Gelendzhik for assistance and support in the work ... So, over the past two years, it was transferred to the secretary of the city party committee Pogodin with valuables, money and food for 15,000 rubles. The last amount in the 1980s was roughly the cost of three cars"Zhiguli".
In the materials of the investigation, a graphic diagram of the corruption relationships of the director of the trust, compiled by employees of the USSR Chief Prosecutor's Office, was filed. It resembles a dense web with Borodkina in the center, to which numerous threads stretch from the restaurants Gelendzhik, Kavkaz, Yuzhny, Platan, Yacht, canteens and cafes, pancake, barbecue and food tents, and from it disperse to the city committee of the CPSU and the city executive committee, the BHSS department of the city police department (combating theft of socialist property), to the regional trust and further to the Glavkurortorg of the Ministry of Trade of the RSFSR.
Employees of the Gelendzhik catering - directors and managers, bartenders and bartenders, cashiers and waiters, cooks and forwarders, cloakroom attendants and doormen - were completely taxed with a “tribute”, everyone knew how much money he had to transfer along the chain, as well as what awaited him in case of refusal - the loss of a "bread" position.

Stolen degrees.

Borodkina, during her work in various areas of public catering, perfectly mastered the methods of deceiving consumers in order to obtain “left” incomes practiced in Soviet trade, and put them on stream in her department. It was common to dilute sour cream with water, and tint liquid tea or coffee with burnt sugar. But one of the most profitable frauds was the abundant addition of bread or cereals to chopped meat, reducing the established norms of meat for the preparation of first and second courses. The head of the trust, “saved” in this way, transferred the product to barbecue houses for sale. In two years, according to Kalinichenko, Borodkina earned 80,000 rubles from this alone.
Another source of illegal income was the manipulation of alcohol. Here, too, she did not discover anything new: in restaurants, cafes, bars and buffets, the traditional “underfilling” was widely used, as well as “stealing a degree”. For example, visitors to a drinking establishment simply did not notice a decrease in the strength of vodka due to dilution by two degrees, but this brought big profits to trade workers. But it was considered especially beneficial to mix cheaper “starka” (rye vodka infused with apple or pear leaves) into expensive Armenian cognac. According to the investigator, even the examination could not establish that the cognac was diluted.
A primitive calculation was also common - both for individual visitors to restaurants, bars, buffets and cafes, and for large companies. Musician Georgy Mimikonov, who played in the restaurants of Gelendzhik in those years, told Moscow TV journalists that during the holiday season whole groups of shift workers from Siberia and the Arctic came here for the weekend to have a good time in the “zone of beautiful life”, as the musician put it. The calculation of such clients went to tens and hundreds of rubles.

Berta, aka Iron Bella.

In those days, the Black Sea health resorts received more than 10 million vacationers per year, which served as a gold mine for the resort mafia. Borodkina had her own classification of people who came to rest in Gelendzhik. Those who rented corners in the private sector, stood in line in cafes and canteens, and then left complaints about the quality of food in public catering establishments in the book of complaints and suggestions, wrote about cheating and “underfilling”, she, according to her former colleagues, called rats . The Gorkom's "roof" in the person of the first secretary, as well as OBKhSS inspectors, made her invulnerable to the dissatisfaction of the mass consumer, whom Borodkina considered exclusively as a source of "left" income.
Borodkina demonstrated a completely different attitude towards high-ranking party and government officials who came to Gelendzhik during the holiday season from Moscow and the Union republics, but here, too, she pursued her own interests first of all - the acquisition of future influential patrons. Borodkina did everything to make their stay on the Black Sea coast pleasant and memorable. Borodkina, as it turned out, not only provided the nomenklatura guests with scarce products for picnics in the mountains and boat trips, set tables bursting with delicacies, but could, at their request, invite young women to the male company. Her "hospitality" for the guests themselves and the party fund of the region was worth nothing - Borodkina knew how to write off expenses. These qualities in her were appreciated by the first secretary of the Krasnodar Regional Committee of the CPSU Sergey Medunov.
Among those who gave Borodkina their patronage were even members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as well as the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Fyodor Kulakov. When Kulakov died, the family invited only two people from the Krasnodar Territory to his funeral - Medunov and Borodkina. Connections at the very top for a long time provided Borodkina with immunity against any revisions, so behind her back she was called “Iron Bella” in Gelendzhik (Borodkina did not like her own name, she preferred to be called Bella).

The case of the sale of pornographic products.

When Borodkina was arrested, at first she considered it an unfortunate misunderstanding and warned the operatives: no matter how much they had to apologize today. There was an element of chance that she was placed in the bullpen, however, those who are well acquainted with the details of this long history note.
The prosecutor's office received a statement from a local resident that in one of the cafes, pornographic films were secretly shown to selected guests. The organizers of the underground viewings - the director of the cafe, the production manager and the bartender - were caught red-handed, they were charged under Art. 228 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (manufacture or sale of pornographic products, punishable by imprisonment for up to three years with confiscation of pornographic objects and means of their production). During interrogations, catering workers testified that the director of the trust had tacitly allowed the demonstrations, and part of the proceeds was transferred to her. Thus, Borodkina herself was charged with complicity in this offense and taking a bribe.
A search was carried out in Iron Bella's house, the results of which unexpectedly went far beyond the scope of the "underground cinema" case. Borodkina's housing was reminiscent of museum storerooms, which contained numerous precious jewelry, furs, crystal products, sets of bed linen, which were then in short supply. In addition, Borodkina kept large sums of money at home, which investigators found in the most unexpected places - in water heaters and under carpets in rooms, rolled up jars in the basement, in bricks stored in the yard. The total amount seized during the search amounted to more than 500,000 rubles.

The mysterious disappearance of the first secretary of the city committee of the CPSU.

Borodkina at the very first interrogation refused to testify and continued to threaten the investigation with punishment for sweeping accusations against her and the arrest of "a leader respected in the region." “She was sure that she was about to be released, but there was still no help.” “Iron Bella” didn’t wait for her, and here’s why.
In the early 1980s, investigations began in the Krasnodar Territory of numerous criminal cases related to large-scale manifestations of bribery and theft, which received the generalized name of the Sochi-Krasnodar case. The owner of the Kuban Medunov, a close friend of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev and Secretary of the Central Committee Konstantin Chernenko, interfered in every possible way with the work of the Investigative Department of the Prosecutor General's Office. However, in Moscow he had a powerful opponent - the chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. And with his election in November 1982 as General Secretary, the prosecutor's office had a free hand. As a result of one of the most high-profile anti-corruption campaigns in the USSR, more than 5,000 party and Soviet leaders were dismissed from their posts and expelled from the ranks of the CPSU, about 1,500 people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and Deputy Minister of Fisheries of the USSR Vladimir Rytov was convicted and shot . Medunov was dismissed from the post of First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the CPSU and removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU with the wording: "For the mistakes made in the work."
When the defendant was made to understand that she no longer had anyone to rely on, she could alleviate her fate only by a sincere confession of guilt, Iron Bella broke down and began to testify. Her criminal case took 20 volumes, said former investigator Alexander Chernov, based on the testimony of the former director of the trust, another three dozen criminal cases were initiated, in which 70 people were convicted. And the head of the party organization of Gelendzhik Pogodin disappeared without a trace after the arrest of Borodkina. Once he left the house in the evening, telling his wife that he needed to go to the city committee for a while, and did not return. The police of the Krasnodar Territory were thrown in search of him, divers explored the waters of the Gelendzhik Bay, but all in vain - he was never seen dead or alive again. There is a version that Pogodin left the country on one of the foreign ships that were in the Gelendzhik Bay, but no actual confirmation of this has yet been found.

She knew too much.

During the investigation, Borodkina tried to feign schizophrenia. It was "very talented", but the forensic medical examination recognized the game and the case was transferred to the regional court, which found Borodkina guilty of repeatedly taking bribes totaling 561,834 rubles. 89 kop. (part 2 of article 173 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR).
According to Art. 93-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (theft of state property on an especially large scale) and art. 156 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (consumer fraud), she was acquitted "due to insufficient evidence of the defendant's participation in the commission of the crime." She was sentenced to an exceptional measure of punishment - execution. Supreme Court The USSR left the verdict unchanged. The defendant did not apply for pardon.
Borodkin was let down by just what she was very proud of - acquaintances with high-ranking people, whose names she constantly trumped up. Former patrons in the current situation were interested in the fact that the "Iron Bella" was silent forever - she knew too much. She was not only disproportionately punished for her crimes, she was dealt with.