Viktor Ivanovich Baranov is often called the king of counterfeiters of the Soviet Union. He stands apart among the well-known manufacturers of counterfeit money in Russia.

Experienced police officers admit that “there are no more artists of this level,” although experts have to deal with much more advanced fakes. The Central Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs even had a special stand dedicated to the activities of Viktor Baranov.
He grew up in the Moscow region, in a wealthy family. Mom is a sales worker, father is an employee of the prosecutor's office. As a child, Victor looked at banknotes with admiration Tsarist Russia. He was sixteen when the family moved to the Stavropol region. Victor studied at an art school. “After all, the blood of an artist flows in me,” says Baranov. “My uncle, who was burned in a tank at the front, was an artist. And before the army I painted pictures - “Alyonushka”, “Three Hunters”, went out into the open air, painted from life.” After serving in the army, Victor got a job as a freight forwarder in the Stavropol Regional Party Committee, which was headed by the future President of the USSR Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev.
The work did not bring Baranov creative satisfaction - his extraordinary inventive abilities were not used. He proposed an original solution to the problem of potato sorting to the Committee on Inventions under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He was refused under a far-fetched pretext, saying that the application was completed incorrectly. Baranov tried to introduce folding boxes for transporting glass containers at the winery, but the chief engineer dismissed the inventor as if he were an annoying fly.
that prompted him to start making counterfeit money? Many researchers of the Baranov Case believe that it was a thirst for profit, easy enrichment. Viktor Ivanovich himself says that he wanted to challenge Goznak and did not intend to flood the country with fakes.
From Baranov’s testimony: “At first I decided to penetrate the secret of printing - both high and intaglio. I went to the regional library named after. M.Yu. Lermontov, where he was registered, and began to take for reading, or rather, viewing, various books on printing. But I didn’t find anything I needed. Then the book “Entertaining Electroplating Engineering” fell into my hands. In this book, a description of a photosensitive solution was made. This was around 1971. Due to the nature of my work, I had to visit the printing house of the publishing house of the newspaper “Stavropolskaya Pravda”, where I had the opportunity to see letterpress clichés. While visiting the printing house, I began collecting various papers there, believing that they could serve as samples for research. I understood that a primitive approach to solving this problem would not yield results. Therefore, I soon went to Moscow to the Library. Lenin for the study of printed literature."
Baranov set up a workshop in a barn next to his house. He understood what a difficult task he had set himself. But he had plenty of wit. Eg, printed forms he tried to engrave using... a dental drill.
The work was in full swing when Baranov was suddenly called to the police! Has he been exposed?

Baranov came to the Stavropol police department expecting the worst. But he was worried in vain. The head of the personnel department invited him to drive the general, the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Stavropol Territory. Baranov at that time worked as a driver at the motor depot of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU, among his responsible “clients” was First Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Viktor Ivanovich refused the flattering offer.
After a visit to the police, Baranov realized that his secluded lifestyle could arouse suspicion among his comrades. He began to visit friends more often and relax more.
It took him four years to learn how to make watermarks and paper similar to Gosznak’s, two and a half years to select ink for intaglio printing, and another year to prepare the ink composition for letterpress printing. He ordered parts for the equipment piece by piece from friends at Stavropol enterprises. I bought chemicals secondhand at a transformer plant. It was believed that it was almost impossible to reproduce the security grid on banknotes - complex patterns superimposed on each other. Externally, the patterns looked like faded stains. Baranov, having “disassembled” the protective mesh layer by layer, was surprised to discover images of lions and mythical animals. He invented an installation for applying watermarks, a ball mill for finely grinding dyes, designed a printing press, and came up with a unique composition for etching copper. “Several of my shirts simply rotted during these twelve years of searching,” says the king of counterfeiters. “I could sit in the barn for a day or two.” Baranov went to work at the fire department to be on duty every other day.
The first bill printed by Baranov was in denomination of fifty rubles. The banknote turned out very similar to the original, only Lenin was young. He went to Krasnodar, where he exchanged 70 counterfeit bills without any problems. When the technology for making fifty-ruble notes was brought to perfection, the counterfeiter decided to start counterfeiting the most popular and complex banknote - 25 rubles. “If the ruble were the most difficult, I would make the ruble,” says Baranov. “I was absolutely not interested in money, I was looking for an opportunity to prove myself.”
The protection of Soviet money was carried out at a high technical level. If Baranov failed to achieve some technical nuances, for example, the number was not printed, he burned the bill. It was painstaking work, coupled with the talent of the inventor. Only in 1974 did the counterfeiter manage to start issuing 25-ruble banknotes...
Baranov exchanged counterfeit bills at markets in nearby cities, but not in Stavropol. Life was getting better. He paid off his debts, bought a car, bought jewelry for his wife. According to Baranov, he constantly felt remorse for deceiving the state. The idea of ​​sending his preparations to the police more than once occurred to him. But the counterfeiter was afraid that he would be immediately arrested and sent to prison for a long time.
One day a funny incident happened to him. Baranov with another batch of money (according to investigators, about 5,000 rubles) went to sell them in Crimea. Having bought tomatoes on the street from some grandmother in Simferopol, he headed to a telephone booth, forgetting his briefcase with money. Having already moved a decent distance, he grabbed the money and rushed back. But neither the grandmother, nor even the briefcase was there. Thus, trading tomatoes brought the nimble resident of Simferopol 5,000 rubles of pure profit.
Baranov did not suspect that with his fakes he had caused a real stir among the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB. Still would! In the period from 1974 to 1977 in Moscow, Kyiv, Chisinau, Riga, Vilnius, Yerevan, Tashkent, when opening collection bags in banks, 46 counterfeit 50-ruble notes and 415 counterfeit 25-ruble notes were discovered. Experts from Goznak and State Bank came to the conclusion that the banknotes were printed in one place, and it is impossible to produce counterfeits of this level using a homemade method. They suspected insidious capitalists who, by injecting counterfeit rubles, intended to undermine the economic power of the Soviet Union. Another version was also developed: one of the Goznak employees sold the technology for making money “outside.”
There were all sorts of rumors about how Baranov screwed up. In fact, it was simple negligence that ruined him. While securing the cliche to create a protective net, the counterfeiter did not pay attention to the fact that the cliche was turned upside down, and in the place where the wave should have risen, there was a descent. Baranov did not reject the batch. However, in one of the banks the cashier noticed this discrepancy.
The bulk of counterfeits with similar printing defects were discovered in the Stavropol region. Orientations were sent throughout the region. Hundreds of police officers took part in the operation. On April 12, 1977, Baranov was detained at the collective farm market in the city of Cherkessk while selling another batch of counterfeits. The vigilant merchant, to whom he offered to exchange two banknotes, immediately let the operative on duty know. During a personal search, 77 counterfeit banknotes worth 1,925 rubles were seized from Baranov. His sincere confession allowed the investigative department of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Region of the Stavropol Territory to add to case No. 193 another hundred criminal cases opened on the facts of the discovery of counterfeit money in different cities...
At Baranov’s home they found a counterfeit 50-ruble bill, more than three hundred 25-ruble bills, and about nine hundred blanks. In addition, cliches, homemade printing presses, a set of equipment for making paper, equipment for applying watermarks, and an entire library of literature on printing and electrical engineering were confiscated from him. “By the time of my arrest, all my equipment had been dismantled,” says Baranov. “I was going to drive through ponds and lakes and scatter it there piece by piece.” I didn’t throw it away only because it’s April and it’s muddy and you can’t get through it. And thank God. Otherwise, divers would have to look for these parts at the bottom of reservoirs.”
Baranov spent the first ten days after his arrest in the Stavropol bullpen, then he was transferred to a pre-trial detention center. The report on the long-awaited capture of the counterfeiter landed on the desk of the Minister of Internal Affairs Shchelokov. Higher ranks they refused to believe that one person at home could organize the production of counterfeits of such quality. At the Stavropol Department of Internal Affairs, Baranov was asked to demonstrate his abilities. According to the counterfeiter, during his “work” they constantly tried to “catch” him. Instead of the requested solution, they brought another one. But when the officers saw the appearance of the watermark with their own eyes, doubts disappeared: it was him!
From the Stavropol pre-trial detention center, Baranov was transported to Moscow, to Butyrka. Every day he was visited by specialists, to whom he demonstrated his inventions. A Goznak technologist wrote: “Manufactured by V.I. Baranov. counterfeit banknotes in denominations of 25 and 50 rubles are close in appearance to genuine banknotes and are difficult to identify in circulation. That is why this counterfeit was very dangerous and could cause mistrust of the population in genuine banknotes.”
Viktor Baranov revealed the secret of a solution that etched copper much faster than it was done in the Goznak printing house (under the name “Baranovsky solvent” it will be used in production for fifteen years). In a letter addressed to the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, the counterfeiter outlined recommendations on ten pages for improving the protection of rubles from counterfeiting...
Probably, Viktor Ivanovich told the competent authorities a lot of useful things if the execution sentence was replaced with a colony. On March 10, 1978, the Stavropol Regional Court sentenced Baranov to 12 years in prison for producing about 1,300 units of counterfeit banknotes. The number 12 miraculously haunted him for many years: on April 12, 1977, he was arrested, worked on forgeries for 12 years, lived before The apartment has 12 square meters. After serving his sentence, Baranov returned to Stavropol. Knowing about Viktor Ivanovich’s talent, they reached out to him various kinds « business people" They proposed issuing counterfeit excise stamps, seals, and false documents. But Baranov was completely done with his past; he wanted to engage in legal developments. “The meaning of human life is creative work,” he believes. “What was given to me, I realized, even if I had to endure a lot of suffering and serve time.”

This man is still rightly considered an unrivaled master of making counterfeit banknotes. At one time, his criminal talent literally shocked Goznak specialists, party and police chiefs of the USSR. Today Viktor Baranov huddles in a room in an ordinary dorm with his wife and little son. And after 11 years of imprisonment, he continues to bring his unexpected inventions into reality, but now exclusively law-abiding ones.

April 12, 1977. Cherkessk. Kolkhoz market. The Adyghe salesman had just told the police how a few minutes ago a buyer had approached him with a request to exchange twenty-five-ruble notes. Traders were asked to pay attention if someone offered quarter or fifty dollars on the market? So he converted. Yes, of course, he will show the buyer. This is the one with the briefcase.

The documents of the suspicious buyer turned out to be in order: Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, a resident of Stavropol. But the police couldn’t even dream of how he ended up with cash in order. Viktor Ivanovich had 1,925 rubles in quarter notes in his briefcase. These 77 banknotes became for Baranov what 33 irons were for Professor Pleischner - a sign of failure.
- So who are you? — the investigator asked him when the police brought the owner of the suspicious money to the police station.
“I am a counterfeiter,” answered the king of counterfeiters.

From the point of view of law enforcement agencies, this story began in the mid-70s. By 1977, in 76 regions of the USSR, from Vilnius to Tashkent, 46 counterfeit banknotes of the fifty-ruble denomination and 415 of the twenty-five-ruble denomination were identified, which, according to experts, had a single source of origin. The exceptionally high quality of the counterfeits made counterintelligence suspect the CIA, which, of course, could easily print rubles in a factory way in the USA and then distribute them through agents to the USSR. Along with the spy version, the traditional version was also checked - it was assumed that the counterfeiters received technology directly from Goznak. More than five hundred employees of the enterprise were under round-the-clock surveillance by the KGB for almost a year, until a repeated examination established that Goznak had nothing to do with it - just someone in the country was too well versed in the process of printing money.

Counterintelligence regretfully abandoned the idea of ​​finding American sowers scattering banknotes in the USSR, and the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs focused on searching for a group of counterfeiters within the country.
Gradually, it was possible to determine that in the south of Russia, high-quality counterfeits appear more often than in other regions. Then the circle of searches narrowed to the Stavropol region, where in three months of 1977 86 counterfeit twenty-five-ruble bills were immediately identified. And finally, thanks to the vigilance of the Adyghe seller, the first, as the security forces believed, member of the criminal group was captured.

It must be said that at the time of his arrest Baranov was... a freelance employee of the Stavropol OBKhSS. As a driver, Viktor Ivanovich took two security officers - senior lieutenant Alexander Nikolchenko and major Yuri Baranov (namesake) - on raids to all sorts of “grain places”. And it had to happen that at the time of the arrest the senior leader was in Pyatigorsk, where he was just catching the notorious elusive counterfeiter! I found out that he was caught in Cherkessk, and received an order to deliver the captured man to Stavropol. Imagine the opera’s amazement when he saw his partner in front of him!.. “I knew that Yura and Sasha were looking for me, but I never asked them a question... I would never use our friendly relations to my advantage.” , admits Baranov.

“I decided for myself a long time ago,” says Baranov, “if they catch me, I won’t twist and turn. I never lied to the police." The police did not know about this then, however, and considered Viktor Ivanovich a courier for counterfeiters, who decided to take all the blame on himself in order to shield his accomplices. Because one person cannot produce counterfeit money of such impeccable quality!

“I was taken to Stavropol as a general,” recalls Baranov. “There were two traffic police cars with flashing lights ahead.”

There he immediately led the police to his barn, where a search revealed a compact printing press, stacks of printed money and five notebooks describing many years of research. On the same day, a report was placed on the desk of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, and the very next morning a group of Moscow experts flew to Stavropol.

During the investigative experiment, Viktor Ivanovich, in front of distinguished guests, created watermarks on paper, rolled letterpress and intaglio seals, cut the sheet and applied the treasury number with a numberer. By the end of the performance, there were no longer any skeptics left in the room. Everyone believed in a miracle and that the wizard needed to serve a decent amount of time.

After which, by decision of the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, a hundred more similar cases were added to criminal case No. 193 on the discovery of counterfeit banknotes of twenty-five rubles in denomination, where it all began. In the USSR people were also sentenced to death for lesser crimes.

Vitya Baranov developed an interest in money as a child, when he began collecting a collection of old banknotes. But he came to the conclusion that he could make money himself much later... In Stavropol, where the future criminal genius studied at a regular school, he was always in good standing with the teachers. Until the fifth grade, Vitya Baranov was an excellent student, and his behavior was always exemplary. Among his favorite school subjects was drawing... The guy went to art school, wrote beautiful sunsets... And best of all, he made copies of famous paintings - “Alyonushka” by Vasnetsov, “Morning in pine forest» Shishkin and others.

After seventh grade, Vitya Baranov went to Rostov-on-Don to study at a construction school. Within a year, he mastered the specialty of a parquet carpenter. He also really wanted to become a pilot. My friend and I gathered a large group of the same guys at the flying club and began to practice parachuting. Victor made several jumps. At the draft board he was told that he needed to commit two more, and he would be drafted. landing troops. But, heeding his mother’s lamentations, Baranov completed a driver’s course at DOSAAF and went to serve in a motor battalion. And he was a secretary Komsomol organization your part.

After the army, Victor worked at one time as a freight forwarder in the Stavropol regional party committee. And twice he even drove Mikhail Gorbachev, at that time the third secretary of the Komsomol Committee, home from work at night.

When I started making money, I was one hundred percent sure that nothing would work out. But it was interesting to test my capabilities,” recalls Stavropol “Kulibin”.

He worked on the banknotes for 12 years. During this time, I thoroughly studied as many as 12 printing specialties - from engraver to printer. For three years he “invented” the watermark himself, and for two years he “invented” intaglio printing ink. He studied textbooks for printing students, even went to Moscow, studied rare books “in his specialty” at Leninka... He had to do a lot by trial and error.

The inventor locked himself in his barn on Zheleznodorozhnaya Street in Stavropol and worked literally day and night. The fruits of this work can be seen today in the Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The whole room is occupied by Baranov’s “exhibition”, which was transported to Moscow in no less than two KamAZ trucks!

The forgery genius is especially proud of the solution he invented for removing copper oxides during etching. All printers in the world have been struggling with this problem for a long time. Terribly labor-intensive and painstaking work! And Baranov built a reagent from four components - two poison copper, two remove its oxides. Everything takes a minute or two... Goznak worked for 14 years on this etching agent, which received an unspoken name - “Baranovsky”.

The first banknote that Baranov made was a fifty-ruble note. One to one with the original in the smallest details. The only thing, out of respect for Lenin, the counterfeiter made the leader twenty years younger. And this was not noticed in any bank!

He produced only a few fifty kopecks - 70 pieces. Caucasians in the markets grabbed them with their hands and asked for more. But the Stavropol resident decided to make the “quarter” - the most secure of Soviet banknotes. “If the ruble were the most difficult thing, I would do it... I wasn’t interested in money as such,” laughs Viktor Ivanovich.

Even the police admit that Baranov used his money machine very modestly. The only serious acquisition in all these years was a car. And then, according to Viktor Ivanovich, the entire amount was paid to him from honest labor savings. “I didn’t go to restaurants, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t drink, I didn’t have girls. And there was no TV, there was only a small refrigerator. I didn’t need to - I was doing work.” All the money was spent on the production of new equipment. He did not give counterfeit bills to his family. “My wife once asked where the money came from,” Baranov recalls. — I said that I offer my inventions to factories. I didn’t give my wife a lot of money - 25, 30, 50 rubles.”

In parallel with his study of coinage, Baranov observed the behavior of sellers in the markets in order to understand how money “moves.” For example, fishmongers always take banknotes with wet hands, and meatmongers often have blood on their hands. Caucasians willingly accept new crisp banknotes. As a result, Baranov added 70 fifty dollars, after which he decided to give up on them. Tired of candy wrappers.

However, Baranov immediately lost interest in the money he made. He was not interested in wealth - he simply needed funds to implement other bold projects. He calculated that this would require about 30 thousand rubles. No sooner said than done!

But the trouble was when Baranov took him to Crimea to change his money, bought two kilograms of tomatoes from an old woman, walked away and only a few minutes later realized that he didn’t have a suitcase with him. He returned, and the old woman was like that, taking with her money for a good house...

The bungling inventor had to turn on the printing press again, which he was about to disassemble and scatter in parts into different ponds.

Baranov did not even think about counterfeiting the currency. But during one of his trips to the capital, he bought a dollar from a dealer - for his collection. Having looked at it more closely, I realized how easy it is to make money...

Baranov had no friends, because friends like to visit without knocking. He regularly organized “open days” for suspicious neighbors. Curious old women who looked into the workshop had a view of the metalworking machine, the enlarger and the developing tanks - Baranov hid all the most interesting things in disassembled form under the shelves. Only a suspicious neighbor-hunter continued to believe that Baranov was pouring shot in the barn at night.

It was when creating a new batch of quarter notes that the maestro made a fatal mistake. While securing the cliche to create a protective net, Baranov did not pay attention to the fact that the cliche was upside down. As a result, after printing the money, he discovered that in the place where the wave should have risen, there was a descent. Considering that no one would notice this, he decided not to reject the batch. However, in one of the banks where such a bill eventually ended up, an eagle-eyed cashier noticed the difference and raised the alarm. From that moment on, as they say in thrillers, Baranov had only a few months left to live in freedom.

“By the time of my arrest, all my equipment had been dismantled,” he says. “I was going to drive through ponds and lakes and scatter it there in parts.” I didn’t throw it away only because it’s April and it’s muddy and you can’t get through it. And thank God. Otherwise, divers would have to look for these parts at the bottom of reservoirs.”

From the Stavropol pre-trial detention center, Baranov was transported to Moscow, to Butyrka. Every day he was visited by specialists, to whom, over the course of twelve investigative experiments, he demonstrated the victory of the human mind over Goznak.

The Goznak technologist wrote in his conclusion: “The counterfeit banknotes of 25 and 50 rubles produced by V. I. Baranov are externally close to genuine banknotes and are difficult to identify in circulation. That is why this counterfeit was very dangerous and could cause mistrust of the population in genuine banknotes.”

Viktor Ivanovich willingly shared his work. For twelve years he hid, and finally people appeared who were able to appreciate his talent and titanic work. The king of counterfeiters happily gave out the recipe for his solution, which etched copper several times faster than it was done in Goznak (under the name “Baranovsky solvent” it was used in production for the next 15 years). For the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, Baranov outlined recommendations on ten pages for improving the protection of rubles from counterfeiting... Viktor Ivanovich probably told the competent authorities a lot of other useful things, considering that the execution sentence was replaced with a colony, and he was given three years less than the maximum sentence . “I printed little money,” Baranov offers his explanation of the court’s humanity. - Otherwise they would have shot you. But you know what I’ll tell you: it would be better if they shot him. I wouldn’t suffer for eleven years, with my hands shaking from hunger, snow, wet feet and ten cars with concrete that need to be shoveled. Every day". In fact, Baranov printed a lot - about 30,000 rubles, but he put only a small fraction of this money into circulation, most of it remained in the barn.

Baranov served his sentence in a special regime colony in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region. Like a true passionary, he showed his talents there too: “I wrote for the newspaper. Once won a competition best article for all ITKs. Then they sent me a bonus - 10 rubles. And I was a director - I headed amateur performances. We had more than three hundred people in the choir, and took first place for seven years in a row.” Baranov also made the scenery for his productions, be it the Maxim machine gun or the coat of arms of the USSR, blinking lights in time with the recited poems.

Returning to Stavropol after imprisonment in 1990, Baranov again began to invent. “The meaning of a person’s life is creative work,” he believes, waving off 11 years of age. “What was given to me, I realized, even if I had to endure a lot of suffering and serve time.”

He still had no friends, his first wife divorced him in the ninth year of imprisonment, all that was left was to invent. At the Analog plant, where he soon got a job, Baranov offered new method extension of nickel mesh in batteries. “They told me then: “Who are you? Experts from Germany came here, but they didn’t come up with anything new!” And I promised them that they would supply me with more cognac. And so it happened.”

Then Baranov opened the Franza company to produce perfumes. I made six barrels of perfume, 200 liters each. But a few years later the company closed, unable to withstand the competition with the wave of cheap foreign perfumes. “Their boxes were beautiful, but the inside was crap.”

Baranov invented a method for cleaning potatoes from soil, stones and other inclusions. The ingenious solution is to pour everything into a container filled with salt water. The potatoes will float, the rest will sink to the bottom. I wanted to patent my invention, but was refused - I filled out the form incorrectly...

This was followed by a series of new inventions: ceramic car paint, resistant to acids and alkalis, furniture made of paper waste, water-based furniture varnish, adhesive paste, light brick, healing balm. Some of the inventions were successfully implemented, some received royalties... This is how Viktor Ivanovich lives today - in a hostel with his young wife and child. Modestly, but with the hope of recognition.

And at the request of a Moscow company, Viktor Ivanovich developed his own trade protection system, which is much more effective than barcodes.

Baranov lives with his wife and little son in a room in a simple Stavropol dorm. This is where he stores all his equipment.

Baranov never had any thoughts about going abroad. So what if they value brains more highly? He doesn't particularly value money. He needs them only to invent something new. And he also says that he will never give away the technology for making “Baranovsky” banknotes to anyone.

By the mid-70s, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB came to the conclusion that a gang of counterfeiters was operating in the country. Around 500 counterfeit large banknotes were seized throughout the Union. High Quality. Versions have emerged: they are printed in the USA, or the attackers colluded with Goznak employees.

On April 12, 1977, Viktor Baranov was detained by police at the collective farm market in Cherkessk while trying to change a 25-ruble bill. He had 77 more such banknotes with him. When Baranov was asked who he was, he replied: “I am a counterfeiter!”

From the very beginning, Victor did not hide anything from the investigation. He willingly showed investigators his barn and described in detail the technology for producing counterfeits. At first, experts did not believe that he did everything alone. But investigative experiments confirmed: Baranov did not need accomplices.

Finally, Baranov’s talent was recognized! One of his inventions was later even introduced at Goznak. But the inventor himself ended up in Butyrka prison. By the way, while awaiting trial, he wrote recommendations for the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on improving the protection of Soviet money.

Baranov refused to defend himself during the trial. He completely sincerely admitted to what he had done. It was established that the “inventor” printed about 30,000 rubles, but only a small part of these funds was put into circulation by him.

For cooperation with the investigation, Viktor Baranov was sentenced to a relatively mild punishment - 12 years in prison. In fact, the death penalty was imposed for producing counterfeit money on a large scale...

In 1990, Viktor Ivanovich Baranov was released from prison. Having decided to start life with clean slate, a former prisoner took up entrepreneurship - he founded a perfume manufacturing company, remarried, and also continued to invent.

Do you want to know the fascinating story of the most famous counterfeiter of the USSR? Then meet Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, whose biography and inventions excite the imagination of many residents of our country.

How was he able to fulfill his intention? What prompted him to start forgery? And what else is this unusual man famous for?

This article will answer these and many other questions. In addition, here are photos of Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, which are replete with the Internet, and some Interesting Facts from his past and present life.

Pages of childhood

The biography of Viktor Ivanovich Baranov originates in the beautiful and majestic capital Russian Federation, where little Vitya was born in 1941.

Soon the Baranov family moved to the Stavropol Territory. An inquisitive child studied in a regular school, his teachers praised him for his diligence and exemplary behavior. Baranov's favorite subjects were drawing and sketching. WITH early childhood he felt like an artist and loved to draw from life. He also loved to imitate great masters. For example, Victor carefully copied several famous paintings, imitating not only the painter’s hand, but also color shades, and even chiaroscuro.

Beginning with adolescence Viktor Ivanovich Baranov became seriously interested in collecting. He collected old banknotes, carefully examining all the subtleties of their displays, scrupulously studying small details and details. And the portraits depicted on the banknotes excited the vivid imagination and fantasy of the unusual boy.

Youth

After graduating from seventh grade, young Baranov moved to Rostov-on-Don, where he entered a construction school to acquire the specialty of a parquet carpenter.

One of the serious hobbies of that time can be considered Victor’s passionate desire to become a pilot. The sky fascinated and beckoned him, the speed and height fascinated and attracted him. The young man regularly visited the flying club, where he practiced parachute jumping.

To the army of the future criminal genius wanted to be drafted into the airborne troops. However, he heeded his mother’s requests and persuasion and chose a less dangerous specialty - after completing the driver’s course, he was sent to an automobile battalion.

During his service, Viktor Ivanovich Baranov was active social life. In his unit he held the position of secretary of the Komsomol organization, and after the army he worked as a freight forwarder in the district party committee of the Stavropol Territory. They say that he had the opportunity to drive home the third secretary of the Komsomol Committee, Mikhail Gorbachev, several times.

Inventive activity

Viktor Ivanovich Baranov is an extraordinary and unusual counterfeiter. The fact is that from his youth he possessed a unique, exceptional talent as a production inventor.

While working at the factory, the inquisitive Baranov developed a mechanization improvement project. However, the Invention Committee refused to accept his discovery, citing an incorrectly filled out form.

The next original invention of Viktor Ivanovich was the creation innovative technologies for transportation of glass containers. This invention was also rejected, this time by the indifferent chief engineer.

This state of affairs depressed the talented inventor. He understood the importance and rationality of his innovations, and wanted to see them put into production and benefit others.

Therefore, the young man decided to independently implement his projects, and this required financial resources, by the way, considerable.

For example, it was necessary to spend thirty thousand rubles on the construction of a one-wheeled car. Where could an ordinary worker get such a sum?

Risky idea

It was then that the gifted inventor came up with the idea of ​​making money on his own. He, who admired banknotes and banknotes, knew by heart all the secret and hidden watermarks and imprints. Having studied the bonds in detail, Viktor Ivanovich begins to study monetary printing.

Since then, the biography of Viktor Ivanovich Baranov has endured dramatic changes. Now he devotes all his strength, mind and resources to the study of printing. He was then barely twenty-four years old.

Now the former attacker admits that if his inventions were appreciated, there would be no counterfeit bills or counterfeit banknotes.

Theoretical research

The first thing the desperate inventor did was to go to the local library to find books on printing. However, a sudden failure awaited him there - no such works were found in the book depository.

However, Ivanovich was not one of those who easily deviate from his intentions. He wandered around the used bookstores a little, talked a little with the employees of the newspaper printing house and, taking a vacation... drove off to Moscow.

It was in the capital that the young man found the books and documents he was looking for. The famous library supplied him with rare publications on book and banknote printing. Some of them, by the way, were shamelessly stolen from a book depository by a provincial reader.

Having understood this issue a little, Viktor Ivanovich Baranov goes in search of the rarest specimens in zincography, making clichés and reproduction equipment.

The necessary publications were successfully purchased from bookstores, and the young man went home with a calm soul.

Implementation of plans

Having thoroughly studied literary works, Baranov began to master a new business. In order to start issuing banknotes, it was necessary to master several specialties simultaneously in a short period of time!

The whole industry is involved in the production and issuance of banknotes. industrial enterprise, using vast human resources, hard-to-find materials and top-secret technologies. The gifted inventor dared to put this system on his fragile shoulders. Therefore, we can safely say that Viktor Ivanovich Baranov is a gifted and extraordinary counterfeiter. If only he had channeled his talents and skills in the right direction!

A man, having started working in a shed near his house, secretly buys chemical reagents from the workers of a transformer plant and orders parts for his machine in parts from craftsmen who trade illegally. He conducts desperate experiments and experiments, trying to comprehend the complex and jewelry business of printing monetary symbols.

He works for three whole years to produce the necessary ink for printing, and spends another four on creating paper of the required quality and learning how to translate watermarks.

Carefully studying all kinds of security marks, Baranov becomes acquainted with the security grid on banknotes, which to the naked eye seems chaotically and colorlessly drawn. However, this is only an appearance. The man is surprised to discover that the protective elements contain images of lions and mythical animals.

In order to devote as much time as possible to a new exciting business, Viktor Ivanovich resigns from the district committee and exchanges his driver’s license for a fire helmet. Thanks to the new work schedule (one day - three days at home), a talented criminal can work on a mysterious case day and night.

Incognita

Naturally, all work was carried out in secret from others, even from family and friends.

By the way, Baranov never had friends - they can come at the wrong moment, distract or begin to suspect.

Viktor Ivanovich Baranov’s wife also knew nothing about his illegal developments. She was sure that her husband, obsessed with industrial invention, devoted all his energy to technical sciences.

What about the neighbors and old ladies on the benches? Here Baranov proved himself to be a subtle psychologist and expert on human essence. He didn't hide anything, he was never embarrassed. Several times a month, the man took his neighbors around his workshop, showing them a metalworking machine and harmless plumbing products.

And so, after twelve years of hard, painstaking work, the first counterfeit fifty-kopeck piece was ready.

Counterfeit money

Having printed a batch of large banknotes, the criminologist-inventor decides to sell them as soon as possible. For about a year the man dealt with counterfeits, selling them to different places Soviet Union.

By the way, he did not get rich from this business. Having become the owner of a car, Viktor Ivanovich continued to work for the sake of art, and not for enrichment. He simply didn’t know what to spend his bills on!

Once such an incident happened to him. Baranov forgot his briefcase, completely stuffed with genuine banknotes, near an elderly tomato saleswoman. Naturally, when the man returned for the case, there was no trace of the old woman! This is how the counterfeiter was robbed.

Having produced several batches, Viktor Ivanovich decided to quit illegal printing. He disassembled the machine to throw out the parts, but...

Arrest

The counterfeit banknotes were not immediately discovered on the financial market - the counterfeits were made too well. But one day an ordinary bank employee noticed the fiction, and the entire State Security Service was put on its feet to search for the brazen offender.

The working version of counterfeit printing was interesting. The KGB claimed that the United States was behind the fake banknotes. However, over time, this hypothesis had to be rejected, since it was determined that the localization of counterfeit money was in the Stavropol Territory.

On one of the usual spring days, the counterfeiter was arrested. According to Baranov, two of his fellow officers took part in his arrest. The fact is that at that time the offender worked as a freelance driver for OBHSS, so he often drove employees of this institution on official business.

Sentence and execution

In 1978, Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, whose biography and activities had by that time become national property, was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

While in prison, his wife abandoned him, and his few comrades turned their backs on him. However, upon being released, the man was able to start all over again.

Modern life

After his release, the former prisoner returned to Stavropol, where he took up own business for making perfumes.

Things went well, and after a few years the man decided to start a family.

The new family of Viktor Ivanovich Baranov huddled in a small communal apartment for a long time.

Viktor Ivanovich does not abandon his invention. He still continues to amaze factories with his innovative methods and implementations for peeling potatoes, as well as the production of ceramic car paint, adhesive paste, medicinal balm, and so on.

They say that the second wife of counterfeiter Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, who is twenty years younger than him, respects and appreciates her husband for his inventions and cheerful attitude.

And recently Viktor Ivanovich became famous - an entire series was created about him with the pragmatic name “Money”.

We hope that such popularity will benefit him and the important ones and Baranov will become public property.