The era of the Russian revolution gave rise to a lot of bright personalities, heroes of their time. Some of them remained in history, the names of others began to be forgotten over time. But few can be on a par with Grigory Kotovsky, a man whose life is shrouded in legends no less than the life of the dashing archer Robin Hood. Actually, "Bessarabian Robin Hood" is one of Kotovsky's nicknames.

Some sculpted a hero out of him, shunning blood and complete nobility, others saw him as a gloomy killer, ready to commit any crimes for money.

Kotovsky was neither one nor the other - his bright personality consisted of an amazing palette of colors, in which there was a place for everything.

Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky was born in the village of Gancheshty, in the family of a tradesman in the city of Balta, Podolsk province. In addition to him, the parents had five more children. Kotovsky's father was a Russified Orthodox Pole, his mother was Russian.

His father was of noble origin, but was forced to move to the bourgeois class. Kotovsky's grandfather participated in the Polish uprising and was repressed, after which his relatives were forced to give up their ancestry so as not to share his fate.

The grandfather's rebellious genes showed up early in Gregory. Having lost his mother at the age of two, and at the age of 16 his father, a young man suffering from stuttering, found himself under the care of godfather and mother, wealthy people.

Gregory was placed in the Kokorozensky agronomic school, having paid the entire board. At the school, Gregory especially carefully studied agronomy and the German language, hoping to continue his studies in Germany.

But at the school, he met and became close friends with a circle of Socialist-Revolutionaries, and quickly became interested in revolutionary ideas. With the injustice of the world, Gregory intended to fight with direct actions. Working after graduating from college as an assistant manager on various estates, he stood up for hired agricultural workers.

Grigory Kotovsky, 1924 Photo: RIA Novosti

“Produces the impression of a completely intelligent person, smart and energetic”

The desire to uphold social justice in Kotovsky was organically combined with the desire to dress beautifully, meet luxurious women, and lead a respectable life. For such a life, funds were needed that could be obtained by criminal means. Kotovsky found a justification for such activities quickly - those whom he robs are the oppressors of the common people, and, therefore, his actions are nothing more than the restoration of justice.

The criminal specialty of Kotovsky was called "sharmer". He possessed incredible charm, easily entered into trust, subordinating the interlocutor to his will. Gregory, not yet out of his youth, broke the hearts of ladies - a strong man, handsome, intellectual, he could get everything he wanted from the weaker sex without resorting to violence.

Having put together his own gang, Kotovsky, with his daring raids, won the glory of the main robber of Bessarabia. Much later, on the eve of the revolution, he was described in police briefings as follows: “He speaks excellent Russian, Romanian and Jewish, and can also speak German and almost French. He gives the impression of a completely intelligent person, smart and energetic. In his treatment, he tries to be graceful with everyone, which easily attracts the sympathy of everyone who has contact with him. He can pretend to be a manager of estates, or even a landowner, a machinist, a gardener, an employee of a firm or enterprise, a representative for the procurement of products for the army, and so on. He tries to make acquaintances and relationships in the appropriate circle ... He stutters noticeably in conversation. He dresses decently and can act like a real gentleman. He loves to eat well and exquisitely ... "

Noble Rogue

In 1904, Kotovsky was going to be called up for the Russo-Japanese War, but he evaded the draft. A year later, he was detained and sent to serve in the 19th Kostroma Infantry Regiment, stationed in Zhytomyr.

Kotovsky, who had deserted from the regiment, created a detachment with which he was engaged in robbery, burning the estates of landowners and destroying promissory notes. Such tactics of Robin Hood gave him the support of the local population, which helped the detachment of Kotovsky.

The authorities were hunting for Kotovsky, he was arrested several times, and, in the end, the robber was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. After going through several prisons, Grigory was transferred to hard labor in Nerchinsk, where he stayed until 1913.

At hard labor, his behavior was considered exemplary, and it was believed that Kotovsky would fall under an amnesty in honor of the 300th anniversary of the house Romanovs. But Gregory did not wait for the amnesty, and once again fled, reaching Bessarabia.

Recovering his senses, he again returned to the old craft, changing, however, attacks on landowners' houses for raids on offices and banks.

High-profile robberies in wartime conditions forced the authorities to intensify their efforts to neutralize Kotovsky.

A group of cavalrymen. In the center - G. I. Kotovsky. Photo: RIA Novosti

A letter to Brusilov's wife and the revolution saved Kotovsky from the gallows

In June 1916 he was wounded and arrested. The Odessa Military District Court sentenced Grigory Kotovsky to death by hanging.

And here the noble robber again demonstrated an extraordinary mind. Since the Odessa Military District Court was under the jurisdiction Commander of the Southwestern Front Alexei Brusilov, Kotovsky began to write letters of repentance to the general's wife with a request to help him. The woman heeded the entreaties of Kotovsky, and under her influence, Alexei Brusilov postponed the execution.

The help of the military leader, who developed and implemented the most successful one, might not have saved Kotovsky if the February Revolution had not taken place after it. The fall of the monarchy changed the attitude of the authorities towards Kotovsky - now he was viewed not as a bandit, but as an irreconcilable "fighter against the regime."

Released in the spring of 1917, the "Bessarabian Robin Hood" again surprised by announcing that he would go to the front. Having deserted from the tsarist army, Kotovsky wanted to serve the new Russia.

On the Romanian front, he managed to receive the St. George Cross for bravery in battle, become a member of the regimental committee, and then a member of the soldiers' committee of the 6th Army.

The army was falling apart, the Civil War began with many political forces warring against each other. Kotovsky, who formed his own detachment, was guided by the Left Social Revolutionaries, who from October 1917 to the summer of 1918 were the main allies of the Bolsheviks.

"Field commander" of the Red Army

In early 1918, Grigory Kotovsky commanded a cavalry group in the Tiraspol detachment of the armed forces of the Odessa Soviet Republic, who fought against the Romanian invaders who occupied Bessarabia.

After the German troops occupied Ukraine and liquidated the Odessa Republic, Kotovsky appeared in Moscow. After the failure of the rebellion of the Left SRs, he joined the Bolsheviks.

After the invaders left Odessa, Kotovsky received an appointment from the Odessa Commissariat to the post of head of the military commissariat in Ovidiopol. In July 1919 he was appointed commander of the 2nd brigade of the 45th rifle division. The brigade was created on the basis of the Transnistrian regiment formed in Transnistria. After the capture of Ukraine by troops Denikin, the Kotovsky brigade as part of the Southern Group of Forces of the 12th Army makes a heroic campaign behind enemy lines and enters the territory of Soviet Russia.

Grigory Kotovsky was not a military leader in the full sense of the word, he, in modern terminology, could rather be called a "field commander." But an excellent cavalryman and an excellent shooter, Kotovsky enjoyed unquestioned authority among his subordinates, which made his detachment a serious force.

By the end of 1920, Kotovsky rose to the rank of commander of the 17th Cavalry Division of the Red Cossacks. In this capacity, he smashed the Makhnovists, Petliurists, Antonovites and other gangs that continued to operate on the territory of Soviet Russia.

The former pre-revolutionary Kotovsky remained in the past. Now he was a successful red commander, and the legends were about his military, not criminal exploits.

Photo: RIA Novosti

Why was the hero killed?

Many veterans of the Civil War could not then join the peaceful life of the country for which they fought. But this was not the case of Kotovsky: the holder of three orders of the Red Banner and an honorary revolutionary weapon fit into Soviet reality. He started a family, had children, he continued to hold important positions in the leadership of the Red Army, in particular, he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR.

The death of Kotovsky became all the more unexpected - on August 6, 1925, the red commander, who was vacationing with his family on the Black Sea coast in the village of Chabanka, 30 km from Odessa, was shot dead by a former adjutant Bears Jap by Meyer Seider. After pleading guilty, Zayder often changed his testimony regarding the motive for the crime, which remained unclear.

The murderer of Kotovsky received ten years in prison, however, after serving two years, he was released from prison for good behavior. But in 1930, Zayder was killed - veterans of the division commanded by Kotovsky dealt with him.

Grigory Kotovsky was buried solemnly, with the participation of the highest ranks of the Red Army. The place of burial was the village of Birzula, the regional center of the Moldavian ASSR, which was part of Ukraine. He received a special honor - for him, as well as for Lenin the mausoleum was built.

In a specially equipped room at a shallow depth, a glass sarcophagus was installed, in which Kotovsky's body was preserved at a certain temperature and humidity. Next to the sarcophagus, three Orders of the Red Banner were kept on satin pillows. And a little further, on a special pedestal, there was an honorary revolutionary weapon - an inlaid cavalry saber.

In 1934, a fundamental structure was erected above the underground part with a small podium and bas-relief compositions on the theme of the Civil War. Just like at the Lenin Mausoleum, parades and demonstrations, military oaths and admission to the pioneers were held here. Workers were given access to Kotovsky's body. In 1935, Birzulu was renamed Kotovsk.

He has no rest

After his death, Kotovsky did not find peace. During the retreat of the Soviet troops in 1941, they did not manage to evacuate the body of the revolutionary legend. The Romanian troops who occupied Kotovsk broke Kotovsky's sarcophagus and abused the remains.

The Mausoleum of Kotovsky was restored in 1965 in a reduced form. Kotovsky's body is kept in a closed zinc coffin with a small window.

The wave of decommunization that is now raging in Ukraine has also not bypassed Kotovsky. The historical name of Podolsk was returned to the city of Kotovsk, and plans for demolition were repeatedly announced regarding the mausoleum. In April 2016, vandals broke into the Kotovsky mausoleum, allegedly with the aim of looting. However, there are no valuables in the mausoleum for a long time, except for a wreath and a portrait of Grigory Kotovsky.

Mausoleum in honor of Grigory Kotovsky in Kotovsk, Odessa region, 2006.

Today is May 20, 2017, Saturday and we decided to publish all the answers to the new game Who wants to be a millionaire. Join us scholars.

Who wants to be a millionaire” Answers May 20, 2017

What is gasoline mixed with in a car carburetor?

Answer options:

A. with water

B. with nitrogen

c. with air

D. with oil

The correct answer is C - with air

What is the difference between Holmes and Watson in the movie "My Dearly Beloved Detective"?

Answer options:

A. these are children

B. it's women

C. are animals

D. it's cities

Correct answer B is women

The only chess player who passed away with the rank of current world champion?

Answer options:

A. Wilhelm Steinz

B. Mikhail Tal

C. Jose Raul Capablanca

D. Alexander Alekhin

The correct answer is D - Alexander Alekhine

What is the name of Andrei Sergeevich Prozorov's wife in Chekhov's play "Three Sisters"?

Answer options:

A. Natalia

The correct answer is A - Natalia

What type of cheese is Suluguni?

Answer options:

A. Solid

C. Pickled

D. fused

The correct answer is C - Pickled

What did Kotovsky arrange at the Odessa Opera House on the day of pardon from the death penalty?

Answer options:

A. banquet

c. auction

D. prayer service

The correct answer is C - auction

Which suit, according to Coco Chanel, ages the most?

Answer options:

A. too poor

B. too rich

C. too bright

D. too dark

The correct answer is B - too rich

What was depicted on the walls of the Moscow Kremlin during the war?

Answer options:

A. tanks and guns

B. house facades

C. portraits of military leaders

D. Hitler cartoons

The correct answer is B - facades of houses

What title was given to the work by the author himself?

Answer options:

A. Moonlight Sonata

B. Girl with peaches

C. divine comedy

D. kiss

The correct answer is B - a girl with peaches

So, today we have Saturday, May 20, 2017 and we traditionally offer you answers to the quiz in the "Question - Answer" format. The questions we meet are both the most simple and quite complex. The quiz is very interesting and quite popular, but we just help you test your knowledge and make sure that you have chosen the correct answer out of the four proposed. And we have another question in the quiz - What did Kotovsky arrange at the Odessa Opera House on the day of pardon from the death penalty?

• banquet
• rally
• auction
• prayer service

The correct answer is C - AUCTION

At first, General Brusilov, in accordance with the convictions of his wife, achieved a reprieve of execution. And then the February revolution broke out in Russia. Kotovsky immediately showed all possible support for the Provisional Government. Paradoxical as it may seem, Minister Guchkov and Admiral Kolchak interceded for him. Alexander Kerensky himself released him by personal order in May 1917. Although before this official verdict, Kotovsky had been walking free for several weeks. And on the day of the pardon, our hero appeared at the Odessa Opera House, where they gave "Carmen", and caused a wild ovation, delivering a fiery revolutionary speech, immediately arranged an auction for the sale of his shackles. The auction was won by the merchant Gomberg, who bought the relic for three thousand rubles. It is interesting that the authorities were ready to pay only two thousand rubles for Kotovsky's head a year ago.

She gave birth to many Soviet heroes. One of them was Grigory Kotovsky. The biography of this man is full of sharp turns: he was a criminal, a front-line soldier and a revolutionary.

Childhood

On June 24, 1881, Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich was born in a small Moldavian village called Gancheshty. A brief biography of this revolutionary cannot do without mentioning his origins. Although Kotovsky was born in a Moldovan village, he was Russian (his father was a Russified Pole, and his mother was born Russian). The child lost his parents early and at the age of 16 was left an orphan.

The young man was taken in by his godfather. This man was rich and powerful. He helped Kotovsky to get an education, sending him to study at the Kokorozensky school as an agronomist. The guardian also paid all living and tuition expenses.

In the criminal world

At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. the revolutionary Russian movement experienced its next upsurge. Grigory Kotovsky could not help but get involved in it. The biography of his youth is full of episodes of meetings and cooperation with the Social Revolutionaries. It was they who instilled in Kotovsky a love of adventure. Among the revolutionaries, the young man decided to abandon the philistine life.

At the same time, he was not a socialist fanatic. Rather, he can be described as a very pragmatic person, not burdened with principles. After graduation, Kotovsky worked for some time as a land surveyor in the Moldavian and Ukrainian provinces. However, the novice specialist did not stay anywhere for a long time. His dreams had nothing to do with thoughts of a brilliant career.

Since 1900, Grigory Kotovsky was regularly arrested for petty crimes. The biography of this man became more and more famous in the underworld of Russia. When the Russo-Japanese War began, Kotovsky, due to his age and health, had to go to the front. However, at first he hid from the draft board, and when he was finally captured and sent to the Kostroma Infantry Regiment, he safely deserted from there.

famous raider

Thus began the life of Kotovsky the raider. He gathered around him a real gang and for several years he was engaged in robberies. It was at this time that the first revolution was blazing in the country. Anarchy and weakness of state power turned out to be only in the hands of criminals, among whom was Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich. The criminal's brief biography was full of episodes of arrests and exiles to Siberia. Each time he escaped from hard labor and returned to Odessa or neighboring provinces.

Such a biography of Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich is not surprising. Despite the fact that criminals and revolutionaries denigrated the tsarist regime and called it "executionary", the penitentiary system of the empire was extremely philanthropic. Exiles and convicts easily escaped from places of detention. Many, like Kotovsky, were arrested several times, and still found themselves at large ahead of schedule.

The last arrest of Kotovsky in Tsarist Russia took place in 1916. For robberies and armed raids on banks, he was sentenced to death. The biography of Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich shows the reader an example of a man who each time calmly got out of the water dry. But now his life was in the balance. The raider began to write letters of repentance to the authorities.

At this time, the First World War was already underway. The Odessa Tribunal tried the place of Kotovsky's arrest. According to military law, he was subordinate to the commander of the nearby front, the famous General Brusilov. He was supposed to sign the death penalty.

Kotovsky was not in vain known for his ability to get out of trouble. With the help of tearful letters, he persuaded Brusilov's wife to put pressure on her husband. The general, having obeyed his wife, postponed the execution of the sentence for a while.

At the front

In the meantime, the year 1917 had already arrived, and with it, they began a mass amnesty for the “victims of the regime” of the tsarist era. Even some ministers, including Guchkov, spoke out for the release of Kotovsky. When Prime Minister Kerensky personally signed the decree on amnesty for the famous raider, he had been organizing carousing in Odessa for several days.

This city was close to the front. Finally, after many years of fleeing from military registration and enlistment offices, Grigory Kotovsky ended up on it. The biography of the former criminal was replenished with regular skirmishes - this time with the Germans and Austrians. For courage at the front, Kotovsky was promoted to ensign and received. In the war, he again became close to the Social Revolutionaries and became a soldier's deputy.

During the years of the civil war

But Grigory Kotovsky did not stay long in the army. The short biography of this man in the Soviet era was best known precisely as an example of revolutionary courage. When the Bolshevik coup took place in Petrograd in October 1917, the ensign found himself at the epicenter of the civil war. Kotovsky was a Social Revolutionary, but at first they were considered allies of the new government.

At first, the former raider fought in a detachment that belonged to the Odessa Soviet Republic. This "state" lasted a few months, as it was soon captured by the Romanian troops. Kotovsky briefly fled to Russia, but a year later he was again in Odessa. This time he was here in an illegal position, since the city had passed into the hands of the Ukrainian government, which was hostile to Soviet power in Moscow.

Later, Kotovsky led an equestrian group. He fought against the armies of Denikin in the south and Yudenich in the north. At the final, the former robber suppressed peasant and Ukrainian uprisings already on the territory that completely belonged to the Soviet government.

Death

During the years of service, Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich met many of the highest Bolshevik leaders. Photos of the revolutionary often got into the communist newspapers. Despite a hazy past, he became a hero. Mikhail Frunze (People's Commissar for Military Affairs) offered to make him his deputy.

However, at that time, Kotovsky did not have long to live. He was shot dead while relaxing on the Black Sea coast on August 6, 1925. The killer turned out to be a member of the underworld of Odessa, Meyer Seider.

The funeral of Kotovsky was attended by the heroes of the civil war and the future marshals of the Soviet Union Budyonny and Yegorov. The deceased was made a mausoleum in the likeness of Lenin (the leader of the world proletariat had died a year before). Kotovsky became a famous character in folklore. In Soviet times, streets, settlements, etc. were often named after him.

Source - Wikipedia

Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich (June 12 (24), 1881 - August 6, 1925) - Soviet military and political leader, participant in the Civil War.
He made a career from a criminal to a member of the Union, Ukrainian and Moldavian Central Executive Committee. Member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR. The legendary hero of Soviet folklore and fiction. Father of Russian Indologist Grigory Grigorievich Kotovsky. He died under unclear circumstances from the shot of his friend Meyer Seider.

Grigory Kotovsky was born on June 12 (24), 1881 in the village of Ganceshty (now the city of Hyncheshty in Moldova), in the family of a tradesman in the city of Balta, Podolsk province. In addition to him, the parents had five more children. Kotovsky's father was a Russified Orthodox Pole, his mother was Russian. On the paternal side, Grigory Kotovsky came from an old Polish aristocratic family, who owned an estate in the Podolsk province. Kotovsky's grandfather was early dismissed for his connections with members of the Polish national movement. Later, he went bankrupt, and the father of Grigory Kotovsky, a mechanical engineer by education, was forced to move to the bourgeois class and go to Bessarabia to work.
According to the memoirs of Kotovsky himself, in childhood he loved sports and adventurous novels. From childhood, he was athletic and had the makings of a leader. He possessed exceptional courage, courage and audacity of character, combined with great personal charm, natural intelligence and dexterity. He suffered from logoneurosis. Lefty. At the age of two, Kotovsky lost his mother, and at sixteen, his father. Grisha's godmother Sofia Schall, a young widow, the daughter of an engineer, a Belgian citizen who worked in the neighborhood and was a friend of the boy's father, and the godfather, the landowner Manuk-Bey, took care of Grisha's upbringing. Manuk-Bey helped the young man enter the Kokorozen Agronomic School and paid for the entire boarding school. At the school, Gregory especially carefully studied agronomy and the German language, since Manuk-Bey promised to send him for "additional education" to Germany at the Higher Agricultural Courses. These hopes were not realized due to the death of Manuk Bey in 1902.

According to Kotovsky himself, during his stay at the agronomic school, he met with a circle of Socialist-Revolutionaries. After graduating from an agricultural school in 1900, he worked as an assistant manager in various landowner estates in Bessarabia, but did not stay anywhere for a long time - he was expelled either for theft, or for a love affair with the landowner, or he hid himself, taking the master's money given to him, by 1904, leading such way of life and periodically getting into prison for petty crimes, Kotovsky becomes the recognized leader of the Bessarabian gangster world. During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, he did not appear at the recruiting station. In 1905, he was arrested for evading military service and assigned to serve in the 19th Kostroma Infantry Regiment stationed in Zhytomyr.
Soon he deserted and organized a detachment, at the head of which he made robbery raids - he burned estates, destroyed debt receipts, and robbed the population. The peasants provided assistance to the Kotovsky detachment, sheltered him from the gendarmes, supplied him with food, clothing, and weapons. Thanks to this, the detachment remained elusive for a long time, and legends circulated about the audacity of their attacks. Kotovsky was arrested on January 18, 1906, but was able to escape six months later from the Chisinau prison. September 24, 1906 - arrested again, and in 1907 he was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor and sent to Siberia through the Yelisavetograd and Smolensk prisons. In 1910 he was delivered to the Oryol Central. In 1911 he was transferred to the place of serving his sentence - to the Nerchinsk penal servitude. In hard labor, he collaborated with the authorities, became a foreman on the construction of the railway, which made him a candidate for an amnesty on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. However, under the amnesty, the bandits were not released, and then on February 27, 1913, Kotovsky fled from Nerchinsk and returned to Bessarabia. Hiding, working as a loader, laborer, and then again led a group of raiders. The activity of the group acquired a particularly daring character from the beginning of 1915, when the militants switched from robbing private individuals to raiding offices and banks. In particular, they committed a major robbery of the Bendery Treasury, which brought the entire police of Bessarabia and Odessa to their feet. This is how Kotovsky was described in a secret dispatch received by district police officers and heads of detective departments:

He speaks excellent Russian, Romanian, and Jewish, and can also speak German and almost French. He gives the impression of a completely intelligent person, smart and energetic. In his treatment, he tries to be graceful with everyone, which easily attracts the sympathy of everyone who has contact with him. He can pretend to be a manager of estates, or even a landowner, a machinist, a gardener, an employee of a firm or enterprise, a representative for the procurement of products for the army, and so on. He tries to make acquaintances and relationships in the appropriate circle ... He stutters noticeably in conversation. He dresses decently and can act like a real gentleman. He loves to eat well...
On June 25, 1916, after the raid, he could not escape the chase, was surrounded by a whole squad of detective police, was wounded in the chest and arrested again. Sentenced by the Odessa Military District Court to death by hanging. On death row, Kotovsky wrote letters of repentance and asked to be sent to the front. The Odessa Military District Court was subordinate to the commander of the Southwestern Front, the illustrious General A. A. Brusilov, and it was Brusilov who had to approve the death sentence. Kotovsky sent one of his letters to Brusilov's wife, which had the desired effect.

At first, General Brusilov, in accordance with the convictions of his wife, achieved a reprieve of execution. And then the February Revolution broke out. Kotovsky immediately showed all possible support for the Provisional Government. Paradoxically, Minister Guchkov and Admiral Kolchak interceded for him. Kerensky himself released him by personal order in May 1917. Although before this official verdict, Kotovsky had been walking free for several weeks. And on the day of the pardon, our hero appeared at the Odessa Opera House, they gave "Carmen", and caused a wild ovation, delivering a fiery revolutionary speech, immediately arranged an auction for the sale of his shackles. The auction was won by the merchant Gomberg, who bought the relic for three thousand rubles. It is interesting that the authorities were ready to pay only two thousand rubles for Kotovsky's head a year ago.

After receiving the news of the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne, a riot broke out in the Odessa prison, and self-government was established in the prison. The provisional government announced a broad political amnesty.

Member of the First World War
In May 1917, Kotovsky was conditionally released and sent to the army on the Romanian front. Already in October 1917, by decree of the Provisional Government, he was promoted to ensign and awarded the St. George Cross for bravery in battle. At the front, he became a member of the regimental committee of the 136th Taganrog Infantry Regiment. In November 1917, he joined the Left SRs and was elected a member of the Soldiers' Committee of the 6th Army. Then Kotovsky, with a detachment devoted to him, was authorized by Rumcherod to establish new order in Chisinau and its environs.

Civil War
In January 1918, Kotovsky led a detachment that covered the retreat of the Bolsheviks from Chisinau. In January-March 1918, he commanded a cavalry group in the Tiraspol detachment of the armed forces of the Odessa Soviet Republic, who fought against the Romanian invaders who occupied Bessarabia.
In March 1918, the Odessa Soviet Republic was liquidated by the Austro-German troops who entered Ukraine after a separate peace concluded by the Ukrainian Central Rada. The Red Guard detachments leave with battles for the Donbass, then for Russia.
In July 1918 Kotovsky returned to Odessa and was here in an illegal position.
Several times he is captured by the whites. He is being smashed by the anarchist Marusya Nikiforova. Nestor Makhno is trying to achieve his friendship. But in May 1918, having escaped from the Drozdovites, he ended up in Moscow. What he did in the capital is still unknown to anyone. Either he participated in the rebellion of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and anarchists, or he suppressed this rebellion ... But already in July Kotovsky was back in Odessa. He makes friends with no less Odessa legend - Mishka Yaponchik. Jap, by the way, saw him as his own and treated him as a well-deserved godfather. Kotovsky pays Mishka in kind. In any case, he supports Yaponchik when he seizes power over the entire local criminal world. On April 5, 1919, when parts of the White Army and the French invaders began to evacuate from Odessa, Kotovsky quietly removed all the money and jewelry from the State Bank on three trucks. The fate of this wealth is unknown.
With the departure of the French troops, on April 19, 1919, Kotovsky received from the Odessa Commissariat an appointment to the post of head of the military commissariat in Ovidiopol. In July 1919 he was appointed commander of the 2nd brigade of the 45th rifle division. The brigade was created on the basis of the Transnistrian regiment formed in Transnistria.
After the capture of Ukraine by Denikin's troops, the Kotovsky brigade, as part of the Southern Group of Forces of the 12th Army, makes a heroic campaign behind enemy lines and enters the territory of Soviet Russia.
In November 1919, a critical situation developed on the outskirts of Petrograd. The White Guard troops of General Yudenich came close to the city. Kotovsky's cavalry group, along with other parts of the Southern Front, is sent against Yudenich, but when they arrive near Petrograd, it turns out that the White Guards have already been defeated. This was very useful for the Kotovites, who were practically incompetent: 70% of them were sick, and besides, they did not have winter uniforms.
In November 1919, Kotovsky fell ill with pneumonia. From January 1920 he commanded a cavalry brigade of the 45th Infantry Division, fighting in Ukraine and on the Soviet-Polish front. In April 1920 he joined the RCP(b).
From December 1920, Kotovsky was the commander of the 17th Cavalry Division of the Red Cossacks. In 1921 he commanded cavalry units, including suppressing uprisings of the Makhnovists, Antonovites and Petliurists. In September 1921, Kotovsky was appointed commander of the 9th Cavalry Division, in October 1922 - commander of the 2nd Cavalry Corps. In Tiraspol in 1920-1921, in the building of the former hotel "Paris", the headquarters of Kotovsky was located (now - the headquarters museum). In the summer of 1925, People's Commissar Frunze appointed Kotovsky as his deputy. Grigory Ivanovich did not have time to take office.

Murder
Kotovsky was shot dead on August 6, 1925, while on vacation at the state farm Chebanka (on the Black Sea coast, 30 km from Odessa) by Meyer Seider, nicknamed Mayorchik (Mayorov), who in 1919 was Mishka Yaponchik's adjutant. According to another version, Zayder had nothing to do with military service and was not the adjutant of the "criminal authority" of Odessa, but was the former owner of the Odessa brothel, where in 1918 Kotovsky was hiding from the police. Documents in the case of the murder of Kotovsky were classified.
Meyer Seider did not hide from the investigation and immediately announced the crime. In August 1926, the killer was sentenced to 10 years in prison. While in prison, he almost immediately became the head of the prison club and received the right to freely enter the city. In 1928, Seider was released with the wording "For exemplary behavior." He worked as a train operator on the railroad. In the autumn of 1930, he was killed by three veterans of the Kotovsky division. The researchers have reason to believe that the competent authorities had information about the impending murder of Zayder. Zayder's liquidators were not convicted.

The funeral
The Soviet authorities arranged a magnificent funeral for the legendary commander, comparable in scope to the funeral of V.I. Lenin.

The body arrived at the Odessa railway station solemnly, surrounded by a guard of honor, the coffin was buried in flowers and wreaths. In the columned hall of the district executive committee, "wide access to all workers" was opened to the coffin. And Odessa half-mast mourning flags. In the quartering towns of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, a salute of 20 guns was fired. On August 11, 1925, a special funeral train delivered the coffin with the body of Kotovsky to Birzulu.

Odessa, Berdichev, Balta (then the capital of the AMSSR) offered to bury Kotovsky on their territory.
Prominent military leaders S. M. Budyonny and A. I. Yegorov arrived at the funeral of Kotovsky in Birzula, and the commander of the Ukrainian military district, I. E. Yakir, and one of the leaders of the Ukrainian government, A. I. Butsenko, arrived from Kyiv.

Mausoleum
The day after the murder, on August 7, 1925, a group of embalmers headed by Professor Vorobyov was urgently sent from Moscow to Odessa.
The mausoleum was made according to the type of the mausoleum of N. I. Pirogov near Vinnitsa and Lenin in Moscow. On August 6, 1941, exactly 16 years after the murder of the commander, the mausoleum was destroyed by the occupying forces.
The mausoleum was restored in 1965 in a reduced form.

Awards
Kotovsky was awarded the St. George Cross of the 4th degree, three Orders of the Red Banner and the Honorary Revolutionary Weapon - an inlaid cavalry saber with the sign of the Order of the Red Banner superimposed on the hilt.

Family
Wife - Olga Petrovna Kotovskaya, after Shakin's first husband (1894-1961). According to the published testimonies of her son, G. G. Kotovsky, Olga Petrovna, originally from Syzran, from a peasant family, a graduate of the medical faculty of Moscow University, was a student of the surgeon N.N. Burdenko; As a member of the Bolshevik Party, she volunteered for the Southern Front. She met her future husband in the autumn of 1918 on the train, when Kotovsky was catching up with the brigade after suffering from typhus, and at the end of the same year they got married. Olga served as a doctor in Kotovsky's cavalry brigade. After the death of her husband, she worked for 18 years in the Kiev district hospital, as a major in the medical service.
There were two children. Son - Indologist Grigory Grigoryevich Kotovsky (1923-2001), during the Great Patriotic War, lieutenant, commander of an anti-aircraft machine-gun platoon. Daughter Elena Grigorievna Kotovskaya (by her husband Pashchenko) was born five days after the death of her father, on August 11, 1925. Philologist, worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature at the Kiev State University.

Interesting Facts
TSB (Great Soviet Encyclopedia) in an article about G. I. Kotovsky reports that in January - March 1918, Grigory Ivanovich commanded the Tiraspol detachment. In fact, the Tiraspol detachment was commanded by Yevgeny Mikhailovich Venediktov, who also headed the Second Revolutionary Army for a short time.
In 1939, in Romania, Ion Vetrila created the revolutionary anarcho-communist organization "Haiduki Kotovsky".
When Soviet troops occupied Bessarabia in 1940, a police officer was found, convicted and executed, who in 1916 caught Grigory Kotovsky, the former bailiff Hadji-Koli, who in 1916 performed his official duty to catch a criminal. As Kotovsky's biographer Roman Gul noted, "only the Soviet judicial system could sentence a person to death for this 'crime'."
Three Orders of the Red Banner of War and the honorary revolutionary weapon of Kotovsky were stolen by the Romanian troops from the mausoleum during the occupation. After the war, Romania officially transferred the awards of the Kotovsky USSR. The awards are stored in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow.
A shaved head is sometimes called a "Kotovsky haircut".
In 2005, a prisoner from the Chisinau prison repeated the escape from Kotovsky's cell, dismantling the brickwork.
The Odessa authorities were going to erect a monument to Kotovsky on Primorsky Boulevard, using the pedestal of the monument to Duke de Richelieu for this, but subsequently abandoned these plans.