Beria Lala's mistress. The difficult fate of Beria women
Lavrenty Beria is a deeply negative personality. Few researchers can say at least one good word to the General Commissar of State Security, who fiercely fought against the "enemies of the people." Many incredible stories are associated with his name. They tell about the mass executions of innocent people, and about the personal life of the people's commissar.
Before giving the names of Beria's mistresses, it is worth talking about his wife. Indeed, even regarding his relationship with his wife, there are many conflicting versions.
Kremlin wife
She had no girlfriends, no friends, and even more so lovers or admirers. Colleagues shunned her. With her son or daughter-in-law, she could talk more or less frankly only on the street - all her conversations in the house were tapped. It so happened not because she knew some secrets, but because she was the wife of a man whose name alone terrified contemporaries.
Nino Gegechkori was a beautiful woman in adulthood, and even more so at the age of 16, when her first meeting with her future husband took place. Lavrenty Beria was then 22 years old. They met in Sukhumi. There is plenty of gossip and all sorts of speculation around this event.
Some told an extremely beautiful story: the future People's Commissar saw the beautiful Nino among the lilac bushes and fell in love at first sight. Others were more skeptical. They claimed that Lavrenty Beria met a girl in prison. Still others said that the first meeting of the "Kremlin executioner" with his future wife took place in the house of an old Bolshevik, who was Nino's uncle.
Beria from an early age was eager for the female. Seeing the young, blooming Nino, he decided to kidnap her, which he easily succeeded. He allegedly kept the girl in his bedroom for several days, but after that he treated her relatively nobly, not as cruelly as he later did with numerous mistresses. Beria raped Nino and then married her. By the way, this is not the most common version of the People's Commissar's acquaintance with his future wife. There is another story, the veracity of which many historians are convinced.
Romantic version
Once at the station, a girl approached Lavrenty and asked for help. Her brother was arrested, and she, knowing about the capabilities of this man, hoped for his assistance. Beria helped her. He rescued Nino's brother from prison, then proposed to her. She agreed only because it was difficult to refuse in her position. But there is also a dubious moment in this story: when Beria met his future wife, he had not yet held a position that would allow him to influence the fate of those arrested. Power came to him much later, but by that time he had become an exemplary family man (at least he made such an impression).
Marriage for love and convenience
And what did the wife of Lavrenty Beria herself say about their acquaintance? In 1990, an interview with the widow of the General Commissar of State Security appeared in the Sovershenno Sekretno newspaper. Eighty-year-old Nino Gegechkori confirmed the romantic version, namely: he met her at his uncle's house, gallantly offered his hand and heart, and did not show any rudeness towards her. True, he wanted to marry the sixteen-year-old Nino, not only Great love, but also in connection with a possible business trip to Belgium. Only married employees were allowed to travel abroad.
Mistresses or secret agents?
It was not by chance that the wife of the People's Commissar of the NKVD was told in such detail - these contradictory versions confirm the mystery and ambiguity of the personality of the People's Commissar. The figure of Lavrenty Beria has become a gloomy symbol of the Stalin era. During his life he was an object of worship, after his death he turned into an executioner. It was possible to safely hang all the dogs on the shot commissar of state security, which, according to the historian Boris Sokolov, his former associates did.
The list of Beria's mistresses, according to his assistant Rafael Sarkisov, was extensive. Lavrenty Pavlovich allegedly used his position, he sought women by force. However, this version was refuted by the widow of the People's Commissar, who claimed that the women who were considered Beria's mistresses actually performed the functions of secret agents.
Exemplary family man
During the investigation, which began in June 1953 and ended with a death sentence, Lavrenty Pavlovich denied accusations of espionage and conspiracy, but admitted to numerous relationships with women.
His son, who published a book of memoirs in the nineties, claimed that his father almost slandered himself. Love affairs, according to Sergo Beria, did not happen to him, and in general he was an exemplary family man, a loving and understanding father and husband.
The following are a few stories from the personal life of the "bloody executioner" (this is how Beria began to be called after 1953). But it is worth remembering: not many of them are documented. In the stories about Beria's numerous mistresses, there may be a good deal of fiction.
Nina Alekseeva
Sarkisov scrupulously recorded data on all the women with whom his boss had relationships. In the list of Beria's mistresses, compiled by him, there are 39 names. One of these women is Nina Alekseeva.
Lavrenty Pavlovich was a member of admission committee ensemble of the NKVD and saw the girl for the first time at the audition, as she told in her book of memoirs. A photo of Beria's mistress is presented below.
People's Commissar Sarkisov instructed to follow the young artist. According to Alekseeva’s memoirs, once a car drove up to her on the street, a man in military uniform looked out of the window. It was Sarkisov, who invited her to get into the car. Alekseeva politely refused, then, realizing the fraught interest in her person of Beria himself, hastily left Moscow.
For some time she lived in Kaliningrad. There she got married and had a child. Upon returning to the capital, she was accepted into the prestigious Moscow orchestra. The concert hall was located near the house of the General Commissar of State Security. It is not surprising that Beria once saw Alekseeva, and then ordered an assistant to bring the girl to his mansion. This time, Sarkisov fulfilled the order. This is the story of one of the mistresses of Lavrenty Beria.
Tatiana Okunevskaya
According to the memoirs of the star of Soviet cinema, among her admirers were Marshal and Chief of Staff of the NOAU Kocha Popovich, and Minister of State Security Viktor Abakumov, and, of course, Lavrenty Beria. The photo of the mistress of the man who was nicknamed the "bloody executioner" is well known to fans of the old Russian cinema. Okunevskaya played in such films as "Pyshka", "Last Night", "The Mysterious Wanderer". The actress spoke about her relationship with Lavrenty Beria in her autobiographical book Tatyana's Day.
Sofia Shirova
In the list of Beria's mistresses, the name of this woman is also there. Unlike most of the victims of the loving commissioner, something is known about her. Sophia was the wife of a pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union. Upon learning that Beria had raped his wife, this man, being an intimidating dozen, became furious. He began to threaten the people's commissar, for which he paid with his freedom. A case was fabricated against Shirov, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
There is much less information about other women who became Beria's mistresses against their will. The names and photos of famous actresses presented above are easy to find in publications. But the commissar had more than thirty victims on his account, about whom very little is known. Sarkisov often wrote down the name, age, but did not indicate the girl's last name.
Ballerinas were not only a weakness of Lavrenty Beria. He had an intimate relationship with at least one of the dancers. The People's Commissar gave the girl an apartment in which she moved with her mother. The naive woman asked Lavrenty Pavlovich about who should be thanked for such a generous gift. Beria joked: “Thank the Soviet government!”
Valentina Drozdova
Relatives called her simply Lyalya. A photo of Beria's mistress, who at the time of her acquaintance with the people's commissar was only 16 years old, is presented below. The schoolgirl became a victim of violence - Beria deceived her into his mansion. In 1949, Lyalya gave birth to a daughter from him. In fact, she became his second wife.
It is noteworthy that after the arrest of Beria, Drozdova wrote a statement about the rape. But this happened a few years after they met. Most likely, she was forced to testify against her lover.
Drozdova's personal life did not work out. She was twice in a civil marriage. Both her husbands were shot in the sixties.
Blue Beard
During the years of perestroika Stalinist times there were many terrible legends. In many of them, Lavrenty Beria was the main character. This political figure especially often appeared on the pages of the yellow press. It was said that he not only raped women, but also killed, and with the help of a terrible method he lowered the bodies into the sewer. These semi-mystical stories were debunked by the historian, and part-time former KGB officer A. Martirosyan.
After Beria was shot, his family was sent into exile. Nino Gegechkori spent some time in prison. The warden once informed the woman that there were more than seven hundred names on the list of her husband's mistresses. Gegechkori was surprised a lot. How did a man who worked 18 hours a day find time to date so many women?
During the war years and in the late forties, Beria headed counterintelligence. He also oversaw all scientific research that was related to the creation of nuclear weapons. Of course, he was not a monk. But the rumors about the commissar's legion of mistresses are greatly exaggerated.
Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (Georgian ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria). Born on March 17 (29), 1899 in the village. Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province ( Russian empire) - was shot on December 23, 1953 in Moscow. Russian revolutionary, Soviet state and party leader.
General Commissar of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (1943), stripped of these titles in 1953. Since 1941, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 - Council of Ministers) of the USSR I. V. Stalin, after his death on March 5, 1953 - First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkov and at the same time Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Member of the USSR State Defense Committee (1941-1944), Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR (1944-1945). Member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of the 7th convocation, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-3rd convocations. Member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1934-1953), candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (1939-1946), member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1946-1952), member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1952-1953). He oversaw a number of important branches of the defense industry, in particular, related to the creation of nuclear weapons and rocket technology. From August 20, 1945, he led the implementation of the nuclear program of the USSR.
Lavrenty Beria was born on March 17 (29 according to the new style) March 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhum district, Kutaisi province (now in the Gulrypsh district of Abkhazia) into a poor peasant family.
Mother - Martha Jakeli (1868-1955), megrelian. According to Sergo Beria and fellow villagers, she was distantly related to the Megrelian princely family of Dadiani. After the death of her first husband, Marta was left with her son and two daughters in her arms. Later, due to extreme poverty, the children from Martha's first marriage were taken in by her brother Dmitry.
Father - Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922), moved to Merkheuli from Megrelia.
Martha and Pavel had three children in the family, but one of the sons died at the age of 2, and the daughter remained deaf and mute after an illness.
Noticing Lavrenty's good abilities, his parents tried to give him a good education - at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. To pay for tuition and living, parents had to sell half the house.
In 1915, Beria, having graduated with honors from the Sukhum Higher Primary School (although according to other sources, he studied mediocrely, and was left for the second year in the fourth grade), left for Baku and entered the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Technical Construction School.
From the age of 17, he supported his mother and deaf-mute sister, who moved in with him.
Working since 1916 as an intern at the main office of the Nobel oil company, at the same time he continued his studies at the school. In 1919 he graduated from it, having received a diploma of a technician-builder-architect.
Since 1915, he was a member of an illegal Marxist circle of a mechanical construction school, was its treasurer. In March 1917, Beria became a member of the RSDLP (b).
In June - December 1917, as a technician of a hydraulic engineering detachment, he went to the Romanian front, served in Odessa, then in Pashkani (Romania), was commissioned due to illness and returned to Baku, where from February 1918 he worked in the city organization of the Bolsheviks and the secretariat of the Baku Council workers' deputies.
After the defeat of the Baku commune and the capture of Baku by the Turkish-Azerbaijani troops (September 1918), he remained in the city and participated in the work of the underground Bolshevik organization until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920).
From October 1918 to January 1919 - a clerk at the plant "Caspian Association White City", Baku.
In the autumn of 1919, on the instructions of the head of the Baku Bolshevik underground, A. Mikoyan, he became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counter-Revolution (counterintelligence) under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. During this period, he established close relations with Zinaida Krems (von Krems, Kreps), who had connections with German military intelligence. In his autobiography, dated October 22, 1923, Beria wrote: “During the first period of the Turkish occupation, I worked in the White City at the Caspian Partnership plant as a clerk. In the autumn of the same 1919, from the Gummet party, I entered the counterintelligence service, where I worked together with Comrade Mussevi. Approximately in March 1920, after the assassination of Comrade Mussevi, I left my job in counterintelligence and worked for a short time in the Baku customs..
Beria did not hide his work in the ADR counterintelligence - for example, in a letter to G.K. Ordzhonikidze in 1933, he wrote that “he was sent to Musavat intelligence by the party and that this issue was dealt with in the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (b) in 1920” that the Central Committee of the AKP(b) "completely rehabilitated" him, because “The fact of working in counterintelligence with the knowledge of the party was confirmed by the statements of Comrades. Mirza Davud Huseynova, Kasum Izmailova and others.”.
In April 1920, after the establishment in Azerbaijan Soviet power, was sent to illegal work in the Georgian Democratic Republic as an authorized representative of the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army. Almost immediately he was arrested in Tiflis and released with an order to leave Georgia within three days.
In his autobiography, Beria wrote: “From the very first days after the April coup in Azerbaijan, the regional committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from the registrar of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army was sent to Georgia for underground work abroad as an authorized representative. In Tiflis, I contact the regional committee in the person of Comrade. Hmayak Nazaretyan, spreading a network of residents in Georgia and Armenia, establishing contact with the headquarters of the Georgian army and guards, regularly sending couriers to the register of the city of Baku. In Tiflis, I was arrested together with the Central Committee of Georgia, but according to the negotiations between G. Sturua and Noah Zhordania, they released everyone with a proposal to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, I manage to stay, having entered the service under the pseudonym Lakerbaya in the representative office of the RSFSR to Comrade Kirov, who by that time had arrived in the city of Tiflis ".
Later, participating in the preparation of an armed uprising against the Georgian Menshevik government, he was exposed by local counterintelligence, arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison, then exiled to Azerbaijan. About this he wrote: “In May 1920, I went to Baku to register to receive directives in connection with the conclusion of a peace treaty with Georgia, but on the way back to Tiflis I was arrested by Noah Ramishvili’s telegram and taken to Tiflis, from where, despite Comrade Kirov’s troubles, I was sent to Kutaisi prison. June and July of 1920 I am imprisoned, only after four and a half days of a hunger strike declared by political prisoners, I am deported to Azerbaijan in stages”.
Returning to Baku, Beria several times tried to continue his studies at the Baku Polytechnic Institute, into which the school was transformed, he completed three courses.
In August 1920, he became the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Azerbaijan, and in October of the same year, he became the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the Expropriation of the Bourgeoisie and the Improvement of the Life of the Workers, having worked in this position until February 1921.
In April 1921, he was appointed deputy head of the Secret Operational Department of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the Azerbaijan SSR, and in May he took the positions of head of the secret operational unit and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka. The chairman of the Cheka of the Azerbaijan SSR was then Mir Jafar Baghirov.
In 1921, Beria was sharply criticized by the party and Chekist leadership of Azerbaijan for exceeding his authority and falsifying criminal cases, but he escaped serious punishment - Anastas Mikoyan interceded for him.
In 1922, he participated in the defeat of the Muslim organization "Ittihad" and the liquidation of the Transcaucasian organization of the right SRs.
In November 1922, Beria was transferred to Tiflis, where he was appointed head of the Secret Operational Unit and deputy chairman of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR, later transformed into the Georgian GPU (State Political Administration), with the combination of the post of head of the Special Department of the Transcaucasian Army.
In July 1923 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the Republic by the Central Executive Committee of Georgia.
In 1924 he participated in the suppression of the Menshevik uprising, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the USSR.
From March 1926 - Deputy Chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR, head of the Secret Operational Unit.
On December 2, 1926, Lavrenty Beria became chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR (he held this position until December 3, 1931), deputy plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the ZSFSR and deputy chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the ZSFSR (until April 17, 1931). At the same time, from December 1926 to April 17, 1931, he was the head of the Secret Operational Directorate of the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the ZSFSR and the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the ZSFSR.
At the same time, from April 1927 to December 1930 - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. His first meeting with, apparently, belongs to this period.
On June 6, 1930, by the decision of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of the Georgian SSR, Lavrenty Beria was appointed a member of the Presidium (later the Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia.
On April 17, 1931, he took the post of chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the ZSFSR, plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the ZSFSR and head of the Special Department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army (until December 3, 1931). At the same time, from August 18 to December 3, 1931, he was a member of the collegium of the OGPU of the USSR.
On October 31, 1931, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recommended L.P. Beria to the post of second secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee (in office until October 17, 1932), on November 14, 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Georgia (until August 31 1938), and on October 17, 1932 - the first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee, while maintaining the post of first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia, was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On December 5, 1936, the TSFSR was divided into three independent republics, the Transcaucasian Regional Committee was liquidated by a decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on April 23, 1937.
On March 10, 1933, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks included Beria in the mailing list of materials sent to members of the Central Committee - the minutes of meetings of the Politburo, the Organizing Bureau, the Secretariat of the Central Committee.
In 1934, at the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b), he was elected a member of the Central Committee for the first time.
On March 20, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was included in the commission chaired by L. M. Kaganovich, created to develop the draft Regulations on the NKVD of the USSR and the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR.
In early March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and its presidium. On March 17, 1935, he was awarded his first Order of Lenin. In May 1937, he concurrently headed the Tbilisi city committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia (until August 31, 1938).
In 1935 he published a book "On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia"- although according to the researchers, its real authors were Malakia Toroshelidze and Eric Bedia. In the draft edition of Stalin's Works at the end of 1935, Beria was listed as a member of the editorial board, as well as a candidate for the editors of individual volumes.
During the leadership of L.P. Beria, the national economy of the region developed rapidly. Beria made a great contribution to the development of the oil industry in Transcaucasia, under him many large industrial facilities were put into operation (Zemo-Avchalskaya hydroelectric power station, etc.).
Georgia was transformed into an all-Union resort area. By 1940, the volume of industrial production in Georgia increased 10 times compared to 1913, agricultural production - 2.5 times, with a fundamental change in the structure of agriculture towards highly profitable crops of the subtropical zone. For agricultural products produced in the subtropics (grapes, tea, tangerines, etc.), high purchase prices were set: the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.
In September 1937, together with G. M. Malenkov and A. I. Mikoyan sent from Moscow, he carried out a “cleansing” of the Armenian party organization. In Georgia, in particular, the persecution of the People's Commissar for Education of the Georgian SSR, Gaioz Devdariani, began. His brother Shalva, who held important positions in the state security organs and the Communist Party, was executed. In the end, Gaioz Devdariani was accused of violating Article 58 and, on suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities, was executed in 1938 by the NKVD troika. In addition to party functionaries, local intellectuals also suffered from the purge, even those who tried to stay away from politics, including Mikheil Javakhishvili, Titian Tabidze, Sandro Akhmeteli, Yevgeny Mikeladze, Dmitry Shevardnadze, Georgy Eliava, Grigory Tsereteli and others.
On January 17, 1938, from the 1st session of the USSR Supreme Council of the 1st convocation, he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Yezhov. Simultaneously with Beria, another first deputy people's commissar (since April 15, 1937) was MP Frinovsky, who headed the 1st department of the NKVD of the USSR. September 8, 1938 Frinovsky was appointed People's Commissar Navy USSR and left the posts of the 1st Deputy People's Commissar and Head of the NKVD Department of the USSR, on the same day, September 8, L.P. Beria replaces him in his last post - from September 29, 1938, at the head of the Main Directorate of State Security restored in the structure of the NKVD (December 17 1938 in this post, Beria will be replaced by V.N. Merkulov - 1st Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD from December 16, 1938).
On September 11, 1938, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Commissar of State Security of the 1st rank.
With the advent of L.P. Beria to the post of head of the NKVD, the scale of repressions sharply decreased. In 1939, 2.6 thousand people were sentenced to capital punishment on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand.
In 1939-1940, the overwhelming majority of those not convicted in 1937-1938 were released. Also, some of those convicted and sent to camps were released. In 1938, 279,966 people were released. The expert commission of Moscow State University estimates the number of those released in 1939-1940 at 150-200 thousand people.
From November 25, 1938 to February 3, 1941, Beria led Soviet foreign intelligence (then it was part of the functions of the NKVD of the USSR; from February 3, 1941, foreign intelligence was transferred to the newly formed People's Commissariat of State Security of the USSR, which was headed by Beria's former first deputy in NKVD V. N. Merkulov). Beria in the shortest possible time stopped Yezhov's lawlessness and terror that reigned in the NKVD (including foreign intelligence) and in the army, including military intelligence.
Under the leadership of Beria in 1939-1940, a powerful agent network of Soviet foreign intelligence was created in Europe, as well as in Japan and the USA.
Since March 22, 1939 - a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. On January 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of General Commissar of State Security. February 3, 1941 was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. He oversaw the work of the NKVD, the NKGB, the people's commissariats of the timber and oil industries, non-ferrous metals, and the river fleet.
Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria - what he really was
During the years of the Great Patriotic War, from June 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO).
By the GKO resolution of February 4, 1942 on the distribution of responsibilities between GKO members, L.P. Beria was entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the production of aircraft, engines, weapons and mortars, as well as monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the work of the Red Air Force Armies (formation of air regiments, their timely transfer to the front, etc.).
By a GKO resolution of December 8, 1942, L.P. Beria was appointed a member of the Operations Bureau of the GKO. By the same decree, L.P. Beria was additionally entrusted with the duties of monitoring and supervising the work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and the People's Commissariat of Railways.
In May 1944, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the GKO and chairman of the Operations Bureau. The tasks of the Operational Bureau included, in particular, monitoring and monitoring the work of all people's commissariats of the defense industry, railway and water transport, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, coal, oil, chemical, rubber, paper and pulp, electrical industry, power plants.
Beria also served as permanent adviser to the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
During the war years, he carried out responsible instructions from the leadership of the country and the party, as related to the management national economy as well as at the front. In fact, he led the defense of the Caucasus in 1942. Supervised the production of aircraft and rocket technology.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 30, 1943, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor "for special merits in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions."
During the war years, L.P. Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia) (July 15, 1942), the Order of the Republic (Tuva) (August 18, 1943), the Order of Lenin (February 21, 1945), the Order of the Red Banner (November 3, 1944).
On February 11, 1943, I. V. Stalin signed the decision of the State Defense Committee on the program of work to create atomic bomb under the direction of . But already in the decree of the GKO of the USSR on the laboratory No. 2 of I. V. Kurchatov, adopted on December 3, 1944, it was L. P. Beria who was entrusted with “monitoring the development of work on uranium”, that is, approximately a year and ten months after their supposed start which was difficult during the war.
On July 9, 1945, during the recertification of special state security ranks for military ones, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
On September 6, 1945, the Operational Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was formed, with Beria appointed as its chairman. The tasks of the Operational Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars included issues of the work of industrial enterprises and railway transport.
Since March 1946, Beria was a member of the "seven" members of the Politburo, which included I.V. Stalin and six people close to him. This "inner circle" closed critical issues government controlled, including: foreign policy, foreign trade, state security, weapons, the functioning of the armed forces. On March 18, he becomes a member of the Politburo, and the next day he is appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. As Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he supervised the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of State Control.
After testing the first American atomic device in the desert near Alamogordo, work in the USSR to create its own nuclear weapons was significantly accelerated.
On the basis of the Order of the State Defense Committee of August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created under the State Defense Committee. It included L. P. Beria (chairman), G. M. Malenkov, N. A. Voznesensky, B. L. Vannikov, A. P. Zavenyagin, I. V. Kurchatov, P. L. Kapitsa (then refused from participating in the project due to disagreements with Beria), V. A. Makhnev, M. G. Pervukhin.
The Committee was entrusted with "management of all work on the use of intra-atomic energy of uranium." Later it was renamed into the Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and into the Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Beria, on the one hand, organized and directed the receipt of all the necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, he carried out general management of the entire project. Personnel issues of the project were entrusted to M. G. Pervukhin, V. A. Malyshev, B. L. Vannikov and A. P. Zavenyagin, who provided scientific and engineering personnel for the organization’s activities and selected experts to solve individual issues.
In March 1953, the Special Committee was entrusted with the leadership of other special works defensive value. Based on the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU of June 26, 1953 (on the day of the dismissal and arrest of L.P. Beria), the Special Committee was liquidated, and its apparatus was transferred to the newly formed Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR.
On August 29, 1949, the atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. On October 29, 1949, Beria was awarded the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree "for organizing the production of atomic energy and successfully completing the testing of atomic weapons." According to the testimony of P. A. Sudoplatov, published in the book "Intelligence and the Kremlin: Notes of an Unwanted Witness", two project leaders - L. P. Beria and I. V. Kurchatov - were awarded the title "Honorary Citizen of the USSR" with the wording "for outstanding merits in strengthening the power of the USSR", it is indicated that the recipient was awarded the "Diploma of an honorary citizen of the Soviet Union". In the future, the title "Honorary Citizen of the USSR" was not awarded.
The test of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, the development of which was supervised by G. M. Malenkov, took place on August 12, 1953, after the arrest of Beria.
In March 1949 - July 1951, there was a sharp strengthening of Beria's position in the country's leadership, which was facilitated by the successful testing of the first atomic bomb in the USSR, the work on the creation of which Beria supervised. However, this was followed by the “Mingrelian case” directed against him.
After the XIX Congress of the CPSU, held in October 1952, Beria was included in the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which replaced the former Politburo, in the Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU and in the "leading five" of the Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, created at the suggestion of I.V. Stalin, and also received the right to replace Stalin at meetings of the Bureau of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
On the day of Stalin's death - March 5, 1953, a joint meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was held, where appointments to the highest posts of the party and the Government of the USSR were approved, and, by prior agreement with the Khrushchev group -Malenkov-Molotov-Bulganin, Beria was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of the Interior of the USSR without much debate. The united Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR included the previously independently existing Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1946-1953) and the Ministry of State Security of the USSR (1946-1953).
On March 9, 1953, L.P. Beria participated in the funeral of I.V. Stalin, from the podium of the Mausoleum he delivered a speech at a funeral meeting.
Beria, along with Malenkov, became one of the main contenders for leadership in the country. In the struggle for leadership, L.P. Beria relied on law enforcement agencies. Beria's henchmen were nominated to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Already on March 19, the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were replaced in all the Union republics and in most regions of the RSFSR. In turn, the newly appointed heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs made replacements in the middle management.
From mid-March to June 1953, Beria, as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, initiated the termination of the case of doctors, the Mingrelian case and a number of other legislative and political transformations:
- Order on the creation of commissions on the revision of the “case of doctors”, a conspiracy in the USSR Ministry of State Security, Glavartupr of the USSR Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of State Security of the Georgian SSR. All defendants in these cases were rehabilitated within two weeks.
- Order on the establishment of a commission to consider cases on the deportation of citizens from Georgia.
- Order to review the "aviation case". Over the next two months, the people's commissar of the aviation industry Shakhurin and the commander of the USSR Air Force Novikov, as well as other defendants in the case, were completely rehabilitated and reinstated in their positions and ranks.
- Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the amnesty. According to Beria's proposal, on March 27, 1953, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU approved the decree "On Amnesty", according to which 1.203 million people were to be released from places of detention, as well as investigative cases against 401 thousand people were to be terminated. As of August 10, 1953, 1.032 million people were released from places of detention. the following categories of prisoners: convicted for a term of up to 5 years inclusive, convicted for: official, economic and some military crimes, as well as: minors, the elderly, the sick, women with young children and pregnant women.
- Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the rehabilitation of persons undergoing the "case of doctors". The note admitted that the leading innocent figures of Soviet medicine were presented as spies and murderers, and, as a result, they were the objects of anti-Semitic persecution deployed in the central press. The case from beginning to end is a provocative fiction of the former deputy of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR Ryumin, who, having embarked on the criminal path of deceiving the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in order to obtain the necessary testimony, obtained the sanction of I. V. Stalin to apply physical measures to arrested doctors - torture and severe beatings. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the falsification of the so-called case of pest doctors" dated April 3, 1953 ordered to support Beria's proposal for the complete rehabilitation of these doctors (37 people) and the removal of Ignatiev from the post of Minister of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, and Ryumin by that time has already been arrested.
- Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on bringing to justice those involved in the death of S. M. Mikhoels and V. I. Golubov.
- Order "On the prohibition of the use of any measures of coercion and physical influence on the arrested". The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the approval of the measures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR to correct the consequences of violations of the law" dated April 10, 1953, read: "To approve the ongoing comrade. Beria L.P. measures to uncover criminal acts committed over a number of years in the former USSR Ministry of State Security, expressed in the fabrication of falsified cases against honest people, as well as measures to correct the consequences of violations of Soviet laws, bearing in mind that these measures are aimed at strengthening Soviet state and socialist legitimacy.
- Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the incorrect conduct of the Mingrelian case. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On the falsification of the case on the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group” of April 10, 1953 recognizes that the circumstances of the case are fictitious, all the defendants should be released and fully rehabilitated.
- Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the rehabilitation of N. D. Yakovlev, I. I. Volkotrubenko, I. A. Mirzakhanov and others".
- Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the rehabilitation of M. M. Kaganovich".
- Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the abolition of passport restrictions and sensitive areas".
Lavrenty Beria. liquidation
Arrest and execution of Lavrenty Beria
Enlisting the support of the majority of members of the Central Committee and high-ranking military officers, Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on June 26, 1953, where he raised the issue of Beria's compliance with his position and his removal from all posts, except for a member of the presidium (politburo) of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Among others, Khrushchev voiced accusations of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the deteriorating situation in the GDR, and spying for Britain in the 1920s.
Beria tried to prove that if he was appointed by the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, then only the plenum could remove him, but on a special signal, a group of generals led by a marshal entered the room and arrested Beria.
Beria was accused of spying for Great Britain and other countries, of striving to eliminate the Soviet worker-peasant system, to restore capitalism and restore the rule of the bourgeoisie, as well as moral decay, abuse of power, falsification of thousands of criminal cases against his colleagues in Georgia and Transcaucasia and in organizing illegal repressions (this, according to the accusation, Beria committed, also acting for selfish and enemy purposes).
At the July plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, almost all members of the Central Committee made statements about the wrecking activities of L. Beria. On July 7, by a resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Beria was relieved of his duties as a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU and removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU. On July 27, 1953, a secret circular of the 2nd Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR was issued, which ordered the widespread seizure of any artistic images of L.P. Beria.
The investigation team was actually headed by Rudenko R.A., appointed on June 30, 1953 by the Prosecutor General of the USSR. The investigation team included investigators from the USSR Prosecutor's Office and the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office of the USSR Tsaregradsky, Preobrazhensky, Kitaev and other lawyers.
Together with him, his closest associates from the state security agencies were accused, immediately after the arrest and later named in the media as the “Beria gang”:
Merkulov VN - Minister of State Control of the USSR;
Kobulov BZ - First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Goglidze S. A. - Head of the 3rd Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Meshik P. Ya. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR;
Dekanozov VG - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR;
Vlodzimirsky L. E. - head of the investigative unit for special important matters Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
On December 23, 1953, the case of Beria was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev.
From the last word of Beria in court: "I have already shown the court that I plead guilty. I hid my service in the Musavatist counter-revolutionary intelligence service for a long time. However, I declare that, even while serving there, I did nothing harmful. I fully admit my moral decay. Numerous connections with The women mentioned here are dishonoring me as a citizen and a former party member...Recognizing that I am responsible for the excesses and perversions of socialist legality in 1937-1938, I ask the court to take into account that I have selfish and hostile goals in this "The reason for my crimes was the situation of that time. ... I do not consider myself guilty of an attempt to disorganize the defense of the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War. I ask you, when sentencing me, to carefully analyze my actions, not to consider me as a counter-revolutionary, but to apply to me only those articles of the Criminal Code that I really deserve".
The verdict read: "The Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR decided: to sentence Beria L. P., Merkulov V. N., Dekanozov V. G., Kobulov B. Z., Goglidze S. A., Meshik P. Ya., Vlodzimirsky L. E. to the highest measure of criminal punishment - execution, with confiscation of property belonging to them personally, with deprivation military ranks and awards".
All the accused were shot on the same day, and L.P. Beria was shot a few hours before the execution of other convicts in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko. On his own initiative, the first shot was fired from service weapons by Colonel-General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P.F. Batitsky. The body was burnt in the furnace of the 1st Moscow (Donskoy) crematorium. He was buried at the New Donskoy Cemetery (according to other statements, the ashes of Beria were scattered over the Moscow River).
A brief report on the trial of L.P. Beria and his staff was published in the Soviet press. Nevertheless, some historians admit that the arrest of Beria, his trial and his execution on formal grounds took place illegally: unlike other defendants in the case, there was never a warrant for his arrest; interrogation protocols and letters exist only in copies, the description of the arrest by its participants is fundamentally different from each other, what happened to his body after the execution, is not confirmed by any documents (there is no certificate of cremation).
These and other facts subsequently provided food for all sorts of theories, in particular, that L.P. Beria was killed during his arrest, and the entire trial is a falsification designed to hide the true state of affairs.
The version that Beria was killed on the orders of Khrushchev, Malenkov and Bulganin on June 26, 1953 by a capture group directly during the arrest in his mansion on Malaya Nikitskaya Street is presented in documentary-investigation by journalist Sergei Medvedev, first shown on Channel One on June 4, 2014.
After the arrest of Beria, one of his closest associates, the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR, Mir Jafar Bagirov, was arrested and executed. In subsequent years, other, lower-ranking members of the "Beria gang" were convicted and shot or sentenced to long prison terms:
Abakumov V. S. - Chairman of the Collegium of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR;
Ryumin M.D. - Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR;
Milshtein S. R - Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR; on the "case of Bagirov";
Bagirov M. D. - 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR;
Markaryan R. A. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Dagestan ASSR;
Borshchev T.M. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Turkmen SSR;
Grigoryan Kh. I. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Armenian SSR;
Atakishiyev S.I. - 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the Azerbaijan SSR;
Emelyanov S.F. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan SSR;
in the “Rukhadze case” Rukhadze N.M. - Minister of State Security of the Georgian SSR;
Rapava. A. N. - Minister of State Control of the Georgian SSR;
Sh. O. Tsereteli - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR;
Savitsky K.S. - Assistant to the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Krimyan N. A. - Minister of State Security of the Armenian SSR;
Khazan A. S. - in 1937-1938 head of the 1st department of the SPO of the NKVD of Georgia, and then assistant head of the STO of the NKVD of Georgia;
Paramonov G. I. - Deputy Head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
Nadaraya S. N. - head of the 1st department of the 9th department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
and others.
In addition, at least 100 generals and colonels were stripped of their ranks and / or awards and dismissed from the bodies with the wording "as having discredited himself during his work in the bodies ... and unworthy of a high rank in connection with this."
In 1952, the fifth volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was published, in which a portrait of L.P. Beria and an article about him were placed. In 1954, the editorial staff of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia sent out a letter to all its subscribers, in which it was strongly recommended to cut out both the portrait and the pages dedicated to L.P. Beria with “scissors or a razor”, and instead paste in others (sent in the same letter) containing other articles starting with the same letters. In the press and literature of the times of the “thaw”, the image of Beria was demonized, he, as the main initiator, was blamed for all the mass repressions.
By the definition of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of May 29, 2002, Beria, as the organizer of political repressions, was recognized as not subject to rehabilitation. Guided by Article.Article. 8, 9, 10 of the Law of the Russian Federation "On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression" of October 18, 1991 and Art. 377-381 Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR, Military Collegium of the Supreme Court Russian Federation determined: "To recognize Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich, Merkulov Vsevolod Nikolaevich, Kobulov Bogdan Zakharyevich, Goglidze Sergey Arsenyevich not subject to rehabilitation".
Personal life of Lavrenty Beria:
In his youth, Beria was fond of football. He played for one of the Georgian teams as a left midfielder. Subsequently, he attended almost all the matches of the Dynamo teams, especially the Dynamo Tbilisi, whose defeats he perceived painfully.
Beria studied to be an architect and there is evidence that two buildings of the same type on Gagarin Square in Moscow were built according to his design.
The “Beria Orchestra” was the name given to his bodyguards, who, when traveling in open cars, hid machine guns in violin cases, and a light machine gun in a double bass case.
Wife - Nina (Nino) Teimurazovna Gegechkori(1905-1991). In 1990, at the age of 86, the widow of Lavrenty Beria gave an interview in which she fully justified her husband's activities.
The couple had a son who was born in the early 1920s and died in early childhood. This son is mentioned in the documentary “Children of Beria. Sergo and Marta”, as well as in the protocol of interrogation of Nino Taimurazovna Gegechkori.
Son - Sergo (1924-2000).
Nina Gegechkori - wife of Lavrenty Beria
AT last years Lavrenty Beria had a second (officially unregistered) wife. He cohabited with Valentina (Lyaley) Drozdova, who at the time of their acquaintance was a schoolgirl. Valentina Drozdova gave birth to a daughter from Beria, named Marta or Eteri (according to the singer T. K. Avetisyan, who was personally acquainted with the family of Beria and Lyalya Drozdova - Lyudmila (Lyusya)), who later married Alexander Grishin - the son of the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU Viktor Grishin.
The day after the Pravda newspaper reported on Beria's arrest, Lyalya Drozdova filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office that she had been raped by Beria and lived with him under the threat of physical violence. At the trial, she and her mother A.I. Akopyan acted as witnesses, giving accusatory evidence against Beria.
Valentina Drozdova later became the mistress of the currency speculator Yan Rokotov, who was shot in 1961, and the wife of the shadow knitter Ilya Galperin, who was shot in 1967.
After the conviction of Beria, his close relatives and close relatives of the convicts were deported with them to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Sverdlovsk Region and Kazakhstan.
Bibliography of Lavrenty Beria:
1936 - On the issue of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia;
1939 - Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches;
1940 - The Greatest Man modernity;
1940 - About youth
Lavrenty Beria in the cinema (performers):
Mikhail Kvarelashvili ("Battle of Stalingrad", 1 series, 1949);
Alexander Khanov ("The Fall of Berlin", 1949);
Nikolai Mordvinov ("Lights of Baku", 1950; "Donetsk Miners", 1950);
David Suchet (Red Monarch, UK, 1983);
(“Feasts of Belshazzar, or Night with Stalin”, USSR, 1989, “Lost in Siberia”, Great Britain-USSR, 1991);
B. Goladze (“Stalingrad”, USSR, 1989);
Roland Nadareishvili ("Little giant of big sex", USSR, 1990);
V. Bartashov (“Nikolai Vavilov”, USSR, 1990);
Vladimir Sichkar (The War in the Western Direction, USSR, 1990);
Yan Yanakiev (“Law”, 1989, “10 years without the right to correspond”, 1990, “My best friend is General Vasily, son of Joseph”, 1991);
(“To hell with us!”, 1991);
Bob Hoskins (Inner Circle, Italy-USA-USSR, 1992);
Roshan Seth ("Stalin", USA-Hungary, 1992);
Fedya Stoyanovich (“Gospodja Kolontaj”, Yugoslavia, 1996);
Paul Livingston ("Children of the Revolution", Australia, 1996);
Bari Alibasov ("To die of happiness and love", Russia, 1996);
Farid Myazitov ("Ship of Twins", 1997);
Mumid Makoev ("Khrustalev, the car!", 1998);
Adam Ferenczi (“Journey to Moscow” (“Podróz do Moskwy”), Poland, 1999);
Nikolai Kirichenko (“In August 44th ...”, Russia, Belarus, 2001);
Viktor Sukhorukov (“Desired”, Russia, 2003);
(“Children of the Arbat”, Russia, 2004);
Seyran Dalanyan (“Convoy PQ-17”, Russia, 2004);
Irakli Macharashvili (“Moscow Saga”, Russia, 2004);
Vladimir Shcherbakov (“Two Loves”, 2004; “Death of Tairov”, Russia, 2004; “Stalin’s Wife”, Russia, 2006; “Star of the Epoch”; “Apostle”, Russia, 2007; “Beria”, Russia, 2007; “ Hitler kaput!", Russia, 2008; "The Legend of Olga", Russia, 2008; "Wolf Messing: who saw through time", Russia, 2009, "Beria. Loss", Russia, 2010, "Vangelia", Russia, 2013, "On the razor's edge", 2013);
Yervand Arzumanyan ("Archangel", UK-Russia, 2005);
Malkhaz Aslamazashvili (“Stalin. Live”, 2006);
Vadim Tsallati ("Cliffs. Song of Life", 2006);
Vyacheslav Grishechkin (“The Hunt for Beria”, Russia, 2008; “Furtseva”, 2011, “Counterplay”, 2011, “Comrade Stalin”, 2011);
(“Zastava Zhilina”, Russia, 2008);
Sergey Bagirov ("Second", 2009);
Adam Bulguchev ("Burnt by the Sun-2", Russia, 2010; "Zhukov", 2012, "Zoya", 2010, "Cop", 2012, "Kill Stalin", 2013, "Bomb", 2013, "Major Sokolov's Getters" , 2013, "Orlova and Alexandrov", 2014);
Vasily Ostafiychuk ("The Ballad of the Bomber", 2011);
Alexey Zverev (“I serve the Soviet Union”, 2012);
Sergei Gazarov ("Spy", 2012, "Son of the Father of Nations", 2013);
Alexey Eibozhenko, Jr. ("The Second Spartak Rebellion", 2012);
Julian Malakyants ("Life and Fate", 2012);
Roman Grishin (“Stalin is with us”, 2013);
Tsvet Lazar (The 100-year old man who climbed out the window and disappeared, Sweden, 2013)
civil wife Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria.
They met in 1949 when she was 16 years old.
In 1949, she studied in the 7th grade of the 92nd school in Moscow.
From time to time, Beria visited Gorky Street, where Valentina Drozdova lived in house 8. Friends called her Lyalya, she gave birth to a daughter March from Lavrenty Pavlovich, they had a long relationship.
They didn't talk about it out loud, but everyone around them knew. And not only we, who accompanied him to Lyalya, but also the family, including Nina Teymurazovna. Every spring she went to the waters in Karlovy Vary, and Beria openly spent time with Lyalei. I could even go outside with her, take a walk. She must have asked...
During the investigation Lavrenty Pavlovich strongly denied that the girl was subjected to violence. According to him, their meeting lasted no more than 30-40 minutes. “I did not rape,” Beria repeated, but what I did is a heinous crime.”
All four years until the arrest of Beria, Lyalya acted as his unwitting mistress. In fact, the People's Commissar lived in two families. In 1950 they had a daughter Martha, later there was a second pregnancy, which, according to Lyalina's mother, was interrupted in 1952 in the Kremlin hospital.
Alexey Pimanov, screenwriter and director of the film "The Hunt for Beria", says that there were other versions of Beria's acquaintance with Drozdova. According to one of them, Lyalina's mother allegedly cohabited with Beria, and then her daughter took her place. According to another, mother Valentina Drozdova was the mistress of the guard Beria, who brought Lyalya with his boss.
Marshal of the Soviet Union, member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrenty Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953. On December 23 he was shot.
Why was June 26 chosen for the arrest? - specifies Pimanov. - On the 27th, a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU was to be held at the Bolshoi Theater, at which Beria wanted to force him to be appointed General Secretary. They say that at one of the distant dachas 20 cameras were made for those who would not support the candidacy of Lavrenty Pavlovich.
At the initiative of Khrushchev, the members of the Presidium were announced that Beria was planning to stage a coup d'état. Beria was arrested.
Beria was accused of being an agent of three intelligence services at once - English, Turkish and Iranian. In parallel, the investigation moved along a different road - moral and ethical. The adventures of Lavrenty Pavlovich became the talk of the town. According to some reports, he corrupted from 200 to 800 women!
In the case of Lavrenty Pavlovich, I tried to find that famous list of 200 women whom he allegedly raped, Pimanov shares. - I didn’t find it, since only one woman who was corrupted by him appears in the real case - Lyalya Drozdova.
In 1948, Beria fell deeply in love with a 16-year-old girl. She later gave birth to a daughter by him. If you believe the documents, the last two years of Beria were not up to adventures. According to his bodyguard, he worked day and night and lived with two families. Beria and Drozdova lived for more than four years. Lyalya had an apartment on Tverskaya, 4, and a state dacha.
After reading in Pravda about the arrest of Beria, Lyalya decided to escape and wrote a statement about the rape. Like, when she was 16 years old, she walked down the street. A car drove up to her, a man came out and said: if Lyalya agrees to visit the mansion of “one influential person” in the evening, then he is ready to help her mother (at that time she was in the hospital with a stomach ulcer).
The legend that Beria drove through the streets and literally dragged the girls he liked into the car is only confirmed by rumors, Pimanov says. - It is possible that the information came after Lyalya's statement. Although there is another version of the acquaintance of Beria and Drozdova.
Allegedly, Lyalya's mother cohabited with Beria, and when she began to lose ground, she introduced her daughter to him.
After the trial Lyalya married, did not give interviews and led a quiet life. She died in the 1990s.
Lavrenty Beria was married to Nina(Nino) Gegechkori. When did it appear Lyalya, she had to come to terms with the presence of a second family with her husband. Although they say that she built herself a house in Sukhumi, wanting to move there. She remained faithful to her husband until last day. In 1990, at the age of 86, she gave an interview where she fully justified her husband's activities.
Beria, according to official figures, has two children. From wife to son Sergo(he died in 2000). And a daughter from a mistress Eteri(died in the 90s).
Eteri became the first wife Alexander Viktorovich Grishin.
www.kompravda.eu
After the execution of Rokotov, Drozdova began to be noticed in the company of the "king of scarcity" Ilya Galperin. This relationship developed into a legal marriage, in which another child of Valentina was born. But here, too, the happiness was short-lived. Ilya Galperin was one of the first Soviet "guild members". In the company of Raifman's accomplices, Shakerman (by the way, the nephew of Bears Yaponchik) he was engaged in the underground production and sale of knitwear. Of course, sooner or later it could end with an arrest. And it's over.
And again played a fatal role Drozdova. According to the memories Moses Vassergolts, one of the arrested "guild members", Galperin was passionately in love with his wife, Lyalya. In the cell he spoke only about her. And in exchange for the opportunity to talk to her on the phone provided by the investigators, he testified.
It all ended with the execution of the leaders of a group of underground millionaires and long sentences for the rest. Halperin was among the first. So in 1962, Valentina lost the third man in her life.
After that, she was alone for a long time. Then she began to live with the screenwriter Boris Saakov. Perhaps she married him, but reliable information about this could not be found.
Who really was the heroine of the film Lyalya Sokolova - the last love of Lavrenty Pavlovich?
- The prototype of the heroine - Valentina Drozdova - can be called a mistress in quotation marks, she was Beria's wife, - says director Alexei Pimanov. They lived together for the last four years of his life. They had a child.
On July 10, 1953, the Pravda newspaper published a message that Beria was an enemy of the people, and on the 11th date is a statement written by Valentina herself that Beria raped her four years ago. Although she told her friends that she fell in love with Lavrenty Palych for his intelligence! Before the trial, the legal wife Nina Gegechkori asked Valentina not to testify, but she replied: “I need to save my daughter.”
thief of hearts
Beria, in addition to cruelty, was famous for his love of love - supposedly the number of his women exceeds 700. However, his wife claimed that in fact Beria had many female agents. Afraid to admit that they are scammers, they also came up with "this nonsense."“In none of the documents I read, I found confirmation of information about at least 200 mistresses of Beria,” continues Pimanov. - There are also legends that Beria put the girl he liked right on the street in a car and took him to his mansion. Nowhere and from no one confirms this. Reading Beria's criminal case, I only came across Drozdova's testimony: a story about how she was walking down the street and a car stopped near her. A man came out and said that an uncle lives in the mansion, who will help her mother, who is in the hospital with an ulcer. In the mansion, she met with Beria. She was 16 years old.
"I love her"
“We put everything that is recorded in the protocols of the criminal case of Beria into the mouths of the heroes of the film,” says Alexei Pimanov. - We are 99.9 percent sure: Valentina's mother was Beria's mistress for a long time, and when she realized that her time was running out, she replaced herself with her daughter. After Drozdova's words, "He raped me," Beria said firmly: "I did not rape her, I helped her financially." When the question was asked again, Lavrenty Pavlovich confessed: "I did not rape her, I love her."Little is known about Valentina's later life. After the execution of Beria, she married Ilya Galperin, who was executed in 1967 for an economic crime. After these two deaths, Valentina got a nickname - the Hearse.
The daughter of Valentina and Lavrenty Pavlovich Marta married Alexander, the son of Politburo member Viktor Grishin. For a long time she worked at the Institute for System Research, was a candidate of economic sciences.
Everyone knows that Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was a great lover of women. According to some reports, the list of the fair sex seduced by him numbered in the hundreds. Among them was 16-year-old schoolgirl Valentina Drozdova.
According to Beria's assistant Rafael Sarkisov, his boss had many mistresses. True, the list compiled by Sarkisov himself included only 39 names. A. V. Antonov-Ovseenko in the book "Beria" calls the number 200, other authors have the number 700. Most of these women are considered by researchers to be victims of sexual violence.
However, in order to find Beria guilty of committing a crime designated by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On strengthening criminal liability for rape”, only one name was enough - Lyalya Drozdova.
Lyalya (Valentina) was born into an ordinary Moscow family and grew up as an unremarkable girl. Just like her peers, she missed two school years because of the war. Her acquaintance with Beria took place in May 1949, when a 16-year-old girl was finishing the 7th grade of the 92nd Moscow school.
The circumstances of the fateful meeting became known from the materials of the criminal case, or rather from the statement of Valentina, which she addressed to the USSR Prosecutor General on July 11, 1953, after Beria's arrest. There, in particular, the girl reported how, on the way to the store, a certain “old man in pince-nez” approached her and began to examine her intently.
And the next day, Sarkisov came to Lyalya's house and began to tell that his boss was a big man and could help her sick mother. On the same evening, Sarkisov brought Valentina together with the all-powerful people's commissar. “Then Beria grabbed me, carried me to his bedroom and raped me. It is difficult to describe my state after what happened. For three days they didn’t let me out of the house, Sarkisov spent the day, Beria spent the night,” we read in a letter from Valentina Drozdova.
During the investigation, Lavrenty Pavlovich denied in every possible way that the girl had been subjected to violence. According to him, their meeting lasted no more than 30-40 minutes. “I did not rape,” Beria repeated, but what I did is a heinous crime.”
All four years until the arrest of Beria, Lyalya acted as his unwitting mistress. In fact, the People's Commissar lived in two families. In 1950, their daughter Marta was born, and later there was a second pregnancy, which, according to Lyalina's mother, was terminated in 1952 in the Kremlin hospital.
Alexei Pimanov, screenwriter and director of the film The Hunt for Beria, says that there were other versions of Beria's acquaintance with Drozdova. According to one of them, Lyalina's mother allegedly cohabited with Beria, and then her daughter took her place. According to another, the mother of Valentina Drozdova was the mistress of the guard Beria, who brought Lyalya together with his boss.
According to historians, her mother forced Valentina to file a complaint about the rape, fearing that their family could also be repressed after Beria's arrest. After all, the existence of this connection was known to many. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko even managed to visit the apartment of Lyalya Drozdova on her birthday. He hoped to see Beria himself "live" there, but the people's commissar never showed up. On the landing, according to the poet, all the guests were closely watched by two "in civilian clothes".
After the execution of Lavrenty Beria, Valentina Drozdova led a rather secretive life, but fate played a cruel joke on her: twice more she brought Lyalya together with notorious people who ended up the same way as the people's commissar.
First, Valentina got along with the currency speculator Yan Rokotov. Then he was not so famous, and in the circle of "golden youth" he liked to flaunt the fact that he lives with his ex-wife, the second person after Stalin in the country! True, their relationship did not work out. Rokotov in recent years went on long sprees, squandering money left and right. After the arrest, 20 million rubles were confiscated from the speculator.
Rumor has it that when Khrushchev found out that, under current legislation, Rokotov faces a maximum of 8 years in prison, he initiated an amendment to the law. In 1961, Rokotov was shot. It is possible that Beria's former cohabitant played an important role in Khrushchev's decision.
Lyalya Drozdova did not grieve for long: they began to notice her in the company of another schemer - the "guild leader" Ilya Galperin. But this time, too, happiness was fleeting. Being engaged in the underground production and sale of knitwear, Galperin sooner or later had to fall under the suspicion of law enforcement officers.
And here it was not without Lyalya. According to one of Galperin's colleagues in the "knitting shop" Moses Vassergolts, Ilya was crazy about his wife, in the cell he spoke only about her. And allegedly for the opportunity to freely communicate with Lyalya on the phone, Galperin was forced to confess, which led him to the "tower". So in 1967, Valentina Drozdova lost her third man.
Nothing further is known about her. They say that Lyalya Drozdova got along with screenwriter Boris Saakov, perhaps even married him. She died relatively recently - in 2014, outliving Beria by 61 years.