Sonya - Golden Hand: biography, facts from life. Sonya the golden pen - criminal genius
This is what it means to be born in a dubious place! Since Sonya’s father was a small moneylender, shady characters were always hanging around in his shop: traffickers of stolen goods, counterfeiters, thieves and robbers. Here, in the Warsaw suburbs, they spoke all the dialects known in Europe. It is known that Sonya Bluvshtein herself knew 17 languages.
The smart, clever little girl learned everything. In terms of pickpocketing, she quickly left all her teachers behind. Then she seduced the cheerful guy Pike and began to call herself Sheindlya-Sura Leibova Solomoniak-Blyuvshtein-Rozenbad. And she will become famous under the name “Sonka” Golden Pen»...
Having given birth to a daughter and leaving her to her husband in exchange for five hundred rubles snatched from his pocket, Sonya rushed out into the open. Her frantic energy, irrepressible imagination and thirst for a luxurious life required immediate implementation.
But the “first tour” almost ended in tears. Having almost reached Moscow, somewhere near Klin Sonya sat down in a compartment with a handsome cadet. In a brand new uniform, Misha Gorozhansky, who had just graduated from college, was delighted with his fellow traveler: how she listened to him, how she admired his smart cockade! But Sonya’s gaze was actually directed at the suitcase standing next to the cute braggart.
When the young people arrived at the next station, the cadet was already in love. Everything for a beautiful lady! - At the bus stop, he rushed at her request for lemonade. Sonya miscalculated: Misha jumped onto the departing train just at the moment when Madame Bluvshtein intended to leave him - with a cadet's suitcase in his hands, of course. At the police station, Sonya acted out such a scene that Stanislavsky himself would not have dared to shout his famous “I don’t believe it!” Sobbing and swearing, she told how by mistake, due to some eclipse, she grabbed someone else’s thing that was completely unnecessary to her.
The seasoned bailiff rubbed the back of his head in frustration. The handsome cadet already felt something like remorse: it seemed that his fellow traveler, having vowed to die of shame in this very place, would carry out the sentence. As a result, Sonya was not only released on all fours, but also left a statement at the station from Sima Rubinshtein about the loss of three hundred rubles from her...
Almost thirty years of “touring” around Russia and Europe would have brought Sonya real wealth if she had not been an utter waste of money. Money flowed between her fingers: for diamonds, carousing, lovers, luxury hotel rooms lavish weddings- she loved “getting married.” The gold stolen or obtained by the scam interested her primarily as evidence of success in life and self-affirmation: the petty thief in the shortest possible time turned into a genius of the scam, inventing new tricks one after another.
In the criminal annals of the past, Sonya’s crowning and unique number called “Hutten Morgen” remains.
An impeccably dressed lady appeared in the best hotels. To begin with, she carefully studied the location of the rooms, entrances and exits, and in the morning, putting on soft felt slippers over her shoes, she, for whom unreliable hotel locks were sheer nonsense, entered someone else’s room and took away all the most valuable things. The trick was that if by chance the guest woke up, then Sonya, in the role of a beauty who had been out on a spree, without noticing the stranger, began to undress, as if she had accidentally confused her room. The matter, which was safe for Sonya, ended, of course, in mutual bewilderment and shuffling.
Little by little, rumors about an extremely inventive swindler who gutted the wallets of the “rich” spread throughout Great Rus'. And not only for her. The European detective grabbed his head, but succeeded a little. One day in Leipzig, Sonya was tracked down, and Germany proudly handed her over to the roof of her native Russian embassy, from where she immediately and safely disappeared. The international police groaned at the adventures of the “devil in a skirt.” But the average person, as is usually the case, unless the case involves a murder, read with undisguised interest the lengthy crime reports in which Sonya appeared as the heroine. Now it is difficult to say whether the noble deeds that rumor attributed to her were true or just a legend. Like, one day, in the next “guten morgen”, Sonya saw a sleeping man young man with an exhausted face, next to which lay an unfinished letter to his mother. The unfortunate man announced that he had squandered government money and was forced to wash away his shame with blood. And Sonya put five hundred rubles under the revolver lying next to her...
One day, Sonya learned from the newspapers that she had robbed an unfortunate widow who had precariously hidden in her purse a lump sum benefit received upon the death of her breadwinner; the desperate situation of the two little daughters of the deceased petty official was immediately described. Sentimental memories came flooding back to Sonya, who in a hurry between scams gave birth to another daughter and left her somewhere “among people.” She became emotional and sent to the editorial office not only the stolen amount, but also an apology, along with “a bow to your poor orphans.”
Still, Sonya didn’t look much like Robin Hood. The victim of a “demonic beauty whose eyes captivate and hypnotize” - as they wrote about her - was a man who was not at all rich, and an accidental meeting with Sonya cost him his life.
Having retired, a gymnasium teacher from Saratov, Mr. Dinkevich, decided to return to live in his native Moscow. During his twenty-five years of service, he saved up one hundred and twenty-five thousand rubles and dreamed of acquiring his own housing within the limits of this amount. Evil fate confronted him with Sonya. They ended up at the same table in a pastry shop, where the ex-teacher went to pamper himself. The graceful lady, who emanated luxury and sophistication, turned out to be a pleasant interlocutor. Having not seen women of such high caliber for a long time, the trusting provincial excitedly told her about the purpose of coming to Moscow. And the lady, who introduced herself as Countess Timrot, literally struck him down:
Consider yourself extremely lucky. My husband and I are selling our house. I'm looking for a reliable buyer, I have to hurry. The count was appointed to Paris as His Majesty's ambassador... Your capital, of course, is not great, but money, you understand, is not very interesting to us. So would you like to take a look? 
Dinkevich sat down with the “countess” in an elegant carriage, and a well-trained coachman rushed him towards his dream with the breeze. What he saw literally shocked him: a luxurious mansion with furniture, paintings, bronze, and even a garden to boot! And when the “countess” invited the teacher to examine all this splendor in detail, the butler in a powdered wig handed her a telegram on a silver tray. “Ah, my myopia! Don’t take the trouble to read it,” the “countess” addressed Dinkevich. In the telegram, the count-husband urgently asked his wife to quickly get rid of the house and come to him in Paris.
“Well, why such a rush,” the “ambassador’s wife” rolled her eyes. Dinkevich himself did not want to hesitate for a minute. He rushed to the hotel for money, returned to his future castle, and together with the “countess” they went to make a deed of sale.
The owner of the notary's office greeted the visitor with a deep bow. “How can I serve you, Your Excellency Sofya Ivanovna?” Having left the entire amount to the penny and kissed the hands of his benefactress, Dinkevich, with the appropriate papers in his pocket, ran to transport the family, stunned with happiness, to the mansion.
So, the performance was played to perfection. Except main character, whose name the reader already knows, it involved Sonya’s husbands, whom she managed to put together into a very professional team that helped her in many enterprises. The role of the notary in the instantly disappeared office was played by the unforgettable Pike, who had long ago forgiven the escape of his unfaithful wife - for her other virtues.
And two weeks later, two tanned gentlemen - architects - came to Dinkevich, opening the doors with their own keys. They politely introduced themselves as the owners of the mansion, who had rented it out to a certain charming lady N. for the duration of their stay in Italy...
That same evening, Dinkevich hanged himself in a cheap hotel.
Only two years later the police managed to arrest “ characters and performers" of this story. The coachman, the “powdered wig,” the owner of the “notary office” - all received, given the dire consequences of the “performance,” several years of hard labor. Everyone except “charming Mrs. N.” Sonya again got out of it in the most incredible way.
The guardians of the law had reason to give up: the swindler was caught and tried more than once, and every time she called for help with money, giving bribes and inviting the most expensive lawyers, or calmly and efficiently, knowing the loopholes in the laws, defended herself. She always managed to cast a shadow over the fence, not admitting the charges and convicting the court of a lack of material evidence and evidence. One of the judicial officials admitted that Sonya is capable of “putting a good hundred men in her belt.”
But the “mass” of what Sonya had accomplished was approaching critical. The full-face and profile images of the “diva of the criminal world” were no worse than photographs of theater stars and cafe-goers. The circle narrowed. It didn’t even help that Sonya was an ace in makeup, having eyebrows of “different cuts” and gray curls in her arsenal, having become adept at changing her face to the point of complete unrecognizability. 
The year 1880 was fatal for the truly stellar career of the swindler. After all, even the most hardened of them cannot help but fall into the trap called “passion.” In Odessa, our beloved - which requires no explanation - city, thirty-year-old Sonya fell in love with a sharper and burglar nicknamed Kochubchik. For the “kind” attention of a twenty-year-old guy, she had to lend him large sums. Sonya rushed about, took unjustified risks, and “kept an eye.” As a result of another fraud, Kochubchik blamed everything on his partner. This time Sonya didn’t get out of it. She was exiled “to a settlement in the most remote places of Siberia.”
But even in Siberia, Sonya, accustomed to warmth and luxury, did not believe that happy Star cheated on her. She made the guards fall in love with her, and they helped her break free. But now each escape, due to some random circumstances that had always played into her hands before, ended in failure. After each new arrest, Sonya was sent further and further. So she ended up on Sakhalin, and decided to escape from the island quite “as a family” - together with a new admirer, a repeat offender, Blokha.
The matter, however, turned out to be not bloodless. The flea killed the guard, Sonya changed into his clothes. She came up with the idea that she would supposedly escort the convicted person. This performance was not a success. She was sentenced to flogging, but due to her pregnancy it was canceled. Sonya gave birth dead child and began to develop a plan for a new escape. This time she, naked, was flogged to the hooting of the male prisoners. She spent two years in solitary confinement with shackles on her hands. Pilgrims to Sakhalin were allowed here and, for money, they were allowed to photograph the famous Sonya the Golden Hand.
After serving her sentence, Sonya was supposed to remain on Sakhalin as a civilian employee. She organized something like a café-chantan, organizing evenings with dancing and, of course, drinking. Her last “cavalier” beat her to death. Perhaps it was worse than any hard labor...
Who knows where the fate of this clearly extraordinary woman would have turned if, on that first and only time, having been caught red-handed, taking the suitcase of a young cadet, Sonya would have been overtaken by a heavy slap in the face of the law! Perhaps a shake-up would have helped, and Sonya would have been able to use her artistic inclinations in a more noble field.
But fate shuffles human destinies like a deck of cards: on the theater stage, having abandoned the military path, it was that same cadet Mikhail Gorozhansky who ended up! At one of Ostrovsky’s performances at the Maly Theater, Sonya instantly recognized her “client” in the role of Glumov. During the intermission, she slipped a banknote to the theater attendant and sent him for a bouquet. The play of an old acquaintance, who now had the pseudonym Reshimov, charmed Sonya so much that she felt that one bouquet was not enough. And nearby a certain general, taking a gold watch out of his pocket, lamented why the intermission was so delayed. Tretyakova L. At the whim of fate. Novels about women's destinies. - M.: Izograph, EKSMO-Press. 2001
Golden pen. Myths and realities
(note: all photos except the first one show Anastasia Mikulchina, who played in the series “Sonka the Golden Hand”) Sofya Ivanovna (Sheindlya-Sura Leibovna) Bluvshtein (nee Solomoniak; 1846, Powązki, Warsaw province - 1920s) - legendary Russian criminal-adventurer of Jewish origin, known by the nickname “Sonka the Golden Hand”. According to official court documents, the famous adventurer was born in the town of Powazki, Warsaw province, in 1846. However, at her baptism in 1899, she indicated the place and date of birth as Warsaw, 1851. Married several times last husband there was a card sharper Mikhail (Mikhel) Yakovlevich Blyuvshtein, with whom she had two daughters. She was involved in organizing large-scale thefts, which gained fame due to the adventurous component, the tendency to mystify and the theatrical change of appearance of the swindler. Among the surnames she used throughout her life were Rosenbud, Rubinstein, Shkolnik and Briner (or Brener). In 1880, she was arrested, after a trial in the Moscow district court, on December 10-19 of the same year she was sent to hard labor in the settlement of Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, Tymovsky District on Sakhalin Island, where she was shackled. Made three escape attempts. In 1890, Anton Chekhov met with her, who left a description of the convict Sofia Bluvshtein in the book “Sakhalin Island”: This is a small, thin, already graying woman with a rumpled, old woman’s face. She has shackles on her hands: on the bunk there is only a fur coat made of gray sheepskin, which serves as both warm clothing and a bed for her. She walks around her cell from corner to corner, and it seems that she is constantly sniffing the air, like a mouse in a mousetrap, and she has a mouse-like expression on her face. Looking at her, I can’t believe that just recently she was beautiful to such an extent that she charmed her jailers... The shackling of Sonya the Golden Hand, 1881 After her release in 1898, she remained in a settlement on Iman in the Primorsky Territory. At the beginning of the 20th century, versions were circulated about her successful escape and about a figurehead serving hard labor for her. Robbery of jeweler Karl von Mehl In May 1883, a charming client appeared in von Mehl's store. A young lady, socialite and wealthy, charmingly introduced herself as the wife of the famous psychiatrist L., chose products from French craftsmen worth thirty thousand rubles, wrote out an invoice and arranged a meeting at her home. At the appointed hour, a jeweler with a collection of diamonds entered the doctor’s waiting room. The hospitable hostess greeted him and took the box to try on the treasures for evening dress, and invited me into my husband’s office. When the jeweler persistently demanded that the psychiatrist pay the bills or return the diamonds, the orderlies tied him up and took him to a hospital. As it turned out in the evening, the beauty introduced herself to the doctor as von Mehl’s wife, said that her husband had gone crazy on the “pebbles,” and paid for his treatment in advance. Of course, there was no trace of the swindler... Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka, according to eyewitnesses, was not a beauty. But female seductresses do not need flashy beauty, they have their own magic, their own techniques. There is not only artistry and the gift of transformation, they instinctively feel how to make any person obedient. Sofia Bluvshtein possessed this natural gift beyond measure, which made her a queen underworld St. Petersburg. Sonya lived by deception, so 100 years later we know almost nothing reliably about her. According to one version, she was born into the poor family of the hairdresser Stendel. Her stepmother mocked her fiercely. At the age of 17, unfortunate Sonya ran away with a young Greek, then she was left alone, then she married an Odessa swindler Blyuvshtein, and when he ended up in prison, she herself took up the “family business” in order to feed the children. And she also went to prison because of a man - she took the blame upon herself young lover. In general, not life, but a burning melodrama. The world of thieves loves romantic stories, but if you believe the documents, everything was not like that. Or not at all. Robbery of banker Dogmarov by Sonya Golden Hand Sheindlya-Sura Leibova Solomoniak was born in the town of Powązki, Warsaw district. The family was like that - they bought stolen goods and engaged in smuggling. Feiga's older sister was also a talented thief, but Sonya outdid everyone. Her “path to the top” was paved with duped men. The first victim can be considered a certain Rosenbad: the very young Sheindlya successfully married him, gave birth to a daughter, Sura-Rivka, and disappeared into distant edges, robbing your spouse goodbye. In October 1884, in the Odessa Fanconi cafe, a certain banker met Mrs. Sophia San Donato. While talking, she asked to change her rent for a thousand rubles. It soon became clear that the lovely lady was leaving for Moscow on the evening train, the same one as Mr. Dogmarov. The banker offered himself as a travel companion. In the compartment they chatted pleasantly and ate chocolate candies. In the morning, the businessman, who slept soundly, found neither money nor valuable papers in the amount of 43 thousand rubles. Sofya Bluvshtein did not like small matters and impromptu things. I prepared carefully, tried to predict accidents. For her there were neither high walls nor state borders. She spoke five languages, perfectly mastered social manners, and after a successful “business” she preferred to relax in Marienbad using forged documents of some baroness. It is surprising that at the same time Sonya remained an “aristocrat” of the criminal world. She was proud of her nickname as a court title; her lovers included the most famous St. Petersburg swindlers. Preferring to act alone, she nevertheless created her own gang, inviting the famous thief Levit Sandanovich, and even became a member of the prestigious criminal club in Moscow “Jacks of Hearts”. Branded things from Sonya Zolotoy Ruchki The Golden Hand had its own “signature things”. She hid precious stones under specially grown long nails, and for shoplifting she had a bag dress in which a whole roll of fabric could be hidden. She went out to deal with a monkey - while the owner was bargaining, the animal swallowed stones, and at home he got rid of them with the help of an enema. "Good morning!" Maybe it was Sonya who invented this famous method of hotel theft. The method was simple and brazen - beautifully dressed, elegant Sonya entered the victim’s room early in the morning and began to “mess around” him. If the guest woke up, she pretended that she had the wrong door, was embarrassed, but rarely left “unsalted with lice” - for the good of the matter, she could sleep with a rich gentleman, and then calmly pick out his pockets. The second time Sheindlya married the old rich Jew Shelom Shkolnik (whom she also left without money), and the third time she married the railway thief Mikhel Blyuvshtein, under his name she appears in all court cases. The marriage gave her a daughter, Tabbu, but quickly fell apart because her husband was furious when Sonya solved her affairs with the help of sexual charms. 
Robbery by Sonya Zolotoy Ruchka of Khlebnikov's jewelry store on Petrovka At first, Sonya came across surprisingly rarely, and even in these cases she managed to get away with it. When Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka first appeared in the dock, everyone reported it Russian newspapers. For several days spent in the Smolensk prison, Sonya charmed the guards - she read them poetry in different languages, told stories about life in distant countries... In general, one gendarme arranged an escape and fled with her. Afterwards he was caught and tried, and Sonya continued to “bomb” rich fools. Once she even fleeced her own lawyer, but he still defended her. In August 1885, the store manager T. recommended a collection of jewelry worth 22 thousand 300 rubles to the Courland baroness Sophia Buxhoeveden. When the jewelry was packed, the respectable lady remembered that she had forgotten the money at home. She, along with the diamonds, hastily left to get the cash, leaving her accompanying relatives as collateral - her gray-haired father and a female baby along with the bonnet. When they reported to the police station two hours later, it turned out that these “relatives” were hired in Khitrovka based on an advertisement in the newspaper. 
The audience was delighted with Sonya's tricks. We have so much fun watching others get ripped off until we ourselves become the victims. The popularity of the Golden Hand among the people was so great that in the era of the absence of television news, it was recognized on the street. At first, this even helped her - the excited crowd could push the police aside. But soon fame began to seriously interfere with Sonya’s scams. In addition, over the years, Sofya Bluvshtein became sentimental. She returned 5,000 rubles to the widow who had been robbed by her and who had two daughters. In a fit of emotion, she sent an actor of the Maly Theater to the stage with a gold watch, taken from a neighbor’s hall. Seeing a sleeping young man in the hotel room, next to whom lay a revolver and a letter to his mother confessing to the embezzlement of 300 rubles given for the treatment of her sister, Sonya took out a 500-ruble note and slipped out of the room. In addition, she spent a lot of money on training her daughters, who, having inherited their mother’s artistic talent, subsequently performed on the operetta stage, but carefully hid their origins. Mystery last days life of Sonya Zolotoy Ruchki In the end, Sonya really fell madly in love, and this late passion ruined her. The young handsome thief Volodya Kochubchik (in the world Wolf Bromberg, who began his career at the age of 8) easily retrained as a gigolo. He lost everything “earned” by the Golden Hand at cards, and she was forced to take more and more risks, was nervous, made mistakes, and in the end her luck completely changed. After an incredibly high-profile trial, Sofya Bluvshtein went to Sakhalin. All of Odessa saw off its heroine. And her young lover, having escaped with 6 months of “working house”, became a wealthy landowner in the south of Russia. Sonya fled from Sakhalin three times. The first time they simply returned her and scolded her, after the second she was shackled (this was the first shackled woman in the history of hard labor!), on the third attempt, made either alone or with her lover, the murderer Bogdanov, Sophia broke down. According to some reports, she died soon after. According to others, she resigned herself, became a kvass owner, and entertained local residents. In fact, even the penal servitude authorities were not sure that it was Sophia Bluvshtein who was serving her sentence, and not a figurehead. Especially after a series of thefts swept across Europe in the late nineties, very familiar in style. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, having seen the famous adventuress while traveling around Sakhalin, also doubted whether this was the same woman who had recently driven everyone crazy, and now “she sniffs the air all the time, like a mouse in a mousetrap, and her expression is that of a mouse.” Odessa residents claimed that Sonya lived incognito on Prokhorovskaya Street. And in 1921, when the Cheka shot her last lover, she was driving along Deribasovskaya and scattering money “for her husband’s wake.” They say that Golden Hand lived out her last days in Moscow with her daughters, who hid their unlucky mother from people, which is why she is buried here... They say a lot, but no one knows how it really happened. It is clear that Sofya Bluvshtein once ended her earthly life, but Sonya the Golden Hand is still circling around our planet. And we can end this adventurous story with the words of attorney Shmakov, once said in court: “Sofya Bluvshtein is an outstanding example of what can bring Jewry to the criminal stage.” 
In 2007, the television series “Sonka the Golden Hand” was released, directed by Viktor Merezhko. Main role played by Anastasia Mikulchina (I really, really recommend watching it!!!). A continuation of the story “Sonka the Golden Hand” was also released. Continuation of the legend" The group "Bad Balance" dedicated a song to Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka in the album "Legends of Gangsters"
Her life was ruled by passion. Once upon a time, a 17-year-old unfortunate girl, Sonya, ran away with a young Greek man from her evil stepmother. Later she married an Odessa swindler Blyuvshtein, and when he was in prison, left alone, she took over the “family business” in order to feed the children. And she also went to prison because of passion - she took on the guilt of her young lover.
Sofya Bluvshtein or Sonya the Golden Pen. Oh, how many stories and legends were told about her nimble fingers. And even more - about the charm and charm that the deceiver so cleverly used. This girl had brilliant ingenuity and talent. Robberies of jewelry houses and wealthy bankers were easy for her. Luck went hand in hand. Sonya's main trump card was artistry and the ability to transform, trying on the life and image of other people. The public adored her. Each scam became a sensation in society. The thief lived with passion and excitement. Another success, the desire for profit and power kindled real flames in her soul, turning passion into the meaning of life. But, probably, the main scam of her life was her love for a young gambler named Kochubchik.
Fatal meeting
Sonya the Golden Hand is a legend of the criminal world.
It was truly a fateful visit to Odessa. Sonya fell in love with this city, and also, unexpectedly for herself, developed a strong, burning feeling for the young, thin sharpie. Having never known such a strong feeling before, Sonya was ready to do anything to keep her young lover. And he, in turn, taking advantage of such a gift of fate, knew no restrictions either in money or in revelry. Kochubchik lost a lot and constantly demanded more. Volodka saw in the famous thief an opportunity to live in grand style.
One of the few lifetime portraits of Sofia Bluvshtein.
At first, he even called Sonya mom, and not beloved, as the young lady herself wanted. Almost every night, the sharper took the stolen treasures and went to play cards. Sonya rushed after him, hoping to bring her beloved to reason. Kochubchik quickly got tired of such guardianship; the thief irritated him and caused him aggression. The gambler raised his hand against the girl and did not spare bad words, driving her out of the gambling houses. And she justified his behavior with another loss, she believed that her love would be enough for both of them.
Photo of Sofia Bluvshtein from police archives.
The girl was full of hopes of melting the heart of the sharpie, endured all the humiliation and showered her lover with diamonds. And it wasn’t enough for him. Living in such tension, Sonya became careless and was forced to take more and more risks. The gambler quickly became tired of Sonya herself and her dependence on her. He spent all her money and jewelry; he didn’t need her anymore. The thief was left completely destitute, with no money or jewelry. Moreover, she has a tail and is being followed everywhere. She understood perfectly well that the only way out was to run.
Road to Sakhalin
But how to escape? When the only meaning of her life will remain in this city. It's easier to die than not to see him. And she stayed, knowing that she was going to certain death. She looked for her beloved everywhere, followed on his heels. And Volodka was so disgusted with poor, old Aunt Sonya that he dreamed of getting rid of her in any way. Volodka, without hesitation, betrayed his patroness in order to recklessly plunge into the world of excitement and young ladies. Sonya ended up in the dock, and then was exiled to hard labor on the island of Sakhalin. And Volodka Kochubchik, having taken the thief’s money into his hands, settled down well for himself, buying himself an estate with these funds.
Sonya the Golden Pen in hard labor.
Sonya tried to escape from hard labor three times. And not in order to live in freedom or continue his glorious activities. The only purpose of the escape was to see my beloved, to look into Volodka Kochubchik’s eyes at least once. She forgave him a long time ago and was ready to forgive all his antics and betrayals for the rest of her life. But she didn’t have freedom and life without her beloved gambler. Imprisonment on the island was not hard labor for Sonya. Hard labor was in her heart. In the impossibility of existing without ever winning the affections of a young lover.
Inscriptions-requests on the monument to Sonya the Golden Pen.
The history of Sonya the Golden Hand is shrouded in riddles, secrets and, of course, deception. Her whole life is a legend that the deceiver created with her own hands. To this day, there are many secrets surrounding the life and death of the great fraudster. However, there is no doubt that only Volodka Kochubchik saw Sonya’s true face. For his sake, the thief tore off all her masks, trampled her pride and laid her life and freedom at his feet.
A marble sculpture of a woman without arms and head is a monument to the legendary swindler Sonya Zolotoy Ruchka.
Real name - Sheindlya-Sura Leibova Solomoniak-Blumstein (1846 - ?). An inventive thief, a swindler, capable of transforming into a society lady, a nun or a simple servant. She was called “the devil in a skirt,” “a demonic beauty whose eyes enchant and hypnotize.”
Popular in late XIX century, journalist Vlas Doroshevich called the legendary adventuress “all-Russian, almost European famous.” And Chekhov paid attention to her in the book "Sakhalin".
Sofya Bluvshtein, whose maiden name was Sheindlya-Sura Leibova Solomoniak, did not live in freedom for too long - hardly forty years. But when she started as a girl with petty thefts, she didn’t stop until Sakhalin. She has achieved perfection in the game. And talent, beauty, cunning and absolute immorality made this young provincial woman a genius of a scam, a legendary adventurer.
The Golden Hand was mainly involved in thefts in hotels, jewelry stores, and hunted on trains, traveling around Russia and Europe. Smartly dressed, with someone else’s passport, she appeared in the best hotels in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa, Warsaw, carefully studying the location of rooms, entrances, exits, and corridors. Sonya invented a method of hotel theft called "guten morgen". She put felt shoes on her shoes and, silently moving along the corridors, entered someone else's room early in the morning. While the owner was fast asleep before dawn, she quietly “cleaned out” his cash. If the owner unexpectedly woke up, an elegant lady in expensive jewelry, as if not noticing the “stranger,” began to undress, as if mistakenly mistaking the room for her own... It all ended in skillfully staged embarrassment and mutual shuffling. This is how Sonya ended up in a provincial hotel room. Looking around, she noticed a sleeping young man, pale as a sheet, with an exhausted face. She was struck not so much by the expression of extreme suffering as by the amazing resemblance of the young man to Wolf - whose sharp face could never depict anything close to true moral torment.
On the table lay a revolver and a fan of letters. Sonya read one - to her mother. The son wrote about the theft of government money: the loss was discovered, and suicide is the only way to avoid dishonor, the ill-fated Werther informed his mother. Sonya put five hundred rubles on top of the envelopes, pressed them with her revolver and just as quietly left the room.
Sonya's broad nature was not alien to good deeds - if her whimsical thought at these moments turned to those whom she loved. Who, if not her own distant daughters, stood before her eyes when Sonya learned from the newspapers that she had completely robbed the unfortunate widow, the mother of two girls. These 5,000 stolen rubles were a lump sum benefit for the death of her husband, a minor official. Sonya didn’t think twice: she sent the widow five thousand and a small letter by mail. “Dear Madam! I read in the newspapers about the grief that befell you, which I was the cause of due to my unbridled passion for money, I am sending you your 5,000 rubles and I advise you to hide your money deeper in the future. Once again I ask for your forgiveness, I send my regards to your poor orphans.”
One day, the police found her original dress in Sonya’s Odessa apartment, made specifically for shoplifting. It was, in essence, a bag in which even a small roll of Expensive fabric could be hidden. Sonya demonstrated her special skills in jewelry stores. In the presence of many customers and with the help of her “agents,” who cleverly distracted the attention of clerks, she quietly hid precious stones under specially grown long nails, replaced rings with diamonds with fake ones, and hid the stolen goods in a flower pot standing on the counter so that she could come back the next day. and pick up the stolen goods.
A special page in her life is occupied by thefts on trains - individual first class compartments. Bankers, foreign businessmen, large landowners, even generals became victims of the fraud - in Frolov’s, for example, on Nizhny Novgorod railway she stole 213,000 rubles.
Exquisitely dressed, Sonya sat in the compartment, playing the role of a marquise, countess or rich widow. Having won over her fellow travelers and pretending that she was succumbing to their advances, the impostor marquise talked a lot, laughed and flirted, waiting for the victim to begin to fall asleep. However, captivated by the appearance and sexual appeals of the frivolous aristocrat, the rich gentlemen did not fall asleep for a long time. And then Sonya used sleeping pills - intoxicating perfumes with a special substance, opium in wine or tobacco, bottles of chloroform, etc. From one Siberian merchant, Sonya stole three hundred thousand rubles (huge money at that time).
She loved to go to the famous Nizhny Novgorod fair, but often traveled to Europe, Paris, Nice, preferred German-speaking countries: Germany, Austria-Hungary, rented luxury apartments in Vienna, Budapest, Leipzig, Berlin.
Sonya was not particularly beautiful. She was small in stature, but had an elegant figure and regular facial features; her eyes radiated a sexually hypnotic attraction. Vlas Doroshevich, who talked with the adventuress on Sakhalin, noted that her eyes were “wonderful, infinitely pretty, soft, velvety... and they spoke in such a way that they could even lie perfectly.”
Sonya constantly wore makeup, false eyebrows, wigs, wore expensive Parisian hats, original fur capes, mantillas, and adorned herself with jewelry, for which she had a weakness. She lived on a grand scale. Favorite places Her holidays were Crimea, Pyatigorsk and the foreign resort of Marienbad, where she posed as a titled person, fortunately she had a set of different business cards. She did not count money, did not save for a rainy day. So, having arrived in Vienna in the summer of 1872, she pawned some of the things she had stolen in a pawnshop and, having received 15 thousand rubles as bail, spent it in an instant.
Gradually she got bored of working alone. She put together a gang of relatives, ex-husbands, thief in law Berezin and Swedish-Norwegian citizen Martin Jacobson. Members of the gang unconditionally obeyed the Golden Hand.
Mikhail Osipovich Dinkevich, the father of the family, a respectable gentleman, after 25 years of exemplary service as the director of the men's gymnasium in Saratov, was dismissed. Mikhail Osipovich decided to move to his homeland, Moscow, with his daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. The Dinkevichs sold the house, added to their savings, and accumulated 125 thousand for a small house in the capital.
While walking around St. Petersburg, the retired director turned into a pastry shop and in the doorway almost knocked over an elegant beauty who had dropped her umbrella in surprise. Dinkevich involuntarily noted that before him was not just a St. Petersburg beauty, but a woman of an exceptionally noble breed, dressed with the simplicity that is achieved only by very expensive tailors. Her hat alone was worth the annual salary of a gymnasium teacher.
Ten minutes later they were drinking coffee with cream at the table, the beauty was pinching a biscuit, Dinkevich had the courage to have a glass of liqueur. When asked about the name, the beautiful stranger answered:
"Exactly".
“Oh, Sofya Ivanovna, if only you knew how drawn I am to Moscow.”
And Mikhail Osipovich, suddenly experiencing a surge of confidence, explained his needs to the countess - about a pension, and about a modest capital, and about a dream about a Moscow mansion, not the most luxurious, but worthy of a good family...
“And you know what, my dear Mikhail Osipovich...” the Countess decided after a moment’s thought, “my husband and I are looking for a reliable buyer. The Count has been appointed to Paris as His Majesty’s Ambassador...”
“But Countess! I can’t even handle your mezzanine! You have a mezzanine, don’t you?”
“We have,” Timrot grinned. “We have a lot of things. But my husband is the chamberlain of the court. Should we bargain? You, I see, are a noble, educated, experienced man. I wouldn’t want any other owner for Bebut’s nest... "
“So your father is General Bebutov, a Caucasian hero?!” - Dinkevich was alarmed.
“Vasily Osipovich is my grandfather,” Sofya Ivanovna modestly corrected and rose from the table. “So when will you deign to look at the house?”
We agreed to meet in five days on the train where Dinkevich would board in Klin.
Sonya remembered this town well, or rather, the small station, since out of the whole city she knew only the police station. Sonya always remembered her first adventure with pleasure. At that time she was not even twenty, and with her small stature and grace, she looked sixteen. It was six years later that they began to call her the Golden Hand, when Sheindlya Solomoniak, the daughter of a small moneylender from the Warsaw district, became famous as the think tank and financial god of “raspberries” of international proportions. And then she had only talent, irresistible charm and the school of the “family nest”, which she was no less proud of than Countess Timrot, the Nest not of a general, but of a thieve, where she grew up among moneylenders, buyers of stolen goods, thieves and smugglers. She was at their beck and call, easily learning their languages: Yiddish, Polish, Russian, German. I watched them. And like a true artistic nature, she was imbued with the spirit of adventure and merciless risk.
Well, then, in 1866, she was a modest thief “in trust” on the railroad. By this time, Sonya had already managed, by the way, to run away from her first husband, the merchant Rosenbad, taking not so much for the trip - five hundred rubles. Somewhere “among people” her little daughter was growing up.
So, approaching Klin, in a third-class carriage, where she was doing small things, Sonya noticed a handsome cadet. She sat down, bowed, flattered him with “colonel” and so innocently looked at his cockade, sparkling boots and suitcase next to them with all her eyes (the power of which she already knew well) that the young military man immediately felt the impulse characteristic of all men encountered on Sonya’s path: to protect and take care of this girl with the face of a fallen angel - if possible, until the end of her days.
At the Klin station it cost her nothing to send a conquered cadet - well, let's say, for lemonade.
This was the first and last time, when Sonya was caught red-handed. But even here she managed to get out. At the police station, she burst into tears, and everyone, including Misha Gorozhansky, who had been duped and had fallen behind the train, believed that the girl had taken her fellow passenger’s suitcase by mistake, confusing it with her own. Moreover, in the protocol there was a statement from “Sima Rubinshtein” about the loss of three hundred rubles from her.
A few years later, Sonya went to the Maly Theater. And in the brilliant Glumov I suddenly recognized my Klin “client”. Mikhail Gorozhansky, in full accordance with his pseudonym - Reshimov - abandoned his military career for the theater and became the leading actor of Maly. Sonya bought a huge bouquet of roses, put a witty note in it: “To a great actor from his first teacher,” and got ready to send it to the premiere. But on the way, I couldn’t resist and added a gold watch from a nearby pocket to the offering. Still young, Mikhail Reshimov never understood who played a prank on him and why the cover of the expensive souvenir was engraved: “General-in-Chief N for special services to the fatherland on his seventieth birthday.”
But let’s return to “Countess” Sophia Timrot. In Moscow, as expected, she was greeted by a chic departure: a coachman all in white, a gig sparkling with patent leather and lush coats of arms, and a classic pair of bay horses. We stopped by the Dinkevich family on the Arbat - and soon the buyers, as if not daring to enter, crowded at the cast-iron gates, behind which stood a palace on a stone plinth with the promised mezzanine.
Holding their breath, the Dinkevichs examined bronze lamps, Pavlovian chairs, mahogany, a priceless library, carpets, oak panels, Venetian windows... The house was sold with furnishings, a garden, outbuildings, a pond - and for only 125 thousand, including mirror carps! Dinkevich's daughter was on the verge of fainting. Mikhail Osipovich himself was ready to kiss the hands not only of the countess, but also of the monumental butler in a powdered wig, as if specially called upon to complete the moral defeat of the provincials.
The maid with a bow handed the countess a telegram on a silver tray, and she, squinting myopically, asked Dinkevich to read it aloud: “In the coming days, presentation to the king, presentation of credentials period, according to the protocol, together with his wife, period, urgently sell the house, leave, period, I’m looking forward to Wednesday, Grigory.”
The "Countess" and the buyer went to the notary's office on Lenivka. When Dinkevich followed Sonya into the darkish reception room, the obliging fat man quickly jumped up to meet them, opening his arms.
This was Itska Rosenbad, Sonya’s first husband and the father of her daughter. Now he was a buyer of stolen goods and specialized in stones and watches. The cheerful Itska adored the clinking breguettes and always had two favorite Bure with him: a gold one, with an engraved hunting scene on the lid, and a platinum one, with a portrait of the Emperor in an enamel medallion. On this watch, Itska once beat an inexperienced Chisinau plucker by almost three hundred rubles. To celebrate, he kept both braces for himself and loved to open them at the same time, checking the time and listening to the gentle discord of the ringing. Rosenbud did not hold a grudge against Sonya; he forgave her five hundred rubles a long time ago, especially since, based on her tips, he had already received a hundred times more. He paid the woman who raised his girl generously and visited her daughter often, unlike Sonya (Although later, having already had two daughters, Sonya became the most tender mother, did not skimp on their upbringing and education - neither in Russia, nor later in France. However, her adult daughters disowned her.)
Having met two years after the young wife’s escape, the former spouses began to “work” together. Itska, with his cheerful disposition and artistic Warsaw chic, often provided Sonya with invaluable help.
So, the notary, aka Itska, losing his glasses, rushed to Sonya. “Countess!” he cried. “What an honor! Such a star in my pitiful establishment!”
Five minutes later, the notary's young assistant drew up a bill of sale in elegant handwriting. The retired Mr. Director handed over to Countess Timrot, née Bebutova, every penny of the savings of his respectable life. 125 thousand rubles. And two weeks later, two tanned gentlemen came to the Dinkevichs, who were stunned with happiness. These were the Artemyev brothers, fashionable architects, who rented out their house while traveling around Italy. Dinke-vich hanged himself in cheap rooms...
Sonya's main assistants in this case were captured a couple of years later. Itska Rosenbad and Mikhel Bluvshtein (butler) went to prison companies, Khunya Goldshtein (coachman) went to prison for three years, and then went abroad “with a ban on returning to Russian state"Sonka loved to work with her relatives and ex-husbands. All three were no exceptions: not only the Warsaw resident Itska, but also both “Romanian subjects” were at one time legally married to “mother”.
She came across more than once. Sonya was tried in Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Kharkov, but she always managed to either cleverly escape from the police station or achieve an acquittal. However, the police were hunting for her in many cities Western Europe. Let's say, in Budapest, by order of the Royal Court of Justice, all her belongings were seized; In 1871, the Leipzig police transferred Sonya to the supervision of the Russian Embassy. She escaped this time too, but was soon detained by the Viennese police, who confiscated her chest of stolen items.
Thus began a streak of misfortune; her name often appeared in the press, and photographs of her were posted in police stations. It became increasingly difficult for Sonya to disappear into the crowd and maintain her freedom with the help of bribes.
She shone during the happy times of her stellar career in Europe, but Odessa was the city of luck and love for her...
Wolf Bromberg, a twenty-year-old sharper and raider, nicknamed Vladimir Kochubchik, had an inexplicable power over Sonya. He extorted from her large sums money. Sonya took unnecessary risks more often than before, became greedy, irritable, and even descended to pickpocketing. Not too handsome, from the category of “pretty” men with a mustache shaved into a thread, narrow in bone, with lively eyes and virtuoso hands - he was the only one who once risked setting Sonya up. On the day of her angel, September 30, Wolf decorated the neck of his mistress with a velvet with a blue diamond , which was taken as bail from an Odessa jeweler. The collateral was a mortgage on part of the house on Lanzheron. The cost of the house was four thousand more than the cost of the stone - and the jeweler paid the difference in cash. A day later, Wolf unexpectedly returned the diamond, announcing that the gift was not to the lady’s taste. Half an hour later, the jeweler discovered the fake, and an hour later he established that there was no house on Lanzheron. When he broke into Bromberg’s rooms on Moldavanka, Wolf “admitted” that Sonya had given him a copy of the stone and that she had concocted the false pledge. The jeweler went to see Sonya not alone, but with a police officer.
Her trial lasted from December 10 to December 19, 1880 in the Moscow District Court. Feigning noble indignation, Sonya desperately fought with the judicial officials, not admitting either the charges or the presented material Evidence. Despite the fact that witnesses identified her from a photograph, Sonya stated that Zolotaya Ruchka was a completely different woman, and she lived on the means of her husband and familiar fans. Sonya was especially outraged by the revolutionary proclamations planted in her apartment by the police. In a word, she behaved in such a way that the jury later attorney A Shmakov, recalling this trial, called her a woman capable of “putting a good hundred men in her belt.”
And yet, according to the court’s decision, she received a harsh sentence: “The Warsaw bourgeois Sheindlya-Sura Leibova Rosenbad, aka Rubinstein, aka Shkolnik, Brenner and Bluvshtein, née Solomoniak, having been deprived of all rights to her fortune, be exiled to a settlement in the most remote places of Siberia.”
The place of exile was the remote village of Luzhki, Irkutsk province, from where in the summer of 1885 Sonya escaped, but five months later she was captured by the police. For escaping from Siberia, she was sentenced to three years of hard labor and 40 lashes. However, even in prison, Sonya did not waste time; she fell in love with the tall prison guard, non-commissioned officer Mikhailov, with a lush mustache. He gave his passion a civilian dress and on the night of June 30, 1886, brought her out. But Sonya only enjoyed four months freedom. After a new arrest, she ended up in the Nizhny Novgorod prison castle. Now she had to serve a hard sentence on Sakhalin.
She couldn’t live without a man, and even at the stage she became friends with a fellow convict, a brave, hardened elderly thief and murderer, Blokha.
On Sakhalin, Sonya, like all women, at first lived as a free resident. Accustomed to expensive “luxuries” of the European class, to fine linen and chilled champagne, Sonya slipped a penny to the guard soldier to let her into the dark barracks entryway, where she met with Blokha . During these short meetings, Sonya and her seasoned roommate developed an escape plan.
I must say that escaping Sakhalin was not such a difficult task. This was not the first time that Blokha had fled and knew that from the taiga, where three dozen people work under the supervision of one soldier, it would cost nothing to get through the hills to the north, to the narrowest place of the Tatar Strait between Capes Pogobi and Lazarev. And there is desolation, you can put together a raft and move to the mainland. But Sonya, who even here had not gotten rid of her passion for theatrical adventures, and was also afraid of days of hunger, came up with her own version. They will follow the well-trodden and lived-in path, but they will not hide, but will play a game of convict assignment: Sonya in a soldier’s dress will “escort Flea.” The recidivist killed the guard, and Sonya changed into his clothes.
The flea was caught first. Sonya, who continued her journey alone, got lost and went to the cordon. But this time she was lucky. The doctors of the Alexander Infirmary insisted on removing corporal punishment from the Golden Hand: she turned out to be pregnant. Bloch received forty lashes and was shackled in hand and leg shackles. When they flogged him, he shouted: “For my cause, your honor, for my cause! That’s what I need!”
Sonya Zolotoy Ruchka's pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Her further imprisonment in Sakhalin resembled a delirious dream. Sonya was accused of fraud; she was involved - as a leader - in the case of the murder of settler-shopkeeper Nikitin.
Finally, in 1891, for the second escape, she was handed over to the terrible Sakhalin executioner Komlev. Stripped naked, surrounded by hundreds of prisoners, under their encouraging hooting, the executioner inflicted fifteen lashes on her. Not a sound was uttered by Sonya. The Golden Hand crawled to her room and fell onto the bunk. For two years and eight months, Sonya wore hand shackles and was kept in a damp solitary confinement cell with a dim, tiny a window covered with a fine lattice.
Chekhov described her this way in the book “Sakhalin”, “a small, thin, already graying woman with a rumpled old woman’s face... She walks around her cell from corner to corner, and it seems that she is constantly sniffing the air, like a mouse in a mousetrap, and her facial expression is mousey." At the time of the events described by Chekhov, that is, in 1891, Sofya Bluvshtein was only forty-five years old...
Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka was visited by writers, journalists, and foreigners. For a fee you were allowed to talk to her. She didn’t like to talk, she lied a lot, and was confused about her memories. Exotic lovers took pictures with her in a composition: a convict woman, a blacksmith, a warden - it was called “The hand-shackling of the famous Sonya the Golden Hand.” One of these photographs, sent to Chekhov by Innokenty Ignatievich Pavlovsky, a Sakhalin photographer, is kept in the State Literary Museum.
After serving her sentence, Sonya was supposed to remain on Sakhalin as a free settler. She became the owner of the local "café-chantant", where she brewed kvass, sold vodka under the counter and organized fun evenings with dancing. At the same time, she became friends with the cruel repeat offender Nikolai Bogdanov, but life with him was worse than hard labor. Sick, embittered, she decided to escape again and left Aleksandrovsk. She walked about two miles and, having lost strength, fell. The guards found her. A few days later the Golden Hand died.
And on Sakhalin, legends multiplied one after another. Many believed that the real Sonya escaped along the road, and her “replacement” ended up in hard labor. Anton Chekhov and Vlas Doroshevich, who spoke with Sonya on Sakhalin, noticed the age discrepancy between the legendary Sonya Bluvshtein and the “person in hard labor.” They also talked about the prisoner’s bourgeois mentality. And, as we remember, Sonya was very smart and educated even for high society.
In the 20s, Nepmen used to scare each other with it. But at that time, numerous followers acted under the name Sonya, often acting simply as guides. They were far from Sonya's talents. Yes, and the time was different. Residents of Odessa claim that the Golden Hand lived under a different name in Odessa on Prokhorovskaya Street and died only in 1947.
And in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery there is a monument to Sonya. A full-length female figure made of a piece of white marble walks in the shade of forged palm trees. This sculpture was specially commissioned from a Milanese master and then brought to Russia (they say it was done by Odessa, Neapolitan and London swindlers). There are also many secrets around this grave. There are always fresh flowers and scatterings of coins on it. Inscriptions from “grateful thieves” often appear. True, over the past 20 years, out of three palm trees, only one has remained. And the sculpture is without a head. They say that during a drunken fight, Sonya was dropped and her head was taken away.
What was the fate of the children of Sonya the Golden Hand?
- Romantic! Respect!
- SOFIA BLYUVSTEIN'S CHILDREN
The real name did not become known immediately, since Blyuvshtein lived according to the documents of a certain Joseph Delfinov, and on the street he was called the Bronze Hand. Soon, some interesting details became clear, for example, that he “was with the Golden Hand until he was 16 years old, and currently he is 25-27 years old.” It turns out that Sonya became a mother around 1861 (at the age of 15 - author's note)... “He was called the Bronze Hand by his comrades in the profession because,” writes a contemporary, “that he comes from the Golden Hand. His closest assistant was the Chisinau tradesman Gershko Mazurchuk, who lived in Odessa on a false passport.” At the same time, Blyuvshtein Jr. was transported to his homeland, to Warsaw, where he had a lot of things under his belt. His further fate is unknown to me..."
As for me, I am inclined to think that both Rachel-Mary and Mordoch Bluvshtein are not Sonya’s children, but something from the series of “children of Lieutenant Schmidt.” After all, our heroine married the grocer Isaac Rosenbad in 1864 and gave birth to a daughter, Sura-Rivka. And she meets card sharper Michel Bluvshtein a few years later and gives birth to a daughter, Tabba. It turns out that if she had a son who was born in 1861, then, logically, his last name should not be Bluvshtein. In addition, already in hard labor, in 1897, Sonya herself admitted to the writer Doroshevich that she had 2 daughters: “... I’m already old, I can’t do it anymore... I just would like to see the children. And with this word Tears flowed like hail from the Golden Hand.
I have two daughters left. I don't even know if they are alive or not. I have no news from them. Perhaps they are ashamed of such a mother, they forgot, or perhaps they died... What about them? I just know that they are actresses. In operetta, in pages. Oh my God! Of course, if I had been there, my daughters would never have been actresses..."
It is not possible to find Sonya’s children now, because based on average duration human life, they are no longer alive. But, for sure, there are grandchildren and great-grandchildren who may not know anything about their criminally famous grandmother.
