"Now I can tell the truth"

January 27 2011 1

Until the early nineties of the last century, this person in our country and abroad was known as a children's writer, whose books were published in huge numbers, 21 million 642 thousands of copies. And only the “initiates” knew that the well-known children's writer gave twenty-five years of her life to serving the SVR (Soviet foreign intelligence) and was among the elite of this secret agency. The name of this man Zoya Ivanovna Resurrection-Rybkina.

Just before Zoya Ivanovna’s death, when she was already mortally ill, came the unexpected news that she was “declassified.” And despite her serious illness, Voskresenskaya wrote her last book with the saying title “Now I can tell the truth,” which was published several months after the death of Zoya Voskresenskaya, a retired KGB colonel.

28 April 1907 of the year at the station Uzlovaya, Bocharovsky district, Tula province, a daughter was born in the family of the assistant to the head of Voskresensky station, who was named Zoya.

Childhood girl spent in the city of Alexin.

When she turned 13, in 1920, her father, Ivan Pavlovich, died of tuberculosis. Being alone, the mother, together with her daughter and two sons, decided to move to Smolensk. Soon she became seriously ill, young Zoya had to go to work to help her mother support her family. It was a difficult period of life, and here suddenly a chance helped her, on the street she accidentally met her father’s old friend. Zoya told him about her troubles and he told her to come to him at the battalion headquarters, so began Zoya Ivanovna’s new independent period of life.

Father's comrade helped Zoya get a job as a librarian in the 42 Battalion of the Cheka troops. After that, she managed to work as a political instructor-tutor at the colony of juvenile delinquents, at the M.I. Kalinin factory in Smolensk, at the headquarters of the CHON (special-purpose units). In 1927, Voskresenskaya for the first time marries Vladimir Kazutin, who after some time is sent to Moscow for partucheby.

At the end of 1928, Voskresenskaya, together with her son Vladimir, also moved from Smolensk to Moscow, to her husband. But in the capital, family life did not work and the couple divorced. Her little son Zoe helped raise her mother, who moved to live with her daughter. In the summer of 1929, Resurrection becomes an employee of the Foreign Department of the OGPU. Apparently the exquisite beauty, amazing spiritual charm and sharp mind of the young employee attracted the attention of the INO (foreign intelligence) leadership,

And at the beginning of 1930, Zoya Ivanovna was on her first foreign trip to Manchuria, to Harbin. For two years, Voskresenskaya worked in Harbin, as secretary of the Soviet oil syndicate Soyuzneft, successfully fulfilling the tasks of the Center, during a bitter struggle on the CER (Chinese Eastern Railway), this was her exploration debut.

After Harbin, the Resurrection also worked successfully in Riga, in the cities and estates of old Latvia, where she appeared as a noble baroness. After was work in Central Europe - in Austria and Germany, in the north of the continent - in Sweden and Finland.

Working in Finland, Resurrection married for the second time. She arrived in Finland in 1935, by that time she was already a real intelligence professional, and she came to that country as a deputy resident. Irina (that was Zoya Ivanovna’s operational pseudonym) acted as the head of the Intourist representative office in the capital Helsinki. In 1936, the residency manager in Helsinki was recalled to Moscow. Boris Arkadyevich Rybkin, an experienced 37-year-old security officer, came to replace him as a consul of Yartsev.

At first, the relationship with the head of the residency and his deputy was not very good. Consul Yartsev was extremely demanding and held out formally with his young, charming assistant. Resurrection at some point even asked the Center to withdraw it, but received an order to introduce a new leader in the course of affairs, to acquaint with the situation, and then return to the question of recall. But this issue was no longer returned. After half a year of introduction to the course, the Center has already received another request for permission to get married! Despite the fears of the lovers that the Center will not allow such “nepotism” in the residency, Moscow has given “good”.

So Zoya Ivanovna is now Voskresenskaya-Rybkina became "Madame Yartseva."

In Finland, Irina was collecting information about Germany’s plans for Suomi and liaising with the illegal agents of Soviet foreign intelligence. During her work she managed to acquire valuable sources of information. Resurrection also coordinated the work of an illegal intelligence group in Norway.

In November 1939, the “Winter War” began, which forced the Yartsevs to return to the USSR.

Arriving in Moscow, Zoya Voskresenskaya-Rybkina took up a new business for herself and intelligence in general, analytics (a special analytical unit was created only in 1943 year), becoming one of the leading experts in this field.

General Pavel Sudoplatov said the following about this: “... Zoya Ivanovna Rybkina, together with her immediate superior Pavel Zhuravlev, started a lettered case under the code name Zateya, which contained all the important information about Germany’s preparations for war against the USSR. With the creation of this lettered case, it has become much easier to follow the development of German politics, in particular its ever-increasing aggressiveness. Information from this lettered case regularly came to Stalin and Molotov, which allowed them to correct their policy towards Hitler. ”

Pavel Sudoplatov

It was to Zoya Ivanovna that all the information obtained by a group of anti-fascists, the famous “Red Chapel”, operating in Nazi Germany, flowed. According to the available information, she prepared an analytical note to Stalin, in which it was stated that Hitler’s attack could be expected at any moment, and that this attack was inevitable according to all available data. But Stalin did not attach importance to this note, irritably saying to Pavel Fitin to the head of foreign intelligence: “This is a bluff! Do not panic. Do not be nonsense. Go and get a better look. ”

Before the start of the war, there were only a few days left, in which Zoya Ivanovna could see for herself.

In early June, the Reich leadership, trying to refute rumors of the imminent approach of the war against the USSR, organized a solemn reception at its embassy, with the participation of leading dancers of the Berlin Opera, to which the Bolshoi Ballet soloists were invited. The reception was also attended by the representative of the VOKS (All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries), Ms. Yartseva. As it is not difficult to guess, in fact, the task of Mrs. Yartseva included an assessment of the mood of the staff and the overall situation of the German diplomatic mission.

Zoya Ivanovna drew attention to the bright squares on the walls of the embassy’s rooms, which talk about recent films, in conversations with German diplomats she noticed other details that the embassy was preparing to leave.

Here she finally came to the conclusion that the war would begin soon, and a reception with a Berlin ballet was arranged to avert the eyes.

The Great Patriotic War began. From the first days of Voskresenskaya-Rybkina as part of a special group, under the leadership of P. Sudoplatova, she was engaged in the selection, training and organization of the transfer of saboteurs and intelligence officers to the rear of the enemy. She was directly involved in the creation of the first partisan detachment, commanded by Nikifor Kalyada, the legendary Batya. Bati's squadron is already in 1941-1942. practically cleared the Smolensk – Vitebsk – Orsh triangle from the fascists.

At any time, each of the employees of a special group could have been transferred to the enemy’s rear. Therefore, Zoya Ivanovna herself also studied the role of the watchman of a small railway station located deep in the rear of the Germans.

But fate decreed otherwise.

At the same time, her husband, Boris Rybkin, was preparing for work as an adviser to the embassy and a resident in Sweden. Intelligence has decided to send a wife with him. And at the end of 1941, new members of the “Yartsevs couple” appeared in the Soviet diplomatic corps in Stockholm.

As in Finland, Irina was also a deputy resident, officially holding the position of press attaché at the Soviet embassy. In Sweden, she was engaged in active recruitment work, intelligence gathering, and maintained contact with anti-fascist resistance in several European countries. Without exaggeration, we can say that in many respects, precisely because of the work of the “spouses Yartsevykh”, Sweden remained neutral, and Finland left the Nazi coalition ahead of schedule.

In the spring of 1944, the couple Rybkina returned to Moscow. Zoya Ivanovna again took up analytics, becoming, after the war, first deputy and then head of the German foreign intelligence department.

In 1947, 27 in November, Colonel Boris Rybkin died near Prague on duty, according to the official version it was a car accident. Zoya Ivanovna did not really believe in this version until the end of her life and even tried to conduct her own investigation, but she was forbidden to do it.

At the end of 1953, after Stalin’s death, arrests began in Lubyanka, and the old comrade Zoya Ivanovna, Pavel Sudoplatov was arrested. She came out in his defense and was dismissed for this performance from the "out-of-staff" foreign intelligence department, only one year before reaching retirement. Being a man of will, she decided to go to the courts and to achieve a fair resolution of their business. She almost succeeded; she was placed at the disposal of the GULAG.

So Zoya Ivanovna got in Vorkuta, in a camp for especially dangerous criminals, where she served until retirement, as the head of a special department, she was 48 years old.

In 1955, Colonel Zoya Ivanovna Voskresenskaya-Rybkina resigned and took up literary work. Zoya Ivanovna died in 1992 on January 8.