Fake military unit. Military construction business of "Colonel" Pavlenko

Nikolay Pavlenko. Photo from voen-sud.ru

The regular army is considered one of the main types of bureaucracy in the history of mankind, and sociologists consider the organization of military service a model for the effective administration and coordination of a huge number of people. But it was precisely in this environment of total accounting of each military unit in the USSR that an incident occurred that has no analogues in the world: from 1942 to 1952, the People's Commissariat of Defense, the General Staff, the headquarters of several fronts and military districts did not suspect the existence of a fictitious military construction unit formed by a deserter with advanced assistant to the head of the engineering service of the 2nd rifle corps Nikolai Pavlenko.

From 1942 to 1952, the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff, the headquarters of several fronts and military districts did not suspect the existence of a fictitious military unit formed by a deserter. Until now, the question remains how this could happen in the conditions of total accounting of each unit.

Pavlenko was born in 1908 in the village of Novye Sokoly, Ivankovsky district, Kyiv region, where his father owned several mills. In 1930, the Soviet authorities "dispossessed" a wealthy family and exiled them to Siberia. Two years earlier, Pavlenko left his parental home and thus avoided the fate of his loved ones. For several years he worked in Belarus as a road builder at Glavdortrans, after which he entered the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Belarusian State Polytechnic Institute. At the same time, Pavlenko hid his origin from a repressed family. When, after a request from the institute's personnel officers to the Ivankovsky district, the threat of exposure loomed over the sophomore, he hastily left Minsk in an unknown direction.

In 1935, Pavlenko showed up in the city of Efremov, Tula Region, where he took shape as a foreman in a road construction organization. But after some time he was detained on suspicion of regular postscripts and theft of building materials. In the pre-trial detention center, he came to the attention of the NKVD state security officers. They offered the defendant "to help the authorities in exposing the anti-Soviet conspiracy" in the regional construction department. He agreed and gave "testimony" about the counter-revolutionary activities of the engineers of the institution Volkov and Afanasyev. After that, Pavlenko was released and helped to get a job at one of the enterprises of Glavvoenstroy. In the new field, Pavlenko, who has extensive experience in road work, was first appointed foreman, he soon became a senior foreman, and then he was entrusted with the position of head of the construction site. Of course, they did not know about his role as an NKVD informer in the team.

"Mission Possible

On the fifth day of the war, June 27, 1941, Chief Military Construction Officer Pavlenko, mobilized into the army, was appointed assistant chief of the engineering service of the 2nd Rifle Corps in the Western Special Military District. In the course of heavy defensive battles near Minsk and further retreat, the corps suffered huge losses and on July 24, 1941, the bloodless units were withdrawn to the Gzhatsk region (now the city of Gagarin, Smolensk region). Pavlenko received a new appointment in the spring of 1942: to the airfield construction department of the headquarters of the emerging 1st Air Army of the Western Front. But Pavlenko left the previous place of service, but did not arrive at the new one. Together with him, the truck with the driver Shchegolev also disappeared.

And soon Pavlenko and Shchegolev appeared in the city of Kalinin (now the city of Tver). At one time, after fleeing from the Minsk Polytechnic University, the former student spent some time in the regional center and worked in the local artel "Plandorstroy". He managed to acquire numerous acquaintances here, and some of them have now been restored. In addition, former artels in the city of Klin were found Kalinin region and Solnechnogorsk near Moscow. Pavlenko shared with his most trusted friends and acquaintances his plan - to create a fictitious military-construction organization and, under its cover, take government contracts and make good money on it. The idea seemed impossible to Pavlenko's accomplices, but he without hesitation began to implement it .

The name for the "military unit" - the Department of Military Construction (UVS) - was invented by Pavlenko himself. In those days, the "management" consisted of several people, a car stolen by Pavlenko and Shchegolev, and a pair of horses and wagons. First of all, Pavlenko began to acquire fake annual paraphernalia - round seals, corner stamps and various letterheads. Several thousand forms for a certain bribe managed to be clandestinely produced in the city printing house. Variable seals with the inscriptions "Military Construction Department", "Military Works Department", "Military Construction Works Section", as well as stamps, were skillfully cut by the swindler Ludwig Rudnichenko, who joined Pavlenko. Subsequently, he participated in the manufacture of fake passports, service certificates and other documents. It was not difficult to equip the accomplices to whom Pavlenko "assigned" officer and sergeant ranks: the local flea market was flooded with uniforms. Relations were also established with some employees of the clothing factory named after Volodarsky and the Kalinin regional industrial cooperation. For the "headquarters" they adapted an empty building on a quiet street.

It's easier to get lost at the front than at the rear

The legalization of the Pavlenkovites as part of the Red Army proceeded surprisingly smoothly. When Pavlenko made a risky attempt to appear at the regional military commissariat with a request to send non-combatant service soldiers discharged from hospital No. 425 FEP-165 (front-line evacuation center) after recovery to serve in the UVS, the military commissar signed the statement prepared by the "head of the UVS" and certified by a fake seal. Soon, soldiers and sergeants began to appear in the self-proclaimed department, who actually served in the Red Army. And from the military commandant's office of the city, military personnel who had fallen behind their units were sent to the UVS "for further service".

The UVS concluded the first contract for construction work with the same evacuation center. It was not without a bribe to the head of the station, military doctor Bidenko. It was also possible to receive orders for road and construction works from the civil authorities of the city destroyed by the war. The money was transferred to the UVS account opened at the local branch of the State Bank on the basis of fictitious documents. They went to feed the rank and file and allowances for the "officers", and the lion's share went into the pocket of Pavlenko and his entourage. At the same time, the so-called head of the UVS did not skimp on bribing officials of the military and civil administration.

Toward the end of 1942, Pavlenko increasingly began to think about the future fate of the "management". He understood that it was easier for a military construction organization not on the lists of units of the Armed Forces of the USSR to get lost at the front than in the rear. On the other hand, Pavlenko did not want his "army" to be in the immediate vicinity of the front line. But the enterprising "colonel" was already building far-reaching plans in his head related to the emerging turning point in the course of the war in favor of the USSR, and he successfully resolved the dilemma that had arisen. In the autumn of 1942, when the Kalinin Front was disbanded, Pavlenko managed to achieve the "attachment" of the UVS (now the UVR - the Department of Military Works) to the 12th Aviation Base Area (RAB) - the rear structure of the 3rd Air Army. And field airfields, as you know, were arranged at a distance from the front line and were constantly transferred after the advancing ground forces. On the way to the border of the USSR, Pavlenko's people earned about a million rubles under contracts in the liberated areas.

Pavlenkovtsy, whose number by the end of the war already reached 300 people, advanced after the air army to East Prussia. The administration, overgrown with a fleet of construction equipment and vehicles, was engaged in equipping runways, shelters for aircraft and dugouts for pilots, access roads. They worked conscientiously: Pavlenko controlled the quality of work tightly. But in the activities of the Pavlenkovites, most of whom were criminals, deserters, persons hiding from mobilization, gathered under the flag of a fictitious military unit, there was another side.

Rob, don't build

As the investigation in the criminal case of Pavlenko and his closest assistants would later establish, at the final stage of the war on the territory of Poland and Germany, under the legend of collecting trophy weapons (false prescriptions and certificates were used), the Pavlenkoites were engaged in robberies of property. In total, as it was possible to establish, about 80 horses, at least 50 cattle, a large number of pigs, about 20 trucks and cars, up to 20 tractors and tractor trailers, as well as a large number of electric motors, motorcycles and bicycles were taken from the German population. , radios and accordions, sewing machines, carpets, hunting weapons, flour, sugar and cereals. Part of the loot was immediately sold in neighboring areas for gold jewelry and other valuables. When information about the atrocities of the Pavlenkovites began to seep outside the UVS, Pavlenko staged a demonstrative "trial" of three marauders. In court, he tried to interpret this fact in his favor. "In order to strengthen discipline, on my orders," he said, "Koptev, Mikhailov, and another one were shot - I don't remember their names..."

But in court it was proved that the robberies were carried out on the instructions of Pavlenko. He also organized the export of material values ​​to the USSR. The "Colonel" managed to negotiate with representatives of the Department of Clothing and Carriage Supply of the Red Army and the Soviet military commandant's office of the city of Stuttgart on the allocation of a train of 30 railway cars - allegedly for the return of "personnel of the unit" with construction equipment to their homeland. In fact, a whole herd of cows, a herd of horses, several cars, 10 trucks, 5 tractors, motorcycles and other equipment, a large number of bags of sugar, cereals and flour were loaded into the carts. On the way home in Poland and Belarus, several trophy trucks and tractors, 12 cows, about 20 horses were sold. The Pavlenkovites preferred gold as a unit of account. The sale of the loot continued in the settlements of the Kalinin region and the Tula region.

The stolen goods were also used to bribe officials. Thus, the Tula Regional Military Commissar Rizhnev was "gifted" a captured passenger car for assistance in placing a "unit" in the Shchekino region. When almost all the property taken out of Germany was sold, Pavlenko decided to "demobilize" the personnel and liquidate the UVS. In 1946, in a solemn ceremony, he distributed cash bonuses to all his subordinates (by that time, about 3 million rubles had accumulated in the organization’s account and Pavlenko kept more than half a million in cash), in addition, many received part of the “trophy” property. Then the "father-commander" presented government awards. Back in Germany, as Sergei Gromov, senior investigator for especially important cases under the USSR Prosecutor General, who took part in the investigation of this unique criminal case, recalled, Pavlenko compiled award lists for almost all participants in the pseudo-military organization, and the head of the air base area, Lieutenant Colonel Tsyplakov, with whom "Colonel" developed mutually beneficial relations, procured from the higher command more than two hundred orders and medals for airfield builders. Pavlenko awarded himself three orders.

By that time, Pavlenko had already started a family, bought a house in Kalinin and returned to the Plandorstroy artel, where he was unanimously elected leader. But the indefatigable nature of the businessman prevented him from sitting still: in 1948, he decided to return his brainchild - a military construction organization - to life in peaceful conditions.

On the trail of a fictitious military unit, government bonds were brought

In the fall of 1952, Klim Voroshilov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, received a letter from the city of Lvov from a certain Efremenko, who, according to him, works as a civilian "at the construction site of the Military Construction Department No. 1." He complained that the leaders collected money from civilian employees to purchase government bonds, but the bonds themselves were issued for a smaller amount. The letter was sent for verification to the military prosecutor's office of the Carpathian military district. The fact of fraud with liquid securities was confirmed, but the audit showed that the military construction organization headed by engineer-colonel Pavlenko Nikolai Maksimovich was not included in the district troops, which the investigators reported to the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office.

In the GVP, in turn, they asked the Ministry of Defense for information on the deployment and subordination of the military construction unit, referred to as "UVS". A discouraging answer came from the ministry: there is no such organization in the staff of the Armed Forces. There was an assumption that a particularly secret military facility was being built on the territory of the border military district, but the Ministry of State Security officially assured the prosecutor's office that they had nothing to do with this construction organization. And the answer from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the request of the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office stated that citizen Pavlenko Nikolai Maksimovich was on the All-Union wanted list on suspicion of embezzlement in 1948 from the cash desk of the Kalinin artel “Plandorstroy” 339,326 rubles.

After the interrogation of workers and employees of the Lvov "UVS-1 construction site" and the seizure of all documents, the deployment of the "headquarters" of a fictitious military unit was established - the capital of the Moldavian SSR, Kishinev, and then - construction sites in Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The headquarters in Chisinau was no different from the headquarters of the military units of the Armed Forces. Gates with red stars, guard duty, post No. 1 at the "unit's banner", conducting combat training and political studies according to the daily routine. During the operation in Chisinau, 9 machine guns, 21 carbines, 3 light machine guns, 19 pistols and revolvers, 5 grenades and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition, 13 round seals and stamps, a lot of false passports, service certificates, forms were seized.

Weapons and ammunition confiscated during a search at UVS. Photo from voen-sud.ru

Chekists and law enforcement officers of these republics participated in the detention of the organizers and participants of the scam, the scale of which was amazing, and the prosecutor's offices of many regions of the USSR and departmental oversight bodies were involved in the investigation. In total, during November 14, 1952, more than 300 people were detained throughout the country, of which about 50 so-called officers, sergeants and privates. Pavlenko, who lay down on the bottom, was arrested on November 23. In the criminal file there is a verbal portrait of the "colonel" made by one of the arrested: "He is of medium height, a plump figure, almost fat, wears glasses with black trim, gray hair, a shaved head, brown eyes, a large belly." The warrant for the arrest of Pavlenko No. 97 was signed by the Deputy Minister of State Security of the Moldavian SSR, Lieutenant Colonel of the State Security Service Semyon Tsvigun, in the future - Deputy Chairman of the KGB of the USSR. During a search in Pavlenko's office, brand new epaulettes of a major general were found; he intended to "assign" this title to himself in the near future.

The UVS park consisted of 32 vehicles, 6 tractors, 2 excavators. The criminal case began to be replenished with materials labeled "Top Secret", which listed dozens of "enterprises and organizations that entered into economic relations with the construction sites of UVS-1." Among them are the Lvovugol and Zapadshahtostroy trusts, the Zolochiv Mine Administration of the Ministry of the Coal Industry of Ukraine, SMU-2 of the Belkhladstroy trust of the Ministry of the Meat and Dairy Industry of Belarus, the Chisinau Gratiesty winery, the Tiraspol winery, UNR-193 of the Ministry of Construction of Machine Building Enterprises and many other customers.

It has been established that in total, the criminals only for the period from 1948 to 1952 concluded 64 contracts with state institutions and departments for a total amount of more than 38 million rubles. Accounts UVS-1 were opened in the 21st branch of the State Bank of the USSR, through which more than 25 million rubles were cashed. Most of this money ended up in the pockets of Pavlenko and his accomplices.

The investigation also established that on the territory of the Moldavian SSR, the Pavlenko group involved in its activities the Minister of Food Industry Tsurkan and his deputies Azariev and Kudyukin, the first secretary of the Tiraspol city committee of the Lykhvar party, the secretary of the Balti city committee Rachinsky (their cases were considered at a meeting of the Bureau of the Communist Party of Moldova: deputy ministers were fired, party functionaries got off with reprimands). Among those who were drawn into the orbit of Pavlenko's criminal activity, representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, military commissars and military representatives of enterprises, officials of banking institutions and commanders of military units also appear in the case.

The investigation into the criminal case No. 0098-53, swollen to 146 volumes, was conducted for 2 years, the indictment was transferred to the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District. The trial, which began on November 10, 1954, took 5 months. During this time, two lawyers of the main person involved in the case were taken to the hospital with a heart attack. Pavlenko and his closest accomplices (a total of 17 people) were charged with crimes under articles 58-7 (undermining the economic power of the state), 58-10 (anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda) and 58-1 (counter-revolutionary activities) of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, but under the last two articles the court acquitted Pavlenko.

The announcement of the verdict lasted several weeks and ended on April 4, 1955. . It, in particular, stated that "both in terms of the severity of the crimes committed and insincerity before the court, the defendant Pavlenko does not deserve leniency, and there are no extenuating circumstances in his case." Pavlenko, on the basis of the totality of the crimes committed, was sentenced to capital punishment - execution, with the confiscation of his personal property. The remaining defendants were sentenced to imprisonment for terms ranging from 5 to 20 years with loss of rights and confiscation of property. Volunteers who were not privy to the true background of the UVS were not subjected to criminal prosecution.

In accordance with the law in force at that time, the verdict against all those convicted under Article 58-7 was final and was not subject to cassation appeal.

The Pavlenko family remembered his daughter Alla, received a death notice with a dash in the column "Causes of death". The daughter always remembers her father in bright colors, and his son Oleg invariably refused to discuss this topic.

"I did a lot for the Victory..."

At the trial, Pavlenko pleaded not guilty to undermining the economic power of the state. "I did a lot for the Victory ..." - he said. This point of view shares and economist Mark Massarsky, who in 2009 stated: "I think that if an economic verdict is to be issued, then it should be:" Not guilty! that the UVS built a lot and well, drew attention to the serious ordinary crimes committed by Pavlenko: "Of course, he is a criminal from the point of view of the law."

The question of why the ten-year existence of a fictitious military unit became possible is still open. Military expert, former state security officer Dmitry Okunev thinks that Pavlenko is an agent of the NKVD, and draws attention to the fact that the construction team received small arms precisely with the permission of the state security authorities under the pretext of protecting road workers of the UVS in Western Ukraine from attacks by Bandera. Other researchers of this story argue that Pavlenko was able to convince others that the construction of roads is a cover, the main, strategic, the activities of his UVS are strictly classified. This version was supposed to be supported by the presence in the administration of a "special department", which was headed by Yuri Konstantiner, Pavlenko's brother-in-law.

Top Secret: The Case of the Fake Military Unit October 28th, 2011

In 1942, the USSR fought fierce battles with the enemy in all military directions.

It was also restless in the rear, the NKVD and SMERSH, other military intelligence services, all military propaganda called on the people to be vigilant. Who would have thought that in this harsh time, riddled with general suspicion, a whole network of swindlers dressed in military uniforms acted brazenly and with impunity in the rear of the Soviet state.

He created a fake military unit - a deserter of the Red Army, Captain Pavlenko, a man of outstanding talents and with an adventurous character. After staying at the front for several months, Nikolai Pavlenko fled from the front and settled in the rear, getting a job as the chairman of a construction artel in the city of Tver using forged documents.

He knew the construction business well - he studied at the Civil Engineering Institute, and practiced at Glavvoenstroy, where he carefully studied the entire bureaucratic mechanism. Among the workers of the artel was a previously convicted swindler who specialized in the manufacture of stamp seals and false documents. In 1942, Pavlenko came up with the idea - using fake documents, to create a military unit - the Office of Military Construction Works No. 5.

So Nikolai Pavlenko became a fake military engineer of the 3rd rank, a major, in military terminology. Other "military personnel" soon appeared. The crook awarded officer ranks to his accomplices. But to carry out the criminal plan, a labor force was required - soldiers and sergeants. To fill his own unit with human reserves, Pavlenko sent fake letters to nearby hospitals demanding that the wounded and those who had fallen behind their military echelons be sent directly to his unit. They did not hesitate to take deserters. So, the military unit was overgrown with people, many of whom did not even suspect that they were serving in the "fake" troops.

The swindlers ordered all forms, certificates, certificates of military personnel from the printing house, giving large bribes. Military uniforms were received in a warehouse, officers' uniforms were sewn in a military atelier. But it was not enough to have a uniform and people, it was necessary to provide them with work in order to hide behind it for their dark deeds. And Pavlenko, using his outstanding talent as a diplomat, began to negotiate with military organizations, knocking out contracts for the construction of road facilities.

They believed him unconditionally. The swindler's sociability worked wonders, he won over the secretaries of high offices, and bottles of expensive vintage cognac and boxes of American sweets drowned the hearts of any commanding staff. But the false administration could not exist on its own - and Pavlenko achieved the incredible by bribing the leadership of the 12th RAB (air-based area), his "Administration" joined the army aviation unit as a construction support service. Combined arms emblems on the shoulder straps of soldiers were replaced by aviation wings, and Pavlenko became a "lieutenant colonel" with unlimited influence.

By that time, his “part” already numbered about two hundred people. Together with the aviators, Pavlenko's Office crossed the Soviet border and began to operate in Poland and Germany. The soldiers of the Pavlenko gang, in addition to construction work, did not disdain to rob the civilian population - for which the harsh "commander" shot two marauders in front of the ranks. Pavlenko knew that any alarm signal could ruin the entire organization, but the office, the backbone of which consisted of criminals and deserters, was gradually decomposing.

Meanwhile, the scams continued. For a bribe, Pavlenko received from the military representatives of the USSR Ministry of Defense a whole echelon (30 wagons) of various products, which he then profitably resold, embezzling the money for himself. According to false documents about military exploits, the fake lieutenant colonel knocked out more than 230 state awards for his accomplices for his unit, not forgetting to reward himself. So Pavlenko appropriated two Orders of the Patriotic War, I and II degrees, the Order of the Red Banner of War, the Order of the Red Star, and military medals.

After the war, when counterintelligence began to take a closer look at the rogue builders, Pavlenko hastily reorganized the fake military administration, demobilizing unsuspecting soldiers and officers.

And he himself, from people close to himself, created the civil artel "Plandorstroy", gaining contracts for the restoration of cities and villages that suffered from the Nazi invaders. But it turned out that you won’t earn much on civil contracts, and Pavlenko, taking with him a cash desk of 300 thousand rubles, fled.

The brilliant "military past" required new exploits. In 1948, Pavlenko found his head of "counterintelligence" Yuri Konstantiner, with a light hand awarded him the rank of "major" and created a new military organization, which he called "Military Construction Department No. 10 (UVS-10)".

A young and charming colonel, an order bearer, appeared in civilian organizations in military uniform with shoulder straps and made a strong impression on the leadership of urban organizations with his confident manners, the ability to easily establish contacts and the large bribes that he gave at the conclusion of each transaction. Using fictitious accounts, UVS-10 opened settlement accounts and construction sites. Pavlenko paid mere pennies to ordinary "soldiers", huge sums of money went into his pocket and the pockets of his accomplices. In addition, a lot of money was spent on bribes to high-ranking officials. The Pavlenko organization created many construction sites, the Pavlenkovites operated in the center of Russia, in Ukraine, in Estonia and in Moldova.

With the money earned, the fraudster bought more than 40 trucks and cars, graders, horses and other vehicles. Under the guise of protecting construction sites from Bandera, Colonel Pavlenko received 25 rifles, 8 machine guns, 18 pistols from the MGB regional departments, armed the guards of his headquarters, which he did not register anywhere. The organization grew, and the discipline in the wild army left much to be desired. Pavlenkovtsy drank, rowdy, outdated shootouts with each other. "Officers" did not hesitate to deceive their subordinates.

Such behavior of the "Soviet officers" played into the hands of the Estonian and Ukrainian nationalists, who said: People, look, here they are, the occupiers of our long-suffering land, hiding behind shoulder straps, sowing lawlessness and terror!

Civilian construction workers of the military administration also complained - the authorities collected money from them for a military loan, but the bonds were not issued. All this has not gone unnoticed. Signals were poured into the surrounding departments of the MGB and transmitted higher up the chain of command.

Pavlenko's army was destroyed by another drunken brawl of his "officers". The police arrested two drunken construction officers who staged a pogrom in a restaurant in Chisinau, the prosecutor's office sent a request to Moscow, from which a stunning answer came back: such a military unit does not exist. The Ministry of State Security of the USSR joined the case, the investigation was headed by a man with sinister fame, General Semyon Tsvigun, who instilled fear in bribe-takers and swindlers.

The Chekists decided that the "military unit" was a carefully disguised sabotage unit of foreign intelligence. But after an unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the unit or recruit its employees, a decision was made - in one day to cover the entire network at once. And on November 14, 1952, the troops of the USSR Ministry of State Security blocked the military bases of the "fake" Directorate, headquarters and other units of Pavlenko and arrested about 400 people.

The patrons and high-ranking friends of Pavlenko were also among those arrested - the Minister of Food Industry K. Tsurkan, his deputies Azaryev and Kudyukin, the first secretary of the Tiraspol CC CP (b) M V. Lykhvar, several managers of industrial banks, the secretary of the Beltsy CC CP (b) M L. Rachinsky and many others. Two and a half years of investigation resulted in dozens of volumes of the criminal case. The damage from the activities of Pavlenko was calculated - it amounted to 38 million 717 thousand 600 Soviet rubles. At the same time, it was noted that Pavlenko's employees really built roads and road facilities of excellent quality.

At the trial, the failed general said: "I never set out to create an anti-Soviet organization." And further stated. "I assure the court that Pavlenko can still be useful and he will contribute to the organization of work ..."

However, the verdict of the tribunal of the Moscow Military District on April 4, 1955 was severe: "Colonel" Pavlenko was sentenced to capital punishment - execution, and sixteen of his "officers" - to imprisonment for a period of 5 to 25 years.

The case and the verdict were labeled "Especially Secret". The Soviet authorities could not admit that in the very heart of the European part of the Soviet socialist state a whole secret network of crooks and thieves in army uniform nestled.

So far, only rumors, legends and tales have circulated about this case - for half a century it was hidden in the archives of the Moscow District Military Court. The correspondent of "MK" became the first journalist who raised unique materials from under a bushel.

10 years in the Soviet Union - and even in Stalin's times! - the fake military-construction unit of the Ministry of Defense worked. "Ghost" changed its name, but in court it was most often called UVS - the military construction department. The organizer of this "syndicate", pseudo-colonel Nikolai Pavlenko, turned over millions. And all these years he built roads. Some of them you probably had a chance to ride.

The investigation went on for two years. The defendants were 17 people - the backbone of a criminal organization, in the orbit of which more than three hundred citizens were involved. Many did not even suspect that they were working in a thieves' structure...

Armed and undercover

What is criminal - a man created: he built military facilities, residential buildings, access roads and highways, restored the national economy destroyed by the war. And he did it, judging by the materials of the criminal case, quite well. Moreover, he used market methods: he set high salaries for good specialists, paid civilian workers on a piece-rate basis, after a working day he rewarded those who worked hard with a keg of beer. During the investigation, Pavlenko himself stated: “We did not conduct anti-Soviet activities, we simply built as best we could, and we knew how to build well.”

But in order to get this or that contract, he used fictitious documents and seals, bribed officials and the military. And he was also engaged in postscripts, stealing everything that came across on the way: from cows to tractors ... Criminals only for the period from 1948 to 1952 concluded 64 contracts for 38 million rubles. UVS accounts were opened in the 21st branch of the State Bank of the USSR, and through them it was possible to receive more than 25 million rubles. What part of this money ended up in the pockets of Pavlenko and his accomplices was only approximately established.

The organization was well armed and conspiratorial, had its own counterintelligence. From the very beginning and until the liquidation of the UVS, its participants mined a large number of pistols, rifles, machine guns, light machine guns and grenades. Given the scope of activities, the good armament of the Air Force and the dispersion of its units in several regions - the Baltic states, the Moldavian SSR, Kiev, Odessa, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Mogilev regions - considerable forces of the Ministry of State Security were involved in the liquidation of this organization.

“Shaved head, big belly”

We calculated the RH by chance. A party member named Efremenko decided to be vigilant and wrote a letter to Marshal Voroshilov. It followed from it that some officers were distributing government bonds among the civilian employees who worked in the UVS. The workers handed over the money for them, but the bonds themselves did not receive. The letter also said that Colonel Pavlenko was hiring fugitive convicts and former policemen.

The signal was not ignored, and on October 23, 1952, a criminal case was initiated in Lvov. During the first interrogations, the circumstances set forth in the letter were confirmed. It was found that the bonds were bought on the black market in Lvov. One of the “officers” decided to earn extra money in this way, and as a result, the entire organization failed. Other facts immediately surfaced, which could not but alert the investigators.

From the testimony of witness Kudrenko:

“I know the head of the UVS Colonel Pavlenko personally. He is of medium height, a plump, almost fat figure, wears black-lined glasses, gray hair, a shaved head, brown eyes, and a large belly. To whom the UVS was subordinate, I do not know. However, I know that Colonel Pavlenko himself awarded military ranks to his officers. For example, Kuritsyn was demobilized from the army as a foreman, and here he immediately became a senior lieutenant, and then Nevinsky was given the rank of captain, although before that he had no ranks ... ”

It appeared that the organization was criminal. But, justifying themselves in the prosecutor's office, the heads of various organizations that collaborated with the UVS kept repeating: they could not even imagine that Pavlenko was a criminal. After all, he was a very respected person, he was constantly invited to the presidiums of solemn meetings, during festive parades he always stood on the podium next to the party bosses. Moreover, in a full dress uniform and the radiance of military orders ...

The criminal case, given its scale, was transferred to the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office on November 5, 1952. They soon established that Pavlenko ... had long been on the All-Union wanted list. In relation to him, the prosecutor's office of the Kalinin region opened a criminal case back in February 1948, when Pavlenko headed the "Plandorstroy" artel and stole 339,326 rubles. The two cases were merged. Investigators of the GVP asked the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security of the USSR for information about the deployment and subordination of the unit and received the same type of answers from everywhere: “The UVS is not subordinate to Glavvoenstroy, Pavlenko is not listed as serving in the Soviet Army.” Here the turn came to be surprised by the important investigators: a powerful criminal corporation was working at the side of the authorities, receiving millions of orders.

Kulak son

Pavlenko was detained on November 23, 1952 in Chisinau. A group of soldiers blocked the house. In the half that was locked up, Pavlenko showed up with the citizen Tyutyunnik. This woman at one time was in charge of a stall, squandered 12 thousand state rubles and hid from responsibility for several years, cohabiting with the “colonel”.

The detainee was interrogated for several days. He pricked well...

Nikolai Pavlenko was born in 1908 in the village of Novye Sokoly, Kyiv region. His father was a miller-fist, his son became a road builder, worked as a simple worker in the Glavdortrans system, entered the road department of the Minsk Polytechnic University, where he studied for only two years. The institute had to be abandoned when the alma mater learned about his kulak origin.

In 1935, in the city of Efremov, Pavlenko stole something at a construction site and was arrested. He managed to get out and realized that it was necessary to be friends with the authorities. He even figured out how: during the period of the struggle against the Trotskyists, he wrote a denunciation of two employees of the construction department. For help in exposing the “Trotskyist conspiracy,” the NKVD officers recommended Pavlenko to work at Glavvoenstroy. There he managed to grow up to the head of the construction site ...

The war found military equipment of the 1st rank Pavlenko in Minsk.

From the protocol of interrogation of Nikolai Pavlenko:

“On June 27, 1941, I was appointed assistant engineer of the 2nd Rifle Corps and retreated with the corps all the way to Vyazma. And then he was seconded to the airfield construction department of the Air Force of the Western Front. But this department did not exist in the Kalinin region, and I decided to personally create a military construction site.

Later, Pavlenko admitted that, together with the driver Shchegolev, he simply deserted from the army, forging travel documents.

Rubber outsole print

From the verdict of the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District:

“Having deserted from the Soviet Army, the defendant Pavlenko in March 1942 lured the driver Shchegolev to him, taking with him the truck of the military unit assigned to him. Later, in the same fraudulent way, he began to involve his former colleagues and acquaintances in the criminal organization he was creating - Klimenko, Filimonov, Nikolaev, Lelyuk and others ... ”

In the Moscow region, Pavlenko accidentally met his colleagues from the pre-war artel. They sat down to have a drink or two “for the meeting”. Sixteen-year-old boy Ludwig Rudnichenko, Nikolai's fellow countryman, after another portion of alcohol in front of his friends, cut out a stamp from a rubber sole with the inscription "Section of military construction works No. 5 of the Kalinin Front."

It all started from there. Soon an organization with the same name appeared in front-line Kalinin. This did not surprise anyone - a terrible confusion reigned at that time. The illegitimate organization printed several thousand forms in the printing house, received food and uniforms from warehouses using forged documents. In those days, Pavlenko's "syndicate" included only a few people, Shchegolev's car and a couple of horses. But soon there were already several dozen workers, because Pavlenko skillfully organized a booze with the right people, generously “thanked” them, and then sent official requests for labor force to the military commandant's office and Kalinin's commissariat. And then the ranks of the fictitious organization began to replenish at the expense of non-combatants discharged from the hospital after being wounded. Here, in the front-line evacuation center, Nikolai Pavlenko concluded his first contract, and his workers were put on allowance. The “great strategist” without difficulty opened a current account in the Kalinin regional office of the State Bank using fabricated documents and began to receive money there.

Thus, the gang was legalized, contracts for the implementation of road and construction work appeared with various organizations of Kalinin, which regularly transferred “fees” to him. The “commander” spent part of the funds on food for the rank and file and the salaries of the officers of the unit, and appropriated the rest together with the accomplices.

At the end of the war, there were already more than 200 people in the UVS. The organization took under its wing criminals, deserters, men hiding from mobilization. They were armed with up to 100 barrels and huge stocks of trophy property.

Train for the marauder

Pavlenko, who appropriated the title to himself, not without pride asserted that, as part of the 4th Air Army, his air force reached the Oder, having built many airfields and receiving only gratitude from the command. This was true, but with one caveat: the main efforts of the UVS were not directed at all to the construction of military facilities. Pavlenko, Klimenko, Kuritsyn and other activists of the group stole everything that came to hand: building materials, cars, fodder. In 1944-1945. in Poland and Germany, under the guise of collecting trophy property, they seized cars, tractors, motorcycles, radios, guns, accordions, bicycles, carpets, sewing machines, stole cattle ... In Germany alone (according to incomplete data), about 80 horses were stolen, 50 cattle, a large number of pigs, 20 trucks and cars, 20 tractors, electric motors, tractor trailers, dozens of bags of flour, cereals and sugar. Almost all the goods Pavlenko and his comrades sold on the way home, receiving gold, Polish and Soviet money.

But there was so much good that Pavlenko had to organize a whole operation to take the loot back to his homeland. He managed to somehow negotiate with the army services, and the UVS allocated ... a train of 30 railway cars!

Pavlenko also managed to concoct fake papers for the demobilization of the employees of his “construction trust”. He supplied the accomplices with a large number of fictitious documents, in a solemn ceremony he presented them with over 230 orders and medals of the USSR, as well as large sums of money and part of the property. That is, he divided the common fund in an honest way.

It is noteworthy that, stealing from both the state and private individuals, Pavlenko severely punished “his” robbers. At least that's what he said in court: "In order to strengthen discipline in 1945, on my orders, Koptev and Mikhailov and another prisoner of war, whose name I don't remember, were shot." At the same time, Pavlenko denied that he had done it personally, but there were witnesses to the lynching.

How to charm the “organs”

Pavlenko was indeed a great schemer. Perfectly understanding the nature of people, he easily made very expensive gifts, knowing full well that later he would not be refused. For example, Pavlenko handed over a passenger car to the Tula regional military commissar Rizhnev, and he ordered to place a UVS on the territory of the Shchekino region. Later, using connections with Rizhnev, Pavlenko and his accomplices stole state funds under the guise of receiving demobilization benefits. Rizhnev also received a “makeweight”: a cow, a carpet, a radio and scarce products. More than once, according to fake documents, the “office” received money through the Klin, Solnechnogorsk and Galich military registration and enlistment offices.

The combinator did not forget about himself, his beloved: he bought two decent houses - in Kalinin and Ukraine - and several Pobeda cars ...

Some time after the war, the gang launched tentacles into Lvov. With the help of feasts and bribes, it was easy to establish close ties with local officials and state security agencies. Candidates for work in the UVS were selected ... through bodies that checked those who wanted to get a job with Pavlenko for loyalty to the Soviet government and the absence of any ties with Bandera.

The newly minted military unit (now "UVS-1" appeared on the seal) practically did not differ from other active units. On its territory, the daily routine was strictly observed, classes were held in combat and political training, an operational duty officer was appointed every day, a guard served, the sentry of post No. 1 guarded the banner of the unit ...

There was no end to those wishing to conclude work contracts with such a respected organization! Several top secret lists are filed in the file, which list dozens of enterprises and organizations that have entered into “economic relations with the construction sites of UVS-1”.

* * *

Pavlenko and his closest henchmen were accused of counter-revolutionary crimes. But they, recognizing "criminality", completely denied the "anti-Soviet". At the trial, Pavlenko stated: “I committed many crimes, but I never had anything against the Soviet state and did not aim to undermine its economic power. We did not withdraw state funds from the bank, but received legal money for the work performed. I plead guilty to participating in embezzlement of public funds.”

In April 1955, the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District delivered its verdict. Pavlenko was sentenced to death with confiscation of his personal property. The remaining defendants received from 5 to 25 years in prison with confiscation of property and deprivation of awards...

One of the most amazing adventurers of the Stalin era. During the war he created his own military unit.

Kolya Pavlenko, the son of a miller from the village of Novye Sokoly, was perhaps the most savvy among his seven sisters and brothers. Without waiting for his father to be dispossessed, in 1928 a sixteen-year-old teenager left home for the city. To get a job, he added four years to his age. Subsequently, Pavlenko used this method more than once in forged documents: he changed the year and place of birth. He entered the Civil Engineering Institute, but after studying for two years, he dropped out. Employees of the NKVD, a certain Curzon and Sakhno, attracted him "to the development of materials against the Trotskyists Volkov and Afanasiev" and, as a "conscious" and "devoted", recommended him to a serious organization - Glavvoenstroy. With two courses at the institute, young Pavlenko successfully coped with the work of a foreman, senior foreman, head of the construction site. Even then, Nikolai Maksimovich mastered the method of postscript well, learned to "work" with documents and, most importantly, realized that under the roof of the military department you can warm your hands well ...

June 1941, Nikolai Pavlenko met in the form of a military technician of the 1st rank with a "sleeper" in his buttonhole. The rifle corps, in which he served, with heavy fighting retreated to the east. In October, Pavlenko forged a travel certificate (he was allegedly sent in search of an airfield unit), took his faithful driver Sergeant Shcheglov with him, and they both disappeared.

Having safely passed the posts of the detachments, Pavlenko and his accomplice reached Kalinin (now Tver). Here he had relatives, acquaintances from their previous work in the construction artel. It would seem that it would be better for a deserter to lie low, "go to the bottom", acquire fake documents that exempted him from conscription, and hide in a quiet office. But Pavlenko conceived the incredible, especially given the situation of general suspicion during the war, to create his own military unit.

Thirty-year-old Pavlenko began with the preparation of a documentary base for the "military" unit. In March 1942, in the feast company of the first "fighters", which were the closest relatives of Pavlenko and his friends who evaded conscription into the army, a professional fraudster L. RUD nichenko showed up. In the eyes of astonished spectators, in an hour, using a simple tool, he cut out an official seal and stamps from a rubber sole with the inscription "Sector of military construction work of the Kalinin Front ("UVSR-5"). Forms, sales certificates, travel certificates and other documents were printed in a printing house for a bribe with food. Uniforms were purchased at the bazaars. Relations were established with some employees of the Volodarsky garment factory and the Kalinin regional industrial cooperation. Pavlenko made "officers" of the people he checked, and for a start he assigned himself the title of military engineer of the 3rd rank. According to fabricated official letters - on letterheads with a seal - the commander of "UVSR-5" ensured that from the military commandant's office of the city, ordinary soldiers who had fallen behind their unit or were discharged from the hospital after being wounded were sent to him for further service.

The new military unit, under contracts with various organizations that did not suspect anything about the true origin of UVSR-5, began to carry out road construction work. Pavlenko personally divided all the cash receipts under such agreements between his officers and spent only an insignificant part on food for the unsuspecting "ordinary personnel."

However, the case required a more reliable cover. A young, energetic, intelligent-looking military engineer of the 3rd rank inspired confidence in those around him. Having promised the head of one of the evacuation centers, doctor 1st rank Bidenko to repair the buildings free of charge, Pavlenko got his consent to take UVSR-5 under his protection and even enlist the fighters for all types of allowances of the evacuation center.

After the liquidation of the Kalinin Front, part of Pavlenko moved under the wing of the 12th RAB (aircraft base area), where his people were also enrolled in all types of allowances. He pulled off this operation for a large bribe in the autumn of 1942, having bribed a certain Lieutenant Colonel Tsyplakov.

Part of Pavlenko, who changed the sign to "UVR-5", moved after the advancing Soviet troops, maintaining a safe distance from the front line. On the way to the border of the USSR, Pavlenko's people earned about a million rubles under contracts. To increase the volume of work performed, replenishment was required. Then Pavlenko began to recruit soldiers who had fallen behind their units. "You're a deserter! You should be judged! You'll go to the execution!" Pavlenko shouted at the fried soldier. But then, changing his anger to mercy, he added: "Well, so be it, I forgive you. Stay in my unit ..."

M. Zavada, chief of staff of the UVR, said: “People were recruited, as a rule, from persons who had fallen behind military units ... Drivers were taken along with the car ... When they approached the Soviet state border, there were more than two hundred people in the UVR. Half of them are deserters and people hiding from being drafted into the army."

Part of Pavlenko followed the Soviet troops all over Poland and ended his "combat" path near Berlin. Here the "builders" engaged in outright robbery of the local population. Honest soldiers who did not suspect anything about the criminal nature of the "UVR" could complain to their superiors, so Pavlenko shot the two most zealous ones, demonstrating decisiveness in the fight against the "marauders". By the end of the war, part of Pavlenko turned into an armed gang dressed in the uniform of Soviet military personnel. Already after the victory, the UVR commander, who gained strength and became insolent, with the help of deceit and large bribes, established contacts with the military representatives of the Department of Clothing and Carriage Supply of the USSR Ministry of Defense, as well as with representatives of the temporary military commandant's office of Stuttgart and received at his disposal a railway echelon of thirty wagons. In addition to tens of tons of flour, sugar, cereals and hundreds of livestock, ten trucks, five tractors, several cars and other equipment were taken out on it. The gang returned home with rich booty, with orders and medals. According to fictitious documents about the alleged exploits of the UVR fighters, Pavlenko received over 230 awards, which he distributed to his most distinguished associates. He also awarded himself two orders of the Patriotic War, I and II degrees, the Order of the Red Banner of War, the Order of the Red Star, and medals.

Upon returning to Kalinin, Pavlenko immediately demobilized everyone who knew nothing about the criminal nature of the unit. After selling the loot, he paid each of his "soldiers" from 7 to 12 thousand rubles, to "officers" - from 15 to 25 thousand, and left 90 thousand rubles for himself.

Leaving part of the exported equipment in Kalinin, Pavlenko created and headed the civil construction artel "Plandorstroy". But under his leadership there were no more accomplices - they dispersed to different cities, and without them it was difficult to put things on a grand scale. At the beginning of 1948, he contacted his closest assistant Yu. Konstantiner, after which, having stolen 300 thousand artel funds, he disappeared. Soon, other "officers" came to Lvov at his call, and the craftsman Rudnichenko also arrived, who quickly made seals and stamps. This is how "UVS-1" (Department of military construction) appeared with many construction branches in the western regions of the country.

From 1948 to 1952 UVS-1 entered into sixty-four contracts for the amount of 38,717,600 rubles on false documents. Almost half of the contracts passed through the Ministry of Coal Industry of the USSR. On behalf of his "military unit" Pavlenko opened current accounts in twenty-one branches of the State Bank, through which he received more than 25 million rubles on fictitious accounts. With a lot of money, Pavlenko considered himself invulnerable. He had an unerring instinct for corrupt officials. The plump and imposing colonel (he appropriated this title to himself in 1951) gave a bribe even for solving a trifling issue. He was his own in local government. He was respected, he was reckoned with. Pavlenko selected his guards through local bodies of the Ministry of State Security, which carefully checked the candidates for lack of connection with Bandera.

On November 5, 1952, the investigation unit for particularly important cases of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office received a criminal case initiated by the military prosecutor's office of the Carpathian Military District about the fictitious organization UVS-1, headed by engineer-colonel Nikolay Maksimovich Pavlenko. And this was during the reign of Stalin, when an atmosphere of general suspicion reigned! Only a chance helped to expose Pavlenko.

After the war, there were campaigns to subscribe for government loans. To create the appearance of a real military unit, Pavlenko and his "officers" bought up bonds on the "black market" and distributed them among unsuspecting civilians. So, one of them, having received bonds for a smaller amount than he paid, wrote a complaint to the military prosecutor's office, accusing Pavlenko of disrupting a campaign of national importance.

An employee of the GVP sent a request to the Ministry of Defense to find out where the military construction unit of Colonel Pavlenko is located. Soon the answer came: the requested part was not listed by the ministry. A similar response came to a request to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and state security agencies. The check was continued, and in a short time it was possible to find out that "UVS-1" existed completely legally. Moreover, it had an extensive branched structure: construction sites and sites subordinated to UVS-1 were located in Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic republics. The headquarters of the unit, located in Chisinau, was no different from the present: there was also a banner of the unit with shift sentries near it, and an operational duty officer, heads of various services, and armed guards in the form of privates and sergeants of the Soviet Army, who did not allow any of the outsiders to enter the territory under the pretext of confidentiality of the object.

The unit commander "colonel" Pavlenko turned out to be a real person. A strong, fit, intelligent-looking man with glasses, he not only did not hide from outsiders, but also showed off on holidays in the stands and on the presidiums next to the "fathers" of the city. The operation to eliminate the mysterious organization was carefully prepared. It was decided to take the UVS-1 headquarters and all its units scattered across the western regions of the country on the same day, November 14, 1952. The "fighters" Pavlenko, taken by surprise, offered no armed resistance. As a result of the operation, more than 300 people were detained, including about 50 so-called officers, sergeants and privates. The "colonel" himself and his right-hand man, "chief of counterintelligence major" Y. Konstantiner, were arrested.

During the liquidation of the fictitious military construction unit, 3 light machine guns, 8 machine guns, 25 rifles and carbines, 18 pistols, 5 grenades, over 3 thousand live ammunition, 62 trucks and 6 cars, 4 tractors, 3 excavators and a bulldozer were found and seized. , round seals and stamps, tens of thousands of different forms, a lot of fake identity cards and technical passports ...

To investigate the case, a team of responsible employees of the GVP headed by V. Markalyants, L. Lavrentiev and experienced military investigators from the periphery was created. But even highly qualified professionals took two and a half years (including litigation) to completely restore the criminal portrait of Pavlenko and the active accomplices of the enterprise he had conceived.

Alexander Tikhonovich Lyadov, one of the investigators involved in the Pavlenko case, said: “This case was top-secret. In 1952, I worked as a senior investigator in the prosecutor’s office of the Central District of Railways. After interrogating the arrested and witnesses, we handed over the protocols to the senior group, and the briefcases with the case were sealed. During the investigation, I had to leave for the Rivne region. In the city of Zdolbuniv, Pavlenko's "military unit" built access roads to the restored cement and brick factories. I must say, he built excellently. He invited specialists from outside, under contracts. He paid in cash three to four times more than at a state-owned enterprise. He came to check the work himself. If he finds shortcomings, he will not leave until they are corrected. After the rollback of the given track, he offered several barrels of beer and a snack to the workers for free, and personally handed the award to the locomotive driver and his assistant, here, publicly At that time, many workers received 300-500 rubles a month, while Pavlenko could give a hundred for a newspaper. But I didn’t tell anyone about it, they still wouldn’t believe me.

Or this episode. During the interrogation of one head of the central office, I ask the question: did you know that Pavlenko makes expensive gifts to officials and their wives? Didn't that make you suspicious? He replies in his hearts: "Well, how could it have occurred to me that Pavlenko is a swindler, if during the festive parade he stands on the podium next to the regional leadership, which praises him for his work, sets him as an example to business executives ..."

“We are sitting with him in a restaurant,” continues the head of the central office, “I silently calculate how much I will have to pay. And Pavlenko, as if reading my thoughts, declares:“ I am crying! How much do you get? Two thousand, no more?" I burst out of my own accord: "And how many are you?" He laughed and so casually: "Ten thousand ... We do this civil work by the way, but the main one is secret" - here I speak bitten, did not dare to ask further ... "

Indeed, it was difficult to suspect a criminal in Pavlenko. A successful, respectable man, drives a "Victory" ...

On the day of Pavlenko's arrest, during a search in his apartment, among other things, the general's epaulettes were found.

At the trial, the failed general said: "I never set out to create an anti-Soviet organization." And then he said: "I assure the court that Pavlenko can still be useful and he will invest his mite in organizing work ..." However, the verdict of the Moscow Military District Tribunal of April 4, 1955 was severe: "Colonel" Pavlenko was sentenced to capital punishment , and sixteen of his "officers" - to imprisonment for a period of 5 to 25 years.

The Soviet period of history is considered a time that practically did not know organized crime. However, it was during this period, moreover, during its most severe and closed segment - the late Stalin period - that the activity of a criminal organization fell, which had no analogues either before or after.
Under the vigilant supervision of the ubiquitous authorities, a group of comrades earned huge money for 11 years, pretending to be a military unit.

False seals from the case file

born runaway

Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko was born in the village of Novye Sokoly in the Kyiv province of the Russian Empire in 1912 in the family of a wealthy peasant who already had six children and also owned two mills. Apparently, Kolya was not too attached to his family, since at the age of 14 he ran away from home and went to Minsk. True, some researchers see in this act the first manifestation of the phenomenal instinct of a criminal prodigy, since shortly after his departure, his father was dispossessed and arrested.
In the capital of the Byelorussian SSR, Pavlenko began working as a road builder, choosing a profession for the rest of his life. Then he forged documents for the first time, attributing to himself four years (because of which later many biographers began to date his birth in 1908). This helped him enter the Polytechnic Institute ahead of time, where he studied the same road business. However, the educational process lasted only two courses: Pavlenko escaped again, and again avoiding problems with the authorities, who began to investigate his social background.
He showed up only five years later, in 1935, when he was arrested in the city of Efremov, Tula Region, for embezzlement of socialist property. Three years earlier, the infamous Stalinist law “on three spikelets” came out, and Pavlenko was in big trouble, but he managed to get out by becoming an informant for the NKVD and writing denunciations against two of his colleagues. Those were repressed as "Trotskyites", and he was recommended for work in Glavvoenstroy - a very privileged place where only the elite got.

Rogue and war

It was in Glavvoenstroy, successfully moving up the career ladder, that the swindler met the war.
As a specialist in military construction, he was appointed assistant engineer of the 2nd Rifle Corps, which fought on the Western Front. However, Pavlenko did not like defending his homeland, and four months later, when his unit retreated to the Vyazma region, he forged documents and went on a fake business trip, taking with him a driver sergeant on a service truck. So the fellow travelers got to Kalinin (present-day Tver), where the relatives of the protagonist lived, and lay down on the bottom.
Thinking over his further actions (and, taking into account desertion in wartime, there was something to think about), Pavlenko eventually came to the main idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhis life. It is reported that this happened at a booze in Klin, near Moscow, where the former colleagues of the swindler in construction organizations gathered - people who were also not deprived of dubious talents. One of them, wood carver Ludwig Rudnichenko, right during the feast, jokingly cut out a coat of arms seal and stamps from the sole of a rubber boot, on which was written “Section of military construction works of the Kalinin Front No. 5”. At that moment, the puzzle in Pavlenko's head took shape completely.
With only a stolen army truck at his disposal, as well as several horses with carts and several personnel, the fraudster organized nothing less than his own military unit. For a bribe with products, a circulation of forged documents was printed in the Kalinin printing house, a military uniform was purchased at the market and in a local clothing factory, and the personnel was divided into fake “soldiers” and “officers”.
The only thing left to do was to find enough manpower. Pavlenko solved this problem with brilliance by agreeing with the military commissar of the city on sending military personnel who had fallen behind their units or had just been discharged from the hospital to his unit. Apparently, there was a bribe here - a way of doing business, which the main character subsequently used to the maximum.
Soon the first construction contract was also signed - with the head of the local evacuation point, military doctor Bidenko. In exchange for free services, he agreed to provide "UVSR" with everything necessary. Other city orders also reached out, under which the organization opened an account with the State Bank. And after the Kalinin Front was disbanded, Pavlenko managed to attach it to the rear of the 4th Air Army in order to build airfields. For this, the talented leader agreed with a certain Lieutenant Colonel Tsyplakov. Thus, the stage of formation was completed, the structure was legalized and, moreover, it was vested with important functions in the defeat of the invaders. It was autumn 1942.

While others fought

In the three years that have passed before the Victory, part of Pavlenko has achieved real prosperity. Only on the territory of the Soviet Union, under agreements, she received about a million rubles, and her number reached two hundred. Together with the rapidly advancing army, “UVSR” (or “USR”, or “UVR” - there were several names) reached Germany itself, where it was engaged in outright robberies. At the same time, in order to avoid suspicion, Pavlenko sometimes punished “marauders” in his unit. Once, as follows from the case file, he shot three people, and he did it personally.
The valiant “construction department” ended the war in Stuttgart, Germany. In order to take out all the property “accumulated” during this time, Pavlenko managed to agree with the military commandant of the city on the allocation of a train of 30 (!) Wagons. The most diverse goods were taken out on them: from cars and cattle to accordions and sewing machines. It was sold out along the way of the composition, in Poland and Belarus, and was finally sold in the native markets of the Kalinin and Tula regions
Together with the loot, the unit itself returned home. At the same time, the enterprising boss procured as many as 230 (!) Units of awards for his subordinates. Pavlenko did not offend himself either, putting four orders on his chest (Patriotic War I and II degrees, the Red Star and the Red Banner of War) and medals

Award list Pavlenko

Looking for new adventures

Upon returning to their homeland, the unit was located on the territory of the Shchekino district of the Tula region. For this, Pavlenko presented a car to the regional military commissar. In 1946, when all the property was sold, the commander decided to disband his valiant unit. With the help of the same military commissar, all participants were “demobilized”, and also generously rewarded. Privates and sergeants received 7-12 thousand rubles each, officers - 15-25 each. Pavlenko himself paid 90 thousand. In what, in what, and in the stinginess of the legendary swindler, it was impossible to blame.
With the proceeds, Pavlenko bought two houses for himself - in the Kalinin and Kharkov regions - as well as 4 (!) Pobeda cars, after which he lived a peaceful life with his wife and daughter. He again took up the construction business, organizing an artel called "Plandorstroy". This, it would seem, is the end of the tale.
But soon the restless gut again called to the road-road. In 1948, together with a new mistress, Nadezhda Tyutyunnik, a former saleswoman who had served two years for embezzlement, Pavlenko left Kalinin, taking with him 400 thousand rubles from artel funds. For this, he was put on the All-Union wanted list, which, however, did not prevent the implementation of his future plans.
The lovers moved to Western Ukraine, to the glorious city of Lvov, where the great schemer summoned his accomplices. The reincarnation of the “construction department” took place there. The same craftsman Rudnichenko made seals and stamps, the forms of documents were again printed, and everything began to spin according to the old scheme. But on a much larger scale.
In just four years of its activity in a new incarnation, the organization concluded 64 contracts for a total amount of 38 million 717 thousand 600 rubles. Accounts were opened in 21 branches of the State Bank, from which 25 million rubles were withdrawn. The activities of the “management” were carried out on the territory of six union republics: Ukrainian, Moldavian, Belarusian and three Baltic. Pavlenko moved in high circles, appearing at ceremonial events and parades next to government officials. His part was no different from the real one: it was armed, lived according to the charter and had an exemplary appearance. In 1951, the swindler appropriated the rank of "colonel".

The work of the “company” was carried out according to strictly capitalist principles: Pavlenko paid salaries to hired specialists three to four times higher than the state ones. He was incredibly generous with bribes, as well as treats, always paying for sumptuous dinners with the right people in restaurants, and striking them with the amounts that he left on the table.
In order to ward off excessive curiosity, Pavlenko used another effective technique. He always hinted that civil engineering is just the tip of the iceberg, but in fact he and his comrades are fulfilling orders from mysterious and powerful "authorities". And what exactly, he did not say, which created an even stronger impression.

The collapse of "Colonel" Pavlenko

And yet, on one terrible day for Pavlenko, his debugged scheme failed. In part - either for greater credibility, or for fraudulent motives - government bonds were distributed, and one of the workers did not receive them, after which he sent a letter of complaint addressed to Marshal K. E. Voroshilov. The case was suddenly launched, and the investigators of the military prosecutor's office, where it was sent, found out with great surprise that the military unit indicated in the letter was not on the lists of either the Ministry of Defense or the special services.
Work was carried out to establish the location of the headquarters of the unit. It was not easy, but in the end it turned out that he was in Chisinau. After that, surveillance was established for Pavlenko, and soon the entire criminal network was covered at once. This happened on November 14, 1952. 400 people were detained, including the closest henchman Pavlenko Konstantinov (aka Konstantiner), who headed his own counterintelligence in the structure (!). He revealed to the operatives the possible location of the boss. Pavlenko was arrested at a safe house in Chisinau on November 23, along with his mistress. General's epaulettes were found next to him - apparently, another “promotion” was being prepared.

“We just built as best we could”

The investigation went on for two years. During this time, Stalin managed to die and Khrushchev came to power. Finally, in November 1954, the trial began. He walked for another five months. Pavlenko and his associates were accused of anti-Soviet agitation, but no evidence of this was found. The main defendant himself said the following: "We did not conduct anti-Soviet activities, we simply built as best we could, and we knew how to build well." And it was hard to argue with that. All the work that Pavlenko's unit undertook was carried out to the conscience. Yes, at the same time, postscripts and appropriation of state property were practiced, but the swindler had nothing against the Soviet government itself.
However, the court still sentenced 40-year-old Pavlenko to death, accusing him of undermining state industry for counter-revolutionary purposes. Considering that all the other defendants in the case received only prison terms from 5 to 20 years, we can safely assume that they decided to shoot the legendary criminal not at all for encroaching on the gains of the revolution, which was not even mentioned. And for the fact that he proved that even in the system of total control established under Stalin and considered almost the standard of the iron order, there were so many messes and loopholes for corruption that one person could avoid punishment for 11 years. At the same time, not hiding from the authorities, but having developed a vigorous activity in front of everyone and becoming a respectable member of society.


The image of Colonel Klimenko from the series “Black Wolves”, played by Vladimir Yumatov, is based on the biography of Pavlenko
Interestingly, the party and Soviet officials accused of having links with Pavlenko got off very lightly. For example, the Minister of the Food Industry of Moldova, Kirill Ivanovich Turcan, received only a reprimand. The same “punishment” befell the secretaries of the Tiraspol and Belsk city committees of the CPSU. None of the higher-ranking officials appeared in the case. There were rumors that the then leader of Moldova, Leonid Brezhnev, was associated with Pavlenko, but they did not receive any development.
The verdict handed down by the military tribunal was not subject to appeal. The day when he was executed, as well as the burial place of the Soviet swindler No. 1, remain unknown.