Grigory Kotovsky: “noble robber” or red commander? Feet on the table! The Incredible Adventures of Kotovsky's Mummy What Grigory Kotovsky did on his day
Marked 135 years since the birth of the red commander Grigory Kotovsky
They called Grigory Kotovsky whatever they called him: Bessarabian Robin Hood, Ataman of Hell, Red Commander. He was feared, loved and mythologized. After his death in 1925, the body was embalmed. But if almost everyone knows about the Moscow mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin, as well as about the tomb of the outstanding surgeon Nikolai Pirogov on the outskirts of Vinnitsa, then few have heard about the mausoleum of Grigory Kotovsky. It is located in the Odessa region, in the former Kotovsk (in the old way - Birzula, and in a completely new way, from May 12 of this year - Podolsk).
The real age of Grigory Kotovsky became known only after his death, since he constantly distorted his biography. Starting from origin - “from the nobility”, ending with non-existent nationality - “Bessarabian”. Kotovsky was born in 1881 in the town of Ganchesti, Chisinau district, in the family of a distillery mechanic (belonging to the noble Bessarabian prince Manuk Bey). His father Ivan Nikolaevich and mother Akulina Romanovna raised six children.
Having written his own “short revolutionary biography” a year before his death, Kotovsky recalled that “ was a weak boy, nervous and impressionable. Suffering from childhood fears, he often jumped out of bed at night, ran to his mother, pale and frightened, and lay down with her. When he was five years old, he fell off the roof and has since become a stutterer. IN early years lost my mother..." Since then, Grisha suffered from epilepsy, mental disorders, and fears. His godmother Sophia Schall took care of raising the boy. And after the death of his father, his godfather, the landowner Manuk Bey, also took care of his upbringing. With their help, the orphan entered the Chisinau real school. Finding himself unattended, Grigory skipped classes and behaved like a hooligan, for which he was expelled from the school three months later. The godfather arranged for his ward to attend an agricultural school (Kotovsky graduated from it in 1900), again paying for the entire pension. The main sciences are agronomy and the German language.
The teenager's passions were sports and reading. He imagined himself either as the famous robber of Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood, or as a pirate with a black beard, or as Tarzan. He started lifting weights and wrestling and very quickly became the strongest among his peers. He showed an iron character and a tendency to subjugate everyone to his will. They began to respect and fear him. " Gregory,- recalled Kotovsky’s sister Sofia, - beat everyone who dared to mock his stutter.”
To receive a college diploma, he had to undergo a six-month internship. On the estate of the landowner Skopovsky, Kotovsky became an assistant manager. Fluent in Russian, Moldavian, Jewish, German languages The owner's young wife liked the handsome trainee, and soon they began dating secretly. Having learned about this, the deceived Skopovsky, naturally, expelled the “young insolent”.
Later, Kotovsky recalled more than once how he became a “trainee in agriculture"into the economy of the landowner Cantacuzino, where " peasants worked 20 hours a day". Here he repeated his “feat” - he seduced the owner’s wife. The landowner ordered the “trainee” to be beaten half to death, stripped and thrown naked from the estate. Nobody humiliated Kotovsky like that. After a while, he took revenge on the offender: he killed him, burned the estate and ran away...
Hiding in the forests, he put together a gang of 12 people, which soon created panic throughout Bessarabia. Newspapers in the south of what was then Russia wrote about Kotovsky in the same way as Pushkin about Dubrovsky: “Robberies, one more remarkable than the other, followed one after another.” Landowners abandoned their estates in fear, moving to Chisinau.
Once, as archival materials testify, the police drove the peasants arrested for rioting to the Chisinau prison, but in the forest the Kotovites suddenly attacked the detachment, the peasants were released, none of the guards were touched, only in the book of the senior guard there was a note: “Grigory Kotovsky released the prisoners.”
There was a case: a village burned down near Chisinau. A few days later, a stately brunette with a steep chin, elegantly dressed in a fur coat with a beaver collar, drove up to the entrance of the house of a local large moneylender in a phaeton. The arriving gentleman was received in adopted daughter moneylender: “Dad is not at home.” - “Perhaps you will allow me to wait?” - "Please". In the living room, Kotovsky charmed the young lady with his witty conversation and excellent manners. And when the father appeared on the threshold, the young man introduced himself: “Kotovsky.” The owners are hysterical, begging not to kill. But Kotovsky calms his daughter down and explains to the moneylender that it is necessary to help the fire victims: “I think you will not refuse to immediately give me a thousand rubles to give to them.” A thousand rubles were given to him. When leaving, he left a note in the young lady’s album, full of provincial rhymes: “Both daughter and father made a very nice impression. Kotovsky.
Kotovsky acted with such risk that it seemed that he was about to be captured. Where there! The landowner Negrush boasted among his Chisinau acquaintances that he was not afraid of Kotovsky: he had a bell built into the floor of his office, and the wire was stretched to the neighboring police station. Kotovsky came to Negrush in broad daylight and jokingly commanded: “Legs up!” - and demanded money.
Dexterity, strength, and animal instinct were combined in Kotovsky with great courage. The “noble robber” was never a bandit out of self-interest. In February 1906, Kotovsky was arrested. At the trial, he behaved proudly, called himself Robin Hood and said that he acted “in his own justice.” Sentence: 12 years of hard labor. In his cell in the Chisinau prison, women actively visited him. One of the fans secretly brought opium cigarettes, a pistol, a hacksaw hidden in bread and a thin silk rope. Kotovsky gave the cigarettes to the guards, one night sawed through the bars and escaped. The police reports provided a “portrait of a criminal.” It was pointed out that Kotovsky is left-handed and usually, having two pistols, starts shooting with his left hand. A distinctive feature is tattooed eyelids (dots in the form of a figure eight). This, according to researchers, testified to his belonging to the highest hierarchy of the gangster world. Already being a Red commander, Kotovsky wanted to get rid of these tattoos, but it didn’t work out...
Soon he is arrested again and sent to the north of Russia. There, Grigory, together with other prisoners, builds the Amur Railway and works in the Nerchinsk mines. In 1913, having killed two guards, he escaped. Two years later, 32-year-old Kotovsky appears in Odessa and becomes a threat to the criminal capital Russian Empire. They are looking for Gregory in safe houses, and he lives in plain sight in the best hotel in the city, Bessarabia. Before each raid, he carefully puts on make-up and every time he goes into action in a new image. He even visits theaters, gluing on his beard and mustache.
During one of the raids in 1916, Kotovsky, nicknamed the Ataman of Hell, was ambushed. The military district court sentenced him to death by hanging. First Goes World War. All death sentences must be approved by the commander of the southwestern front, General Brusilov. Kotovsky writes a petition for pardon, but addresses it not to the general, but to his wife, Mrs. Brusilova. She reads this message of repentance, and she feels sorry for the handsome bandit. As a result, Brusilov replaced the execution with life imprisonment.
*Grigory Ivanovich on vacation with his son Grisha. 1923
When the Civil War began, Kotovsky asked to be sent to the front. Surprisingly, the “lifer” is released. According to archival documents, Grigory organized an auction at the Odessa Opera House, putting up his “revolutionary shackles” for it. During this action, young Leonid Utesov introduced the hero with a reprise: “Kotovsky appeared, the bourgeois was alarmed!”
The power in Odessa was constantly changing, the city became either “red” or “white”. Kotovsky organized a sabotage squad, which, having connections with the Bolshevik, anarchist and Left Socialist Revolutionary underground, actually did not obey anyone and acted at its own peril and risk. Together with Mishka Yaponchik’s people, the Kotovites smashed their competitors, “bombed” stores, warehouses, and cash registers, attacked the local prison and freed prisoners. Their joint action was the uprising of revolutionaries and bandits on Moldavanka at the end of March 1919.
- Literally a day or two before the arrival of Soviet power, together with several henchmen, Kotovsky made a daring foray - he took out all the cash and jewelry there from the local branch of the State Bank on three trucks,— historian, academician, author of the books “Gangster Odessa” Viktor Faitelberg-Blank told the author of these lines. — Kotovsky then handed over the stolen gold and diamonds (at our rate - approximately 100 million dollars) to the party, which was credited to him. Note that the fate of this wealth is unknown. Until now, in the south of Odessa region, in the Kherson region, as well as in Bessarabia, there are enthusiasts seeking to find Kotovsky’s treasures.
Since the spring of 1919, Grigory Ivanovich has commanded the Tiraspol detachment, fighting on the side of the Bolsheviks. In July he became the commander of one of the brigades of the 45th Infantry Division and participated in the defense of Petrograd. Since January 1920 - brigade commander, fighting in the Caucasus, Ukraine and on the Soviet-Polish front. In April of the same year he joined the CPSU (b).
Kotovsky was recognized as the “Best Red Commander” (his units did not lose a single battle), became a holder of three Orders of the Red Banner of Battle and the owner of an honorary revolutionary weapon - an inlaid cavalry saber.
On October 31, 1922, at the suggestion of a friend, Mikhail Frunze, Kotovsky was appointed commander of the Second Cavalry Corps. Here the new corps commander openly went into business, creating a military-consumer cooperation with subsidiary farms and workshops within the corps. The scope of Kotovsky as a businessman is evidenced by the fact that the sugar factories of the horse-drawn corps processed 300 thousand pounds of sweet product annually. The divisions had state farms, breweries, and butcher shops. Czech traders bought hops grown in the fields of a subsidiary state farm for 1.5 million gold rubles a year. Later, Kotovsky organized the Bessarabian agricultural commune in the Vinnitsa region.
He dreamed of “collecting” all the lands of Bessarabia, even those that belonged to Romania. But he was categorically forbidden to aggravate political situation. In the summer of 1925, an angry 44-year-old corps commander left his corps and, together with his pregnant wife and son, went on vacation to the village of Chabanka near Odessa.
There Kotovsky receives a telegram from Moscow: People's Commissar Frunze appoints him as his deputy. On the eve of his departure to Moscow, on the evening of August 5, he is invited to a holiday. Returning at two in the morning, Grigory Ivanovich meets his acquaintance Seider Meyer near the house where he was staying with his family. He extended his hand, and in response a shot rang out.
The killer was detained and tried, but was not shot, but was sentenced to ten years in prison, of which he served only three, after which he was released “for exemplary behavior.” (True, Meyer did not live long in freedom: the Kotovites settled their scores with him.)
Modern historians claim that this particular murder was the first ordered in the USSR. In the mid-1920s, Stalin began to consolidate his sole power. He managed to remove his main competitor, Leon Trotsky, from leadership. But among the most independent commanders there were still Frunze and Kotovsky. Two months after Kotovsky’s death, Frunze died - on the operating table, under unclear circumstances.
The day after Kotovsky’s murder, August 7, 1925, a group of specialists led by Professor Vladimir Vorobyov was sent from Moscow to Odessa to embalm Kotovsky’s body (Vorobyov embalmed Lenin’s body). At the same time, in the center of Birzula, in the city park, a mausoleum was erected by decision of the government.
*Comor Kotovsky’s wife Olga at her husband’s coffin
In 1941, the Nazis blew up the tomb, smashed the sarcophagus, and threw the embalmed body (local residents claim that a Romanian officer cut off Kotovsky’s head with a sword) into a trench along with the corpses of executed local residents. That same night, workers at the railway depot dug up Kotovsky’s remains and hid them in the attic, after dousing them in scarce water. war time alcohol.
After the liberation of the city, a monument-crypt was erected in the surviving underground part of the mausoleum. The remains were placed in a sealed zinc coffin with a small window. At the end of 1965, the grand opening of the new mausoleum took place, above which there was a monument made of granite and marble with a bust of the red commander.
Disputes still continue as to whether the real Kotovsky lies in the mausoleum. There is an opinion that his body was lost in 1941. The truth can be found out through DNA testing. However, none of Kotovsky’s heirs ever demanded to do this. Excursions to the crypt museum are not conducted due to its disrepair. In the city, which until recently was called Kotovsk, they don’t know what to do with the mausoleum. As First Deputy City Mayor Anatoly Korchevoy explained, the crypt does not officially fall under the law on decommunization. Therefore, local authorities turned to the Ministry of Culture for recommendations and clarification on what to do with this relic.
In the Soviet Union, the attitude towards the personality of Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky was unequivocal - the red commander, who bravely fought with the whites, was sung in poetry, prose, and songs. Monuments were erected to him, streets and even cities were named in honor of Kotovsky. But they rarely remembered the true life story of Ataman of Hell, as Kotovsky himself called himself - there were too many ideologically incorrect episodes in it.
K. Chinese. Portrait of the Civil War hero Kotovsky
Kotovsky family
The parents of the future revolutionary could not even imagine what fate awaited their son. They lived in the provincial Moldavian village of Ganchesti and belonged to the philistine class. By nationality, the mother was Russian, the father was Pole. His father worked at a factory, his mother took care of the family (besides Gregory there were five more children).
In the care of godparents
The children lost their mother early, who died during another birth, and their father raised them as best he could. However, Grigory studied well, was interested in his father’s profession (he often took him with him to the factory), and raised pigeons. Despite the stutter, the boy grew up lively and energetic - he took part in all the fights, gathering around him a gang of street kids, in which he was the leader.
House of the Kotovsky family in Ganchesti (Kotovsky Museum)
When Gregory turned sixteen, his father died. The teenager was taken into the care of his godparents: the daughter of his father’s friend Maria Schall and the landowner Grigory Mirzoyan Manuk-Bey. Manuk Bey sent the talented young man to an agricultural school and promised that he would continue his education in Germany. He did not fulfill his promise - he died five years after the death of Nikolai Kotovsky.
Manager
The time was turbulent - the political struggle in the country intensified. Unrest also began in Bessarabia. An underground Socialist Revolutionary circle was organized at the school, which Kotovsky also joined.
After graduating from college, the young graduate tried to find a job - he got a job as a manager on a rich estate, but he was soon kicked out of there - perhaps because the money was missing, or maybe because the steward sympathized with the rebellious peasants. Then there was another estate. There Kotovsky was convicted of forgery, for which he was sent to prison.
Photo of Kotovsky from Chisinau prison
After leaving prison, he will get a job Good work he could not. In addition, famine began, and peasant uprisings broke out every now and then. There was only one thing left to do - to expropriate what they had acquired through dishonest labor. Kotovsky formed a gang.
"Chernomorets" raiders
Soon Kotovsky was drafted into the army (the Russo-Japanese War began), but he did not want to serve in the tsarist troops - he deserted from the regiment, returning to the gang.
The detachment was engaged in robbery, but attacked only landowners and the rich. They did not touch ordinary peasants, but on the contrary, they helped them get rid of promissory notes and bondage. After the uprising on the battleship Potemkin, Kotovsky began to call his comrades “Black Sea men,” emphasizing that they were fighting for the same ideals as the revolutionary sailors.
Miraculous Rescue
And again arrest, escape, then another arrest. Now Kotovsky was sentenced to 12 years in Nerchinsk penal servitude. He did not give up: seven years later he fled again, returned to Bessarabia, put together a new gang that took on big things - began to rob banks and treasuries.
When Kotovsky was caught again, he was sentenced to death. The famous Brusilov achieved a stay of execution, Kolchak interceded for him, and Kerensky signed the order for his release. On the day of the amnesty, Kotovsky organized an auction at the Odessa Opera House, where he sold his shackles for 3 thousand rubles.
Knight of St. George
However, Grigory Ivanovich demonstrated his prowess not only in raids. After his release, he managed to take part in the First World War and even distinguished himself. Having started the war as a private in cavalry reconnaissance, he was awarded the 4th degree St. George Cross and an officer rank for his bravery.
On the Civil Fronts
Soon a revolution took place in Petrograd and the Civil War began. Kotovsky accepted in it Active participation.
Postcard IZOGIZ. Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich
In Odessa, Kotovsky organized a cavalry detachment, with which he defended the Odessa Soviet Republic from the Romanians. After Odessa was occupied by German-Austrian troops, the red commander and his soldiers moved to the Donbass, then to the Don. In 1918 he visited Moscow, then returned to Odessa, where he remained illegal.
In 1919 Kotovsky commanded the 45th Rifle Division, fought against the Petliurists in the Polish-Bolshevik War. In 1920, as commander of the 17th cavalry division, suppressed the rebellions of Alexander Antonov and Nestor Makhno.
There is no return to the past!
It was a difficult time, when power constantly changed hands, and brother went against brother. However, Kotovsky did not betray his new ideals - he forever put an end to his criminal past, connecting his life with the Red Army.
Kotovsky Grigory Ivanovich
Moreover, Kotovsky opposed his former friend (in any case, they knew each other well) - Mishka Yaponchik, the famous Odessa raider. Together with the Cheka, he carried out an operation to clear Odessa of criminal elements and may have been involved in the death of Yaponchik.
Wife and son
At first civil war Kotovsky met his future wife, Olga Petrovna. She served as a nurse on the Southern Front, and they met on a train. After the wedding, Kotovsky’s wife remained in her husband’s cavalry detachment. The couple had a son, Gregory, who later became a major scientist and oriental historian.
Last August
Kotovsky was shot dead in August 1925. The killer - Meyer Seider, nicknamed Mayorchik, was Yaponchik's right hand, ran a brothel in Odessa. When the gang was dispersed, Kotovsky helped Seider with work, getting a job as head of security at a sugar factory.
Why he shot Kotovsky is not known for certain; at the trial, Zeider constantly changed his testimony, possibly acting on someone else's orders. Documents on this case are still classified.
Today is May 20, 2017, Saturday, and we decided to publish all the answers to the new game Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Join us scholars.
Who wants to become a millionaire" answers from May 20, 2017
What does gasoline mix with in a car carburetor?
Possible answers:
A. with water
B. with nitrogen
C. with air
D. with oil
The correct answer is C - with air
How are Holmes and Watson different in the film My Dearly Beloved Detective?
Possible answers:
A. these are children
B. these are women
C. these are animals
D. these are cities
The correct answer is B - these are women
The only chess player who passed away as the current world champion?
Possible answers:
A. Wilhelm Steinz
B. Mikhaid Tal
C. Jose Raul Capablanca
D. Alexander Alekhine
The correct answer is D - Alexander Alekhine
What is the name of Andrei Sergeevich Prozorov’s wife in Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters”?
Possible answers:
A. Natalia
The correct answer is A - Natalya
What type of cheese is Suluguni?
Possible answers:
A. Solid
C. Brine
D. fused
The correct answer is C - Brine
What did Kotovsky do at the Odessa Opera House on the day of his pardon from the death penalty?
Possible answers:
A. banquet
C. auction
D. prayer service
The correct answer is C - auction
Which suit, according to Coco Chanel, ages the most?
Possible answers:
A. too poor
B. too rich
C. too bright
D. too dark
The correct answer is B - too rich
What was depicted on the walls of the Moscow Kremlin during the war?
Possible answers:
A. tanks and guns
B. house facades
C. portraits of military leaders
D. caricatures of Hitler
The correct answer is B - house facades
What title was given to the work by the author himself?
Possible answers:
A. Moonlight Sonata
B. Girl with peaches
C. divine comedy
D. kiss
The correct answer is B - girl with peaches
Gave birth to many Soviet heroes. One of them was Grigory Kotovsky. The biography of this man is full of sharp turns: he was a criminal, a front-line soldier and a revolutionary.
Childhood
On June 24, 1881, Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky was born in a small Moldavian village called Gancheshti. short biography this revolutionary cannot be dispensed with without mention of his origin. Although Kotovsky was born in a Moldavian village, he was Russian (his father was a Russified Pole, and his mother was born Russian). The child lost his parents early and was left an orphan at the age of 16.
The young man was taken in by his godfather. This man was rich and influential. He helped Kotovsky get an education by sending him to study at the Kokorozen School to become an agronomist. The guardian also paid all living and training expenses.
In the criminal world
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. The revolutionary Russian movement was experiencing its next upsurge. Grigory Kotovsky couldn’t help but get involved in it. The biography of his youth is full of episodes of meetings and collaboration with the Socialist Revolutionaries. It was they who instilled in Kotovsky a love of adventure. Among the revolutionaries, the young man decided to abandon the philistine life.
At the same time, he was not a socialist fanatic. He can rather be described as a very pragmatic person, not burdened with principles. After graduation, Kotovsky worked for some time as a land surveyor in Moldavian and Ukrainian provinces. However, the novice specialist did not stay anywhere for long. His dreams had nothing to do with thoughts of a brilliant career.
Since 1900, Grigory Kotovsky was regularly arrested for minor criminal offenses. The biography of this man became more and more famous in the Russian criminal world. When did it start Russo-Japanese War Due to his age and health, Kotovsky had to go to the front. However, at first he hid from the military registration and enlistment office, and when he was finally captured and sent to the Kostroma infantry regiment, he safely deserted from there.
Famous Raider
Thus began the life of Kotovsky the raider. He gathered a real gang around himself and was engaged in robberies for several years. It was precisely at this time that the first revolution was blazing in the country. Anarchy and weakness state power turned out to only play into the hands of criminals, among whom was Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky. The criminal's short biography was full of episodes of arrests and exile to Siberia. Each time he escaped from hard labor and returned to Odessa or the provinces nearby.
Such a biography of Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky is not surprising. Despite the fact that criminals and revolutionaries denigrated the tsarist regime and called it “executioner,” the penitentiary system of the empire was extremely humane. Exiles and convicts easily escaped from places of detention. Many, like Kotovsky, were arrested several times, and still found themselves free ahead of schedule.
The last arrest of Kotovsky in Tsarist Russia occurred in 1916. For robberies and armed raids on banks, he was sentenced to death. The biography of Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky shows the reader an example of a person who calmly came out unscathed every time. But now his life was in the balance. The raider began to write letters of repentance to the authorities.
At this time, the First World War was already underway. The Odessa tribunal was tried at the place where Kotovsky was arrested. According to military law, he was subordinate to the commander of the nearby front, the famous General Brusilov. He should have signed the death penalty.
It was not for nothing that Kotovsky was known for his ability to get out of trouble. With the help of tearful letters, he persuaded Brusilov’s wife to put pressure on her husband. The general, listening to his husband, temporarily postponed the execution of the sentence.
At the front
Meanwhile, 1917 had already arrived, and with it a mass amnesty began for the “victims of the regime” of the tsarist era. Even some ministers, including Guchkov, spoke out for the release of Kotovsky. When Prime Minister Kerensky personally signed a decree on amnesty for the famous raider, he had already been carousing in Odessa for several days.
This city was close to the front. Finally, after many years of escaping from military registration and enlistment offices, Grigory Kotovsky ended up on it. The biography of the former criminal was replenished with yet another shootout - this time with the Germans and Austrians. For his courage at the front, Kotovsky was promoted to ensign and received. During the war, he again became close to the Socialist Revolutionaries and became a soldier's deputy.
During the Civil War
But Grigory Kotovsky did not stay in the army for long. A brief biography of this man in the Soviet era was best known as an example of revolutionary courage. When the Bolshevik coup took place in Petrograd in October 1917, the ensign found himself in the midst of a civil war. Kotovsky was a Social Revolutionary, but at first they were considered allies of the new government.
At first, the former raider fought in a detachment that belonged to the Odessa Soviet Republic. This “state” lasted only a few months, as it was soon captured by Romanian troops. Kotovsky fled to Russia for a short time, but a year later he found himself back in Odessa. This time he was here illegally, since the city passed into the hands of the Ukrainian government, hostile Soviet power in Moscow.
Later Kotovsky led the equestrian group. He fought against the armies of Denikin in the south and Yudenich in the north. At the end, the former robber suppressed peasant and Ukrainian uprisings on territory that completely belonged to the Soviet government.
Death
During his years of service, Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky met many senior Bolshevik leaders. Photos of the revolutionary often ended up in communist newspapers. Despite his shady past, he became a hero. Mikhail Frunze (People's Commissar for Military Affairs) proposed making him his deputy.
However, at that time Kotovsky did not have long to live. He was shot while on vacation on the Black Sea coast on August 6, 1925. The killer turned out to be a member of the Odessa underworld, Meyer Seider.
Civil war heroes and future marshals attended Kotovsky’s funeral Soviet Union Budyonny and Egorov. A mausoleum was made for the deceased in the likeness of Lenin’s (the leader of the world proletariat died a year before). Kotovsky became a famous character in folklore. IN Soviet time Streets, settlements, etc. were often named after him.
On August 6, 1925, Grigory Kotovsky was killed. An extraordinary person. Some called him Grishka the Cat, others called him Robin Hood. During his lifetime, Kotovsky became a legend; his death only added more questions.
Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky... Legendary personality in the USSR... Few people knew then that the “fiery revolutionary” was a bandit for fifteen years and only a revolutionary for seven and a half years...
Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky was born on July 12, 1881 in the town of Ganchesti (Hincheshti), Chisinau district of Bessarabia, in the family of a distillery mechanic, which belonged to the noble Bessarabian prince Manuk Bey.
Gregory's parents - father Ivan Nikolaevich and mother Akulina Romanovna - raised six children.
It’s a fact, but Kotovsky constantly falsifies his biography: he either indicates other years of birth – mainly 1887 or 1888, then he claims that he comes “from the nobility,” and in Soviet encyclopedias we read – “from the workers.”
By the way, the fact that Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky was “rejuvenated” by 6-7 years, that is, that Kotovsky was born in 1881, became known only after his death in 1925.
Even in forms for joining the Communist Party, Grigory Ivanovich indicated an imaginary age, carefully concealing the secrets of his youth.
And he indicated a non-existent nationality - “Bessarabian”, although he was connected with Bessarabia only by place of birth and neither his father nor his mother considered themselves either Moldovans or “Bessarabians”. His father was, apparently, a Russified Orthodox Pole, perhaps Ukrainian, and his mother was Russian.
An extreme egocentrist and “narcissist,” all his life he could not come to terms with the fact that his father came “from the burghers of the city of Balta,” and not from the “counts.” Even after the revolution, when belonging to the noble class was very harmful to people, Grigory Kotovsky indicated in questionnaires that he came from the nobility, and his grandfather was “Colonel of the Kamenets-Podolsk province.”
Grigory Ivanovich recalled about his childhood that “he was a weak boy, nervous and impressionable. Suffering from childhood fears, he often jumped out of bed at night, ran to his mother (Akulina Romanovna), pale and frightened, and lay down with her. When he was five years old, he fell off the roof and has since become a stutterer. In my early years I lost my mother..."
Since then, Kotovsky suffered from epilepsy, mental disorders, fears...
After the death of his mother, his godmother Sophia Schall, a young widow, the daughter of an engineer, a Belgian citizen who worked in the neighborhood and was a friend of the boy’s father, and his godfather, the landowner of Manuk Bay, took care of Grisha’s upbringing.
Gregory’s father died in 1895 from consumption, as Kotovsky writes, “in poverty,” but this is again a lie: the Kotovsky family lived well, did not experience need, had their own home.
In the same 1895, the owner of the “Ganchesti” estate and Gregory’s godfather, Manuk Bey, arranged for him to attend the Chisinau Real School and paid for his education.
Manuk-Bey took an active part in the life of the Kotovsky family, for example, an educational allowance was also given to one of the Kotovsky sisters, and during the year-long illness of Ivan Kotovsky, Manuk-Bey paid the patient a salary and paid for doctors’ visits.
Grigory Kotovsky, for the first time getting into such Big City, like Chisinau, and being left there completely unattended, he began to skip classes at a real school, behave like a hooligan, and after three months he was expelled from it.
Kotovsky’s classmate, Chemansky, who later became a policeman, recalls that the guys called Grisha “Birch” - that’s the name in the villages for brave, pugnacious guys with the manners of leaders.
After Kotovsky was expelled from a real school, Manuk Bey arranges for him to attend the Kokorozen Agricultural School and pays for his entire pension.
Kotovsky, recalling his years of study, wrote that at the school he “showed the traits of that stormy, freedom-loving nature, which later unfolded in all its breadth... giving school mentors no rest.”
In 1900, Grigory Ivanovich graduated from the Kokorozen School, where he especially studied agronomy and the German language, because his godfather Manuk Bey promised to send him to continue his studies at the Higher Agricultural Courses in Germany.
IN separate books about Kotovsky it was indicated, apparently from his words, that he graduated from college in 1904. What did Kotovsky want to hide? Probably their first criminal cases and arrests.
In his autobiography, he wrote that at school in 1903 he met a circle of Social Democrats, for which he went to prison for the first time, but, nevertheless, historians could not find any data on the participation of Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky in the revolutionary movement in those years ...
In 1900, Grigory Kotovsky, as an intern, worked as an assistant manager at the Valya-Karbuna estate for the young landowner M. Skopovsky (in other documents - Skokovsky) in Bendery district and was expelled from the estate after only two months of his internship for seducing the landowner’s wife .
The practice also did not work out for the landowner Yakunin on the Maksimovka estate in Odessa district - in October of the same year, Grigory was expelled for stealing 200 rubles of the owner’s money...
Since the internship was not completed, Kotovsky did not receive documents confirming his graduation from college.
Manuk Bay dies in 1902. Kotovsky is again hired as an assistant manager to the landowner Skopovsky, who by this time had already divorced his wife. This time, having learned that he was facing imminent conscription into the army, Grigory appropriated 77 rubles received from the sale of the landowner's pigs and went on the run, but was caught by Skopovsky. The landowner whipped Kotovsky with a whip, and the landowner's servants brutally beat him and threw him bound in the February steppe.
In March - April 1902, Kotovsky tries to get a job as a manager for the landowner Semigradov, but he agrees to give him a job only if he has letters of recommendation from previous employers. Since Kotovsky did not have any recommendations, much less positive ones, he forges documents about his “exemplary” work with the landowner Yakunin, but the “low” style and illiteracy of this document forced Semigradov to double-check the authenticity of this recommendation.
Semigradov, having contacted Yakunin, learned that the handsome young agronomist was a thief and a fraudster, and Kotovsky received four months in prison for this forgery...
The period from December 1903 to February 1906 is the time when Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky becomes the recognized leader of the gangster world.
Kotovsky recalled that in 1904 he became an “agricultural trainee” at the economy of Cantacuzino, where “the peasants worked for the landowner 20 hours a day.” He was practically an overseer there, but claimed that “he could hardly endure the regime... he was closely connected with the bare laborers.”
The owner of the estate, Prince Cantokuzino, having learned that his wife was “carried away by a young trainee,” swung a whip at Grisha, for which, allegedly, Gregory “decides to take revenge on the environment in which he grew up and burns the prince’s estate.”
And again a lie - at that time Grigory worked as a forest worker in the village of Moleshty for the landowner Averbukh, and later as a worker at the Rappa brewery...
In January 1904, the Russian-Japanese War began, and Grigory was hiding from mobilization in Odessa, Kyiv and Kharkov. In these cities, he alone or as part of Socialist Revolutionary terrorist groups takes part in raids to expropriate valuables.
In the fall of 1904, Kotovsky became the head of the Chisinau Socialist Revolutionary group, which was engaged in robberies and extortion.
In 1905, Gregory was arrested for draft evasion, and the police had no idea about his participation in raids and robberies. Despite his criminal record, Kotovsky was sent to the army, to the 19th Kostroma Infantry Regiment, which was then in Zhitomir for replenishment.
In May 1905, Kotovsky escaped from the regiment and, with the help of the Zhytomyr Social Revolutionaries, who provided him with false documents and money, went to Odessa.
Grigory Kotovsky did not remember his desertion during Soviet times...
Desertion was then punishable by hard labor, so in May 1905, the times of the “criminal underground” began for Kotovsky.
In his notes, which Kotovsky kept in 1916 in the Odessa prison and called “Confession,” he wrote that he committed the first robbery under the influence of the revolution in the summer of 1905. It turns out that the revolution was to blame for the fact that he became a bandit...
In his autobiography, he writes: “...From the first moment of my conscious life, not having then any idea about the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and revolutionaries in general, I was a spontaneous communist...” However, in fact, the gangster career of Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky began with participation in small raids on apartments, shops and landowners' estates...
Since October 1905, Kotovsky has declared that he is an anarchist-communist or anarchist-individualist and acts independently as the chieftain of a detachment of 7-10 militants (Z. Grossu, P. Demyanishin, I. Golovko, I. Pushkarev and others).
Kotovsky’s detachment was based in the Bardar forest, which was located near Gancheshti’s relatives, and the ataman chose the legendary Moldavian robber of the 19th century Vasyl Chumak as a role model.
Since January 1906, Kotovsky’s gang already has 18 well-armed people, many of whom operate on horseback. The gang's headquarters moved to the Ivanchevsky forest on the outskirts of Chisinau. For Bessarabia, this was a large bandit formation that could compete with the most influential gang there, Bujor, which numbered up to forty bandits.
In December 1905, the Kotovites carried out twelve attacks on merchants, tsarist officials, and landowners (including Semigradov’s Chisinau apartment). January of the following year was especially hot. It began with an attack on the first day of the year on the merchant Gershkovich in Ganchesti. However, the merchant's son ran out of the house and started screaming, to which the police and neighbors came running. While firing back, the Kotovoites barely managed to escape...
On January 6-7, the gang committed 11 armed robberies. In total, from January 1 to February 16, 28 robberies were committed. It happened that in one day three apartments or four carriages were robbed. Kotovsky’s attack on the estate of his benefactor, which was owned by the landowner Nazarov after the death of Manuk Bey, is known.
At the beginning of 1906, the police announced a reward of two thousand rubles for the capture of Kotovsky.
Kotovsky was artistic and proud, called himself “Ataman of Hell” or “Ataman of Hell,” spread legends, rumors, and fables about himself, and during his raids he often shouted intimidatingly: “I am Kotovsky!” He was a narcissistic and cynical man, prone to posing and theatrical gestures.
Many people in the Bessarabian and Kherson provinces knew about the robber Kotovsky!
In cities, he always appeared in the guise of a rich, elegant aristocrat, posing as a landowner, businessman, company representative, manager, machinist, representative for the procurement of food for the army... He loved to visit theaters, loved to brag about his brutal appetite (scrambled eggs from 25 eggs!) , his weaknesses were thoroughbred horses, gambling and women.
Police reports reproduce the “portrait” of the criminal: he is 174 centimeters tall (he was not at all “heroic, two-meter tall,” as many wrote), of a heavy build, somewhat stooped, has a “timid” gait, and sways while walking. Kotovsky had a round head, brown eyes, and a small mustache. The hair on his head was sparse and black, his forehead was “decorated” by receding hairlines, and strange small black dots could be seen under his eyes - a tattoo of a criminal authority, a “godfather”. Kotovsky tried to get rid of these tattoos later.
In addition to Russian, Kotovsky spoke Moldavian, Jewish, and German. He gave the impression of an intelligent, courteous person and easily aroused the sympathy of many.
Contemporaries and police reports indicate Gregory's enormous strength. Since childhood, he began lifting weights, boxing, and loved horse racing. In life, and especially in prisons, this was very useful to him. Strength gave him independence, power, and terrified enemies and victims.
Kotovsky of that time had steel fists, a frantic temper and a craving for all kinds of pleasures. When he was not whileing away time on prison bunks or on the “high roads”, tracking down victims, he wasted his life at the races, in brothels, and in chic restaurants.
In February 1906, Kotovsky was recognized, arrested and placed in the Chisinau prison, where he became a recognized authority. He changed the order of prisoners, dealt with undesirables, and in May 1906 tried, to no avail, to organize the escape of seventeen criminals and anarchists from prison. Later, Gregory tried to escape twice more, but again without success.
On August 31, 1906, shackled, he was able to get out of the solitary confinement cell for especially dangerous criminals, which was constantly guarded by a sentry, get into the prison attic and, having broken the iron bars, descend from it into the prison yard using a rope, prudently made from a cut blanket and sheets. Thirty meters separated the attic from the ground!
After that, he climbed over the fence and found himself in a waiting cab, which his accomplices had carefully brought up.
Such a masterfully executed escape leaves no doubt that the guards and, perhaps, the authorities were bribed.
On September 5, 1906, the bailiff of the Chisinau city police station, Hadji-Koli, and three detectives try to detain Kotovsky on one of the streets of Chisinau, but he manages to escape, despite two bullets stuck in his leg.
Finally, on September 24, 1906, the bailiff Hadji-Koli detained the robber, conducting a general raid of the most polluted areas of Chisinau. But once in the cell, Kotovsky again prepares to escape, and during a search in his constantly guarded cell, a revolver, a knife and a long rope are discovered!
In April 1907, the trial of Kotovsky took place, which shocked many with a relatively mild sentence - ten years of hard labor: then they were executed for smaller crimes...
Kotovsky himself stated at the trial that he was not engaged in robbery, but in “the fight for the rights of the poor” and “the fight against tyranny.”
The higher courts did not agree with the lenient sentence and re-examined the case. The investigation revealed that Kotovsky’s gang was “covered” by police officials, and one of the policemen even sold the loot of the Kotovsky gang.
Seven months later, when the case was reconsidered, Kotovsky received twelve years of hard labor...
Until January 1911, Kotovsky visited the Nikolaev convict prison, as well as the Smolensk and Oryol prisons, and in February 1911 he ended up in real hard labor in the Kazakovsky prison (Nerchensky district of the Trans-Baikal province), whose prisoners mined gold ore.
He earned the trust of the prison administration and was appointed foreman on the construction of the Amur Railway, where he was transferred from the mine in May 1912.
On February 27, 1913, Kotovsky escaped. In his “Soviet” autobiography, Kotovsky wrote that “during his escape, he killed two guards guarding the mine”: and again a lie...
Using a false passport in the name of Rudkovsky, he worked for some time as a loader on the Volga, a fireman at a mill, a laborer, a coachman, and a hammerman. In Syzran, someone identified him, and following a denunciation, Kotovsky was arrested, but he easily escaped from the local prison...
In the fall of 1913, Kotovsky returned to Bessarabia, where by the end of the year he again assembled an armed gang of seven people, and in 1915 there were already 16 Kotovites.
Kotovsky made his first raids on the old offender, the landowner Nazarov from Ganchesht, S. Rusnak, the Bandera treasury and the cash register of the distillery. In March 1916, the Kotovites attacked a prisoner car that was standing on the sidings of the Bendery station. Dressed in officer uniforms, the bandits disarm the guards and release 60 criminals; several released remained in Kotovsky’s gang.
The report to the police chief noted that Kotovsky’s gang acted, as a rule, according to one scenario. 5-7 people wearing black masks with slits for the eyes took part in the raids on the apartments. Despite the fact that his henchmen went out to “work” in masks, Kotovsky did not put on a mask, and sometimes even introduced himself to his victim.
The bandits appeared in the evening and took their places, acting on the instructions of the leader. Interestingly, if the victim asked Kotovsky “not to take everything” or “to leave something for bread,” the “Ataman of Hell” willingly left the victim a certain amount.
As criminal statistics testify, Grigory Ivanovich managed to commit five robberies in Bessarabia in 1913, in 1914 he began to rob in Chisinau, Tiraspol, Bendery, Balta (up to ten armed raids in total), in 1915 - at the beginning of 1916, the Kotovites committed more twenty raids, including three in Odessa...
Then Kotovsky dreamed of “personally collecting 70 thousand rubles and moving to Romania forever”
In September 1915, Kotovsky and his bandits raided the Odessa apartment of a large cattle dealer, Holstein, where Kotovsky, taking out a revolver, invited the merchant to contribute ten thousand rubles to the “fund for the disadvantaged to buy milk, since many Odessa old women and babies do not have the means to buy milk.” " Aron Holstein offered 500 rubles “for milk,” but the Kotovites, doubting that such a rich house had such a small amount, took 8,838 rubles “for milk” from the safe and pockets of Holstein and his guest Baron Steiberg. Grigory Ivanovich was a comedian; in 1915, for that kind of money you could feed the whole of Odessa with milk...
1916 is the peak of the “thieves’ popularity” of Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky. The Odessa Post newspaper publishes an article entitled “The Legendary Robber.” Kotovsky is called the “Bessarabian Zel Khan”, “the new Pugachev or Karl Moore”, “a romantic bandit”. He becomes a hero of the “yellow” press, a “popular robber”, whose adventures he dreamed of as a child. Moreover, he was a “fair” hero who avoided killing during raids and robbed only the rich...
“Odessa News” wrote: “The further, the more the unique personality of this person becomes clear. We have to admit that the name “legendary” is well deserved. Kotovsky seemed to flaunt his selfless prowess, his amazing fearlessness...
Living on a false passport, he calmly walked the streets of Chisinau, sat for hours on the veranda of the local Robin cafe, and occupied a room in the most fashionable local hotel.”
At the end of February 1916, Kotovsky moved his “activities” to Vinnitsa.
The Governor-General of the Kherson province M. Ebelov sent large police forces to catch the Kotovites. The World War continued, the Romanian Front passed nearby, and the Kotovites undermined the reliability of the rear. Again in everyone populated areas Leaflets appeared offering a reward of 2,000 rubles for indicating the place where the bandit Kotovsky was hiding.
From the end of January 1916, arrests of gang members began. The first to be arrested were: Ivchenko, Afanasyev and the famous leader of the underworld Isaac Rutgaiser. When leaving Tiraspol, the cart in which these criminals were traveling was overtaken by the police, a shootout ensued, and the bandits were captured.
The assistant chief of the Odessa detective Don-Dontsov detained 12 Kotovites, but the ataman himself disappeared...
At the beginning of June 1916, Kotovsky showed up at the Kaynary farm in Bessarabia. It soon became clear that he was hiding under the name Romashkan and working as an overseer of agricultural workers on the farm of the landowner Stamatov.
On June 25, the police bailiff Hadzhi-Koli, who had already arrested Kotovsky three times, begins an operation to detain him. The farm was surrounded by thirty policemen and gendarmes. When arrested, Kotovsky resisted, tried to escape, and was chased for 12 miles...
Like a hunted animal, he hid in the tall grain, but was wounded in the chest by two bullets, captured and shackled in hand and leg shackles.
His fellow student, who became an assistant bailiff, Pyotr Chemansky, took part in the arrest of Kotovsky. It is interesting that twenty-four years later, when the Red Army troops entered Bessarabia, the old man Chemansky was tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to death for participating in the arrest of Kotovsky...
In October 1916, the trial of Grigory Kotovsky took place. Well aware that he was inevitably facing execution, Kotovsky completely repented and stated in his defense that he gave part of the captured money to the poor and to the Red Cross, to help those wounded in the war. But despite all this, he did not present any evidence of these noble deeds...
Kotovsky justified himself by saying that he not only did not kill people, but also never fired a weapon, but carried it for the sake of force, because “he respected a person, his human dignity... without committing any physical violence because he always treated humanity with love.” life."
Grigory asked to send him as a “penalty” to the front, where he would “joyfully die for the Tsar”...
However, in mid-October 1916, he was sentenced by the Odessa Military District Court to death by hanging.
While the authorities were in no hurry to carry out the sentence, Kotovsky bombarded the Tsar’s office with petitions for pardon. At the same time, he sent a request to the local administration to replace the hanging with shooting.
The then popular commander of the Southwestern Front, General Brusilov, and his wife Nadezhda Brusilova-Zhelikhovskaya interceded for the robber. Kotovsky, knowing that Madame Brusilova is engaged in charity work and takes care of convicts, writes her a letter, begging her to save him.
Here are the lines from this letter: “...placed by my crimes in the face of a shameful death, shocked by the consciousness that, leaving this life, I leave behind such terrible moral baggage, such a shameful memory and experiencing a passionate, burning need and thirst to correct and make amends for the evil I have committed. ... feeling within myself the strength that will help me to be reborn again and become again, in the full and absolute sense, an honest person and useful for my Great Fatherland, which I have always loved so ardently, passionately and selflessly, I dare to turn to Your Excellency and kneel beg you to intercede for me and save my life"
In the letter, he calls himself this: “...not a villain, not a born dangerous criminal, but an accidentally fallen man.”
A letter to Nadezhda Brusilova saved the life of the condemned man. Mrs. Brusilova was very receptive and compassionate, and most importantly, her husband, the commander of the Southwestern Front, directly approved the death sentences. At the insistence of his wife, General Brusilov first asked the governor and the prosecutor to postpone the execution, and subsequently, by his order, replaced the execution with lifelong hard labor. Later, having met with Madame Brusilova, Kotovsky thanked her for saving his life and stated that he would now “live for others.”
After the February Revolution of 1917, the prison gates opened to revolutionaries, but they decided not to release Kotovsky, and instead of lifelong hard labor he was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor with a ban on engaging in social and political activities...
On March 8, 1917, a prisoner riot broke out in the Odessa prison, during which prisoner Kotovsky distinguished himself by calling on the criminals to stop the riot. He hoped that such an act would count for him. The result of this riot was new prison “revolutionary” orders, which, according to the newspaper, were expressed as follows: “All cells are open. There is not a single guard inside the fence. Full self-government of prisoners was introduced. The prison is headed by Kotovsky and assistant attorney Zvonky. Kotovsky kindly gives tours of the prison.”
At the end of March 1917, newspapers reported that Kotovsky was temporarily released from prison, and he came to the head of the Odessa Military District, General Marx, with a proposal for his release. Kotovsky convinced the general that he could bring great benefit to the new regime as the organizer of the “revolutionary police.”
He stated that he knows all the criminals in Odessa and can help in their arrest or re-education. There were reports in the press that Kotovsky managed to provide some services to the Public Security Section in capturing provocateurs and criminals. In particular, he went with the police on searches and arrests, while being a prisoner...
Incredible resourcefulness and the ability to sacrifice... your accomplices!
However, his proposal was rejected by the Odessa city authorities, but Kotovsky did not let up...
He sent a telegram to the Minister of Justice A. Kerensky, to whom he informed about the “bullying of the old revolutionary” and asked to send him to the front, but he, not daring to release the robber himself, returned the request “to the discretion of the local authorities.”
On May 5, 1917, by order of the chief of staff of the Odessa district and a court decision, Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky was finally paroled, and with the condition of immediate “expulsion” to the front. However, Kotovsky later claimed that he was released "by personal order of Kerensky." Even before this, Kotovsky had a “special status” as a prisoner, wore civilian clothes, and often came to prison only to spend the night!
In March - May 1917, “all of Odessa” literally carried Kotovsky in their arms. At the Odessa Opera House, Grigory Kotovsky is offering his “revolutionary” shackles for auction: the leg shackles were purchased by the liberal lawyer K. Gomberg for the huge sum of 3,100 rubles and donated them as a gift to the theater museum, and the hand shackles were purchased by the owner of Cafe Fanconi for 75 rubles , and they served as an advertisement for the cafe for several months, showing off in the window. During the auction in the theater, young Leonid Utesov encouraged him with a reprise: “Kotovsky appeared, the bourgeois was alarmed!”
Kotovsky donated 783 rubles from the proceeds for the shackles to the fund for helping prisoners of the Odessa prison...
In the summer of 1917, Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky, as a volunteer of the 136th Taganrog Infantry Regiment of the 34th Division (according to other sources, the Life Guards Uhlan Regiment) was already at Romanian Front- “washes away shame with blood.”
Kotovsky never had to participate in real hostilities, but he told the world about hot battles, dangerous raids behind enemy lines... and he himself “awarded” himself for bravery with the St. George Cross and the rank of ensign, although in reality he was only promoted to non-commissioned officer! And again a lie...
At the beginning of January 1918, Kotovsky, in the company of anarchists, helps the Bolsheviks seize power in Odessa and Tiraspol. Although, for some reason, he did not like to remember the days of the revolution, and these days became another “blank spot” in his biography. It is known that Kotovsky becomes the representative of Rumcherod and goes to Bolgrad to prevent a Jewish pogrom.
In Tiraspol in January 1918, Kotovsky assembled a detachment of former criminals and anarchists to fight against the Romanian royal troops. On January 14, Kotovsky’s detachment covered the withdrawal of the Red troops from Chisinau, then he headed the southern section of the defense of Bendery from the Romanian troops, and on January 24, Kotovsky’s detachment of 400 soldiers headed for Dubossary, defeating the Romanian advanced units.
Later, Kotovsky becomes the commander of the “Partisan revolutionary detachment fighting against the Romanian oligarchy” as part of the Odessa Soviet army.
In February 1918, Kotovsky’s cavalry hundred was included in one of the units of the Special Soviet Army - the Tiraspol detachment. This hundred makes raids on Moldavian territory, attacking small Romanian units in the Bendery region, but already on February 19, Kotovsky, having disbanded his hundred, leaves subordination to the command and begins to act independently. In essence, the gang remained a gang, and it was more interested in requisitions than military operations...
At the beginning of March 1918, the troops of Germany and Austria-Hungary launched an offensive in Ukraine, Kyiv was captured, and a threat loomed over Odessa... While Army Commander Muravyov was preparing the defense of Odessa, Kotovsky’s “partisan reconnaissance detachment” fled from Transnistria through Razdelnaya and Berezovka to Elizavetgrad and further to Ekaterinoslav - to the rear.
It was then that fate brought Kotovsky together with the anarchists Marusya Nikiforova and Nester Makhno. However, Gregory at that time had already made a choice that was far from the romantic fantasies of anarchists. Traces of Kotovsky are lost in the turmoil of the Red Army's retreat from Ukraine. In April, he disbands his detachment and at this fateful time for the revolution goes on vacation.
This became a new desertion of a “hero with shattered nerves”...
Soon Kotovsky is captured by the White Guards-Drozdovites, who marched along the red rear from Moldova to the Don, but Kotovsky also fled from them in Mariupol, escaping from another inevitable execution.
There were rumors that at the beginning of 1919, Kotovsky began a whirlwind romance with screen star Vera Kholodnaya. This charming woman found herself in the thick of political intrigue: intelligence and counterintelligence of the Reds and Whites tried to take advantage of her popularity and social connections. But in February 1919, she suddenly died, or perhaps was killed, and the mystery of her death remained unsolved...
At that time, along with the administrators of Hetman Ukraine and the Austrian military command, Odessa was ruled by the “king of thieves” Mishka Yaponchik. It was with him that Kotovsky established close “business” relations. Kotovsky at that time organized a terrorist, sabotage squad, which, having connections with the Bolshevik, anarchist and Left Socialist Revolutionary underground, actually did not obey anyone and acted at its own peril and risk. The number of this squad in different sources different – from 20 to 200 people. The first number looks more realistic...
This squad “became famous” for killing provocateurs and extorting money from factory owners, hotel and restaurant owners. Usually Kotovsky sent the victim a letter demanding that they give money to “Kotovsky for the revolution.”
Primitive racketeering alternated with major robberies...
Kotovsky’s terrorist squad helped Yaponchik establish himself as the “king” of the Odessa bandits, because Yaponchik was considered a revolutionary anarchist. Then there was not much difference between Yaponchik and Kotovsky: both were repeat offenders - former convicts, anarchists. Together with “Yaponchik’s people,” the Kotovites attack the Odessa prison and free the prisoners, together they smash Yaponchik’s competitors, “bomb” stores, warehouses, and cash registers.
Their joint cause was the uprising of revolutionaries and bandits in the suburbs of Odessa, on Moldovanka, at the end of March 1919. The armed uprising of the outskirts had a pronounced political overtones and was directed against the power in Odessa of the White Guards and Entente interventionists.
Each of the “allied sides” had its own views on the uprising: Yaponchik’s people reveled in chaos and sought to expropriate bourgeois and state values, and the revolutionaries hoped to use bandit freemen to create chaos and panic in the city, which, in turn, was supposed to help the Soviets who besieged Odessa to the troops.
Then several thousand rebels seize the outskirts of Odessa and carry out armed raids into the city center. The White Guards sent troops and armored cars against them, but the Whites were no longer able to restore their power on the outskirts of Odessa...
While the White Guard troops began to leave the city and converge on the Odessa port, Kotovsky’s squad, taking advantage of the panic, stopped officers on the streets and killed them. Having settled on the slopes above the port, the Kotovites fired at the public who were loading onto ships, trying to leave Odessa.
At the same time, some unknown bandits (maybe Kotovites?) managed to raid a state-owned Odessa bank and take out five million gold rubles worth of money and valuables in three trucks. The fate of these valuables remained unknown. Only among the people in the 1920-30s there were rumors about Kotovsky’s treasures, allegedly buried somewhere near Odessa...