The glory of the Great strategist from the novels of Ilf and Petrov, who presented himself in the local executive committees as the son of Lieutenant Schmidt, fades before the "feats" of Veniamin Borisovich (Borukhovich) Vaisman. Ostap Bender looks like an innocent child, even with a cursory acquaintance with the "track record" of the most outrageous swindler of the Soviet Union of the post-war period. Judge for yourself, on his account 27 (twenty-seven) deceived ministries, a completely legally acquired apartment in Kyiv, many years of state support in the form of material assistance: money, food, fuel, fabrics and other goods that were in short supply at that difficult time.
How? How?! How could representatives of the highest echelons of the party and economic bodies of the country trust this swindler? What words did Weissman find in order to break through the armor of nomenklatura significance and plant a seed of sympathy in the very soul of the Stalinist ministers, hardened by the war and the class struggle? The answer is obvious: criminal talent, backed up by an intuitive knowledge of psychology, plus outstanding acting skills. But first things first.
Start
Weissman's life is surrounded by legends. What is true and what is fiction is still difficult to say. The fraudster lied so enthusiastically that it is not possible to separate the truth from the fables.
Venya Vaysman was born in 1914 in the city of Zhytomyr into a very respectable Jewish family. Father, as later and sister Benjamin, were engaged in science. The boy showed a tendency to bad habits even in childhood. He went to his first "case" at the age of nine. Stole a gold pocket watch from his own father. Thus began a career as a pickpocket.
By profession a plucker
Weissman chose pickpocketing as his specialty. Going hunting, he looked out for careless citizens, and with deft fingers he took his prey out of his pockets. However, it is difficult to call Venya lucky. According to available data, he was repeatedly caught, from 8 to 13 times (here the information varies). In childhood and adolescence, the clever crook was sent to juvenile detention centers - shelters and orphanages, from where he quickly escaped. But Weissman received the real term at the age of nineteen. In 1933, Venya was closed for three years, he became a convict for the first time. By the way, today few people remember that the abbreviation ZK in the early 30s of the last century meant “prisoned canal soldier” - the prisoners built the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Later, the geographical reference was erased and all the guests of the Gulag began to be called convicts.
Benjamin did not leave his habit of escaping even “on an adult”. Theft hunted until the end of the Great Patriotic War. In 1944, Weissman served a short term in the Pechora ITL. Out of habit, he decided to make an escape and chose winter time for this, counting, in all likelihood, that the rivers would rise and he would leave on ice. In prison jargon, a risky venture is called "go into the ice" (in the summer - go into the mosses).
However, for every plus there is a minus. The fugitive left the dogs and the chase, but got lost, wandered through the taiga for three days in a 40-degree frost and seriously frostbitten his legs. Going out to the apartment, he asked for help and immediately ended up on the operating table, where he was amputated with both feet and, according to some sources, the left hand, according to others - only the little finger. Gangrene set in, and if there were no doctor in the village, Vaisman's fate would have been much sadder.
The fugitive-loser turned himself in to the authorities and did not even earn an additional prison term. The treated recidivist remained imprisoned until the end of the war, until the decree of 07/07/1945 "On amnesty in connection with the victory over Nazi Germany" was issued.
So Veniamin Vaysman in the fall of 1945 returned home to the Moscow region, to a family where his wife Anna and two small children were waiting for him. Yielding to the exhortations of his wife, he got a job at the factory. However, honest work and everyday existence turned out to be an unnatural state for the inveterate pickpocket, and the criminal genius opened a new page in his biography.
The Great Manipulator: The Filigree Art of Deception
Each crook tells heartbreaking stories about himself. Sentimentality is a mandatory component of the psyche of a criminal. So Venya Vaisman wanted to feel and look like a kind person. Having come up with a scheme for obtaining benefits from the ministries, Veniamin Borisovich justified himself with a righteous desire to take revenge on high-ranking Soviet officials. According to his version, one of the civil servants pushed him, a helpless invalid, and did not even apologize or help him to his feet. From that moment on, the talent of Venya Zhytomyrsky was revealed in full glory.
After the war, there were many crippled people in the country. And no wonder. Wounded and frostbite soldiers, victims of bombing and shelling among the civilian population. Benjamin joined this stream and presented himself no less than twice Hero of the Soviet Union, a participant in the battle for Berlin. Familiar counterfeiters made him imitation awards, including two gold stars. Unknown accomplices, whom he never handed over during the investigation, produced the necessary documents, including a permit to carry firearms - a premium pistol.
Getting a peat machine (for residential heating) was a trial step. Then the swindler got a taste. He went from institution to institution, introducing himself as Kuznetsov, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, a participant in the capture of Berlin. According to legend, being a tanker, he burned in a tank, saved the crew, but he himself lost both legs. The swindler also introduced himself as Rabinovich, Trakhtenberg, Oslon, and his real name was Weissman.
There were difficult times in the country, and it was not so easy to reach out to the conscience of officials, to achieve their location. This is where an intuitive understanding of psychology came in handy. The false hero touched the deepest strings of conscience. Most of the officials did not take part in the hostilities. And here, in front of them, a decapitated tanker, a direct participant in the battles, an invalid of the great war. Despite the injury, he is clean-shaven, combed, neatly dressed, clearly takes care of himself and does not give up. How not to help? And they gave out: money, food, firewood, manufactured goods.
In most cases, Weissman used a two-way combination. First, he applied to the party committee (up to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks), where they did not give material benefits, but provided the front-line hero with letters of recommendation. With these solid papers, Venya Zhitomirsky went to ministries and organizations in Moscow, Kyiv, and other cities of the country .
In a short period from March 1946 to June 1947, Weissman managed to deceive 27 higher executive authorities (there were about 50 all-Union ministries in the country at that time), get over 56,000 rubles for his hands, an apartment in Kyiv and a huge amount of industrial goods and food .
Among the victims of the legless rogue was the Ministry of the River Fleet (Minister Zosima Shashkov personally issued the Guard Captain Vaysman 4,500 rubles of material assistance, a men's suit, women's clothes and shoes). The tanker said that before the war he worked as a minder on the Amur.
In the Ministry of Agriculture, Weissman introduced himself as a former tractor driver, in the Coal Ministry as a miner, and in the Metallurgical Department as a welder. By the way, in 1945, the amnestied Weissman worked at the plant for several months and became a qualified turner, so he knew firsthand the nuances of production.
He visited academician Sergei Vavilov, the son of a researcher, and told about the hard fate of disabled front-line soldiers. On the letterhead of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academicians Vavilov and Bardin wrote a letter of recommendation to the Prosthetic Institute, where in December 1946 the hero of the Berlin offensive was given excellent prostheses. Getting used to them, the swindler allowed himself the New Year holidays. During January, he successfully squandered almost all the money earned in 1946 in restaurants and on katrans, having managed, however, to buy a house for his wife Anna, who raised his two children.
In February 1947, Weissman returned to "work". He managed to pull off two of the biggest scams - to get an apartment on Khreshchatyk from the funds of the Kyiv Regional Party Committee and to furnish it at the expense of the USSR Ministry of Forestry. Weissman came to the minister's appointment with a note from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which obliged him to help a veteran who had worked hard in logging before the war as a tractor driver. Venya, who had been slurping gruel in the North for several years, knew the specifics of labor at the logging site thoroughly and was extremely convincing in a conversation with the minister.
Here the fraudster would have to moderate his ardor, lay low in his first apartment, but the appetite comes with eating. Vaisman's relative Inna Oslon later recalled that life without risk was like food without salt for him. They say that it was at Weissman that the authors of the script for the film “The meeting place cannot be changed,” the Weiner brothers, overheard this phrase. Elder brother Arkady Vainer (1931 - 2005) in his youth worked as an investigator in the Moscow police, headed the investigative department.
It was quite difficult to catch the scammer. Restless Venya did not sit still. The rebellious soul demanded a change of scenery and he changed his place of deployment several times a month, moving from city to city. In addition to the Kyiv apartment, confiscated after the trial in 1947, he, like a true vagabond, did not acquire any property, although he touchingly took care of his wife Anna and two sons.
Venya Zhytomyrsky had huge money in his hands at that time, but he carelessly lost it at cards, distributed it to friends and random girlfriends. During the investigation, he did not say who helped him straighten the documents, made fake awards, and also bought stolen goods. This behavior provided Weissman with authority in prison and in the zone.
Benjamin was lucky that he was arrested in the summer of 1947, even before the launch of a massive campaign against cosmopolitans, which had a clear anti-Semitic connotation. Wise Wiseman for another year, and he had every chance of getting charged under the political 58th article and earning 25 years or the death penalty.
No matter how the rope twists ...
At receptions with ministers, the sentimental Venya not only pressed on pity, but also deftly wove well-known names into the thread of his narrative. Calling for the help of officials, the "hero" Kuznetsov, as if by chance, mentioned his personal acquaintance with Vasily Stalin. So, in a conversation with the Minister of Aviation Industry Mikhail Khrunichev (the largest rocket-building plant in Fili is named after him today), he outlined the aviation interpretation of his front-line legend. Allegedly, Vasily Stalin saved his life in an air battle.
The minister provided assistance, but during a personal meeting with the son of the leader, he mentioned the visit of Kuznetsov-Vaisman. It turned out that Vasily Iosifovich did not know any Kuznetsov. The hot-tempered offspring of the leader was in a good mood that day, laughed merrily at Khrunichev's story, the incident for our hero remained without visible consequences.
However, in the spring of 1947, clouds clearly gathered over the state-scale swindler. Police investigators systematized disparate information about similar cases of fraud in different departments and were amazed at the scale of the scam. There is information that the Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Serov reported personally to Stalin about the clever swindler. The details of the report and the reaction of the leader of the peoples are unknown.
Weissman was taken during a second visit to the Ministry of Heavy Engineering on June 2, 1947. Minister Alexander Efremov wrote out 2,000 rubles to the petitioner, but noticed inconsistencies in the story of the “welder from Uralmash” and called the right person. Weissman was "received" right at the ministry's cash desk.
The trial proceeded behind closed doors, and the case file was classified due to the involvement of a large number of high-ranking officials. In addition to the Kyiv Regional Committee and the foresters, the three affected departments included the Ministry of Food Industry, where Vaisman managed to get 9,000 rubles in cash and a huge number of food orders.
The cynicism of such thefts in the hungry post-war years was undeniable, but the sentence, taking into account the ominous "decree of seven or eight", was passed not the maximum - not 15, but only 10 years in the camps for the theft of socialist property.
The nomenklatura swindler rewound the term from bell to bell. Neither Beria's amnesty for criminals in March 1953 (the article and the circumstances were difficult) nor the rehabilitation of political prisoners under Khrushchev helped. The recidivist Weisman was not recognized as a prisoner of conscience.
Quiet old age
Having been released, the 44-year-old Weissman again tried himself in the role of a pickpocket and ... failed miserably. Another story of detention happened at the station. The disabled Weissman helped two drunken citizens get into the station restaurant. The time was later and in stores, according to the laws of that time, alcohol was no longer available. Having friendly embraced one of the wards, Venya pulled out 450 rubles from the inside pocket of his jacket.
Having discovered the loss, the victims of the fraud raised a fuss, the railway police intervened, and during a search, the stolen money was found in the invalid's prosthesis. A law enforcement officer identified the swindler by the old references, and the swindler, sighing heavily, signed a sincere confession.
The court showed indulgence to the repentant invalid, and he received a minor sentence.
Having been released again, by that time already seriously ill with tuberculosis, Veniamin Vaisman turned to the MUR for help. He promised not to return to the criminal past. He was assigned for permanent residence in a sanatorium in the Orenburg region.
Until now, there is a version that he exposed the fraud of the leadership of the House of Disabled People, but there are doubts about this. On the one hand, the thief was “zapadno” to cooperate with the police, on the other hand, it was the detectives who provided him, a helpless one-legged cripple, with full support when the diseases finally overcame the worn-out organism.
It is known that at the end of his life Vaisman was transferred to another sanatorium - to Grozny. There he died in 1969. The administration could not find the relatives of the deceased swindler for a long time, and the body, in the end, was transferred to the hospital for experiments. When Vaisman's niece finally arrived in Grozny, neither the body nor the ashes were handed over to her. As a result, a unique situation arose, generally characteristic of the adventurous life of Veniamin Borisovich Vaisman. A tablet with his name and years of life is installed at the cemetery in Kyiv on the family grave, where his parents, Borukh Natanovich and Polina Markovna, are buried. But the ashes of their unlucky son are not with them.
Was it or wasn't it?
What is true in the life of Veniamin Vaisman and what is fiction is still not known. This was partly facilitated by the inspired eloquence of the fraudster himself. After all, he was incredibly convincing in his stories. Weissman's name is immortalized in the Museum of the History of the Internal Affairs of Moscow. They write about him for 50 years after his death, make documentaries and feature films. Not the most successful thief, but an incredibly witty swindler became an excellent prototype for detective writers.
Magazine "Alfavit", No. 38, 2000.
All roads lead to the station. It was this opinion that the Orekhovo-Zuyevsky legless disabled person held when he hobbled to the entrance to the Kursky railway station of the capital on two prostheses. This ordinary event happened on October 2, 1956.
The unfortunate invalid dragged along two drunkards, who had not been allowed into the station before. Employees of the State Design Institute "Electrotrest" - an engineer and a senior technician. For the service, drunken colleagues - before entering the building - promised a kind of bribe to the voluntary conductor.
Once in the station building, the disabled person received the requested twenty-one rubles, the walnut-hawker put his arms around the senior technician. And - deftly pulled four hundred and fifty rubles from the inside pocket of his jacket. However, he immediately discovered the loss.
The offender immediately tried to sneak away, but no such luck. The designers got him. Realizing that he was in trouble, the thief decided to cheat and began to shout that he, an invalid of the Great Patriotic War, was being "robbed."
At that moment, a foreman of militia Shulga was passing nearby, who detained the "robbers". The foreman also brought the "victim" to the duty room of the police station.
- I am a disabled veteran. Now I do what I can: I work as a shoemaker in an artel of the disabled. I'm not being lazy, look at my hands and see for yourself, - the walnut-bearer turned to the police officer who was on duty.
Yes, listen, - the engineering and technical workers got excited. - It was not we who robbed the disabled person, but, on the contrary, he stole a large amount of money from us - as many as four hundred and fifty rubles.
The sergeant-major, who arrived only at the end of the conflict, nevertheless took the side of the disabled person.
In addition, comrade on duty, - the foreman Shulga reported in a purely official way, - I searched the disabled person, but I did not find any money from him.
However, Major V. Makeev, on duty, acted wisely: he decided to more thoroughly identify the "victim" himself. Therefore, the invalid was sent to the police drive room. And Makeev advised the "robbers" to write a detailed statement about the theft of four hundred and fifty rubles from them.
Entering the drive room, the major demanded that the invalid show his documents. He handed the officer his passport.
So-so. So you are Vaisman Veniamin Borisovich, born in 1914. You live in Orekhovo-Zuevo. Your last name reminds me of something, - the duty officer said puzzled.
Finally Makeev remembered:
Yeah. In the past, you, Veniamin Borisovich, were twice Hero of the Soviet Union, right?!
Weissman did not deny this, and Makeev became convinced that he had in his hands an almost legendary swindler. Somehow, in the capital's museum of criminology, a police officer drew attention to a stand where Weissman's art was reflected.
From the age of nine, Weissman traded in pickpocketing. Subsequently, the matured "shchipach" - a native of the city of Zhytomyr - alternately operated in different regions of the country, visiting Kyiv, Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, Mariupol, Sverdlovsk and other cities.
Sometimes thieves' luck turned away from the Zhytomyr "pocket pull master", which is why he was repeatedly judged. Moreover, under different "pseudonyms": there were five of them - Trachtenberg, Oslon, Zilberstein, Rabinovich and Kuznetsov.
But he was addicted to hitting the run for a long time. For example, serving a ten-year term in Nizhne-Amurlag since 1937, he fled from there in September 1942. During the next escape, in the forty-fourth, Weissman ran into disability. Lost both legs. Because of frostbite.
In October 1945, having been released from the Northern Pecherlag, the crippled professional pickpocket decided to switch to fraud.
The purposeful disabled person studied the nature of the profile work of the ministries, their main departments and head enterprises; he learned the names of responsible workers, whom he later involved in a fraudulent whirlwind.
The ex-convict posed as twice Hero of the Soviet Union, sought an appointment with the ministers and their deputies. Artistically presenting his own "crystal honesty", Veniamin Borisovich, before an audience with nomenklatura officials in each of the ministerial reception rooms, defiantly handed over to the secretaries supposedly his nominal military weapon.
To compassionate ministers and their closest associates, Weissman presented himself to the guards as a captain of tank troops who had been injured during the capture of Berlin. And, as if by the way, he complained that now he, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, had to live in poverty without a normal livelihood.
The leaders were not stingy. The disabled were helped with both money and manufactured goods.
The rogue was taken for "their own" in twenty-six allied departments. Even the Committee for Arts under the Council of Ministers of the USSR did not recognize the deceiver.
The gullible ministerial elite, who were easily outflanked by the swindler, indulged his growing needs. From now on, Veniamin Borisovich drove up to the facades of respectable departments in one or another state-owned car.
Bearing in mind that earlier in the Ministry of Heavy Machine Building of the USSR he had already been favored and received 1200 rubles as financial assistance, "his man" went here on June 2, 1947 ... However, here the swindler was finally caught red-handed - "when trying to get fraudulently" 2000 rubles. benefits. During the arrest, Vaisman was seized from the firearms he had purchased from underground dealers in "barrels" - a loaded pistol of the "DUO" system.
Thus ended the capture of the swindler.
Upon further investigation, it turned out that Veniamin Borisovich caught the largest amount of money "lifting" in the Ministry of Food Industry, having grown rich here by nine and a half thousand rubles. In total, in 1946-1947, the swindler fished out 56,000 rubles from ministries and other state institutions, and even a whole mountain of manufactured goods.
The request made by the MUR to the award department of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR completely debunked the heroic myth of the disabled person. He was forced to confess to all crimes.
True, later the swindler began to feign quiet insanity. However, by a forensic psychiatric examination, Weissman was declared sane ...
But back to the Kursk railway station.
Sighing, Makeev looked straight into the cunning man's eyes:
If I'm not mistaken, you've been judged nine times already. And from places of detention they fled, like, seven times.
The disabled person was subjected to a more thorough personal search: crumpled banknotes were found in the right prosthesis - the ill-fated four and a half hundred rubles.
The officer on duty conducted an official interrogation, trying to get clarity from the detainee - a "truthful and logical answer": whose banknotes are these?
I was drunk, so I can’t explain how this money got into my prosthesis, ”Veniamin Borisovich continued to darken. - But please consider that I am Weissman. Big scammer. And I would never go for such a petty theft ...
Weissman received his three years in prison.
It would seem, why remember such criminal "cases of bygone days"? And it has to. It is known that our shortcomings are the continuation of our virtues. In this case, we are talking about the costs of kindness, compassion, trust.
Inna Oslon's article about Venedikt Weissman:
If you go to Moscow and get to the Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, then among other exhibits you can see a photograph of a young man with an explanatory caption "Veniamin Weissman. The famous swindler of the 30s."
His former presence in this world is also noted in one of the Kyiv cemeteries, where Boris Natanovich and Polina Markovna Vaisman are buried in the same fence. There is also a plate on which is engraved "V. B. Weissman. 1914-1969." This is their son, only there is not even a handful of his ashes in the grave - the scammer Weissman again outwitted everyone.
Something about him can be found on the Internet - I stumbled upon this information by accident and was extremely surprised - and he lived for a long time, and what does modern Russia care about him. He is portrayed as a cunning Jew who excelled in his craft. Nevertheless, the virtual space reported something new about him: sometimes the famous fraudster Weissman was called by other names, including mine. “And what did it take into his head to take the name of his sister’s first husband? Isn’t fantasy enough?” - I am ironically indignant in hindsight, but, remembering his bright life against the backdrop of dull Soviet reality, I step back and forgive him.
I also learned that a memorandum to the Cannibal himself was drawn up about his activities. I don't know what to say here. After all, he is not a political criminal.
He died a natural death, if such a death can be called his own, in a home for tuberculosis invalids, in the North Caucasus, I think, in Grozny, when this name did not say anything special to either the mind or the heart. The province - and only - there is nothing formidable in it. When the telegram came about his death, my grandmother, his own sister, feared for her bad heart, and my mother went to bury him. At the institution, she was told that she had arrived late, that they had not kept corpses for so long, and that the body of the deceased, legless disabled person Vaisman had already been given to science - in an anatomy. (Well, who will say now that he has always been a useless member of society?) My mother told my grandmother that she had buried her.
Vaisman's living space was the entire territory of the former Soviet Union, especially the generously scattered prisons and camps in which he spent a long time if he did not escape, and there were many escapes for him, no less than in his time for the same Cannibal.
From the shoots, in fact, his conscious life began. He ran away from home many times as a child. Great-grandfather, an excellent teacher, who had 60 other people's children in his lessons, his mouth open so that a flying fly could easily be visited by anyone, he could not raise his own son, and this tormented him all his life. The legend says that the great-grandfather turned to either psychologists or psychiatrists, and they told him that his son was not all right - there were not enough restraining centers. Oh, I doubt it. What kind of psychologists and psychiatrists are there in Uman and Cherkassy, then almost small towns? Rather, I believe that he turned to the belt. The family was quite decent and stable, as far as life in those years can be called stable. Perhaps this is an example of the perniciousness of maternal pampering, when they loudly admire how a small curly-haired child reads poetry in front of guests, how many poems she remembers, how well she knows arithmetic? The child was indeed very smart and capable. The great-grandmother gave birth to him at the already ripe age of 19, when she was quite ripe for motherhood, not like her first child, my grandmother, at the age of 15, whom she did not perceive due to her childhood. But who was not spoiled by a Jewish mother in childhood? This is not yet a reason to take the path of criminal life.
It is rather a passion for escape as such, escape as a way of existence, when the dry crust that still needs to be obtained is more expensive than home-made shortcakes, when sleeping in a freight car is more interesting than in your own bed. This is not to be understood by those for whom the most favorite moment of any organized trip is to finally get to your slippers, cups and blankets. But there are those among us for whom a measured life is contraindicated, and heroes, and criminals, and travelers, and clochards come out of them. And they will never be retrained as building managers, building managers are from a different human type.
I don’t know how the criminal career of the curly handsome Veniamin began, but his specialization was determined pretty soon - fraud, but not petty and pitiful, as described in the Internet certificate, but large, carnival, on a grand scale, Ostapbender. It always seemed to me that the hero of Ilf and Petrov was at least partially written off from him, although chronologically the opposite is true: the favorite of readers, Ostap, did not learn Latin even in the royal gymnasium, and Veniamin Vaisman did not want to take advantage of the already Soviet education. And to the same extent that the son of a Turkish subject, he understood the methods of socialist management and turned them in his favor. The great-grandfather (who at one time fled across the Dniester in order not to fall into Romanian subjects), who at that stage of his life believed in socialism and became a fairly well-known journalist, sternly renounced his son and never spoke about him. The great-grandmother secretly sent parcels to her son. Of course, the great-grandfather knew about it, but pretended not to know, - the man, after all, denied it - so he denied it. (Then he himself, at the age of seventy, will sit in the Mordovian camps - for politics, but who knows his future?)
After another term of imprisonment, the prodigal son came to the house of one of his relatives, a meeting was arranged, Benjamin played the guitar, sang songs and romances (he had a wonderful voice, and he was very artistic, as is necessary in his profession), and great-grandmother wiped tears with the edge of the handkerchief, especially when her favorite heartily performed Yesenin's "Are you still alive, my old lady?", And she believed, believed, believed that her son would still be corrected, and everything would be fine.
I vaguely remember music and crutches, and between them - not ironed, but not too wrinkled trousers of the inexpressive color of wet asphalt. I don’t remember the upper half of the body at all - probably I was still a very small child, lost among adult legs.
Yes, at some stage in his career, he came to his relatives on crutches, without legs. His legs were either shot during the escape, or he frostbitten them during the escape, they had to be amputated. A wart or the absence of a certain amount of hair on the head prevents others from loving and being loved, but the absence of legs did not interfere with Benjamin. With or without legs, he was the conqueror of a variety of women who sent parcels to him from all over the country to the camps, and these women, by no means criminals, were ready to share his fate with him.
And he married a modest Russian girl, Anya from the Moscow region, and lived with her for quite a few years, if only a stay in places not so remote can be counted in the experience of family life. In any case, Anya's grandmother recognized her as a relative and maintained a correspondence with her for a long time, and somehow one of his sons, Felix, came to visit - a modest young man who trained as a cook, very far from his father's hectic life.
Acquaintance with Anya at first did not pursue any love goals. The fact is that Anya worked at the railway station and walking along the platform with her, during which he looked not so much at Anya as on the way, made it possible to get closer to the intended goal - the hijacking of the train.
Yes, he stole trains too. And sometimes he had crazy money, which he immediately lowered into cards, generously gave away to friends, tossed right and left and was left with nothing. When he became attached to Anya and found out how poor her family lives, he bought her for relatives at home. Yes, and it is somehow difficult to imagine that, once having stolen the composition, one can then exist as a rentier, on a percentage of the capital. Indifferent to money, but not indifferent to the adventure, to the process, to the creative flight, he reminds me of Ostap Bender, the same great schemer. Law enforcement authorities recognized him as talented. Once, when the grandmother was once again called to the police, the investigator told her: "Here you are, probably, a smart woman." "Well, I'm a chemist, candidate of sciences, assistant professor," the grandmother was embarrassed. “So know that your brother is a hundred times smarter than you,” he turns such figures in his mind, turns such machinations, “and writes nothing, nothing,” the investigator could not hide his admiration.
Yes, if a person is talented, then in many ways. Anya bore him two sons. The sons grew up and, together with their mother, began to persuade their father to take up his mind and take the path of righteousness. He listened, entered the factory and very quickly became a first-class turner. By the way, and earned quite well, without risking anything. Portrait on the Board of Honor. They almost represent the Order of Labor, but realized it - with such and such a biography? This gave the sons an extra argument in the struggle for their father's soul and their own and their mother's quiet life. They appealed to the fact that the pope quickly gained respect as an honest worker - whether there would be more if he continued his factory career.
Nothing succeeded. Risk was a vital vitamin for Veniamin Vaysman, and he decided for himself that it was enough to grind the details, it was time to grind the next thing. He did not try more respectable life.
What remained after him were not things, but poems, either in Yiddish or in Hebrew, I don’t remember now, only the “Jewish column” is spinning in my head (maybe this is a type of versification, a genre?) And some experts supposedly recognized that poetry is brilliant. Too bad it's lost. What if he was Francois Villon of the era of socialist realism?
(c) Alphabet
(c) Inna Oslon
Weissman had a family in Orekhovo-Zuevo, a wife and two children. The cripple returned to them in 1945. He worked a little at the factory, where he got a job at the tearful requests of his wife. But the thieves' essence nevertheless took its toll - Weissman again set to his old ways. True, for this I had to “change suit” and retrain as a fraudster.
In 1946, Venya Zhitomirsky in Moscow. Somewhere I bought an award book twice Hero of the Soviet Union and turned into a captain of tank troops, an invalid of the Patriotic War, who lost his health in fierce battles - 7 orders and 3 medals on his chest! According to a legend invented by Weissman the "tanker", the false captain fought in the tank corps of General M. Katukov, and received his severe wounds when his T-34 was knocked out of a faustpatron in the battles for Berlin.
In the post-war period, it was easier to get an appointment with a minister of federal significance than now with the head of a district administration. Therefore, it is not surprising that the doors of the ministries and departments of the USSR for the recidivist swindler Venya Vaysman turned out to be wide open.
The investigation and the court then established that Venya Zhitomirsky had scammed representatives of about 20 ministries of the Soviet Union. Somewhere he seemed to be a crippled tank captain, but, for example, at a reception with the Minister of the River Fleet of the USSR, not just a war hero turned out to be in a makeshift wheelchair - "a former minder of the Amur River Shipping Company." The swindler deftly mimicked taking into account the specifics of this or that ministry.
As a result of his successful frauds with stories about "the children of Lieutenant Schmidt", the ministers allocated money to Weissman - from 2 or more thousand at a time, and also the fraudster was endowed with various kinds of manufactured goods that were scarce in the post-war period - cuts of fabrics, men's suits, underwear and even ... shoes - the legless crook received shoes, felt boots, galoshes, children's boots with women's shoes ...
In the ministerial voyage, the roles of Veniamin Vaisman changed like gloves - he appeared before high officials in the images of a “minder of a timber industry enterprise”, a “livestock technician”, a “meat-packing factory worker”, a “miner”, a “gas-electric welder”, a “chauffeur” ...
He was convicted 10 times, escaped from prison 8 times. During the last of the escapes, he got lost in the forest and froze both legs. In those years, justice was very lenient towards criminals. It was understood that the thieves and revolutionaries came from the same poor environment. Weissman, with his stumps instead of legs, was simply released from the camp home. Having received the first group of disability and returning to freedom in October 1945, he could no longer engage in his professional activities.
According to Vaisman, once a prominent Soviet civil servant, hurrying to work, pushed the disabled Vaisman so that he fell, and did not even apologize. After that, Weissman decided to take revenge. He went to the ministries, presented himself as a fellow soldier of Vasily Stalin and asked for money, clothes, food, housing. Among the people's commissars deceived by him were the people's commissar of the river fleet of the USSR Zosima Shashkov, the people's commissar of the forest industry of the USSR Mikhail Saltykov and many other prominent political figures of that time.
The two stars of the hero Weissman wore were made by counterfeiters.
The difficulty in capturing Weissman was that, having no personal property, he traveled all over the country, constantly changing his location.
Vaisman was arrested while trying to deceive the Minister of Heavy Industry of the USSR Alexander Efremov, since I.V. Stalin personally intervened in the matter, demanding the speedy capture of the criminal, in connection with which the relevant directives were sent to the Ministries describing Vaisman's signs. He was sentenced to 9 years in prison. After serving his term, he personally came to the MUR and declared that he was no longer going to steal. Weissman kept his promise. Investigators helped Vaisman get a job at the House of Invalids in the Orenburg region, where he ended his life, simultaneously imprisoning the leadership of the House for fraud.
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- A. Tarasov// Alphabet. - 2000. - No. 38.
- . Site "Criminal Russia".
An excerpt characterizing Weissman, Veniamin Borisovich
– Please, tell us, Sever! It will help us cope and give us strength. Tell me what you know my friend...The North nodded, and we again found ourselves in someone else's, unfamiliar life... In something lived long ago and abandoned in the past.
A quiet spring evening was fragrant with southern scents before us. Somewhere in the distance, the last glare of the fading sunset was still blazing, although the sun, tired of the day, had long since set to have time to rest until tomorrow, when it would again return to its daily circular journey. In the rapidly darkening, velvet sky, unusually huge stars flared up brighter and brighter. The surrounding world was sedately preparing itself for sleep... Only sometimes somewhere the offended cry of a lonely bird could be heard, which could not find peace in any way. Or from time to time a sleepy bark disturbed the silence by the call of local dogs, thus showing their vigilant vigil. But the rest of the night seemed frozen, gentle and calm ...
And only two people were still sitting in the garden, enclosed by a high clay wall. They were Jesus Radomir and his wife Mary Magdalene...
They saw off their last night... before the crucifixion.
Clinging to her husband, laying her tired head on his chest, Maria was silent. She wanted to tell him so much more!.. To say so many important things while there was still time! But I couldn't find the words. All the words have already been said. And they all seemed pointless. Not worth those last precious moments... No matter how hard she tried to persuade Radomir to leave a foreign land, he did not agree. And it was so inhumanly painful!.. The world remained as calm and protected, but she knew that it would not be the same when Radomir left... Without him, everything would be empty and frozen...
She asked him to think... She asked him to return to his distant Northern country, or at least to the Valley of Magicians, in order to start all over again.
She knew that wonderful people were waiting for them in the Valley of Magicians. All of them were gifted. There they could build a new and bright world, as Magus John assured her. But Radomir didn't want to... He didn't agree. He wanted to sacrifice himself so that the blind could see... This was exactly the task that the Father had placed on his strong shoulders. The White Magus... And Radomir did not want to back down... He wanted to gain understanding... from the Jews. Even at the cost of his own life.
None of the nine friends, loyal knights of his Spiritual Temple, supported him. No one wanted to give him into the hands of the executioners. They didn't want to lose him. They loved him too much...
The inventive Veniamin Vaisman (Venya Zhitomirsky) managed to deceive 27 USSR ministers. His remarkable acting talent and charm helped him in this.
Joseph Stalin himself had heard a lot about this legless swindler and closely followed the progress of the investigation of his crimes. And in the MUR Museum, Vaisman even has a personal stand.
Faktrum tells the reader about the incredible scams that Veniamin Weissman did in the USSR.
Criminal talent since childhood
Veniamin Borisovich Vaisman was born in 1914 in Zhitomir. From a very young age, he showed his thieving talent by stealing a gold watch from his father at the age of nine. After that, he began to earn a living by pickpocketing, for which he ended up in children's colonies for short periods as many as nine times. And every time he managed to escape from there.
After coming of age, Venya Zhitomirsky, as he was nicknamed by his "colleagues" in the criminal world, began to go to bigger cases. He climbed into shops and apartments, and once even managed to steal a whole carload of valuable goods. In 1934, he was sentenced to 10 years for repeated thefts.
Fateful escape from the colony
In 1944, a Zhytomyr swindler was serving his sentence in a colony in Pechory and decided to escape from there. He managed to do this: on a fierce frosty night, Benjamin escaped from the territory of the colony and fled into the forest. They could not find him for several days, and all this time the thief was alone in the forest. There he froze his legs and was forced to go out to the people.
Weissman came across a village and went to the local paramedic. He gave him a disappointing diagnosis - incipient gangrene of the extremities. The doctor had to amputate Veniamin Weisman both feet and fingers on his left hand. After that, he returned to the colony, but already in 1945 he was released under an amnesty.
Cooler than Ostap Bender
Once in the wild, the legless swindler began to think about how he and his wife and sons should live on. The law-abiding life was not for him, therefore, having raised his connections in the criminal world, Weissman took up the old ways. He managed to straighten his documents proving that he was at the front and lost his legs there. Weissman also managed to order two medals of the Hero of the Soviet Union from counterfeiters.
The Soviet swindler deftly adjusted to the circumstances. He came to the Ministry of the River Fleet under the guise of a minder of a river shipping company, to the Ministry of the Coal Industry - as a miner who had been in the war, to the Ministry of Forestry - as a lumberjack. Coming to a meeting with ministers, Weissman was called by other names. he was both Rabinovich, and Trachtenberg, and Oslon. But most often he called himself Veniamin Kuznetsov.
Pressing on pity and masterfully playing the role of a war hero, Vena Zhitomirsky managed to break the big jackpot. Bypassing 27 different ministries, he managed to get 56,000 rubles - an incredible amount for those times. Also, Vaisman was willingly given various new men's and women's clothing, provided with stationery, fabrics and products.
The biggest jackpot and the failure of a swindler
In 1947, Veniamin Vaysman managed to get into the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and talk with the head of the department of leading personnel. He allocated a "disabled person and twice hero of the USSR" a large apartment in Kyiv. Venya Zhytomyrsky did not stop there and, having appeared at the Ministry of the Forestry Industry, asked for furniture to be allocated to him. He was not refused, and Weissman, in addition to brand new interior items, also got hold of a large sum of money.
After this case, Weissman returned to Moscow and went to an appointment with the Minister of Aviation Industry Khrunichev. He introduced himself to him as a friend and fellow soldier of Vasily Stalin himself - the son of the leader. After this visit, in one of the conversations with Stalin's son, Khrunichev mentioned his famous fellow soldier. And it turned out that Vasily Iosifovich had never even heard of such a person. Somewhat later, rumors reached Stalin, who ordered the swindler to be found.
In 1947, Venya Zhitomirsky was finally captured. He was caught in the Ministry of Heavy Engineering, where Weissman came for the second time. Complaining to Minister Kazakov about his difficult financial situation, he became the owner of a check for 2,500 thousand rubles. They took him to the cash desk of the ministry, where he went for cash. Veniamin Weissman was convicted of fraud and given nine years in prison.
Having honestly served the allotted time, Veniamin came to the MUR and asked to be placed in some kind of House for the Invalids, vowing to forever tie up with scams. Surprisingly, they believed him and assigned him to the House of Invalids in the Orenburg region. There, a daring schemer and an incredibly successful swindler died in 1969.
