Love brought to hard labor: the true story of Sonya - the Golden Hand. Blyuvshtein Sophia (Sonka the Golden Pen) Sonya the Golden Pen biography

The true name of Sonya the Golden Hand is Sheindlya-Sura Leibova Solomoshak-Blyuvshtein. An inventive swindler, an adventurer, capable of turning into a secular woman, a nun or an elementary servant. She was called “the devil in a skirt,” “a demonic beauty whose eyes captivate and hypnotize.”

The famous correspondent Vlas Doroshevich at the end of the 19th century called the famous swindler “all-Russian, almost European famous.” And Chekhov paid attention to her in the book “Sakhalin”.

She didn’t live very long in freedom - only about 40 years. She just started as a little girl with a little theft - she never stopped until the end of her life. She has achieved perfection in the game. And her abilities, attractiveness, cunning and absolute immorality made this young girl a great swindler, a famous swindler.

Sonya's main occupation was theft in hotels, jewelry stores, and she did this business on trains, traveling around the country and Europe. Luxuriously dressed, with foreign documents, she appeared in the best hotels of the Capital, St. Petersburg, Odessa, Warsaw, and painstakingly examined the placement of rooms, entrances, exits, and corridors. The Golden Pen came up with a method of hotel theft called “guten morgen”. She put felt shoes on her own shoes and, silently moving along the corridors, early in the morning she entered a strange room.

During the strong pre-dawn sleep of the owner, she silently “cleansed” his cash. If the owner woke up unexpectedly, a dressed-up woman in precious jewelry, as if not noticing the “outsider,” began to unmask, as if mistakenly mistaking the number for her own... It all ended in professionally staged embarrassment and mutual apologies. This is how I found myself in a provincial hotel room. Looking around, she saw a dozing young man, pale as a sheet, with an exhausted face. She was struck not so much by the presentation of the final torment as by the young man’s unusual resemblance to Wolf, whose sharp face had never been able to depict anything close to real, highly moral torture.

On the table rested a pistol and a fan of messages. Sonya Golden Hand read the title - to her mother. The son wrote about the theft of official money: the loss was found, and suicide is the only way to avoid ignominy, the ill-fated Werther informed his mother. She put 500 rubles on top of the envelopes, pressed them down with a pistol and just as silently left the room.

Sonya's broad nature was in no way alien to good deeds - if her fastidious idea at a given moment turned to those whom she adored. Who, if not her own distant daughters, stood before her eyes when Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka found out from printed publications that she had completely robbed a poor widow, the mother of two girls. Details of 5000 stolen rubles. were a concurrent death benefit for her husband, a minor civil servant. The Golden Hand didn’t think long: it sent the widow 5 thousand and a small letter by mail. “Dear Madam! I read in printed publications about the misfortune that befell you, which I was the cause of due to my incontinent attraction to cash, I am sending you your 5,000 rubles. and I recommend starting from this second to hide the means deeper. Once again I ask you for mercy, I send my regards to your poor orphans.”

One day, the police found Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka’s extraordinary dress in Odessa’s living space, deliberately sewn for shoplifting. It was, in fact, a bag in which even a small roll of Expensive fabric could be hidden. Zolotaya Ruchka demonstrated its special skills in jewelry stores. In the presence of almost all clients and with the support of her own “agents”, who quickly distracted the attention of clerks, she quietly hid valuable stones under deliberately grown long nails, replacing rings with fake diamonds, and hid the stolen goods in a flower pot standing on the counter, so that the next day come and pick up the stolen goods.

An extraordinary page in her life is occupied by thefts on trains - individual first class compartments. The swindler's victims were bankers, foreign businessmen, large landowners, including generals - from Frolov, for example, on the Nizhny Novgorod steel road she stole 213,000 rubles.

Luxuriously dressed, Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka was placed in a compartment, playing the role of a marquise, countess or wealthy widow. Having won over her fellow travelers and pretending to give in to their advances, the pseudo-marquise talked a lot, laughed and flirted, waiting for the victim to begin to go to sleep. But, captivated by the appearance and sexy appeals of the reckless aristocrat, the wealthy owners did not fall asleep for a long time. And then Sonya the Golden Hand used sleeping pills - intoxicating perfumes with a special drug, opium in wine or tobacco, bottles of chloroform, etc. Sonya stole 300 thousand rubles from the first Siberian merchant. (big money in those days).

She loved to visit the famous Nizhny Novgorod fair, but often traveled to Europe, Paris, Nice, loved the German-speaking powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, rented luxurious living spaces in Vienna, Budapest, Leipzig, Berlin.

She was not attractive. She was short in stature, but had a beautiful figure and faithful facial features; her eyes exuded a sexy, hypnotic gravity. Vlas Doroshevich, who was talking with a swindler on Sakhalin, saw that her eyes were “marvelous, infinitely beautiful, soft, velvety... and they talked as if they had the ability to lie unsurpassedly.”

Sonya - Golden Hand.

Sonya constantly wore makeup, false eyebrows, wigs, wore expensive Parisian hats, unique fur capes, mantillas, and adorned herself with jewelry, for which she had a weakness. She lived on a grand scale. Her favorite vacation spots were Crimea, Pyatigorsk and the foreign resort of Marienbad, where she posed as a titled person, fortunately she had a set of various business cards. She did not count funds, did not save for a dark 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 a deposit, spent it in an instant.

Gradually she got tired of acting alone. She put together a gang of family members and former spouses. The gang also included Berezin and the Swedish-Norwegian citizen Martin Jacobson. The gang members undeniably obeyed Sonya the Golden Hand.

...Misha Osipovich Dinkevich, the founder of the family, an honorary sovereign, after 25 years of exemplary service as the head of the men's gymnasium in Saratov, was sent into retirement. Misha Osipovich decided, together with his daughter, son-in-law and 3 grandchildren, to move to his homeland, to the Capital. The Dinkevichs sold the house, added to their savings, and accumulated 125 thousand for a small house in Moscow.

While walking around St. Petersburg, the retired director turned into a pastry shop and at the door almost knocked over a dressed-up cutie who had unexpectedly dropped her umbrella. Dinkevich involuntarily noted that before him was not just a St. Petersburg beauty, but a lady of only a respectable breed, dressed with the simplicity that can only be achieved by very expensive tailors; her hat was worth the annual salary of a gymnasium teacher.

After 10 min. They drank coffee with cream at the table, the cutie ate a biscuit, Dinkevich had the courage to have a glass of liqueur. When asked about the name, the beautiful stranger gave the answer:

"Countess Timrot, Sofya Ivanovna"

“Oh, what a name! You’re from the capital’s Timrots, aren’t you?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, Sofya Ivanovna, if only you knew how she’s dragging you to the Capital.”

And Misha Osipovich, having suddenly experienced a surge of confidence, told the countess his poverty - about his pension, and about his modest fixed capital, and about his dream of a mansion in the capital, not the most luxurious, but worthy of a good family...

“And you know what, my dear Mikhail Osipovich...” the countess ventured after much thought, “my husband and I are looking for a reliable client. The Count received an appointment to Paris as His Majesty's ambassador..."

“However, Countess! Yes, I can’t even handle your mezzanine! You have a mezzanine, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Timroth grinned. – We have a lot of things. However, my husband is the chamberlain of the court. Should we bargain? You, I see, are a respectable, intelligent, experienced person. 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 timidly corrected and rose from the table. “So how soon will you deign to look at the house?”

We came to an agreement to meet in 5 days on the train where Dinkevich will board in Klin.

Sonya perfectly remembered this village, or rather, the small station, since out of the whole town she knew only the police station. Sonya constantly mentioned her first adventure with pleasure. At that time she was not even 20; with her small stature and grace, she looked like sixteen. It was 6 years later that they began to call her Sonya the Golden Hand, when Sheindlya Solomoniak, the daughter of a small moneylender from the Warsaw district, became famous as the think tank and money lord of the “raspberries” of international scope. And then she only had the ability, irresistible attractiveness and secondary education of the “family nest”, of which she was no less proud than Countess Timrot, the Nest not of a general, but of a thieve, in which place she grew up among moneylenders, buyers of stolen goods, robbers and smugglers . I was at their beck and call, simply learning their languages: Yiddish, Lyash, Russian, German. I kept an eye on them. And like true acting nature, she was imbued with the spirit of adventure and ruthless risk.

Well, then, in 1866, she was a shy thief “in trust” on the railroad. By this time, by the way, she had already managed to run away from her first husband, the merchant Rosenbad, taking not so much for the trip - 500 rubles... Somewhere “among the people” her little daughter was growing up.

Finally, 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 artlessly looked at his cockade, shiny leggings and suitcase next to them with all her eyes (the power of which she already knew very well), that the young military man immediately felt an impulse characteristic of all representatives of the stronger sex encountered on Sonya’s path : to defend and patronize 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 the conquered cadet - well, let's say, for lemonade.

This was probably the first and last time that Sonya was caught red-handed. However, even here I was able to scratch myself out. At the station, she burst into tears, and everyone, including Misha Gorozhansky, who had been duped and had fallen behind the train, believed that the woman had taken her fellow passenger’s luggage by mistake, confusing it with her own. Moreover, the statement of “Sima Rubinshtein” about the loss of three hundred rubles remained in the protocol.

After some years, Sonya went to the Maly Theater. And in the magnificent Glumovo I suddenly recognized my Klin “client”. Misha Gorozhansky, in full accordance with his pseudonym - Reshimov - abandoned his army career because of the theater and became the leading artist of the Maly Theater. Sonya bought a large bouquet of roses, put a clever note in it: “To a great artist from his first teacher,” and was about to send it to the premiere. However, on the way, I couldn’t resist adding a gold watch from a nearby pocket to the offering. The still young Misha Reshimov never realized who played a prank on him and why the cover of the precious souvenir was engraved: “General-in-Chief N for special services to the fatherland on his seventieth birthday.”

However, let’s return to “Countess” Sophia Timrot. In the Capital, as expected, she was greeted by a luxurious departure: a coachman all in snow-white, a gig shining with varnish leather and lush insignia, and a traditional pair of bay horses. We picked up the Dinkevich family on the Arbat - and soon the clients, as if not daring to enter, crowded at the iron casting gates, behind which stood a palace on a stone plinth with the promised mezzanine.

With bated breath, the Dinkevichs surveyed the bronze lamps, Pavlovian chairs, mahogany, an invaluable library, carpets, oak panels, Venetian windows... The house was sold with furnishings, a garden, home structures, a pond - and for only 125 thousand, including mirror carps! Dinkevich's daughter was on the verge of fainting. Misha Osipovich himself was ready to smack the hands not only of the countess, but also of the monumental butler in a powdered wig, as if deliberately 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 your wife, period, sell the house immediately, leave, period, I’m looking forward to Wednesday, Gregory.”

“Countess” and the client went to the notary firm on Lenivka. When Dinkevich, following Sonya the Golden Hand, stepped into the darkish reception room, the obsequious 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 joyful Itska loved the ringing of breguettes and always had with him two adored Bure: a gold one, with an engraved hunting scene on the lid, and a platinum one, with a portrait of the sovereign emperor in an enamel medallion. On this watch, Itska once beat an inexperienced Chisinau plucker by almost three hundred rubles.

Sonya even had scams with real estate

To celebrate, he kept both braces for himself and loved to open them at the same time, comparing the time and listening to the gentle discord of the ringing. Rosenbad did not hold a grudge against Sonya, 500 rubles. I forgave her a long time ago, especially since I received 100 times more thanks to her tips. He generously paid the lady who raised his daughter and often visited his daughter, unlike Sonya (Although later, having already had two daughters, Sonya became the most affectionate mother, did not skimp on their education and upbringing - neither in Russia nor later in France. But her mature daughters abandoned her.)

Having met about 2 years after the young wife’s escape, the former wives began to “act” together. Itska, with his joyful spirit and artistic Warsaw glamor, often provided Sonya with invaluable assistance.

So, the notary, who is also the first husband of Sonya of the Golden Hand, Itska, losing his glasses, rushed to Sonya. “Countess! - he cried. - What an honor! Such a star in my insignificant establishment!”

In 5 minutes the notary's young assistant drew up the bill of sale in beautiful handwriting. The retired Mr. Director handed over to Countess Timrot, née Bebutova, every penny of the accumulation of his own decent life. 125 thousand rubles.. And after 2 weeks, two tanned citizens came to the Dinkevichs, crazy with happiness. These were the Artemyev brothers, prestigious architects, who rented out their own house while traveling around Italy. Dinkevich hanged himself in inexpensive rooms...

Sonya's main assistants in this case were caught a couple of years later. Itska Rosenbad and Mikhel Bluvshtein (manager) went to prison companies, Khunya Goldstein (coachman) went to prison for 3 years, and then went abroad “with a ban on returning to the Russian country.” Sonya loved to act with her relatives and former spouses. All 3 were no exceptions: not only the Warsaw resident Itska, but also a couple of “Romanian subjects” were at one time legally married to Sonya.

She came across it more than once. Sonya was tried in Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Kharkov, but she always managed to either quickly slip away from the police station or obtain an apology. In general, the police of almost all megacities of Western Europe were hunting for her. For example, in Budapest, in accordance with the decision of the Royal Court of Justice, all her belongings were detained; In 1871, the Leipzig police transferred Sonya the Golden Hand under the supervision of the Russian Embassy. She escaped this time too, but was soon detained by the Viennese police, who confiscated a box of stolen things from her.

Thus began a streak of failures. Her name often appeared in the press, and her photo was posted in police stations. It became increasingly difficult for Sonya to become part of the crowd and maintain her freedom with the help of bribes.

She sparkled during the happy eras of her own stellar career in Europe, but Odessa was the metropolis of fortune and love for her...

Wolf Bromberg, a twenty-year-old sharper and gopnik, nicknamed Vladimir Kochubchik, had inexplicable power over Sonya. He extorted large sums of money from her. Sonya took unnecessary risks more often than before, became greedy, irritable, and even descended into pickpocketing. Not very handsome, from the row of “pretty” guys with a mustache shaved into a thread, narrow in bone, with lively eyes and masterful hands - he was the only one who risked setting Sonya up once. On her birthday, September 30, Wolf decorated the neck of his mistress with a velvet with a blue diamond, which was taken as a deposit from the first Odessa jeweler.

The deposit was considered to be a mortgage on part of the building on Lanzheron. The price of the building was 4,000 higher than the price of the stone - and the jeweler paid the difference in cash. A day later, Wolf unexpectedly returned the diamond, saying that the woman did not like the gift. Thirty minutes later, the jeweler found the fake, and an hour later he established that there was no building on Lanzheron. When he broke into Bromberg’s chambers on Moldavanka, Wolf “confessed” that the copy of the stone was given to him by Sonya the Golden Hand and she concocted the fake pawn. 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 anger, Sonya fought violently with the judge's civil servants, in no way acknowledging either the complaints or the exhibited material evidence. Despite the fact that eyewitnesses identified her from a photo, Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka announced that Zolotaya Ruchka was a completely different lady, and she lived at the expense of her husband, friends, and admirers. Sonya was especially outraged by the revolutionary proclamations planted on her living space by the police. In a word, she behaved in such a way that later attorney at law A Shmakov, remembering this trial, called her a lady capable of “eclipsing a good hundred guys in the belt.”

And yet, in accordance with the decision of the court, she received a harsh verdict: “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 deported to settle 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 was caught by the police 5 months later. For escaping from Siberia, she was sentenced to 3 years of hard labor and 40 lashes. But even in prison she did not waste any time, she fell in love with the tall prison guard, non-commissioned officer Mikhailov, with a bushy mustache. He gave his passion a civilian dress and on the night of June 30, 1886, brought her out. However, Sonya enjoyed freedom for only 4 months. After a new arrest, she ended up in the Nizhny Novgorod prison castle. Now she was supposed to serve a prison sentence on Sakhalin.

She couldn’t live without a man, and even at the stage she became friends with a friend from her hard labor, a brave, hardened elderly thief and murderer, Flea.

On Sakhalin, Sonya, like all ladies, first lived as a free inhabitant. Accustomed to precious Euro-class “luxuries”, to fine linen and chilled champagne, Sonya slipped a penny to the guard to let her into the dark barracks hallway, where she met with Blokha. During these short meetings, Sonya and her strong keeper developed an escape plan

It must be stated that escaping Sakhalin was not such a difficult task. This was not the first time that Blokha ran and knew that from the taiga, in which place 3 dozen people work under the supervision of one soldier, getting through the hills to the north, to the narrowest place of the Tatar Strait between capes Pogobi and Lazarev, was worth nothing. And after that - desolation, you can put together a raft and move to the mainland. However, Sonya, who even here had not gotten rid of her own attraction to theatrical scams, and was also afraid of days of hunger, came up with her own version of escape. They will follow the well-worn and lived-in path, but they will not hide, but will play a game of convict assignment: Sonya in a soldier’s dress will “guard” Flea. The repeat offender 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. However, this time she was lucky. The doctors at the Alexander Hospital insisted on removing corporal punishment from the Golden Hand: she turned out to be pregnant. Flea received 40 lashes and was shackled with hand and foot chains. When they flogged him, he shouted: “For my cause, your honor! Get to work! This is what I need!”

Sonya Zolotoy Ruchka's pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Her upcoming imprisonment in Sakhalin resembled a delusional dream. Sonya was blamed for the scam; she was involved - as a leader - in the case of the murder of the settler-trader Nikitin.

In the end, in 1891, for escaping again, she was handed over to the terrible Sakhalin executioner Komlev. Stripped naked, surrounded by hundreds of prisoners, under their encouraging hooting, the executioner gave her fifteen lashes. Didn't make a sound . She crawled to her own room and fell on the bunk. For 2 years and 8 months, Sonya wore hand chains and was in a damp solitary confinement cell with a dim, tiny window covered with fine bars.

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 the expression her face is mousey...” At the time of the events described by Chekhov, that is, in 1891, Sofya Bluvshtein was only 45 years old...

Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka was visited by writers, correspondents, and residents of other countries. For a fee you were allowed to talk to her. She didn’t like to talk, she lied a lot, and got confused in her memories. Adherents of exoticism were photographed 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 preserved in the State Literary Museum.

After serving her sentence, Sonya was obliged to remain on Sakhalin as a free settler. She became the owner of the local “café-chantant”, where she prepared kvass, sold vodka under the counter and organized cheerful evenings with dancing.

At the same time, she became acquainted with the fierce repeat offender Nikolai Bogdanov, but life with him was worse than hard labor.

Unhealthy, embittered, she ventured into a new escape and left Aleksandrovsk. She walked about 2 miles and, losing strength, fell. The guards found her.

A few days later, Sonya the Golden Hand died.

Sonya Golden Hand (Sofya Ivanovna Blyuvshtein)

Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein (nee Sheindlya-Sura Leibovna Solomoniak). Born on April 1, 1846 in the village. Powązki in the suburbs of Warsaw - died in 1902 at the Aleksandrovsky post (now Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky) on Sakhalin Island. Famous Russian criminal, fraudster. She became known under the nickname Sonya the Golden Hand.

Sophia Solomoniak, who became widely known as Sonya the Golden Hand, was born on April 1, 1846 (the real date of birth is sometimes questioned) in the village of Powązki in the suburbs of Warsaw (since 1916 - an urban microdistrict in Warsaw).

It’s worth mentioning right away that there is no completely accurate information about the time or place of her birth. The information is based on the data that Sonya herself provided when she was arrested by the police. However, she herself was inclined to mislead others (and especially the police). Therefore, almost all researchers of her biography indicate that the information she provides about her origin can be falsified. For example, some court documents indicate that she was born in 1846. But during her baptism according to the Orthodox rite (which took place shortly before her death, in 1899), she indicated the date of her birth as 1951, and the place as Warsaw.

Born from the second marriage of her mother Rivka-Leya, she was recorded in her father’s surname as Sheindlya-Sura Leibovna Solomoniak.

She received a good education, knew six languages, played excellent music, and had a good voice. In addition, she had an innate acting talent and the gift of transformation. She had good taste and was trained in social manners.

Regarding the origin of the nickname Sonya Golden Hand, then, according to her own stories, it came from childhood. The music teacher with whom young Sophia studied constantly praised her, saying: “You, girl, have golden hands.” Later, when she took up crime, she herself was proud of her dexterous hands, which brought her considerable income and truly became “golden” for her. This was also recognized in the criminal community.

Height of Sofia Bluvshtein (Sonka Zolotoy Ruchki): 153 centimeters.

Personal life of Sofia Bluvshtein (Sonka Zolotoy Ruchki):

She was married several times.

In one of her first marriages with Isaac Rosenbad, in 1865 she gave birth to a daughter, Sura-Rivka Isaacovna Rosenbad. She left the girl in the care of her father in Powązki, Warsaw province. Her fate is unknown.

In police reports she was known by the names Rubinstein, Shkolnik, Brenner - perhaps they (or some of them also belonged to her husbands).

Her last official husband is known - Mikhail (Mikhel) Yakovlevich Blyuvshtein, a card sharper. The marriage produced two daughters: Tabba Mikhailovna Blyuvshtein (born 1875) and Mikhelina Mikhailovna Blyuvshtein (born 1879), both became operetta artists and performed in Moscow theaters.

Appearance of Sofia Bluvshtein (Sonka Zolotoy Ruchki):

Contemporaries described Sonya in different ways - some as a beauty, others as an ordinary woman who did not have a particularly spectacular appearance. However, everyone noted that she had a certain charm, in addition, she masterfully knew how to use makeup, wigs, false eyelashes, etc.

This is how the police described her: “Height 1 m 53 cm, pockmarked face, moderate nose with wide nostrils, wart on the right cheek, brunette, curly hair on the forehead, mobile eyes, impudent and talkative.”

According to one version, at the age of 17, taking her father’s money, she fled abroad with a handsome young Greek. But then the money ran out and the passion cooled. He returned home. Sonya took up criminal activity.

She was involved in organizing large-scale scams and thefts, which gained fame due to the adventurous component and tendency to mystify.

In the 1860-70s, she was engaged in criminal activities in large Russian cities and in Europe. She was repeatedly detained by the police of different countries, but without serious consequences.

Sonya was first detained for theft in Klin on April 14, 1866, but was released. Then he was tried 5 times in Warsaw.

In 1871, the Leipzig police interrupted the overseas voyage of an already experienced thief and returned her to her homeland - under the supervision of the Russian police. At the same time, a whole chest of jewelry was confiscated from Sonya.

Then she formed a family gang of thieves, which included her ex-husbands, and even a certain citizen of Sweden and Norway. She always worked only on a big scale. So, at the Nizhny Novgorod fair she stole 213,000 rubles from General Frolov.

Every thing she did looked like a well-staged performance. Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka invented an original way to steal from hotels on Guten Morgen (thieves still use this method). Entering the rooms early in the morning, she cleaned out the guests' wallets, and if they accidentally woke up, she immediately began to undress and became terribly embarrassed, pretending that she had the wrong number. She worked in the same way in first and second class carriages on trains.

To steal from jewelry stores, she sewed a special bag dress that could hold kilograms of loot. She also hid especially precious stones under her well-groomed, specially grown nails. Sometimes she went to work with a trained monkey. While the owner was bargaining, the monkey quietly grabbed stones and hid them behind her cheek or swallowed them. At home, Sonya gave her friend an enema.

In 1880, in Odessa, she was arrested for major fraud and transported to Moscow. After a trial in the Moscow district court on December 10-19 of the same year, she was exiled to a settlement in the most remote places of Siberia. The place of exile was determined to be the remote village of Luzhki in the Irkutsk province.

Before her arrest in 1885, she committed a number of major property crimes in provincial cities of Russia. In 1885, she was captured by the police in Smolensk.

From a criminal case initiated in 1885: “Sofya Eduardovna Buxgevden, Baroness, arrived in Moscow from Courland. Accompanied by her father Eduard Karlovich, a female baby and mother, she visited Khlebnikov’s jewelry store to buy diamond jewelry. The store manager T. recommended the collection , consisting of jewelry in the amount of 22 thousand 300 rubles. When the jewelry was packed and the paper was given to this lady for payment, the latter, referring to the forgotten money on the fireplace portal, took a bag of diamonds and left for cash, leaving the above-mentioned persons as collateral. Two hours later, it was reported to the police station that the child had been taken into use from an inhabitant of the Khitrov market, known under the thieves' name Mashka Prokatnitsa, who was hired as a mother by an advertisement in the newspaper by Baron Buxgewden, a retired captain N. sky regiment Mr. Ch."

For major thefts and fraud, she was sentenced to three years of hard labor (hard labor was served at the discretion of the court in hard labor prisons in the European part of the Russian Empire until 1893) and fifty lashes. On June 30, 1886, she escaped from the Smolensk prison, using the services of a warden who was in love with her.

Four months later, “will” was arrested in Nizhny Novgorod, and now for escaping from hard labor and new crimes she was again convicted and sent in 1888 from Odessa by steamship to hard labor at the Aleksandrovsky post of the Tymovsky district on the island of Sakhalin (now Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, Sakhalin region ), where after two escape attempts she was shackled. In total, she made three attempts to escape from the Sakhalin penal servitude. She was subjected to corporal punishment by decision of the prison administration.

In 1890, the famous writer met her, who left a description of the convict Sophia Bluvshtein in his 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.”

After her release in 1898, Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka remained in a settlement in Iman (now Dalnerechensk) in the Primorsky Territory. But already in 1899 she left for Khabarovsk, and then returned to Sakhalin Island to the Aleksandrovsky post.

In July 1899, she was baptized according to the Orthodox rite and given the name Maria.

At the beginning of the 20th century, versions were circulated about her successful escape and about a figurehead serving hard labor for her. Already in Soviet times, the aged Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka was allegedly seen either in Odessa or in Moscow.

According to some reports, shortly before her death, Sophia met and cohabited with a certain Nikolai Bogdanov, who had also previously served sentences for various crimes; they claimed that he beat her severely and she tried to run away from him into the forest.

Sofya Bluvshtein died of a cold in 1902, as evidenced by a message from the prison authorities, and was buried in the local cemetery at the Aleksandrovsky post.

At the same time, a number of researchers are inclined to believe that she died in the 1920s in Moscow, where after hard labor she lived with her daughters, who did their best to hide who their mother was.

In Moscow there is a grave attributed to Sonya the Golden Hand; every year different people, mostly criminals, bring flowers and coins to it, thus trying to show respect to the famous thief and receive her intercession and patronage. There are many inscriptions on the monument asking Sonya to help her with her thieves, to protect her from arrest, etc.

The guides claim that at this place lies either an Italian dancer who died of tuberculosis, or the Russian wife of the Italian ambassador.

In Odessa, there is a version that Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka, after hard labor under an assumed name, returned to Odessa, where she died only in 1947.

Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka became one of the most famous figures in the domestic criminal world, turned into a legend in which it became difficult to distinguish truth from fiction.

The image of Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka in the movie:

1915 - “The Adventures of the Famous Adventuress Sofia Bluvshtein” - a silent film directed by Vladimir Kasyanov and Yuri Yuryevsky. Of the 8 episodes, 4 have survived. The negative is stored in the State Film Fund of Russia. The role of Sonya Golden Hand was played by Nina Goffman;
2007 - Sonya - Golden Pen - TV series. The role of Sonya Golden Hand was played by;
2010 - Sonya. The continuation of the legend is a continuation of the series directed by Viktor Merezhko. The role of Sonya Golden Hand was played by Anastasia Mikulchina;
2013 - Time Loop - series directed by Georgy Ilyin.

In 1908, Roman Antropov’s story “The Golden Hand” was written about Sonya (from the series “The Genius of the Russian Detective I. D. Putilin”).

The image was used in the detective novel "Jack of Spades".

The singer performs a song called “Sonka” with lyrics by Viktor Merezhko and music by Dmitry Smirnov.

Biography

There is no exact information about the life of Sophia (Sonya) Solomoniak-Blyuvshtein-Shtendel, since she largely falsified her own biography. According to official court documents, the famous adventurer was born in the town of Powazki, Warsaw province in 1846. However, when baptized according to the Orthodox rite in 1899, she indicated Warsaw, 1851, as the place and date of birth. She received an education and knew several foreign languages. She had the gift of artistry and theatrical transformation.

She was married several times, her last official husband was 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 Rosenbad, Rubinstein, Shkolnik and Briner (or Brener) - the surnames of her husbands.

In the 1860-70s, she was engaged in criminal activities in large Russian cities and in Europe.

She was repeatedly detained by the police of different countries, but without serious consequences.

Shackling Sonya Golden Hand in shackles, 1881

After World War II, the grave was lost.

Children

Three daughters of Sophia Bluvshtein are known:

• Sura-Rivka Isaakovna (née Rosenbad) (born 1865) - abandoned by her mother, remained in the care of her father, Isaac Rosenbad, in the town of Powązki, Warsaw province, fate unknown.
• Sofya Mikhailovna (née Bluvshtein) (born 1875) - operetta actress in Moscow.
• Antonina Mikhailovna (née Bluvshtein) (born 1879) - operetta actress in Moscow.

In art

• - silent film “Sonka the Golden Hand” (original title “The Adventures of the famous adventuress Sofia Bluvshtein”) directed by Vladimir Kasyanov and Yuri Yuryevsky. The role of Sofia Bluvshtein was played by Nina Goffman. The film has been preserved without captions. The negative is stored in

Who should a Jewish woman be in Russia at the end of the century before last in order to become everyone’s favorite, so that before any television she would be recognized by sight, so that the first domestic series of eight silent episodes would be filmed about her life, so that cards with her image would sell out like newspapers, in which articles about her sometimes took up more than one page? A talented thief.

“Sonka the Golden Pen” shocked the human imagination at the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, her thieves' nickname (like the surname of the English innkeeper Hooligan, who robbed and killed his guests) became a household name and existed for a long time in the Russian colloquial language.

However, in the memory of people of the older generation, “Sonka the Golden Hand” was not an extortionist and a talented deceiver, like Olga von Stein, but a Russian version of Professor Moriarty, a kind of queen of the underworld. According to legend, while in prison, she knew how to join her hands so skillfully that she could freely remove her hand shackles.

Chronological inconsistencies also arise. For example, Sonya’s exploits occurred at the end of the 19th century, and Olga “worked” until 1912.The image of "Sonka - the golden pen" was created by word of mouth. This was the thieves' nickname of Sofia Ivanovna Bluvshtein, a Jewish woman from Odessa, born in 1855.

A.P. Chekhov, who visited Sakhalin Island in the summer of 1890, left interesting memories about this lady. Then the most famous thief in Russia and Europe was imprisoned in solitary confinement in hand shackles. Before that, the Golden Hand was in prison in Smolensk, from where she managed to escape along with the warden who was guarding her. Like all women exiled to Sakhalin, at first she lived outside prison in a free apartment. Soon, disguised as a soldier, she and her partner escaped again, but were caught, shackled and placed in solitary confinement.

While Sonya was free, several daring crimes were committed at the Aleksandrovsky post - the murder of shopkeeper Nikitin and the theft of 56,000 rubles from the Jewish settler Yurkovsky, a huge sum at that time. Everyone knew that Sonya was hiding behind these crimes, but investigators were unable to prove this fact. Both in freedom and on Sakhalin, Sonya had a trail of great fame. They said that she knew how not only to organize crimes professionally, but also to hide their traces well.

Vlas Mikhailovich Doroshevich, a talented reporter of his time, wrote in more detail about “Sonya the Golden Pen”. He met her during his trip to Sakhalin in 1905, when Sofya Ivanovna was already living in the settlement with her partner, exiled settler Bogdanov. According to camp terminology, she was considered an “exiled peasant woman.”

Doroshevich was looking forward to meeting “Mephistopheles,” “Rocambole in a skirt,” with a powerful criminal nature that was not broken by hard labor, solitary confinement, or heavy hand shackles. She wore them for two years and eight months. Unlike Olga von Stein, who turned out to be a charming extortionist, Sofya Bluvshtein was the organizer of many unsolved robberies and murders.

And finally, the long-awaited meeting took place. Before the eyes of the famous journalist and reporter stood a small, fragile old woman with traces of bygone youth, with a rouged face, wrinkled like a baked apple, in an old hood. “Really,” thought Doroshevich, “it was She?” All that remained of the old Sonya were soft, expressive eyes that could lie perfectly. In her manner of speaking, she was a simple Odessa bourgeois, a shopkeeper who knew Yiddish and German. An excellent judge of human characters, Doroshevich could not understand how her (Sonka’s) victims could mistake the “Golden Hand” for a famous artist or an aristocratic widow?

An all-Russian, almost European celebrity, Sonya was in the spotlight on Sakhalin too. There were various legends about her there. The opinion was stubbornly held that she was not real at all, but a “replacement worker” who was serving a sentence for the real Sonya, who continued her criminal “activities” in distant Russia. Even Sakhalin officials, who learned that Doroshevich had seen and remembered photographs of the “Golden Pen” taken before the trial, asked him: “Well, is she? The same one?” To which the journalist, who had an excellent professional memory, replied: “Yes, but only the remains of that Sonya.”

Her criminal nature did not give up and stubbornly fought against the convict regime of Sakhalin. She was flogged, and according to the terrible Sakhalin executioner Komlev, in the most cruel way. A local photographer organized a profitable business on Sonya, selling photographs of the “Golden Pen”. She was taken to the prison yard, placed next to an anvil, a blacksmith with a hammer, guards and Sofya Bluvshtein in hand shackles. Sailors from ships coming from the mainland and tourists of that time readily bought such photos. The Sakhalin penal servitude treated the “Golden Hand” with respect. “Baba is the head,” they said about her. In modern thieves' jargon, she would be called a "thief in law."

Sofia Bluvshtein. Photo from Count Amaury's book. "Sonka - Golden Hand"

“Golden Handle” is an old street nickname for a highly skilled pickpocket.

Sophia’s partner, Bogdanov, told Doroshevich about her: “Now Sophia Ivanovna is sick and doesn’t do anything.” Officially, she brewed excellent kvass, built a carousel, organized an orchestra from the settlers, found a magician, organized performances, dances and celebrations. And unofficially, she sold vodka, which was strictly prohibited on Sakhalin. And although this was widely known, no searches revealed the manufacturer of the “green serpent.” Only empty kvass bottles were found by law enforcement officers. She kept a “raspberry”, sold and bought stolen things, but the police were unable to detect the stolen goods.

Thus, she “fought for life,” dreaming of returning to Russia again. She bombarded the capital's reporter with questions about the city of her childhood - Odessa. During one of the meetings, Sonya told Doroshevich that she had two daughters left in Odessa who performed in the operetta as pages. She begged to be informed of their fate, since she had not received any news from them for a long time. As Doroshevich wrote about this story, “There was no more Rocambole in a skirt.” An old woman, the mother of her unfortunate children, about whose fate she had known nothing for a long time, was sobbing in front of the capital's reporter.

This is the end of the story of the true “Sonya the golden hand” - Sofia Ivanovna Blyuvshtein. Taking into account the testimony of two independent, highly authoritative informants - A.P. Chekhov and V.M. Doroshevich, one can understand how two different people turned out to be united into one person - Olga von Stein and Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, “Sonka the Golden Pen” became a symbol of the superstar of the criminal world. At the time when the real Sophia was serving exile on Sakhalin, her name was floating around the cities and villages of Russia. It is quite natural that another adventuress, Olga von Stein, inherited the famous thief nickname.

Sources - "The X-Files of the 20th Century", 2001., http://tonnel.ru/?l=gzl&uid=450, http://www.gzt.ru/http://a-pesni.golosa.info/

P.S. In the mid-nineties, a series of mysterious robberies swept across Europe. And the main suspect was a woman. The handwriting and description of the criminal resembled our heroine. The criminal was not caught. Again everything pointed to the handwriting of the Golden Hand. But she was in hard labor.
The last years of her life, as the legend says, the Golden Hand lived with her daughters in Moscow. Although they were in every possible way ashamed of their mother’s scandalous popularity. Old age and health undermined by hard labor did not allow him to actively engage in the old profession of thieves. But the Moscow police were faced with strange and mysterious robberies. A small monkey appeared in the city, which in jewelry stores jumped on a visitor who was picking up a ring or diamond, swallowed the valuable item and ran away. Sonya brought this monkey from Odessa.
Legend has it that Sonya the Golden Hand died at an old age. She was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, plot No. 1. After her death, says legendYes, with the money of Odessa, Neapolitan and London scammers, a monument was ordered from Milanese architects and delivered to Russia.

What was the cost of one poem by the Odessa raider Volodya Kochubchik, dedicated to his star friend and read by him with the expression at the court hearing:

Even if you were born a gypsy,
Darkened hands and face,
But you are in front of an Italian woman
There is no comparison whatsoever.
There is no sweeter love for you,
Everyone pales in front of her
And there’s only one me, meaner than everyone else,
I laugh at her like fools.

Sonya the Golden Hand (Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein) is the madonna of the criminal world, whose name is surrounded by the most amazing legends; so much so that now hardly anyone can know for sure where the truth is and where the fiction is. The grave at the Vagankovskoe cemetery (1st site) in Moscow, where, as legend says, the great adventurer was secretly buried, is a place of pilgrimage for people with a criminal present. The monument is covered with admiring admirers of her talent.
What a pity that there are no photographs of which one could say with complete confidence that it depicts Sonya herself. But this is her monument, although someone managed to behead it.....

In 1868, the famous queen of thieves came to Dinaburg, where she married a local rich man, an old Jewish man, Shelom Shkolnik.

How did the nickname “Sonka the Golden Hand” come about?

Queen of Crime Sonya-Golden Pen She never offended those who were poorer, but she believed that it was a sin not to profit at the expense of big bankers, jewelers and rogue merchants.
Her career as a thief unfolded simultaneously with the development of the railroads. Starting with petty thefts in third-class carriages, the talented thief moved to class compartment carriages. Therefore, it is not surprising that Sonya the Golden Hand ended up in Dinaburg. Here, in 1868, she married an old, wealthy Jew, Shelom Shkolnik, who was destined to briefly become her second husband. Having robbed the poor man, the charming swindler leaves her Dinaburg husband for a card sharper, whom she soon exchanged for the famous railway thief Mikhel Blyuvshtein. However, she did not wear these marriage shackles for long. The husband, who regularly found either military men or aristocrats in the marriage bed, could not stand it and filed for divorce.

Your nickname "Sonka-Golden Hand" The thief received, for her wild luck, charming hands with sleek, feathered fingers. Under her long nails she hid precious stones stolen from jewelry stores. Under her bag style dress, Sonya managed to carry whole rolls of fabric out of the shops. She invented the original method of hotel theft, called “guten morgen”, or simply “good morning”. Dressed in elegant outfits, Sonya checked into decent hotels and carefully studied the guests, noticing the rich and the careless. Having identified a victim, early in the morning she calmly entered the rooms in silent felt shoes and took out all the most valuable things. If the guest woke up, the thief pretended that she had the wrong number, blushed, flirted - for the sake of business, she could even sleep with the victim. Moreover, Sonya did it so sincerely and naturally that it was impossible to resist her.

We can say that her life path was paved with duped men.

Sonya the Golden Hand, creator of the thieves' common fund

According to eyewitnesses, Sonya the Golden Hand was far from beautiful. This is how she was described in police documents: “Thin, height 1 m 53 cm, pockmarked face, moderate nose with wide nostrils, wart on the right cheek, light brown hair on the forehead, curly, brown eyes, mobile, impudent, talkative.”

Nevertheless, Sonya enjoyed great success among men. Her charm was akin to witchcraft. Without receiving an education, Sonya easily spoke five languages. Traveling around Europe, she introduced herself as either a countess or a baroness, and no one had the slightest doubt.

The right to be considered the birthplace of the famous swindler is claimed by Odessa-mama, gangster Petersburg and the town of Powonzki, Warsaw district. Her real name at birth was Sheindlya-Sura Leibova Solomoniak. Sonechka’s family, let’s face it, was still the same: buying stolen goods, smuggling, and selling counterfeit money were commonplace. Her older sister Feiga, who had three husbands, was also a thief, but she was far from her younger sister.

At the age of 18 in Warsaw, Sonya married a certain Rosenbad, gave birth to a daughter, Sura-Rivka, and immediately left her husband, robbing him goodbye. With a certain recruit Rubinstein, she fled to Russia, where her crazy career as a thief began. In January 1866, she was first detained by the police on charges of stealing a suitcase, but Sonya cleverly got out that she had grabbed the suitcase by mistake. It was at this time that Sonya the Golden Hand made her first attempt to create a gangster brigade in St. Petersburg, for which she brought the famous thief Levit Sandanovich to the city. It is believed that the idea of ​​the first thieves' common fund and helping comrades in trouble with money collected in a pool belongs to Sonya herself. Sonya the Golden Hand also ran schools for young thieves in Odessa and London.

Sonya always acted alone, disdained to deal with small matters and, despite the fact that she skillfully knew how to transform, could not stand impromptu speeches. She carefully prepared and thought about each case.

The lovely thief invented a method of stealing by distracting the victim for sex - this method later became known as “hipes”. The "hipes" usually worked in pairs - the woman would bring the client to her room and please him in bed, and her partner (a "cat" looking after the interests of his "cat") would clean out the pockets of the unlucky lover's clothes. The scammer worked inventively and artistically. It was simply impossible to suspect a lady dressed in luxurious furs and gold jewelry. It used to be that Sonya would go into jewelry stores with a trained monkey. Pretending that she was choosing diamonds, she secretly gave a pebble to the animal. The monkey obediently swallowed it or put it behind its cheek, and at home the jewel was removed from the pot. One day a rich lady came into a jewelry store. While looking at the most expensive diamond, she accidentally dropped it on the floor. While the salesman, sweating from exertion, crawled on his hands and knees, looking for the stone, the customer left the store. There was a hole in the heel of her shoe filled with resin. So simply, stepping on the diamond, Sonya did her next job.

Volodya Kochubchik

But soon luck turned away from her - Sonya fell in love. The handsome young thief Volodya Kochubchik (in the world Wolf Bromberg, who began stealing at the age of eight) quickly adapted to living at the expense of his mistress. He lost everything Sonya “earned” at cards, but she had to be nervous, take risks, make mistakes, until in the end she got caught. Although there is a version that Volodya Kochubchik himself sold and handed over Sonya to the police.

After a high-profile trial in Moscow, the Golden Pen was convicted and sent to Siberia. The thief fled, and again all of Russia started talking about her. Sonya continued to fleece rich fools. After several high-profile robberies of jewelers, she was sentenced to hard labor, from where she tried to escape three times and failed three times. After the second time, she was caught, punished with fifteen lashes (women were never punished so cruelly in hard labor) and shackled, which she wore for three whole years.

And Volodya Kochubchik, who betrayed her, was released six months after the trial and went to Bessarabia, where he very profitably invested the jewelry Sonya had stolen into houses and vineyards.

Monument from the lads made of white marble

There are many legends about Sonya's death. Her life in hard labor allegedly did not end, and she died in 1947 in Odessa as a very old woman. According to another version, she died in 1920 in Moscow and was buried at the famous Vagankovsky cemetery.

At her grave, with the money of Rostov, Odessa, St. Petersburg and even London thieves, an unusual monument was erected by Italian craftsmen: a female figurine made of white marble stands near tall forged palm trees. True, over the past twenty years, out of three palm trees, only one has remained, and Sonya is standing without a head. They say that during a drunken brawl the statue was dropped and the broken head was carried away.

There are always fresh flowers and coins scattered on the grave, and the pedestal of the monument is covered with inscriptions: “Solntsevskaya lads will not forget you”, “Yerevan bandits are mourning”, “Rostov remembers everything”. There are also such: “Sonya, teach me how to live”, “Mother, give happiness to Zhigan”, “Help, Sonya, we are going to work”...