Women in the USSR sentenced to death. Women sentenced to death in the USSR

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

The history of the crimes of Antonina Makarova.

Case with a surname.

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

Camping wife surrounded.

The 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova suffered all the horrors of the infamous "Vyazemsky cauldron". After the most difficult battles, in complete encirclement from the whole unit, only soldier Nikolai Fedchuk was next to the young nurse Tonya. With him, she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They did not look for partisans, they did not try to get through to their own - they fed on whatever they had to, sometimes they stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his "camping wife". Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.

In January 1942, they went to the village of Red Well, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tony alone. Tonya was not driven out of the Red Well, but the locals were already full of worries. And the strange girl did not seek to go to the partisans, did not strive to break through to ours, but strove to make love with one of the men who remained in the village. Having set the locals against herself, Tonya was forced to leave.

Paid killer.

A police patrol detained Tonya, but they did not suspect a partisan or underground worker of her. She liked the policemen, who took her to their place, gave her a drink, fed and raped her. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.

The role of a prostitute under the policemen did not last long for Tonya - one day, drunk, they took her out into the yard and put her behind a Maxim easel machine gun. People stood in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who had completed not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not a big deal. True, the dead drunk woman did not really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.

The next day, Makarova learned that she was now an official - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with her bunk. The Lokot Republic ruthlessly fought the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground workers, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. The arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.

The cell held 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones. Neither the Germans, nor even the local policemen, wanted to take on this job. And here, Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere with her shooting abilities, came in very handy.
The girl did not go crazy, but on the contrary, she considered that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot enemies, and she shoots women and children - the war will write everything off! But her life is finally getting better.

1500 lost lives.

As a reward, she was allowed to take the belongings of the dead. So Tonya got a bunch of outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes immediately interfered with wearing.

However, sometimes Tonya allowed a “marriage” - several children managed to survive, because because of their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out together with the corpses by the locals, who buried the dead, and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a female executioner, "Tonka the machine gunner", "Tonka the Muscovite" crawled around the district. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but they could not get to her.

In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.
By the summer of 1943, Tony's life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved to the West, starting to liberate the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but then she very conveniently fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Great Germany.

Honored veteran instead of a war criminal.

Realizing this, Tonya fled the hospital, again finding herself surrounded, but now Soviet. But survival skills were honed - she managed to get documents proving that all this time Makarova was a nurse in a Soviet hospital.

Antonina successfully managed to enter the service in a Soviet hospital, where at the beginning of 1945 a young soldier, a real war hero, fell in love with her. The guy made an offer to Tonya, she agreed, and, having married, the young people after the end of the war left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, to her husband's homeland.

So the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and the honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg took her place.

She's been looking for thirty years

Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg led the usual life of a Soviet person - she lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the deeds of "Tonka the machine gunner".

The KGB spent more than three decades searching for it, but found it almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfenov, going abroad, submitted questionnaires with information about relatives. There, among the solid Parfyonovs, for some reason, Antonina Makarova, by her husband Ginzburg, was listed as a sister.

Yes, how that mistake of the teacher helped Tonya, how many years thanks to it she remained out of reach of justice!

The KGB operatives worked like jewelry - it was impossible to accuse an innocent person of such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses were secretly brought to Lepel, even a former policeman-lover. And only after they all confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was “Tonka the machine gunner”, she was arrested.

She did not deny, she talked about everything calmly, said that she had no nightmares. She did not want to communicate with her daughters or her husband. And the husband, a front-line soldier, ran around the authorities, threatened Brezhnev with a complaint, even at the UN - he demanded the release of his wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya was accused of.

After that, the dashing, brave veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. What these people had to endure, you would not wish on the enemy.

Retribution.

Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the autumn of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors in the USSR and the only trial of a female punisher.

Antonina herself was convinced that, due to the prescription of years, the punishment could not be too severe, she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. She only regretted that, because of the shame, she again had to move and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about the post-war exemplary biography of Antonina Ginzburg, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR.

However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.

At the trial, her guilt was documented in the murder of 168 people from those whose identities could be established. More than 1,300 remained unknown victims of Tonka the Machine Gunner. There are crimes that cannot be forgiven.

At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for clemency were rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.

Bert Borodkin.

Berta Borodkina, known in certain circles as "Iron Bella", was one of 3 women executed in the late USSR.

By a fatal coincidence, Berta Naumovna Borodkina, a well-deserved worker of trade, who did not kill anyone, was included in this mournful list along with the murderers. She was sentenced to death for embezzlement of socialist property on an especially large scale.

In April 1984, the Krasnodar Regional Court considered criminal case No. 2-4/84 against the director of the trust of restaurants and canteens in the city of Gelendzhik, Berta Borodkina, Honored Worker of Trade and Public Catering of the RSFSR. The main point of accusation of the defendant is part 2 of Art. 173 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (taking a bribe) - provided for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of five to fifteen years with confiscation of property. However, reality surpassed the worst fears of 57-year-old Borodkina - she was sentenced to death.

The decision of the court came as a surprise to lawyers who followed the high-profile trial with interest: an exceptional measure of punishment “up to its complete abolition”, according to the then current Criminal Code of the RSFSR, was allowed for treason (Article 64), espionage (Article 65), terrorist act (art. 66 and 67), sabotage (art. 68), banditry (art. 77), premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances specified in art. 102 and paragraph "c" Art. 240, and in wartime or in a combat situation - also for other especially grave crimes in cases specially provided for by the legislation of the USSR.

Pay or lose...

Such an appointment could not have taken place without the participation of Nikolai Pogodin, the first secretary of the city committee of the CPSU, his preference for a candidate without special education was not openly questioned by anyone in the city committee, and the hidden motives for choosing the party leader became known eight years later.

“During the indicated period [from 1974 to 1982], being an official in a responsible position,” says the indictment in the Borodkina case, “repeatedly personally and through intermediaries in her apartment and at her place of work received bribes from a large group of subordinates to her for work. Of the bribes she received, Borodkina herself transferred bribes to senior officials in the city of Gelendzhik for their assistance and support in their work ... So, over the past two years, 15,000 rubles worth of valuables, money and products were transferred to the secretary of the city party committee, Pogodin. The last amount in the 1980s was approximately the cost of three Zhiguli cars.

In the materials of the investigation, a graphic diagram of the corruption relationships of the director of the trust, compiled by employees of the USSR Chief Prosecutor's Office, was filed. It resembles a dense web with Borodkina in the center, to which numerous threads stretch from the restaurants Gelendzhik, Kavkaz, Yuzhny, Platan, Yacht, canteens and cafes, pancake, barbecue and food tents, and from it disperse to the city committee of the CPSU and the city executive committee, the BHSS department of the city police department (combating theft of socialist property), to the regional trust and further to the Glavkurortorg of the Ministry of Trade of the RSFSR.

Employees of the Gelendzhik catering - directors and managers, bartenders and bartenders, cashiers and waiters, cooks and forwarders, cloakroom attendants and doormen - were completely taxed, everyone knew how much money he had to transfer along the chain, as well as what awaited him in case of refusal - the loss of the "bread" position.

Stolen degrees.

It was common to dilute sour cream with water, and tint liquid tea or coffee with burnt sugar. But one of the most profitable frauds was the abundant addition of bread or cereals to minced meat, reducing the established norms of meat for cooking first and second courses. The head of the trust, “saved” in this way, transferred the product to barbecue houses for sale. In two years, according to Kalinichenko, Borodkina earned 80,000 rubles from this alone.

Another source of illegal income was the manipulation of alcohol. Here, too, she did not discover anything new: in restaurants, cafes, bars and buffets, the traditional “underfilling” was widely used, as well as “stealing a degree”. For example, visitors to a drinking establishment simply did not notice a decrease in the strength of vodka due to dilution by two degrees, but this brought big profits to trade workers. But it was considered especially beneficial to mix cheaper “starka” (rye vodka infused with apple or pear leaves) into expensive Armenian cognac. According to the investigator, even the examination could not establish that the cognac was diluted.

A primitive calculation was also common - both for individual visitors to restaurants, bars, buffets and cafes, and for large companies. Musician Georgy Mimikonov, who played in the restaurants of Gelendzhik in those years, told Moscow TV journalists that during the holiday season whole groups of shift workers from Siberia and the Arctic came here for the weekend to go out in the "zone of beautiful life", as the musician put it. The calculation of such clients went to tens and hundreds of rubles.

Berta, aka Iron Bella.

The Gorkom's "roof" in the person of the first secretary, as well as OBKhSS inspectors, made her invulnerable to the dissatisfaction of the mass consumer, whom Borodkina considered exclusively as a source of "left" income.

Borodkina demonstrated a completely different attitude towards high-ranking party and government officials who came to Gelendzhik during the holiday season from Moscow and the Union republics, but here, too, she pursued her own interests first of all - the acquisition of future influential patrons. Borodkina did everything to make their stay on the Black Sea coast pleasant and memorable.

Borodkina, as it turned out, not only provided the nomenclature guests with scarce products for picnics in the mountains and boat trips, set tables bursting with delicacies, but could, if they wished, invite young women to the male company.

Her "hospitality" for the guests themselves and the party fund of the region was worth nothing - Borodkina knew how to write off expenses. These qualities in her were appreciated by the first secretary of the Krasnodar Regional Committee of the CPSU Sergey Medunov.

Among those who gave Borodkina their patronage were even members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as well as the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Fyodor Kulakov. When Kulakov died, the family invited only two people from the Krasnodar Territory to his funeral - Medunov and Borodkina. Connections at the very top for a long time provided Borodkina with immunity against any revisions, so behind her back she was called “Iron Bella” in Gelendzhik (Borodkina did not like her own name, she preferred to be called Bella).

The case of the sale of pornographic products.

The prosecutor's office received a statement from a local resident that in one of the cafes, pornographic films were secretly shown to selected guests. The organizers of underground viewings - the director of the cafe, the production manager and the bartender - were caught red-handed, they were charged under Art. 228 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (manufacture or sale of pornographic products, punishable by imprisonment for up to three years with confiscation of pornographic objects and means of their production).

During interrogations, catering workers testified that the director of the trust had tacitly allowed the demonstrations, and part of the proceeds was transferred to her. Thus, Borodkina herself was charged with complicity in this offense and taking a bribe.

A search was carried out in Iron Bella's house, the results of which unexpectedly went far beyond the scope of the "underground cinema" case. Borodkina's housing was reminiscent of museum storerooms, which contained numerous precious jewelry, furs, crystal products, sets of bed linen, which were then in short supply. In addition, Borodkina kept large sums of money at home, which the investigators found in the most unexpected places - in water heaters and under carpets in rooms, rolled up jars in the basement, in bricks stored in the yard. The total amount seized during the search amounted to more than 500,000 rubles.

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

Borodkina at the very first interrogation refused to testify and continued to threaten the investigation with punishment for sweeping accusations against her and the arrest of "a leader respected in the region." “She was sure that she was about to be released, but there was still no help.” “Iron Bella” didn’t wait for her, and here’s why.

In the early 1980s, investigations began in the Krasnodar Territory of numerous criminal cases related to large-scale manifestations of bribery and theft, which received the generalized name of the Sochi-Krasnodar case. The owner of the Kuban Medunov, a close friend of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev and Secretary of the Central Committee Konstantin Chernenko, interfered in every possible way with the work of the Investigative Department of the Prosecutor General's Office. However, in Moscow he had a powerful opponent - the chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. And with his election in November 1982 as General Secretary, the prosecutor's office had a free hand.

As a result of one of the most high-profile anti-corruption campaigns in the USSR, more than 5,000 party and Soviet leaders were dismissed from their posts and expelled from the ranks of the CPSU, about 1,500 people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and Deputy Minister of Fisheries of the USSR Vladimir Rytov was convicted and shot . Medunov was dismissed from the post of first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU and removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU with the wording: "For the mistakes made in the work."

When the defendant was made to understand that she no longer had anyone to rely on, she could alleviate her fate only by a sincere confession of guilt, Iron Bella broke down and began to testify. Her criminal case took up 20 volumes, former investigator Alexander Chernov said, based on the testimony of the former director of the trust, another three dozen criminal cases were initiated, in which 70 people were convicted. And the head of the party organization of Gelendzhik Pogodin disappeared without a trace after the arrest of Borodkina. Once he left the house in the evening, telling his wife that he needed to go to the city committee for a while, and did not return.

The police of the Krasnodar Territory were thrown in search of him, divers examined the waters of the Gelendzhik Bay, but all in vain - he was never seen dead or alive again. There is a version that Pogodin left the country on one of the foreign ships that were in the Gelendzhik Bay, but no actual confirmation of this has yet been found.

She knew too much.

According to Art. 93-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (theft of state property on an especially large scale) and Art. 156 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (consumer fraud), she was acquitted "due to insufficient evidence of the defendant's participation in the commission of the crime." She was sentenced to an exceptional measure of punishment - execution. The Supreme Court of the USSR upheld the verdict. The defendant did not apply for pardon.

Borodkin was let down by just what she was very proud of - acquaintances with high-ranking people, whose names she constantly trumped up. Former patrons in the current situation were interested in the fact that the "Iron Bella" was silent forever - she knew too much. She was not only disproportionately punished for her crimes, she was dealt with.

Tamara Ivanyutina

In 1987, an unprecedented trial took place in Kyiv in the case of a family of serial killers who chose a highly toxic aqueous solution based on thallium compounds as the weapon of crime. Maria and Anton Maslenko and their daughters, Tamara Ivanyutina and Nina Matsibora, were in the dock. Most of the victims were on account of 45-year-old Ivanyutina. She became the last woman in the USSR sentenced by the court to an exceptional measure of punishment.

In the process of investigating the poisoning case, it turned out that Ivanyutina had previously been convicted of speculation, and got a job at the school with a fake work book.

Since September 1986, she worked in the canteen of one of the schools in Kyiv. She was hired as a dishwasher. This work brought her considerable benefits. Tamara Ivanyutina kept a fairly large household. Working in the canteen, she was able to provide her animals with free food, which was left over from schoolchildren with poor appetites. To make it even worse, Tamara Ivanyutina periodically added poison to food.

She also used poisonous substances against those who, in her opinion, "behaved badly." Ivanyutina's victims were those who interfered with stealing food from the school cafeteria, allowed themselves to make comments to her, and in general all those who she did not like for one reason or another.

Initially, doctors diagnosed an intestinal infection and flu. However, after some time, the patients began to lose their hair. For these diseases, this phenomenon is uncharacteristic.

Law enforcement agencies quickly established that Ivanyutina Tamara Antonovna was involved in the poisoning. The investigation began immediately, as it became known about the death of students and school staff. Criminal proceedings were initiated.

The investigation team conducted interrogations of the survivors of the victims. It was found that all of them became ill after they had lunch in the school cafeteria on March 16. At the same time, they all ate liver with buckwheat porridge. Investigators decided to find out who was responsible for the quality of food at the school. It turned out that Natalya Kukharenko, a nutritionist nurse, had died 2 weeks before proceedings were initiated. According to official figures, the woman died of a cardiovascular disease. However, investigators questioned the accuracy of this information. As a result, an exhumation was carried out. After the study, traces of thallium were found in the tissues of the corpse.

Tamara Ivanyutina was taken into custody. First, she submitted a confession, confessed to all the episodes that took place in the school cafeteria. Such a crime, as Tamara Ivanyutina explained, she committed due to the fact that sixth-graders who were having lunch refused to arrange chairs and tables. She decided to punish them and poisoned them. However, she later stated that the confession was made under pressure from the investigators. She refused to testify.

The case of Tamara Ivanyutina became resonant. In the course of further operational activities, new facts came to light. So, the investigation found that not only Ivanyutina herself, but also her family members (parents and sister) for 11 years used a highly toxic solution to deal with people they didn’t like. At the same time, they committed poisoning both for selfish motives and to eliminate people who were unsympathetic to them for some reason.In addition, Ivanyutina expected to get a house and a land plot that belonged to her husband's parents.

In September 1986, she became a dishwasher at a local school. In addition to the episodes described above, the victims were a school party organizer (died) and a chemistry teacher (survived). They prevented Ivanyutina from stealing food from the catering department. Pupils of the 1st and 5th grades were also poisoned, who asked her for the remains of cutlets for pets. These children survived.

The investigation revealed that Nina Matsibora, the older sister of the main defendant in the case, was also active in criminal activities. In particular, using the same Clerici liquid, she poisoned her husband and got his apartment in Kyiv.

Spouses Maslenko - Ivanyutina's parents - also committed numerous poisonings. So, a neighbor in a communal apartment and a relative who made a remark to them were killed with a highly toxic liquid. In addition, animals belonging to "objectionable" people also became victims of poisoners.

The geography of the family's criminal activity was not limited to Ukraine alone. So, it was proved that a number of poisonings were committed by criminals in the RSFSR. For example, while in Tula, Maslenko Sr. killed his relative. He mixed Clerici's liquid into the moonshine.

The court found that for 11 years the criminal family, for mercenary motives, as well as out of personal hostility, committed murders and attempts to deliberately take the life of various people with the help of the so-called Clerici liquid - a highly toxic solution based on a potent poisonous substance - thallium. According to the Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, who worked during the proceedings as a senior investigator for especially important crimes in the Kyiv prosecutor's office, the identified episodes are among the first criminal cases in which such a compound was used, recorded in the USSR. The total number of proven facts is 40. Of that number, 13 were fatal.

Most of the murders (nine) and attempts (20) were personally committed by Tamara Ivanyutina. The process took about a year.

During the investigation, Ivanyutina tried several times to bribe the investigator. She promised the law enforcement officer "a lot of gold." The unusualness of this case in criminal practice lies in the fact that the main accused was a woman sentenced to death, and the punishment was carried out.

In her last speech, Ivanyutina did not admit her guilt in episodes. While still in jail, she said: in order to achieve what you want, you do not need to write any complaints. It is necessary to be friends with everyone and treat them. And especially for malicious people to mix poison.

Ivanyutina did not ask for forgiveness from the relatives of the victims, saying that her upbringing did not allow her to do this. She regretted only one thing. Her old dream was to buy a Volga car, but she never came true. Ivanyutin was declared sane and sentenced to death. Accomplices were assigned different prison terms. So, sister Nina was sentenced to 15 years. Her subsequent fate is unknown. The mother received 13 and the father 10 years in prison. Parents died in prison. The year in which Tamara Ivanyutina was shot was 1987.

Case with a surname.

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

Camping wife surrounded.

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

Paid killer.

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

1500 lost lives.

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

Honored veteran instead of a war criminal.

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

She's been looking for thirty years

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

Retribution.

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

Bert Borodkin.

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

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

Pay or lose...

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

Stolen degrees.

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

Berta, aka Iron Bella.

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

The case of the sale of pornographic products.

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

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

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

She knew too much.

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

Since 1993, a moratorium has been introduced in Russia on the most severe punishment for those who have crossed the letter of the law - the death penalty. In Soviet times, death sentences were not uncommon, but they mostly applied only to men. But there were also three women shot in the USSR. And it is about him that we will talk today, as well as show their photos.

Makarova, Ivanyutin, Borodkin - these three names are known to everyone who was fond of forensic science of the Soviet era. They entered the annals of history as female killers who became the last suicide bombers from Soviet times to the present day.

Antonina Makarovna Makarova (Ginzburg) (1920-1978)

The fate of Antonina cannot be called easy, at a young age she went to the front, like many girls of that time, striving to repeat the feat of "Anka the machine gunner". Although in the future she will receive the nickname "Tonka the machine gunner", but by no means for heroic merits. By the will of front-line fate, she ended up at the epicenter of the Vyazemsky operation, which was called the "Vyazemsky Cauldron" for many losses and bloody events.

Miraculously, Makarova managed to escape, she fled with a partisan of the Soviet army and for a long time hid from the horrors of war in the forests. But soon Antonina's "camping husband" leaves her, because they almost reached his village, where his official wife and children are waiting for him.

Makarova's wanderings continued until she was captured by German soldiers in the village of Lokot, at that time the Lokot Republic operated in it, whose members were engaged in the extermination of Soviet partisans, prisoners, communists and people simply objectionable to the Nazis. The Germans did not shoot Tonya, like many other prisoners, but made him their servant and mistress.

Antonina not only was not embarrassed by her current situation, but also believed that she had drawn a lucky ticket - the Nazis fed, watered, provided a bed, a young girl could have fun in the evenings in clubs, and at night she appeased the officers of the German army.

One of the duties of the German policemen of the village was the daily execution of prisoners of war, exactly 27 people, that's how many fit in the cell. None of the Germans wanted to get their hands dirty by shooting defenseless old people and children. On one of the days of the execution, for the sake of a joke, a drunken Makarova was put to the machine gun, who, without blinking an eye, shot all the prisoners. From that day on, she became the executioner of the "Lokot Republic", and by the end of her "career" she had more than one and a half thousand victims.

Since Antonina continued her frivolous lifestyle, she soon contracted syphilis and was sent to the rear by the Germans for treatment. This disease saved Makarova's life, because very quickly the soldiers of the Red Army captured Elbow and advanced towards the hospital where Antonina was being treated. Having fussed in time and obtained documents, she pretends to be a nurse working for the benefit of the Soviet army.

Soon Makarova marries Viktor Ginzburg, leads the sedate life of a war veteran, trying to forget her past life. But rumors about the bloody "Tonka the machine gunner" and the many witnesses to the executions carried out by Makarova encourage the KGB to come to grips with her search. For more than 30 years, the search for the executioner of the Lokot Republic continued, in 1978 Antonina Ginzburg was arrested.

Until recently, she believed that she would get off with a short term, justifying herself that she had forced her to commit these terrible acts, many years had passed, and she had a respectable age. Antonina's hopes were not destined to come true. In 1979, the death sentence under the article "Treason to the Motherland" was carried out.

Berta Naumovna Korol (Borodkina) (1927-1983)

Another woman executed in - Berta Borodkina (King). Young Berta began her career as a waitress, and in 1974, with the help of influential friends, she headed the trust of restaurants and canteens in Gelendzhik. This is the only woman on the list who was sentenced to death not for murder, but for the theft of socialist property on an especially large scale.

To understand how great her guilt is before the state and Soviet citizens, just look at a short list of her crimes:

taking bribes on an especially large scale, in case of refusal to give bribes, an employee of the catering of Gelendzhik lost his job;
giving bribes to the first state officials;
dilution of dairy products with water in the public catering establishments of Gelendzhik and, as a result, theft of saved money;
dilution of minced meat with bread crumb in the public catering establishments of Gelendzhik and, as a result, theft of saved money;
dilution of alcoholic products in the public catering establishments of Gelendzhik and, as a result, theft of saved money;
calculation of citizens in the public catering establishments of Gelendzhik with the permission and instructions of Borodkina;
closed broadcasts of pornographic products in institutions reporting to Borodkina.

It was because of the last point that Berta Naumovna was arrested, but she believed that her detention was a mistake, threatened with retribution and, of course, expected support from her friendly higher officials. But she was never helped. After her apartment was searched and furs, jewelry, valuables, as well as more than half a million rubles in cash, fabulous money at that time, were seized, Borodkina began to talk about her crimes, which took up 20 volumes.

Of course, no one expected the most severe punishment, but since her economic deeds were carried out with the tacit consent of the top, they simply decided to remove Borodkin. Forever and ever. The death sentence was carried out in August 1983.

Tamara Antonovna Ivanyutina (1941-1987)

Tamara's childhood cannot be called happy, she was brought up by cruel and domineering parents along with six brothers and sisters in a communal apartment. From a young age, Ivanyutina's parents inspired that in order to achieve the goal, you need to go over your heads. This is exactly what Tamara did, poisoning her first husband in order to get his apartment, as well as her father-in-law and mother-in-law from her second marriage.

She also slowly but surely tried to send her husband to the next world, mixing small doses of thallium into his food. The goal was the same - to take possession of his property. All of the deaths Ivanyutina was implicated in remained unsolved until a series of mysterious fatal poisonings occurred at School No. 16 in Minsk.

In mid-March, several school students and a teacher were taken to the hospital with symptoms of intestinal flu, two children and two adults died immediately, the remaining nine were in intensive care. The survivors soon began to lose their hair, which is not typical for the initial diagnosis. After the examination, there was no doubt - they were poisoned. An investigation team was urgently set up to inspect the apartments of workers who have access to food in the school cafeteria. In Ivanyutina's apartment, a whole can of Clerici liquid, a thallium-based poison, was found. Tamara confessed to the crimes committed.

As it turned out, for the past 11 years, Ivanyutina, her parents, and also her sister have been poisoning people who are inconvenient to them: relatives, acquaintances and colleagues. They persecuted even for the slightest misconduct. Ivanyutina said that the injured sixth graders refused to clean up the canteen at her request, and she decided to take revenge, and the teachers prevented the theft of food from the school canteen.

Tamara personally committed 29 poisonings, 9 of which ended in death. In 1987, Ivanyutina was shot. Therefore, Tamara bears the status of the last woman who was shot in the Soviet Union.

These women committed grave crimes, but they also suffered the most terrible punishment for them - execution by firing squad. I would like to hope that these stories will no longer be repeated in the modern world, just as the moratorium on the death penalty in our country will never be lifted.

Who was Tamara Ivanyutina?

The biography of a woman before the start of the process is not distinguished by any outstanding events. Her maiden name is Maslenko. She was born in 1942 into a family with six children. Parents always inspired their offspring that material security, prosperity are the main conditions for a normal life. This is exactly what the serial poisoner Tamara Ivanyutina was striving for.
In the process of investigating the poisoning case, it turned out that Ivanyutina had previously been convicted of speculation, and got a job at the school with a fake work book.
Since September 1986, she worked in the canteen of one of the schools in Kyiv. She was hired as a dishwasher. This work brought her considerable benefits. Tamara Ivanyutina kept a fairly large household. Working in the canteen, she was able to provide her animals with free food, which was left over from schoolchildren with poor appetites. To make it even worse, Tamara Ivanyutina periodically added poison to food. She also used poisonous substances against those who, in her opinion, "behaved badly." Ivanyutina's victims were those who interfered with stealing food from the school cafeteria, allowed themselves to make comments to her, and in general all those who she did not like for one reason or another.

Poisoning.

The story of Tamara Ivanyutina became known when several workers and students of the 16th school in the Podolsky district of Kyiv were admitted to the hospital. Doctors diagnosed signs of food poisoning. It happened on March 16 and 17, 1987. At the same time, four (two adults and the same number of children) died almost immediately. There were nine victims in intensive care. Initially, doctors diagnosed an intestinal infection and flu. However, after some time, the patients began to lose their hair. For these diseases, this phenomenon is uncharacteristic.
Law enforcement agencies quickly established that Ivanyutina Tamara Antonovna was involved in the poisoning. The investigation began immediately, as it became known about the death of students and school staff. Criminal proceedings were initiated. The investigation team conducted interrogations of the survivors of the victims. It was found that all of them became ill after they had lunch in the school cafeteria on March 16. At the same time, they all ate liver with buckwheat porridge. Investigators decided to find out who was responsible for the quality of food at the school. It turned out that Natalya Kukharenko, a nutritionist nurse, had died 2 weeks before proceedings were initiated. According to official figures, the woman died of a cardiovascular disease. However, investigators questioned the accuracy of this information. As a result, an exhumation was carried out. After the study, traces of thallium were found in the tissues of the corpse. Then searches began at everyone who had anything to do with the school cafeteria. They did not ignore the house in which the dishwasher of the food unit Ivanyutina Tamara Antonovna lived.

Arrest.

During the search, a "small but rather heavy container" was found at the dishwasher in the house. Naturally, its contents interested the investigation team. The container was confiscated and handed over to experts for examination. As it turned out, it contained Clerici's liquid. It is a highly toxic solution based on thallium (used in a number of branches of geology). Tamara Ivanyutina was taken into custody. First, she submitted a confession, confessed to all the episodes that took place in the school cafeteria. Such a crime, as Tamara Ivanyutina explained, she committed due to the fact that sixth-graders who were having lunch refused to arrange chairs and tables. She decided to punish them and poisoned them. However, she later stated that the confession was made under pressure from the investigators. She refused to testify.
The case of Tamara Ivanyutina became resonant. In the course of further operational activities, new facts came to light. So, the investigation found that not only Ivanyutina herself, but also her family members (parents and sister) for 11 years used a highly toxic solution to deal with people they didn’t like. At the same time, they committed poisoning both for selfish motives and to eliminate people who were unsympathetic to them for some reason. The family received Clerici liquid from a friend who was an employee of the Geological Institute. The poisoners explained that they needed thallium to fight rats. The acquaintance herself later admitted that over the course of 15 years she had passed the toxic solution to Ivanyutina herself, as well as to her parents and sister, at least 9 times over the course of 15 years.

Tamara's criminal activity began with her first husband. She poisoned a man and got his apartment. After the death of her first husband, Ivanyutina remarried. In a new marriage, her husband's parents became her victims. Father-in-law and mother-in-law died two days apart. The second husband himself also received small portions of thallium. So she kept his sexual activity low. In addition, Ivanyutina expected to get a house and a land plot that belonged to her husband's parents. In September 1986, she became a dishwasher at a local school. In addition to the episodes described above, the victims were a school party organizer (died) and a chemistry teacher (survived). They prevented Ivanyutina from stealing food from the catering department. Pupils of the 1st and 5th grades were also poisoned, who asked her for the remains of cutlets for pets. These children survived.
The investigation revealed that Nina Matsibora, the older sister of the main defendant in the case, was also active in criminal activities. In particular, using the same Clerici liquid, she poisoned her husband and got his apartment in Kyiv. Spouses Maslenko - Ivanyutina's parents - also committed numerous poisonings. So, a neighbor in a communal apartment and a relative who made a remark to them were killed with a highly toxic liquid. In addition, animals belonging to "objectionable" people also became victims of poisoners. The geography of the family's criminal activity was not limited to Ukraine alone. So, it was proved that a number of poisonings were committed by criminals in the RSFSR. For example, while in Tula, Maslenko Sr. killed his relative. He mixed Clerici's liquid into the moonshine.

Court.

It considered the case of 45-year-old Ivanyutina, her older sister Nina Antonovna and their parents, Maria Fedorovna and Anton Mitrofanovich Maslenko. They were charged with numerous poisonings, including fatal ones. The court found that for 11 years the criminal family, for mercenary motives, as well as out of personal hostility, committed murders and attempts to deliberately take the life of various people with the help of the so-called Clerici liquid - a highly toxic solution based on a potent poisonous substance - thallium. According to the Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, who worked during the proceedings as a senior investigator for especially important crimes in the Kyiv prosecutor's office, the identified episodes are among the first criminal cases in which such a compound was used, recorded in the USSR. The total number of proven facts is 40. Of that number, 13 were fatal. Most of the murders (nine) and attempts (20) were personally committed by Tamara Ivanyutina. The process took about a year.
During the investigation, Ivanyutina tried several times to bribe the investigator. She promised the law enforcement officer "a lot of gold." The unusualness of this case in criminal practice lies in the fact that the main accused was a woman sentenced to death, and the punishment was carried out.
In her last speech, Ivanyutina did not admit her guilt in episodes. While still in jail, she said: in order to achieve what you want, you do not need to write any complaints. It is necessary to be friends with everyone and treat them. And especially for malicious people to mix poison. Ivanyutina did not ask for forgiveness from the relatives of the victims, saying that her upbringing did not allow her to do this. She regretted only one thing. Her old dream was to buy a Volga car, but she never came true. Ivanyutin was declared sane and sentenced to death. Accomplices were assigned different prison terms. So, sister Nina was sentenced to 15 years. Her subsequent fate is unknown. The mother received 13 and the father 10 years in prison. Parents died in prison. The year in which Tamara Ivanyutina was shot was 1987.

In 1987, the Soviet Union was shaken by a horrific crime: a school dishwasher in Kyiv poisoned 20 people. Her name was Tamara Ivanyutina, and she became the third and last woman in the USSR who received capital punishment for her atrocities.

Dreams of wealth

Tamara Maslenko was born in 1941. From childhood, her parents inspired her with the idea that the main thing in life is material well-being. And little Tamara dreamed that in the future she would bathe in luxury and drive a black Volga.

After graduating from school, Tamara married a truck driver. Drivers at that time did not receive the worst money, but Tamara was much less interested in the salary of her betrothed than his apartment. The mercenary wife did not want to share property with anyone.

On one of the flights, Tamara's husband felt unwell. He stopped the car and went for a swim in a nearby river. As he was drying off, he found a tuft of his hair on a towel. The trucker was able to get to the house, where he died of a heart attack. Then no one suspected Tamara.

After a short time, she married Oleg Ivanyutin. His parents owned a country house and a large plot of land, which Tamara had her eye on. First, she sent her husband's father to the other world, who died after tasting the soup from the daughter-in-law. The father-in-law complained of malaise in the legs and pain in the heart. The mother-in-law survived her husband by only a few days: at the funeral, Ivanyutina gave her a glass of water with poison.

She intended to convert the site of the deceased old people into a pig farm. There was only one problem - to get hold of food for the pigs. In the Soviet society of the times of “developed socialism”, petty theft in the workplace was a common occurrence, so Tamara decided to get a job in the school cafeteria, where she could steal food.

Deadly breakfasts

Dishwashers were not paid decent money, and there were very few people willing to do such work. Therefore, despite the boorish and rude behavior, Ivanyutina was not fired. Then look for a new person who knows how much. Everyone around irritated Ivanyutin: one said the wrong thing, the other did the wrong thing, the third looked askance. The vengeful woman did not forget any of this.

Shortly after Ivanyutina appeared in the dining room, four people thundered into the hospital with mysterious symptoms: two teachers and two students. One of the victims complained of hair loss. But the health workers did not take these complaints into account.

Six months later another tragedy struck. This time - with a dietitian Natalya Kukharenko. The poor woman's legs were numb and her heart ached. Unfortunately, it was not possible to save her.

The largest poisoning occurred in March 1987 - then 14 people were immediately taken away from the school in an ambulance. The preliminary diagnosis is influenza. The symptoms are familiar: leg pain and hair loss. The treatment did not give results, and then the doctors began to lean towards the version of poisoning.

By interviewing witnesses and the victims themselves, it turned out that they all dined later than others, ate soup. Law enforcement officers who became interested in this case decided to exhume the remains of Kukharenko. As a result, thallium, a highly toxic heavy metal, was found in the body of the deceased woman.

Investigators suggested that the substance was used to bait rodents and could have been ingested by someone's negligence. But this version was refuted in the sanitary and epidemiological station.

Then the police began to check the personal data of the school staff. It turned out that the dishwasher worked on a fake work book. Ivanyutina began to be carefully checked. Strange details of past poisonings with similar symptoms flared up.

During a search of the poisoner, they found the very solution of thallium. A friend from a geological exploration expedition supplied her with a deadly substance. Allegedly for persecution of rodents.

Without a shadow of remorse

During interrogations, Ivanyutina did not regret what she had done. Two sixth graders pissed her off because they didn't want to move the tables in the cafeteria, others "fell out of favor" because they asked for food for the kitten. But the poisoner needed the products to feed the pigs.

The psychiatrists who examined the criminal recognized her as sane, albeit with extremely high self-esteem and an exaggerated craving for wealth. These character traits came from their parents: Anton and Maria Maslenko purposefully raised their daughter in this way, and, as it turned out later, they used the same technique, cracking down on people they didn’t like - they simply added poison to their food.

The court found Ivanyutina guilty of 20 poisonings, nine of them were fatal. The offender did not admit her guilt in any of the episodes. She only regretted that she had not been able to buy a black Volga.

The attacker's mother and father were sentenced to 13 and 10 years respectively. They ended up in prison. Ivanyutina herself received the highest penalty - execution. The sentence was carried out at the end of 1987. She became the last woman executed in the USSR.