Sworn to darkness. Lupus hunting (part 1)
“I regret that life is over!”
Vova was born in 1923 in Sverdlovsk. At first glance, he was the most common Soviet teenager. But unlike most of his peers, he walked to frost and snow not in leather or canvas shoes. And already from it "jumped" in felt boots. On the street Volodya flaunted not in a normal hat, but in a real tank helmet. And in his pocket was holding a Swiss penknife. With him, he always had money, and the amounts in those days were impressive — up to twenty rubles. In general, his classmates, of course, greatly envied him. In their view, Vova was a real rich man who had everything that the boys of that time could have dreamed of. He studied Vinnichevsky in school number XXUMX, lived in a complete family. Father George Ivanovich worked as a foreman at a local commune, and his mother, Elizaveta Petrovna, worked as a bookkeeper. Although Volodya quite often missed school, the teachers spoke well of him. First, the boy was always in the forefront of activists in the collection of scrap metal and waste paper. Secondly, he sang beautifully. Therefore, in school, Vinnichevsky had the reputation of being the main sermon at various holidays and events. Volodya especially respected the song “Heroes of Hassan” and dreamed of becoming a tankman. In general, an exemplary and decent student, which no one could think badly. This image of Vova subsequently used for his cover.
In 1938, he ventured a crime. Moreover, the first two attacks for the investigators remained unknown until the capture of a juvenile criminal. He told about it himself. After that, the search began for the dead children and their relatives. But it was not possible to find out whom Vinnichevsky had killed. The main problem was that the relatives of the disappeared children were afraid to contact the law enforcement authorities. The reasons can only guess. Most likely, they were afraid that the police would not search for a maniac, and hang "grouse" on the same addressed. Do not forget that in the middle of 30-s large-scale “cleansing” began and people could be “closed” by denunciation or the slightest suspicion. Therefore, many people tried to keep as far as possible from the guards. Probably among them were the relatives of the murdered children.
Volodya perfectly orientated himself in the situation prevailing in the country. Fear of the police, negligence regarding the safety of children - he used all this with the maximum benefit for himself. Playing the role of a diligent schoolboy, Vinnichevsky only with the victims released himself present. He not only killed, he also tried to rape. First in the natural form, then in the perverted. Then he strangled the victim or finished it off with cold weapons.
Four-year-old Hertha Gribanova is the first victim of a maniac that Sverdlovsk police officers learned about. Vinnichevsky, showed the maximum level of cynicism, he raped her and killed her right in the garden near her home. That is, the maniac did not even abduct the girl. He developed his own method - Vinnichevsky went into the courtyards of private houses or porches and watched. If he met a child and there were no adults nearby, Volodya approached him and began to talk. After a short conversation, he was taken away, but not far. And if adults suddenly appeared, the killer instantly gave out a prepared phrase, they say, looking for scrap metal, do you have anything? Komsomol-public activist believed, because at that time it was considered a common occupation among schoolchildren. Therefore, the legend always worked. And even when the city was flooded with rumors about a terrible pedophile maniac scouring the streets. No one could imagine that an ordinary schoolchild is killing and raping children.
Vinnichevsky killed Gert literally twenty meters from her home. Volodya went into the yard, saw a girl sitting near the wood, and spoke to her. As already mentioned, the teenager was ready for the appearance of adults. But they did not appear. Therefore, Vinnichevsky led the girl into the garden, threw her to the ground and began to choke. After she fell silent, Vova took out a knife and began hitting them on the victim's head. The eighth impact of the blade could not stand it anymore and it broke off. And a part of cold weapons remained in Gribanova’s head.
Having broken the knife, Vinnichevsky hastily withdrew. And then got rid of the instrument of crime. And with this act the teenager tricked both the forensic expert and the policemen. The first suggested that Gribanova’s skull be used as evidence. Since, if the killer would not get rid of the knife, then it would be possible to conduct an examination. And thus to prove or disprove the assumption that the offender was wielding with just these weapons. The investigators agreed with the expert’s proposal, therefore, after the decapitation procedure, they gave the relatives the body of Gribanova without a head. But Vova turned out to be a diligent student, so he decided to use either a screwdriver or a more reliable Swiss knife. In general, Vinnichevsky's learning ability turned out to be fantastic (for the realities of that time, of course). Do not forget that then there were no thrillers, detective series or horror films. Yes, and with books of relevant genres, a similar picture was observed. Real detectives were a rarity, and they could hardly have “taught” Volodya something new. He was a full-fledged author of his own thriller with elements of horror. Therefore, Vinnichevsky, having turned his mind, realized that it was necessary to commit murders in different places, and to the maximum distance from each other. By the way, the family of Vinnichevsky lived not far from the famous Ipatiev house, in which Nicholas II and his family were shot. But for hunting, Vova did not choose the center of Sverdlovsk, which is logical, but its outskirts.
Being a man with obvious mental disorders, Vinnichevsky did not pay attention to the sex of the child. Therefore, one of his victims was four-year-old Boria Titov. The boy met the murderer at the door of his house. Vinnichevsky instantly realized how to get into the credibility of the child. The fact is that Borya stood with the sled near the door, but there was no one to roll it. Of course, the good Volodya offered him his "services." Having set the boy on a sled, Vinnichevsky quickly drove him to a wasteland located at the end of the street. Then he attacked and, when the child stopped giving signs of life, he threw his body into a snowdrift. And he left, taking, by the way, with a sled. He did this on purpose to complicate the work of the police. He intended to leave them in another place so that they could get to the body of the boy as late as possible. But this calculation was not justified. Boria was accidentally found by passersby and rescued. In fact, Titov was the first child who officially survived after meeting a maniac. But, due to his age and psychological trauma, the boy practically failed to help the investigators. He did not say that the role of a full-grown sex maniac-pedophile is performed not by an adult, but by a teenager.
Having committed several more crimes, Vova decided to change the "scenery". Whether he came to this thought himself or whether something alerted him is unknown. But Vinnichevsky met his seventh victim in the city of Kushma, located almost two hundred kilometers from Sverdlovsk. After killing three-year-old Valya Lobanova, he threw her body into a public outdoor toilet. This way of getting rid of corpses became his peculiar "chip". Wolf guessed that the stench coming from the pit, can hide the smell of a decaying body. By the way, the investigators did not immediately realize that the murder of Lobanova was committed by a maniac from Sverdlovsk. The considerable distance and place where the body was discovered played a part.
Similarly, Vinnichevsky acted with four-year-old Raja Rakhmatulina - his ninth victim. As in the case of Borey, Volodya did not use the knife, confining himself to strangulation. When the girl turned off, the maniac dropped her body in a latrine and withdrew. But Paradise quickly came to her senses and began to call for help. The girl was saved. But she could not describe the attacker. Militiamen still did not suspect that they were dealing with a cold-blooded Komsomol teenager ...
Spring 1939, Vinnichevsky met a new victim. Lida Surina was killed in a forest near the railway station "Apparatnaya". Maniac struck her with more than twenty stabs with a knife, and hid her body, disguised with branches. However, they quickly began to search for the girl and soon managed to find her. Unfortunately, it was too late.
By that time, the investigators, in fact, had only one clue. It was precisely established that the pedophile maniac never led his victims farther than one kilometer from the place of abduction. Therefore, if the child began to search quickly, then sometimes they had time to find him still alive. But it was a rarity. Most often, the police have already found corpses. But the body of a three-year-old Vali Kamaeva was completely able to find only a few months later. Therefore, only with the help of expertise was it possible to identify the child.
In addition to Bory and Rai, another victim, a three-year-old Ale Gubina, survived. She was the thirteenth "head" in Vinnichevsky's bloody novel. Volodya kidnapped a girl near the Spetsstroy railway station, which is located on the outskirts of Sverdlovsk. Maniac lured the child into the forest, literally a couple of hundred meters from the residential barracks. Here he first strangled her, then tried to rape her, and after several times he stabbed him with a knife. The final stroke was a cut length of about twenty-five centimeters from the right shoulder blade to the hip joint. Due to the fact that the disappearance of the girl was quickly noticed by her parents and immediately turned to the police. The child was not only found, but also returned from the next world, despite the great loss of blood. And Vinnichevsky headed home in full confidence that Alya was already dead.
Gradually, the maniac began to expand the geography of their crimes. After Kushma, he still reached Nizhny Tagil. Here his victim was Rita Fomin. And only in the summer of 1939, did the investigators understand that the killings in Sverdlovsk and those two cities were in the hands of the same person. With great caution, the police combined all the murders, because the criminal was strangled, then stabbed, then he raped his victims. Law enforcement officials did not have 100% certainty that the whole thing was the work of one person. In addition, he also disposed of the bodies in different ways: he hid and camouflaged in the forest or on waste grounds, then he threw them into cesspools. Yes, and he attacked in different places. If there was a system in the actions of the killer, then the police could not understand it. The situation was aggravated by the absence of any evidence. Therefore, no one knew exactly who to look for. There were versions that the perpetrator is a seriously ill person, perhaps even an invalid. The only information the investigators had was that their target was a young man. But how young he is is unknown. At the same time, the guards did not doubt that the maniac had a criminal past. And most likely he was already serving a term for sexual crimes.
Of course, the city authorities did everything to ensure that information about the criminal did not become public. But for a long time to hide the "series" did not work. Thanks to the "word of mouth" Sverdlovsk was flooded with rumors about an unprecedented pedophile maniac. In the summer of 1939, the city began to slowly sink into the abyss of panic.
And even at that moment, no one had the thought that all this time they were looking for the wrong thing. Therefore, Vova felt safe. He continued to walk from house to house, looking out for lonely children, hiding behind, if necessary, the legend of scrap metal. And, despite the quiet panic, people did not have suspicions and fears. The teenager at these moments probably felt like a god-lord.
The seventeenth victim was a four-year-old Tasya Morozova. Vinnichevsky promised the child to buy ice cream and managed to lure out from the territory of the house. And the area where the murder was committed, was what is called, quite bare: no vacant lots, no bushes, no gullies. Therefore, Vova chose a public latrine. Here he raped a girl, killed her, undressed her and dumped her in a hole. He took the clothes with him (he then threw them away a few hundred meters from the crime scene). He did this because he realized that the body might not sink due to his clothes and then Tasya would be found too quickly. And with the clothes of the victim maniac he hoped to confuse the police. But the guards did not buy the trick. By the way, by the time the guards strand detained about three hundred suspects. All of them had, of course, had criminal records. Someone "closed" the old memory, someone - immediately after the release. Guards of order worked without days off and holidays, and the city was flooded with civilian patrols. In general, the police reinsured as best they could, but it did not help. The bloodthirsty little wolf once and for all left them in the cold.
But it was the hidden patrol that played the main role in the Vinnichevsky case. Vova was caught without any analytics, brainstorming or other "cine" schemes. In late October, Volodya kidnapped a three-year-old Slava Volkov from the entrance of the house where the child lived. Mom forgot some things and went up to the apartment, leaving the son of one literally for a couple of minutes. But Vova more and was not required. During this short period of time he was able to handle the glory and take him away. And in order to quickly break away from possible pursuers, Vinnichevsky and Volkov got on the tram. And here, for the first time in two years, he was unlucky. In the same public transport cadets of the militia school returned to the hostel after duty on the streets. Since they were in a group of hidden patrol, their clothes were quite ordinary, so Volodya did not notice anything suspicious. But the cadets immediately noticed a strange couple. Although Vinnichevsky behaved calmly and confidently, by all means demonstrating that it is - the older brother of three children, law enforcement officers decided to check it out. The farther the tram left, the more the cadets were convinced that they were right. And here are a couple about to exit at the stop "Copper Mine". The cadets were well aware of this deaf place, where apart from a pair of dilapidated barracks there was nothing. The people there lived appropriate. Therefore, they decided to follow the "brothers". As soon as the cadets left the tram, they immediately dispersed, so as not to arouse suspicion. But Volodya did not notice them anyway. He was so sure of his own safety and impunity that he lost all vigilance.
A couple went deep into the forest. Then Vinnichevsky began to act according to a well-established scheme: he threw the boy down and began to choke him. There was no doubt about the cadets, so they jumped out of their shelters and instantly twisted the criminal. And suddenly ... there was a loud cry, tears flowed. No, this is not Glory, but Vova. Pale and trembling Vinnichevsky tearfully mumbled, "I regret that life is over!".
Once in the department, Volodya immediately confessed to everything and began to actively cooperate with the investigation. He personally volunteered to draw charts on which the guards could find the bodies of the dead children. It was then that it became clear that the blood of children from Kushma and Nizhny Tagil was in the hands of Vinnichevsky.
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When the couple of Vinnichevskys learned that the maniac is their son, they brought a letter to the regional newspaper “Ural Worker”: “We, the parents, renounce such a son and demand to apply the highest measure to him - shooting. Such geeks in the Soviet family life can not be. 1 November 1939 d. 12 hours of the day.
Vova was well aware that he would face the death penalty for his crimes, so he tried his best to help the investigation, hoping that he would still be pardoned. Indeed, at that time, the shooting was applied to minors who had reached the age of twelve. This proposal was put forward on March 19th 1935 by the People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov. Clement Efremovich explained this initiative with the frightening statistics of juvenile delinquency in Moscow. As an example, he cited an episode of a nine-year-old boy’s attack on the son of the deputy prosecutor. And eighth day of April of the same year was published by decision of the CEC and the People's Commissars of the USSR "On measures to combat juvenile delinquency." This document is precisely said application of the death penalty for criminals from the age of twelve. In the same month there was a circular, which gave an explanation for the decision: "fallen away to be considered a reference in the footnote to Art. 13 "The basic principles of the criminal legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics" and the corresponding articles of the criminal codes of the Union Republics (22 Art. Of the RSFSR Criminal Code and the corresponding articles of the Criminal Code of other Union Republics), which do not apply shooting to persons who have not reached 18 years of age. " That is, article 22 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR was abolished.
Abroad, such a law reacted negatively. It is known that the writer Romain Rolland, during a meeting with Stalin at the end of June 1935, expressed his indignation about this. To which Joseph Vissarionovich replied: “This decree has a purely pedagogical significance. We wanted to frighten them not so much hooliganism children as organizers of hooliganism among children ... The decree was issued in order to frighten and disorganize adult gangsters and save our children from hooligans ... But could we give an explanation in the sense that we issued this decree in pedagogical purposes, to prevent crimes, to deter criminal elements? Of course, they could not, because in this case the law would have lost all force in the eyes of the criminals. ”
Vinnichevsky was sentenced to death on January 16, 1940. After the announcement of the sentence, he filed a pardon for pardon and asked to go to the front (then there was a war with Finland). Like, blood ready to earn forgiveness. But the court rejected the petition. Vinnichevsky was shot.
What is interesting is that Volodi’s friend was Ernst Unknown, who then became a famous sculptor. They studied in the same school, lived next door, often went to the cinema together and attended performances in the theater of musical comedy. Here is what Unknown told during his interrogation (November 17th 1939) about his friend: “I can say that he was a very gentle, shy boy, he liked to be alone, often at school he would become somewhere in the corner at the wall and stand. When I was with him, I talked about girls, he always spoke of them with a kind of disgust and said that he did not like sexual intercourse and never had ... I personally often noticed behind him that when he went to the restroom, he there is a very long time, what he did there, I do not know. "
In the USSR, the bodies of those shot were buried in secret places. Most likely, Vinnichevsky was “laid” on the twelfth kilometer of the Moscow highway. It was there that the executed criminals of Sverdlovsk were buried, and they didn’t make any distinctions according to the articles. Therefore, in a mass grave lay and serial killers, and political. In 90's, this place was turned into a memorial complex to the memory of victims of repression. And on November 20, 2017, the monument “Masks of Sorrow: Europe-Asia” was opened here. And it was Ernst Neizvestny who made it.
And although foreign countries came out with condemnation, the execution of Vinnichevsky did not have such a large-scale public response as storywhich occurred in 1964 year. "It Neyland" thundered in Europe and in the United States. Moreover, many people who disagreed with the decision of the court were among the citizens of the Soviet Union. Legend has it that if a young Brezhnev tried to stand up for the juvenile delinquent, only Khrushchev could not convince. But about all this in more detail - in the second part of the "Wolf".
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