Saltychikha (Daria Saltykova) - biography, information, personal life. The passion of a bloody lady: who did the landowner Saltychikha Saltychikha love the story of the most terrible Russian woman read

Daria Saltykova, or as the people call her simply “Saltychikha”, entered the history of the country with a bloody trail. She became famous as a real sadist of noble blood, who did not spare the life and health of her serfs, mocking people for her own pleasure.

Society became zealously interested in the true history of Saltychikha thanks to the historical series presented by the Russia-1 channel. The history of the "Bloody Lady" on the screen is shown rather softly in comparison with what happened in the life of a famous woman.

The creators tried to convey in an artistic way the suffering of a woman who could not cope with her own outbursts of rage and explained the cruelty of the lady by her complete misfortune in her personal life. But how it really happened is not completely known, because they tried to destroy all existing documents and even portraits about her, considering her at one time “the shame of the human race.”

So, Daria Saltykova. Born March 11 (22), 1730 - died November 27 (December 9), 1801 in Moscow. A Russian landowner who killed dozens (according to other sources, almost one and a half hundred) serfs.

Father - pillar nobleman Nikolai Avtonomovich Ivanov.

Mother - Anna Ivanovna (nee Davydova).

Grandfather - Avton Ivanov - was a major figure in the times of Princess Sophia and Peter I.

She received a home education, at that time quite good. She spoke foreign languages, played musical instruments. She grew up in a pious family and in her youth she was distinguished by piety - about which many memories were left from those who knew her.

She was married to the captain of the Life Guards Horse Regiment Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov (died around 1755) - the uncle of the future Highness Prince Nikolai Ivanovich Saltykov. His uncle - Semyon Andreevich Saltykov - in 1732-1740. was the governor-general of Moscow. Also in 1763-1771, the governor-general of Moscow was his cousin, Field Marshal Pyotr Semenovich Saltykov.

Two sons were born in the marriage: Fedor (01/19/1750 - 06/25/1801) and Nikolai (d. 07/27/1775), who were enlisted in the guards regiments.

Widowed at the age of 26.

It is known that during the life of her husband, Saltychikha did not notice a particular tendency to assault. She was a blooming, beautiful and at the same time a very pious woman. Thus, one can suspect the mental illness of Darya Saltykova, associated with the early loss of a spouse.

The wealthy landowner entered the history of the state as one of the most cruel housewives. In her estates and mansions, inherited from her husband, there was complete order, but he got the serfs at the cost of their lives.

Saltykova brutally beat her servants, tortured her to death for the slightest offense, and sometimes for no apparent reason. Saltykova's victims were young girls and married women - it is for this reason that many are sure that Saltykova really went crazy after her husband's death. Other information says that the woman went crazy after she was rejected by her lover, the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev - she even organized an attempt on the nobleman, but later he was warned by the servants about the impending drama.

If we talk about the consequences, then Saltykova's victims, according to official figures, were fifty people. According to unofficial reports, she managed to torture more than a hundred serfs. People tried to complain about the mistress, but they were not heard, because outwardly she looked like a very worthy, God-fearing, educated lady.

As a rule, it all started with claims to the servants - Daria did not like how the floor was washed or the clothes were washed. The angry hostess began to beat the negligent maid, and her favorite weapon was a log. In the absence of such, an iron was used, a rolling pin - everything that was at hand.

At first, the serfs of Darya Saltykova were not particularly alarmed by this - this kind of thing happened everywhere. The first murders did not scare either - it happens that the lady got excited.

But since 1757, the killings have become systematic. Moreover, they began to wear especially cruel, sadistic. The lady clearly began to enjoy what was happening. The victims of torture were subsequently killed and buried and buried - some disease was called the cause of death of a person, or he was put on the wanted list as an escaped serf.

Killing the peasant woman Larionova, Saltychikha burned her hair on her head with a candle. When the woman was killed, the mistress's accomplices put the coffin with the body in the cold, and a live infant was placed on the corpse. The baby froze to death.

In the month of November, the peasant woman Petrova was driven into a pond with a stick and kept standing in water up to her throat for several hours, until the unfortunate woman died.

Another entertainment of Saltychikha was dragging her victims by the ears around the house with red-hot curling irons.

She beat, not sparing, pulled out her hair, boiled in boiling water or burned with a red-hot iron. Tortured victims rarely survived - they were usually finished off or they died during the torture.

As a result, the servants could not stand such treatment and denounced the landowner to Empress Catherine II. Complaints to the local authorities and the priest did not give any result, and therefore two serfs fled from the mistress, not fearing death, and turned to the highest authorities in Russia.

The investigation has been going on for over six years. Catherine personally checked all the documents and could not believe that her noblewoman was capable of such acts. To prove, as already mentioned above, the murder of less than fifty people was successful. He left a few dozen more in the case as “suspected of murder”, Saltykova was acquitted on 11 episodes.

The empress personally chose the punishment for the noblewoman, the site reports. She did not dare to publicly execute a respected person, but she did not have the right to forgive the deeds of the widow. Saltykova was chained for an hour to a pillory with a sign "The Murderer". She was deprived of all noble titles and was even forbidden to be called a woman due to cruelty towards people.

Saltykova was sent to a monastery, where she was imprisoned in an underground cell - she did not see daylight at all, and she was allowed to light a candle only occasionally. Saltykova spent 11 years underground, after which she was transferred to a cell above ground. People were allowed to visit the prisoner, but neither sons nor friends came to her - only onlookers came to look at the sadist.

Saltykov spent more than thirty years in prison. She died at the age of 71, never repenting of her actions.

Modern criminologists and historians suggest that Saltychikha suffered from a mental disorder - epileptoid psychopathy. Some even believe that she was a latent homosexual.

It is not possible to establish this reliably today. The story of Saltychikha became unique because the case of the atrocities of this landowner ended with the punishment of the criminal. Often the nobles got away with bullying the serfs.

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Known for her cruelty, Daria Saltykova is striking in the scope of her atrocities. The lady, who lived in the 18th century, was brought up in an atmosphere of cruelty. Violence was ubiquitous in those days. But even for her era, Daria stood out for her inventive torture and bloodlust. Unlimited power over the serfs completely untied the hands of the Russian sadist.

Biography of Daria Saltykova is a black spot in the history of Russia. Her personality can only be compared with that of Count Dracula. The reasons for such bitterness of the lady are not known to anyone, and to this day remain an unsolved mystery. Court materials on the case of Daria Saltykova are still kept. This was the first judicial investigation accusing the master of cruelty towards the serfs.

Daria Saltykova Saltychikha biography and her mother: the mistress's childhood brought her up as a cruel tyrant

Not much is known about the childhood of Daria Saltykova by historians involved in the biography of the lady. Daria's parents, father nobleman Nikolai Avtonomovich Ivanov and mother Anna Ivanova (Davydova), were considered moral pious people, they were not particularly cruel.

But the very concept of "special cruelty" in those days was perceived quite differently. Serfs, completely dependent on the master, were not considered full-fledged people. They were considered the number of souls, as cattle are considered livestock. And, of course, the master had the right to punish the serf as he saw fit. And if he uses force, then it is fair. Even if he beats to death, it is also quite acceptable for the society of those times.

The boyars Ivanovs raised their daughter according to the traditions of past generations. The girl was taught to keep the serfs at bay. Her main task was to learn how to manage more than one estate. It was not accepted everywhere to teach girls to read and write. Daria Ivanova did not receive an education, she learned to manage the household and absorbed the wisdom of life following the example of her parents.

Daria Saltykova Saltychikha biography and her mother: biographers hypothesized why Daria Saltykova became bloodthirsty and cruel

Learned historians had to describe the terrible torture that Daria carried out on her serfs. They laid down a historical and psychological portrait of the lady Saltykova. However, there are too many white spots in it, since all the atrocities were committed too long ago, and many could not be recorded on paper. Gaps in the biography have given historians a reason to speculate about what caused the unheard-of cruelty of Daria Saltykova. The woman provoked the death of more than a hundred peasants by torture.

The first hypothesis tends to suggest that a woman began to show a tendency to violence after the death of her husband, due to a lack of male affection. Daria was widowed at the young age of 26. But there is evidence, according to which, it is known that the lady had novels after the loss of her husband. So the first theory failed.

Another theory says that Daria, most likely, was sick with one of the types of mental disorders. The medicine of that time would not have been able to determine the ailment of the noblewoman, and even more so to cure her. This theory is more plausible. But it is impossible to completely confirm or refute it, due to the lack of data on the life of Saltychikha.

The third theory is the most unusual. Historians and psychologists are inclined to believe that Daria was a latent homosexual. This conclusion was prompted by the information that the lady, in most cases, mocked the girls. Much less often, its victims were men.

There are theories that have been officially debunked. For example, even during the life of Saltychikha, there were rumors that the noblewoman eats babies and drinks the blood of young girls. Despite all her cruelty, Daria did not do such things.

Daria Saltykova Saltychikha biography and her mother: the most terrible murders committed by the noblewoman

Lady Saltykova began to show a tendency to aggression at the age of 27. After the death of her husband, many responsibilities fell on the woman. Several estates and six hundred souls of serfs were under her control. Perhaps this undermined her mental health. But over the next five years, the lady committed terrible crimes that she got away with. The first deaths of peasants were not given much importance.

However, when the cases of murders became more frequent and their character became especially cruel, the peasants began to complain. These complaints were ignored, because Daria always had the opportunity to pay off, and high-ranking patrons. Among the hundreds of serfs she killed, the predominant number were girls. Saltykova did not take into account either the age or the pregnancy of her victims. Cases have been noted when, together with a deceased mother, a living baby of the victim was exposed to the frost. In the midst of torture, Saltychikha pulled out the hair on the heads of the victims, chose a log to death, doused them with water in the cold and burned the bodies with red-hot tongs. Many murders have not been proven.

But Daria Saltykova answered during her lifetime for her bloodshed before the court. Catherine II could not ignore the terrible antics of Saltychikha. The investigation proceeded with obstacles. This was the first case when a noble man was convicted of cruelty to serfs.

What pushed one of the worst villains in Russian history to commit crimes

There were many villains in Russian history, but the first official criminal, as it would be called now, case of a murderous maniac was the case of Saltychikha, a noblewoman who personally tortured 139 of her serfs to death and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The mystery of the story is also added by the fact that no images of Saltychikha have been preserved, and the picturesque portraits that accompany numerous articles about her on the Internet are portraits of a completely different Daria Saltykova- that's not lucky!

The transformation of a pious wife

Daria Nikolaevna Ivanova was born into an eminent noble family, her paternal grandfather had a high rank at PetreI. At the age of 20, the girl married Gleba Saltykova, also a member of a noble family. The life of the new cell of society passed calmly and measuredly, no different from the life of other nobles; The marriage produced two sons. They said that Daria Nikolaevna was pious and meek. After 6 years, she became a widow, and six months after the death of her husband, oddities began ...

The peasants who belonged to the landowner repeatedly complained to the Moscow authorities about the brutal atrocities of Saltykova, who, in fits of anger, beat the yard girls to death. As a rule, they were charged with poor-quality mopping and unclean laundry. She beat herself: with a rolling pin, a stick, a log, and then she forced her grooms and haiduks to continue the torture - with rods, batogs, a whip. She burned all the hair of one woman, drove another in October into a pond up to her throat and forced her to stand there for a long time, and scalded a third with boiling water.

After such bullying, many did not survive. One peasant had three wives killed in this way! However, there was no reaction to the complaints, and the serfs, as you might guess, only got worse. As it was later established by the investigation, Daria Saltykova tortured not only girls and women, but also girls aged 11-12. The murders took place in the Moscow house of a landowner at the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Bolshaya Lubyanka, as well as in her estate Troitskoye, Podolsky district.

Murders from unrequited love?

There is a version that Daria Nikolaevna, after the death of her husband, fell in love with a neighbor - an engineer Nikolai Andreevich Tyutchev, in the future the grandfather of the famous poet. Love affection was long and mutual, but Tyutchev decided to marry another - a girl Panyutina.

Saltykova could not endure this and began to take revenge on him, and her rival, and all female representatives indiscriminately. She wanted to burn down the house of the lovebird, which she persuaded her peasants to do by preparing gunpowder, sulfur and tow, but they did not dare.

When the wedding took place, Saltychikha began to plan the murder of the young at the moment when they would pass by her estate. But the peasants warned Tyutchev, and he himself filed a “denunciation” against his former lover, which, in addition to peasant complaints, later turned out to be at the disposal of the investigation. But it is unlikely that the madness happened because of unrequited love - apparently, they started earlier.

Six-year investigation

The investigation into the Saltykova case was launched two weeks after her accession to the throne. CatherineII, since one of the peasants managed to deliver a complaint about the murderer to the empress herself. Three years Investigators of the Collegium of Justice - Court Counselor Volkov in Moscow and the prince Tsitsianov in the Moscow region - they interviewed witnesses and studied Saltychikha's account books. Witnesses - her own serfs - after that returned to her, and she inflicted reprisals on them: someone was beaten with a whip, others were exiled to Siberia - any nobleman could order this, without trial or investigation. Three years later, investigators realized the state of affairs and insisted on taking the suspect into custody.

The books, however, found a lot of curious things: firstly, there was noted the “increased” mortality of serf girls and many “escaped”. As it turned out later, if the priest who was supposed to perform the funeral service and bury the dead, seeing traces of violence on the corpse, insisted on contacting the authorities, then Saltychikha refused his services and ordered the serfs to bury the victims without rituals in their forest, and record them as escaped.

The indulgences and silence on the part of the authorities, who received peasant complaints, were explained by respect for the name of the defendant, as well as "gifts that a rich widow had no reason to skimp on." However, this time the Detective Order brought the matter to an end, and only an extract from it, known in the 19th century, had 100 pages.

Not all of the 139 murders were proven, but half were more than enough. The decision on punishment was made by Catherine herself by her special decree in 1768. She ordered the “torturer and murderer” Darya to be deprived of her noble rank and surname, taken to Moscow Square and tied to a pillory, held for an hour, announcing to the people about her atrocities, after which she was chained “in glands” and put in an “underground” prison in one from Moscow monasteries until the end of his life. Which was done.

Moscow rumors

In the middle of the 19th century, people were still alive in Moscow who said that they went to look at the famous “cannibal” in the Ivanovo Monastery in their childhood. For the first ten years, Saltychikha was kept in a crypt under the church in complete darkness, taking her out only during the most important Christian holidays to let the sinner listen to the service, but not entering the church. And in subsequent years, she was moved to a room with a window into which onlookers could look outside. She cursed and spat at them. The certificate of the State Councilor has been preserved P.M. Rudina about the fact that he saw Saltychikha in the dungeon: a plump woman of advanced years, and from her movements it seemed that she was "not completely sane."

Rumors circulated around Moscow that the murderer did not just commit her atrocities, but ate women's breasts and babies. It was also said that the prisoner was served food by a specially assigned soldier, and from him she gave birth to a child. True, nothing of the kind was preserved in the documents, and she was already well over 40 years old. Saltychikha died in a dungeon in 1801, they buried her in the Donskoy Monastery, next to her relatives. Her grave is believed to have survived, but several different headstones are named.

Sick in the head

Modern forensic medical experts believe that Saltychikha suffered from a mental disorder called epileptoid psychopathy. People with this diagnosis are often in a gloomy mood, constantly irritable, show sadistic inclinations, they often experience attacks of unmotivated aggression. There is also a more sophisticated version: since the lady mostly mocked women, this could indicate hidden homosexuality against the background of the same mental disorder.

You can safely call him a serial killer. It is believed that she was involved in the death of 138 serfs, some of whom she personally killed, others were killed on her orders. The investigation, which lasted as long as 8 years, managed to prove that she was guilty of the death of 38 people from this list, however, even that was more than enough to sentence the noblewoman from a noble family to a public shameful punishment and life imprisonment. There were many rumors about her: it was said that Saltykova bathed in the blood of young girls and ate fried babies.

The Saltychikha case has become, in its way, a landmark for the Russian judicial system. This show trial was supposed to demonstrate to the nobility and the powerful of this world that under the new mother, everything will now be different, and justice, they say, does not understand the ranks. Of course, it was a little farce and a little slyness - the investigation of Saltychikha's crimes got underway solely due to the fact that two peasant peasants miraculously managed to convey their message directly to the empress. Well, and, of course, it was a completely egregious case. or accidentally nailing a serf to the landowners often happened, but knowingly killing a quarter of their souls from the world is not.

Daria Nikolaevna came from an old noble family. Her grandfather, Avton Ivanov, was a Duma clerk and managed to make an impressive fortune - he owned large capital and 16 thousand souls. Young Daria was given out as a representative of an equally glorious and noble family - Gleb Saltykov, captain of the Life Guards Horse Regiment. By the way, another representative of the Saltykov branch, Sergei Vasilyevich, was the first favorite of Catherine II (it was even rumored that he was a real father).

In marriage, the Saltykovs managed to give birth to two sons, but soon the husband died. Daria was left a widow at the age of 26. True, the widow is quite rich. After the death of her husband, she became the manager of estates in the Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces, as well as the owner of a considerable fortune. She had 600 serf souls.

She was an ordinary young woman, very pious, but at the same time quite secular - Daria had many "useful" acquaintances with whom she maintained friendly relations. Saltykova donated a lot of money to the church, but once a year she herself went on a pilgrimage to one or another shrine. Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about Saltykova's appearance, and all the canvases that call her portraits actually represent completely different women.

This portrait is usually passed off as an image of Saltychikha, but this is not her. (wikipedia.org)

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

It is not known at what point Saltykova turned from an ordinary landowner into a sophisticated killer. It is only clear that before widowhood these inclinations did not manifest themselves.

Darya was persecuted, with rare exceptions, by young girls. This later led researchers to believe that she may have been a latent homosexual. Shortly before their death, they all, as a rule, entered the service of maids directly in the manor house. The reason for the severe beating and torture was the "negligent" attitude to their duties: poorly washed floors, cold coffee, carelessly made bed.

Saltykova could watch for a long time how the girl washes the floor, and then, if she found the slightest mistake, she whipped the servants with rods or beat them with whatever came to hand - with a rolling pin, a log, or just with her fists. This happened to a serf named Katerina Semyonova, whom Saltychikha beat to death with a whip and batogs.

Beating with batogs. (wikipedia.org)

Saltychikha tortured her victims for a long time and with pleasure - the punishment could stretch for a day. If the landowner got tired of striking, she entrusted it to her “attorneys” from the peasants, the so-called “haiduks”, who finished off the victim. Observing the execution of the order, she could "cheer" them with assurances that nothing would happen to them or to her. One of Salytkova's favorite methods of torture was to cauterize the ears of delinquent girls with hot tongs. In addition, she pulled out shreds of hair from them with her bare hands, and once she set fire to the girl’s braids with a candle, and then ordered to finish her off. The body of the unfortunate woman was then taken out in a coffin in the cold, and her newborn child, who froze to death, was placed on her chest. Another girl, on the orders of Saltykova, was driven into a pond, where she had to stand up to her neck in water. It was November outside, and she died a few hours later.

Catherine II, who received a denunciation of "suicide cases"

Despite the fact that it was still 100 years before the abolition of serfdom, the peasants, in general, could complain about the willfulness of the landowner. But that's in theory. In practice, such cases were very rarely considered by the court, and the serfs were accused of slandering the owner and severely punished. Nevertheless, in the five years during which Saltychikha committed atrocities, the serfs made 21 complaints against her. All these stories were “hushed up” - the competent authorities reported the denunciations to the landowner herself, and she paid off with money or asked for help from her all-powerful acquaintances. Thus, Saltychikha considered herself absolutely inviolable. Everything changed the case. Two serfs, Yemelyan Ilyin (one of her “gaiduks”) and Savely Martynov, decided to complain directly to the empress. Ilyin lost three wives, one after another, all of them died under the torture of the landowner. The men decided to escape, and in early June 1762 they arrived in St. Petersburg. It is not known how they managed to find a person who, firstly, had access to the palace, and, secondly, agreed to comply with the request and convey the complaint, but the deed was nevertheless done. By some miracle, the “written assault” was delivered directly to Catherine. The statement said that Martynov and Ilyin were aware of “murderous cases behind their mistress, Darya Nikolaevna Saltykova.” They pointed out that more than 100 people had been killed by it since 1756. The serfs asked Catherine not to extradite them to their mistress, since upon their return they were inevitably threatened with death, and also to protect all her peasants from bullying.

In July 1762, that is, after the complaint reached the Empress, Saltychikha dealt with her last victim. The peasant woman Fekla Gerasimova was severely beaten, and then, still alive, was sent to the village of Troitskoye, where she was to be buried. The headman, who until that moment had unquestioningly carried out the orders of the lady, seeing the condition of the girl, took Gerasimova back to Moscow, but the unfortunate woman died on the way. He brought the corpse to the office of the Moscow civil governor, a doctor was called, who recorded that there were numerous signs of bodily injuries on the woman's body. However, even after that they did not raise a fuss, but ordered the body to be taken back to Troitskoye and buried.

In the meantime, Catherine ordered the matter to be put into motion: from her office, the denunciation went for consideration to the Governing Senate, and then ended up in Moscow, in the justice college. The investigation was entrusted to the court adviser Stepan Volkov, a modest man who did not have high patrons or serious connections. He was given an assistant - the young prince Dmitry Tsitsianov. The two of them managed to unravel this case and pull out into the light of God the truth about the fierce landowner and her entourage - in addition to the murders of serfs, episodes with bribery of high-ranking officials also surfaced.

Volkov and Tsitsianov began by studying Saltykova's account books, and also tried to get her serfs to talk, but they did not succeed immediately. The peasants refused to testify, as they were afraid to anger the mistress. The situation changed when the investigators received permission to take Darya Nikolaevna into custody. In January 1764, she was removed from the management of property and money, and in February they took her under guard. Volkov said that torture would be applied to her. In fact, permission to torture the suspect was not received - Catherine forbade the use of this method, but allowed the possibility of intimidating the arrested. A priest was assigned to Saltykova, who was supposed to persuade her to confess to her deed. However, for a whole month he was not able to convince Daria to speak - she claimed that the servant had slandered her, and did not admit her guilt.

Then the investigators decided to put pressure on her in a different way. On March 4, 1764, Saltykov was taken under escort "for torture." But it wasn't her who was being tortured: in front of the woman's eyes, another man, a certain criminal, was being tortured. Volkov hoped that the demonstrative execution would frighten Daria, and she would finally confess to what she had done. However, the torture did not make any impression on her - Saltykova remained calm throughout the entire process.

Saltychikha. (wikipedia.org)

Then Volkov decided to arrange general searches in the estates of the landowner - in total, about 130 people were interviewed, among whom were the gentry, neighbors, and local priests. Details and details surfaced: the names of those killed, the circumstances under which the crimes were committed, and it also became known to whom and how much Saltykova gave "on the paw" to cover up her deeds. The serfs were now more willing to make contact with the investigator, as they knew that their mistress was already being held under arrest.

Volkov and Tsitsianov managed to draw up a list of serfs whose fate was in question. There were 138 of them in total. Some of them were listed as "dead from diseases", others were recorded as absent for an unknown reason, some were considered fugitives. During the investigation, another curious episode also surfaced - an attempted murder of a nobleman. Saltykova for some time was in a love relationship with the engineer Nikolai Tyutchev, the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev. He, however, preferred in the end to marry another woman, unable to withstand the violent temper of Darya Nikolaevna. The latter was furious and decided to kill her former lover along with his young wife. She twice sent her peasants with an order to plant a bomb in their house, but they did not dare to do this: for the murder of a nobleman, they were definitely waiting for death. The third time, she sent one of her henchmen to catch Tyutchev on the way out of the house and beat him to death, but the plan failed again: one of the serfs warned the man about the impending attack.

Daria Saltykova - "torturer and murderer"

Finally, in the spring of 1765, the investigation was completed - the decision of the Senate was expected. Saltykova's guilt was unconditional and obvious, but the verdict was in question. The empress herself had to determine the measure of punishment. Catherine rewrote the text of the verdict many times and sent the final version to the Senate only on October 2, 1768. In the document, Saltykova was called "a tormentor and a murderer", "a freak of the human race" and other unflattering words. The landowner was deprived of her noble rank and sentenced to an hour of "reproachful spectacle", during which she had to stand, chained to a pole, with a sign "torturer and murderer." Catherine, however, decided not to pass the death sentence, instead, Saltykova had to spend the rest of her life (and she was only 38 years old at the time of the sentencing) in a dungeon, without light and the right to communicate with anyone except a nun and a guard. As a demonstration of a special, personal disgust for the criminal, Catherine ordered that Saltychikha be deprived of the title of “woman” and called the landowner the pronoun “he”.
Saltykova spent 11 years in her dungeon - it was a tiny room on the territory of the monastery. The height of the ceiling was about two meters, but the chamber was below ground level, and therefore the light did not penetrate there. In 1779, she was moved to a stone annex, where conditions were incomparably better - in any case, there was a window. In addition, she was allowed to communicate with the "visitors" - there were many who wanted to look at the fanatic.

There were rumors that she, while in custody, entered into a love affair with one of the guards guarding her and even gave birth to a child from him. But this information did not find any confirmation.

Saltykova lived until 1801, so one can only guess how harsh the conditions of detention actually were. She was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery, on a plot that she had acquired even before her arrest and imprisonment. Her eldest son, who also died in 1801, was buried with her.

In 1768, near the Execution Ground, near the pillory stood the landowner Daria Saltykova - the famous Saltychikha, who tortured at least 138 of her serfs to death.
While the clerk read from the sheet the crimes she had committed, Saltychikha stood with her head uncovered, and a plaque with the inscription "Tormentor and Murderer" hung on her chest. After that, she was sent to eternal imprisonment in the Ivanovo Monastery.

How she hated them! .. Why do they stare at her, demonic offspring! Why did the mouths pop! Like she's a monster overseas. Or a wild animal. She is a man, a man, although for some reason everyone calls her a monster or, as fashionably in the French manner, a monster or monstrum. They would fall into her hands! I would torture you to death. Either a log in the forehead, or boiling water in the face! Otherwise, she would have been beaten to death with batogs. And they say she's a monster. They are all monsters!
Oh, how she hated them!
I just wanted to tear it apart!
Daria Saltykova, nicknamed Saltychikha, looked around with a wild, full of anger look at the crowd of onlookers who had gathered on Red Square near the Execution Ground.
It was noon. It was cold. The gray impenetrable sky hung over the Kremlin like lead. Light snowflakes fluttered and fell on the pavement. And they didn't melt. After all, it was already November. Seventeenth day of the month. 1768.
The former landowner was tied to a pole, and a sign hung around her neck with the inscription: "torturer and murderer." A young clerk with a goatee and in a long black cassock, standing on a tall and healthy block of wood, loudly read out to those present the order of Her Highness Empress Catherine II. about the appointment of a civil execution to the state criminal Darya Saltykova and about her eternal imprisonment in a monastery. Having finished reading the order, the priest immediately began to announce the list of crimes and victims of Saltychikha. There were 38 people proven, 26 unproven, and as many as 138 suspected! Only such words were heard from the deacon: she tortured, killed, strangled, spotted, drowned, beat to death ...
Someone groaned, someone gasped, lamented, branded, scolded the killer. Someone was pointing a finger at her, spitting in her direction. In the eyes of onlookers - curiosity, horror, fear, bewilderment. How could she do such atrocities? She is a human or a beast in human form. Acts like a beast.
The snow has intensified. Not small snowflakes flew, but flakes.
Suddenly, a woman with crazy eyes flew out of the crowd and rushed at Saltykova. A knife flashed in her hands. Another second - and sharp steel would have stuck into the throat of the criminal. But the dexterous guard intercepted the attacker's hand and threw the woman aside. Other guards ran up and immediately tied her up. It was one of the former servants of Saltychikha. Once upon a time, the landowner brutally tortured her husband, and the woman decided in this way to avenge the death of her beloved. She made her way through the crowd to the Execution Ground and attacked the killer. A little bit of luck - and Saltykova would have lost her life. But the people's revenge did not come true. Apparently the time has not yet come for the villain to die.
"I will ruin you anyway! You will answer for the death of your husband!" the woman screamed in impotent rage. - "I'll look for you in the next world! I'll go down to hell for you! Wherever you are, I'll be there! A monster, a murderer!"
The failed avenger was dragged to the police station, and Saltykova took a breath: a little more - and she would have been in heaven! Thank God she's alive. But what does it change. Is this life when you are tied to a pillory, and people point their fingers at you. No, it's better to die than to experience such shame. She is a pillar noblewoman, a representative of a noble family, exposed to the ridicule of the mob. She had never wished for such a fate. But it all started so well in her fate ...

Daria Petrovna Saltykova and Baroness Natalya Mikhailovna Stroganova.

Daria Nikolaevna was born in March 1730 in a family of Moscow pillar nobles. Her relatives were Musins-Pushkins, Davydovs, Tolstoys, Stroganovs and others. She changed her maiden name Ivanova when she married Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov, captain of the Life Guards Horse Regiment. She gave birth to her husband two sons. A married couple lived in a house on the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Sretenka. And in the summer to the Troitskoye estate, which is in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bmodern Teply Stan. Here in this mansion with a pond and a forest, terrible and bloody actions will unfold as a result, the main participant of which will be Daria Nikolaevna.
At 26, Daria was widowed. Having received a huge fortune that belonged to her mother, grandmother and husband, estates in the Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces, at first she generously donated money to the church and distributed alms. But then sexual dissatisfaction, irrepressible energy and the makings of a sadist turned the young woman into a bloodthirsty monster. But this was preceded by one incident that dramatically changed the fate of Darya Nikolaevna.
One day she was told that a man was hunting in her forest.
"Who's the boss over there?" the lady raised her eyebrows menacingly. - Come on, quickly catch this impudent one and bring it to me. I'll deal with him!"
The peasants rushed into the forest with guns and stakes. Soon they brought a nice-looking man, who turned out to be Captain Nikolai Tyutchev.

Nikolai Tyutchev

He was engaged in land surveying, and came here to resolve a land dispute between two landowners, Saltykova's neighbors. And while hunting at his leisure, he accidentally wandered into the territory of an imperious landowner, where he was noticed by vigilant peasants.
Darya Nikolaevna immediately laid eyes on the officer. She, exhausted by lovesickness, was just in search of a suitable gentleman.
The gallant captain accepted the landowner's invitation to have tea. Where there is tea, there is cherry tincture, and where there is tincture, there is a bottle of vodka. The captain was pissed off from alcohol. Look - and the hostess, who at first seemed not so pretty, became just a beauty! The captain stayed up late, started talking, and Tyutchev seemed to take some interest in the landowner. The visits began to repeat. The captain's boredom dissipated. The military field romance began. After some time, Nikolai Andreevich and Darya Nikolaevna began to be united by a common bed. Saltykova fell in love with an officer with no memory. But the captain was in no hurry to connect the bonds of Hymen with the landowner. She soon bored him and disliked him. Daria seemed to him rude and somewhat primitive. Unheard of, she was not literate, she could not write, she could not even sign an official document. She was distinguished by a large build and good physical strength. While Tyutchev was spinning cupids with Daria Nikolaevna, he took a closer look at one neighbor Saltykova - a girl named Pelageya Panyutina, (it was 1762) fell in love with her and decided to marry her. And he got married. What was the reaction to this news Saltykova is not difficult to guess. She just got angry: what a blow to women's pride! She preferred someone else! And an insidious plan of monstrous revenge ripened in her head: she decided to kill both. Moreover, blow them up in Panyutina's mansion, which was located behind the Prechistensky Gates near Zemlyanoy Val.
She called her two grooms - Alexei Savelyev and Roman Ivanov - and ordered:
“Buy five pounds of gunpowder in the main office of artillery and fortification, then mix it with sulfur and wrap it in hemp, and tuck this charge under Pelageya’s jam (the jam is the lower, overhanging edge of the roof near the hut)! Yes, look, don’t be disgraced, scoundrels! if not!"
How the servants did not want to become murderers, but they had to obey. They did as the hostess told them to. Savelyev bought gunpowder, friends in misfortune made a homemade bomb. But at the last moment, the unfortunate killers abandoned their plan. Frightened. For this disobedience, Saltychikha ordered them to be beaten mercilessly with batogs.
So, the plan to assassinate the unfaithful lover ended in failure, but the stubborn Saltykova did not let up. Having learned that the newlyweds were going to leave for the Bryansk district along the high Kaluga road (and it passed by her estate), the insidious landowner decided to ambush them. She ordered her people to arm themselves and wait for the officer with the girl. And when they go, then attack them and then kill them, and write off their death as a simple robbery.
Someone, for a fee or in good conscience, told Tyutchev about this undertaking. He was seriously frightened and turned to the authorities for help. And soon four sleigh crews with guards and with the newlyweds proceeded past the village of Troitskoye. The attempt again did not take place. Saltykova tore and threw with anger.
After this love tragedy, something happened to the psyche of Darya Nikolaevna. Saltykova became even more cruel and sophisticated in torture. If she had only mocked and tortured the victims before, now she began to simply kill them. She especially liked to kill beautiful girls with light blond hair. No wonder her happy rival Pelageya was a beauty and had light blond hair.

Once Saltykova went into the living room to rest. It was winter. December. Tomorrow morning, she, along with her servants, belongings and food, according to tradition, left for the winter in a mansion on Sretenka. It was Christmas and New Years. Its people repaired, prepared sledges and carts to load with meat, poultry, butter, sour cream, pickles, jam. Loaded things. There was a bustle of work, there were final preparations for departure.
Saltykova was bored. She sat down on the couch, took out an album and began flipping through it. Poems, playful epigrams, fables, wishes, congratulations... This is what a hussar lieutenant wrote, this is a state councilor, and this is some kind of piit. Darya Nikolaevna turned over another sheet - and shuddered! She recognized the sweeping handwriting. A poem from the once beloved Nikolai Tyutchev. And the signature: "Dedicated to the adored and incomparable Daria Nikolaevna."
Saltykova grew gloomy: the spiritual wounds of the past again reminded of themselves. Bad blood immediately hit his head. She, looking at the floor in the living room, shouted: "What is this dirt?! Who cleaned it?! Barbara?! Well, call the bastard, let him come to me for a conversation!"
The butler brought in a pretty fair-haired girl with blue eyes. Barbara was shaking with fear. She knew firsthand about the atrocities of the lady. Once, for a poorly ironed dress, a landowner hit her on the head with a stick, so much so that sparks fell from her eyes. After that, the girl was sick for a long time, and her head was spinning. Once the lady pulled Varvara by the hair. She even tore out a tuft. It hurt a lot.
"What would you like, madam?" The maid humbly bowed her head.
Darya Nikolaevna looked angrily at the girl. Saltychikha was annoyed by her beauty and blond hair. In some ways, she reminded her of her happy rival Pelageya Panyutina. And then the image of the traitor Tyutchev appeared. Here Saltykova could not restrain herself. She grabbed a heavy candelabra from the table and hit the maid on the head with it. Barbara fell, covered in blood. She even lost consciousness.
The butler rushed to the motionless maid.
"Alive?" - asked Saltychikha.
The butler nodded.
"Thank God ... Come on, my dear, if you please, call the grooms, but dress me warmer."
It seems that Daria Nikolaevna came up with a way to punish the maid. He will be terrible.
"Let the grooms drive her to the pond. We'll have fun there," the lady ordered.
The landowner was dressed in a sable fur coat, put on a sable hat. Tied up with a warm colorful scarf. The butler, the cook, and the coachman brought along an easy chair and a healthy carpet.
Grooms Aleksey Savelyev and Roman Ivanov led Varvara out onto the street. In one dress and shoes. The head is bare, neither a shawl nor a scarf. A light frost bit his ears and cheeks. Blood from a cut eyebrow dripped onto her dress and onto the snow. A path of scarlet spots stretched behind the girl. She wept bitterly.
"Have mercy, mistress!" Varvara pleaded.
But the cruel Saltychikha did not even think of forgiving the maid. The show had just begun.
The whole procession stopped at the pond. They spread the carpet, put a chair on it. The lady sat down in it, preparing to enjoy the bloody torture. She waved her hand dismissively.
"Well, undress her immediately!"
With the maid, despite her desperate resistance, they tore off the upper dress, and then the shirt. Barbara appeared in the nude. Her nakedness was beautiful: a thin waist, beautiful wide hips, amazing breasts. But this beauty infuriated Saltychikha even more. Someone better than her and more beautiful. No, that won't happen! She will destroy this beauty! And in the most brutal way!
"Beat her with whips!" yelled the landlady. - "Stronger! Even stronger!"
The grooms began to beat the maid mercilessly. She screamed piercingly, tried to dodge, cover herself with her arms, run away - but where is there! A fragile girl against two hefty men - obviously unequal forces! They knocked her down and began to whip her lying down. Disgusting bloody streaks appeared on a beautiful swarthy body. The fun didn't last long.
"Enough!" Darya Nikolaevna shouted at the torturers. “Otherwise, he will go to another world ahead of time.”
The grooms parted reluctantly: they, like the lady, liked to torture and torture people. The crooked figure of a girl lay in the snow, and blood spattered all around the snow. Red on white. Beautiful, yet tragic at the same time.
The maid, shivering from the cold, knelt down and wailed pitifully:
"Don't ruin me, mistress, I'm freezing, have pity on me! Give me back my clothes! I'm cold!"
But will the girl's prayers touch the cruel and savage heart of a monster from the village of Troitskoye. And did this woman even have a heart, since he did such a thing. Rather, instead of it there was a stone.
"Throw her into the hole!" - Saltychikha gave the order.
The servants seized Barbara, who was kicking and squealing, by the legs and arms and threw her into the hole.
Bultykh! The head of the maid disappeared under the icy water. Seven seconds passed. Incredibly, Barbara emerged. The young body has escaped the cold shock that occurs when suddenly immersed in icy water. The maid took a deep breath of cold air and clung to the edge of the ice. Recovering her breath, she climbed out of the hole with great difficulty. She crawled on her knees for several meters, and with that she stood up. Staggering and sobbing, she went to the mistress so that she would spare her. But the sadistic maniac was not going to forgive the maid. The girl rushed to her clothes, but she was rudely pushed away by the groom Savelyev. Barbara fell. They whipped her again with whips and drove her to the water.
And Saltychikha sat in an armchair and laughed.
"To serve you, dirty, to serve you! I do not need this scoundrel for service, let him die from the cold!"
Barbara froze. The insidious destructive cold penetrated deeper and deeper into her body. She no longer felt her legs, fingers, lower abdomen. Wrapping her arms around herself, she tried to keep warm. But where there, it did not get warmer.
Another ten minutes passed. Saltychikha clearly enjoyed the torment of the victim.
Barbara's skin turned white. The poor thing was no longer crying, but sobbing convulsively. She wasn't trembling, she was just trembling. Teeth chattered against teeth. The lips didn't move. The maid made some interjections and indistinct sounds. Eyes clouded.
She froze.
"Let's get her back in the hole!" the landowner shouted ominously.
The grooms readily grabbed the demoralized defenseless and stiff girl by the arms and dragged her to the hole. Having dragged it, they threw it into the water again ...
Bultykh! And cold spray flew in different directions! The girl for the second time the girl disappeared under water.
Saltykova smiled with satisfaction:
"It won't come out this time, you bastard! I bet it won't come out"
Suddenly, to her great surprise and the surprise of everyone, Barbara emerged! The girl, with her last strength fighting for her life slipping away every minute, tried to grab the edge of the hole, but her frostbitten fingers no longer obeyed her, and she slipped into the water. In a desperate attempt, she again tried to cling to the saving ice, but to no avail! Her fingers, twisted by the deadly cold, only scratched the ice. The girl began to flounder helplessly in the water. The cold completely crushed her. The blue stars of the eyes faded away. Forces melted away, muscle trembling stopped, heart rate gradually slowed down, breathing became superficial. Barbara felt a blissful warmth spread through her body. She fell asleep and died at the same time. Death took her body, and an innocent soul was preparing to stand before God.
And here's another second - and the girl's head disappeared under the water. A minute passed - Varvara no longer surfaced. The creepy show is over.
"Drowned," the landowner said without regret. - "There she is dear. Take the darlings of the hooks, rummage along the bottom, it's not so deep here, pull her out onto the ice. Further into the station. Say she committed suicide, she jumped into the hole."
The grooms nodded obsequiously, took the hooks and, after rummaging for about ten minutes, got the drowned woman. They brought up a corpse-sleigh. How many corpses were transported in it - a lot! The servants could not straighten the stiff limbs of the dead girl and, like a frozen carcass, were thrown into the sleigh. They covered him with matting and took him to the police to record his death.
And Saltychikha, having come into the living room, ordered to kindle the fireplace harder: she was a little cold, she needed to warm up. Her eyes fell again on the ill-fated album. Moreover, it was opened in the same place as before. Where were Tyutchev's poems. Blood immediately rushed to the temples. And squeezed like a vise. The lady put her head in her hands and groaned. Again she dreamed of Panyutina. In an airy luxurious dress, with a white fan, white ball shoes and long white gloves. And now the gallant Tyutchev in a uniform comes up to her and the couple begin to spin in a dance ...
"Pelageya! Get out of Satan!" - Saltykova screamed in horror and, losing consciousness, fell to the floor.
This is how Darya Nikolaevna experienced the loss of her beloved, and this is how her servants and maids paid for these experiences. And they paid with their innocent souls.

Saltychikha beat not only girls, but even girls. And for the slightest fault. She starved her victims, poured melted wax into their ears, dragged them by the hair, pulled out tufts, poured boiling water over them. She beat everything that came to hand. If a log - then a log, if a stick - then a stick, a poker - then a poker. She forced the grooms to flog the guilty in the yard with whips, whips, rods, batogs. She burned her face with hot tongs. And Saltychikha, enjoying the torment of the victims, shouted: "Beat, beat to death!" The landowner was a bloodthirsty and ruthless killer. She tortured her victims for days. If she got tired of mocking the serfs, she ordered other servants to continue torturing people. And she herself, sitting in a chair, loved to watch the bloody tortures.
She sent some to hard labor - and they were really lucky. At least they remained alive after the maniac's fun.
Soon rumors about the killer landowner spread throughout the capital. But for the time being, there was no complete information about her atrocities. People didn't know if it was true, false or half-truth. There were rumors, but no one saw the bodies. And the thing is that the servants of Saltykova brought the dead on a sleigh to the police station. The landowner generously paid and gave gifts to the policemen so that they would be silent and write down what was needed in the official protocol. Those always recorded an unfortunate death. Like, the poor thing ran away from the mistress in a light dress, on the way she froze and died. And although the deceased were mutilated and all covered in bruises and bruises, they still wrote: "died as a result of an accident." Or they indicated that the person had committed suicide.
The clergy were also on the allowance of Darya Nikolaevna. They were supposed to bury people who had been put to violent death. She did not like Moscow saints: they often refused to perform a church ceremony at the sight of the brutally tortured bodies of the deceased. Took local. One of them, Stepan Petrov, was the staff priest of Saltychikha. For him, there were no problems with the funeral of the victims.
If someone ran away, they returned him back to Saltykova, because the police were bought by her. The landowner ordered the fugitives to be beaten to death with batogs or thrown into the dungeons and starved. The subjects of Saltychikha in the period from 1756 to 1762 filed 21 complaints against their mistress. But since the sadistic landowner had huge connections both in the police and among officials, she immediately found out first-hand which of her serfs was reporting on her. And then mercilessly punished informers and complainers. Whom she made disabled, and whom she killed, and whom she sent into exile.

One day the following happened...
In April 1762, two serfs Saltychikha - Savely Martynov and Yermolai Ilyin - tortured to death and bullying and having lost their wives at the whim of a sadistic landowner, fled from her and went with a complaint about the cruel mistress to the Moscow branch of the Senate. But they were not allowed there and decided to hand over to the police. But it was not in vain that Saltykova fed the police, they again almost helped her out. The peasants were dragged to the house on Sretenka to hand over to the cruel landowner, but those, realizing that they were not being taken to the police station, but to the monster's lair, shouted out of desperation all over the street:
"The word and deed of the sovereign!"
This cry was adopted at that time to announce the sovereign about some state crime and not a single official could hush up this matter. This happened here as well. Interrogation of witnesses began, the highest police ranks joined. The atrocities of the Saltykovs shocked everyone. The message with the help of courier was delivered to St. Petersburg to Catherine II. She ordered a thorough investigation of this high-profile case. It was led by the court advisers of the Moscow College of Justice Stepan Volkov and the young prince Dmitry Tsitsianov. The Empress specifically chose these people for the investigation.
Volkov was of humble origin, had no family and business ties with the criminal. For officials of noble birth and high rank, this trial would be a dangerous undertaking. Such a person could be pressured, bribed, intimidated. Or just ask a relative to close the case. An official like Volkov could not be pressured or intimidated: he was a stranger to this circle, had a spotless and honest reputation. Moreover, he had a powerful patron - the Empress herself! Under such protection, Volkov could calmly conduct an investigation and look for evidence of the criminal's guilt.
Saltykova immediately went under house arrest. Catherine II personally sent a priest to her in the hope that Darya Nikolaevna would sincerely confess to all her crimes. But it was not there! For four months (!) she led the minister of the church by the nose and did not repent a bit. The stunned confessor came to the empress and declared that the power of the devil in this man was stronger than ever and that the landowner was stagnant in sins.
Volkov and Tsianov arrived at the Mother See and took up the detective order, the Moscow police chief and the governor-general himself. Investigators dug for good reason, it turned out that Moscow officials had shelved more than 20 complaints of courtyards against Saltychikha, acts of examination of bodies, conclusions on the cause of death, and many other documents. A scandal erupted. In November 1763, it was proved that the majority of Saltychikha's subjects did not die of their own death. This was established thanks to the arrested account books of the landowner. According to the entries made in the book, the exact number of dead serfs was determined and the circle of influential officials involved in this matter was established. It became clear that most of the servants died a violent death and under very mysterious circumstances. For example, several times beautiful girls from 18 to 20 years old were taken into the service of the landowner and in two weeks they suddenly died in a strange way.
For example, it is documented that in 1759, in the Detective Order of Moscow, the body of the serf Saltychikha, Khrisanf Andreev, was presented for examination. On the body of the peasant there were many bodily injuries, bruises and bruises. The investigation into the circumstances of Andreev's death was lengthy, with obvious procedural violations. And safely and quietly closed.
The fact of violent death was revealed in relation to one of Saltykova's maids - Maria Petrova. Once, on the way to her residence, the village of Troitskoye, Saltychikha stopped in her other fiefdom - the village of Vokshino. There, the girl Masha displeased her with something. Or just a maniac wanted to defuse his dark energy. Here is a girl and turned up under the arm. The wording of the complaints against the maid was quite common: poorly washed floors. The far-fetched accusation was followed by the most real massacre. At first, Saltychikha beat her with a rolling pin. Scoffing, she ordered that the groom Bogomolov beat Masha with a whip and drove her up to her throat into the pond. The servant did just that. Petrova stood in the water for a quarter of an hour. Then he kicked her out and again ordered to wash the floors. But the girl, beaten to a pulp, was physically unable to do this. Saltychikha again began to beat the victim. But with a stick. When the tormentor got tired, she sat down to drink tea, the groom Bogomolov took the stick and the bullying resumed with renewed vigor. In the end, the maid died from mortal beatings. The body on two pairs of horses was secretly taken out late in the evening to the village of Troitskoye, where she was buried.
Strange were the deaths of all three wives of Yermolai Ilyin, the very one who denounced the landowner along with Savelyev. The first was Ekaterina Semenova, the second was Feodosia Artamonova, and the third was Aksinya Yakovleva. The first two were allegedly beaten by the landowner on the head and other parts of the body with her hands, feet, sticks, and logs for poorly washed floors. Then she ordered them to be beaten with batogs and whips. They died from beatings at different times. First Katerina - in 1759 she was secretly buried in Moscow at the parish cemetery, and then in 1761 Feodosy. Her corpse was taken to the village of Troitskoye and buried there. Ilyin's third wife, Aksinya, was beaten to death by a maniac with a rolling pin and logs in her mansion on Sretenka. This happened in the spring of 1762. When the servants carried Artamonov into one of the rooms, she still showed some signs of life. The nurse tried to give her wine to drink, but in vain. Without regaining consciousness, the poor thing died. She, too, under the cover of night, was taken to the Trinity estate, where priest Petrov secretly buried her. And the sadist Yermolaya warned menacingly:
"At least you will go to the denunciation, but you will not find anything, unless you want to be whipped like other informers."
It was just right to feel sorry for the unfortunate Ilyin, from whom Saltychikha took away three spouses one after another. Only Ilyin forgot to mention one small but significant detail during the investigation, which characterizes him as a person prone to excessive cruelty and clearly sadistic inclinations. Yermolai personally scolded the wives for dirty floors, assaulted them, and, together with other people, whipped them with batogs and whips.
They say the king is made by his retinue. Saltykova was surrounded by people like her. Cruel, base, narrow-minded and prone to bullying. They complemented their mistress. Ilyin, Savelyev, Ivanov and others. The only advantage of Ilyin was that he ran away from the Sretensky house and reported on the atrocities of the mistress. And then, apparently, because he understood: sooner or later, Saltychikha's people would kill him. He was an unwanted witness to three terrible deaths.
According to some records, many serfs were released to their villages and villages, but for some reason died "their own" death upon arrival at their place of residence, or even disappeared without a trace.
Saltychikha, throwing a lot of money for bribery, actively and in every possible way interfered with the investigation. Then the investigators decided to remove the maniac from managing his property and money, arrested him, and threw him into the dungeon.

Meanwhile, more and more witnesses appeared, and the terrible truth about the bloody atrocities of the Trinity monster was more and more revealed. The investigation into the case of a sadistic killer went on for six years. As a result, Volkov and Tsitsianov managed to prove the guilt of the defendant. She was sentenced to death, but Catherine II canceled it. Still, Saltykova was of a noble family, and she did not dare to execute a prominent noblewoman. In addition, Catherine had the image of a blessed and merciful queen and did not want to destroy it. And besides, she was worried about what the nobility would say about the execution of the landowner. After all, although Saltykova was a cruel murderer and tormentor, she was their circle. And it is impossible to execute the celestials, the privileged class. There must be some exception to the rule for them.
The Empress reviewed the verdict. Saltykova was sentenced to a civil execution on Red Square, and then life imprisonment was determined in the dungeon of the Ivanovsky Monastery.
She was deprived of the title of nobility, property, maternal rights. And her faithful servants - the priest Petrov, the butler, the coachman, the groom and other servants on the same day were flogged, chained and sent in stages to hard labor in distant and snowy Siberia. The maniac was thrown into the dungeon of the monastery, where she spent the rest of her life.

Saltychikha liked to visit the common people. Everyone wanted to stare at the Trinity Monster.
...Two boys approached the Ivanovsky Monastery. One is red, the other is blond. Both are barefoot and grubby.
"Do you know who you can see here?" - the redhead asked his friend, he shook his head negatively. - "The famous Saltychikha ... You see that window with bars and green curtains ... She is there."
The blond-haired man rolled his eyes in surprise and followed his friend intrigued. The boy heard that this old woman tortured many people to death. What is this monster? She probably looks like a witch. Here to have a look. But it's kind of scary to go there! The little guy slowed down...
His friend, noticing the indecision of the fair-haired man, exclaimed defiantly: "What are you afraid of?"
The blond again shook his head negatively and, so that he would not be considered a coward, went after his friend. The redhead, as the most daring, parted the curtains...
There she is! Sitting behind bars ... Really an old woman and really looks like a witch. Gray long hair, yellowed face, angry scary look. Seeing the boys, she became furious, and, throwing a black scarf over her head, yelled with a good obscenity:
"Oh, sons of bitches, get out! Damn you! Get out!"
Kluka jumped out of the window and almost hit Red in the forehead. He deftly dodged. The prisoner threw herself on the bars in a frenzy.
"I'll ask you!" the prisoner spat.
How she wanted to reach them, hit them, hurt them. But there is no way she can get to them, well, just no way. The boys, realizing that they were out of reach, began to tease her:
"Saltychikha fool! Saltychikha fool! Witch!"
Other onlookers appeared. They laughed and made fun of her. And she raged in impotent rage, shouting out some threats and curses, and shook the bars. Then, letting off steam, she drew the curtains and hid ...
Someone sang a daring song composed about a famous prisoner:
Saltychikha-boltychikha,
And a lofty deacon!
Vlasyevna Dmitrovna Savivsha,
Davis lady!
And our pies are hot, hot!
With a fish, with a tongue
With beef, egg!
Please visit us
Just right for you!
Atlas in our shop
canifas,
Hairpins, pins,
Boils and warts!
Saltychikha again burst into abuse at the audience, but did not open the curtains. And people continued to laugh and tease the bloody landowner. They didn't feel sorry for her at all.

Darya Nikolaevna lived in the monastery for 33 years, gave birth to a child from one guard, and once a week on Sundays she was let out to look at the domes of the Vladimir Church - the killer was not allowed to the altar.
The sinful tormentor died at the age of 81 and was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery. There is still her marble sarcophagus.
Once, the participants in the program "The Battle of Psychics" were brought to Teply Stan to the place where Saltykova's mansion used to be, and were asked to present a picture of the events that had once taken place. And one of the psychics closed his eyes and began to tell:
"Here stood the master's house, and there the pond became shallow - it used to be deeper ... And here's another picture I see - a girl in a white shirt is sitting on the shore and tears are running down her cheeks ..."
Isn't this our heroine Varvara, who found death on the orders of Saltychikha in this pond. Apparently from time to time our drowned woman descends from heaven, goes to the shore, sits down and bitterly mourns her unfortunate fate. Maybe she had an enviable fiancé, and they wanted to play a cheerful wedding, maybe she had cherished girlish dreams, and dreamed of her female happiness. Who knows. Everything was ahead of her. She was young, beautiful. Good-natured, joyful. But evil fate in the form of Daria Saltykova intervened in her fate. The thread of her life broke on this pond. For fun, for fun I. And how many innocently killed souls fly here in this sinister place - you can’t count! Strangled, tortured, drowned. And the Trinity monster - Saltychikha is to blame for everything.
Having not found female happiness, the sadistic maniac took out her evil and disappointment on other people, depriving them forever of the right to happiness.

For many decades, Daria Saltykova remained in the memory of the people as an example of the most inhuman sadism. Rumor accused the hated "Saltychikha" even of such crimes that she did not actually commit (for example, cannibalism).
By and large, the story of Saltykova can tell us about our ancestors no less than the works of Fonvizin and Karamzin, although, of course, this story will turn out to be completely unromantic.

Copyright Mazurin