The first millionaire of the USSR. About the black market of the USSR and Soviet millionaires Soviet millionaires

Mikhail Kozyrev

Underground millionaires: the whole truth about private business in the USSR

I had never come across such people before. Coming out of the underground passage on Pushkin Square, I saw a bunch of strange characters with homemade posters “Withdraw troops from Chechnya!”, “Let all imperial dreams die!”, “Don’t make Ingushetia a second Chechnya!” and the like.

Opposite these rather poorly dressed people stood several men in good suits and jackets. One of them conscientiously filmed everything that happened on a video camera. “What are these, FSB people, or what?” I was surprised. One of those whom I was supposed to meet was in the exact same group, which was filmed by a man in civilian clothes. It didn't scare me too much, but it added some intrigue to the plot.

At that time, I worked for the Russian edition of Forbes magazine. We were preparing another issue with the rating of the richest entrepreneurs. For him, it was decided to prepare historical material about people who were doing business in the Soviet Union - speculators, guild workers (owners of underground industries) and other bigwigs. I was instructed to prepare the article.

The idea seemed to be winning - many heard that there was an underground business in the USSR. And certainly everyone remembers Comrade Saakhov from the “Prisoner of the Caucasus” and the sinister “boss” from the “Diamond Hand”. The idea was to find real prototypes of these characters, to communicate with them. Write about their business, destinies, lifestyle. In general, it all looked tempting - just in the style of Forbes, moderately glamorous and a little provocative.

Starting to study the issue, I soon found out that the person I needed was Viktor Sokirko. No, he did not sew jeans in the basement and did not engage in speculation. At the end of Soviet power, he received his term under a completely different article - for criticizing the order that existed at that time and samizdat publications. Then, during perestroika, Sokirko, like other dissidents, actively participated in public and political life. In 1989, he created the Society for the Protection of Convicted Business Executives and Economic Freedoms, a public organization that was supposed to review the cases of convicts under economic articles.

And now it turns out that Sokirko is not even a former dissident at all. Looking ahead, I will say that a few months after our meeting, Victor

Vladimirovich was arrested on the same Pushkin Square. They say he violated the rules for holding a public event - he declared one number of participants, but many more came (which is not surprising - the picket was held in protest against the murder of well-known human rights activist Natalya Estemirova that had just taken place in Grozny). 70-year-old Viktor Sokirko was tied up by riot police and pushed into a police bus. Released only a few days later.

Well, then I went up to some man who had not been shaved for a long time, holding a cardboard box with something like “Putin to resign!” in his hands, and asked if Viktor Sokirko was there. I was pointed to an elderly man. I came up and introduced myself. We talked. Viktor Vladimirovich offered to drive up to his house. View archival materials. A couple of days later I was already in his three-room apartment in Maryino, crammed with stacks of papers and books. There, sorting through the old archives of the Society for the Protection of Convicted Business Executives, I really managed to find what I needed. And about "fate", and about "business". Then I found a couple more sources. I spoke with several shopkeepers. My colleague Anya Sokolova, with whom we worked together on the text, interviewed retired SS officers. And we wrote a peppy article.

However, as a result of this whole story, I have a feeling of understatement. Digging through the materials of criminal cases thirty or forty years ago, I often caught myself thinking that all these stories have not lost their relevance today. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, what do we know about the country in which we ourselves or our parents lived only a few decades ago? About the "heroes" and "anti-heroes" of that era? About the real reality that hides under varnished production TV novels and crackling propaganda of Soviet newspapers? Which is hidden behind the facade of society, where at first glance everything is controlled and everything belongs to the State with a capital letter?

It's worth more than an entertaining article in a semi-glossy magazine. This is worth looking into. For starters, just do it yourself.

Let's go back 40 years. Industry, agriculture, trade - everything is in the hands of the state. Soviet plants and factories are managed by directors appointed by the branch central boards. Prices for goods are determined by the State Planning Committee. He, by his directives, appoints the routes of commodity flows - to which enterprise how much and what to deliver. Gosplan is tens of thousands of cost estimators, planners, and economists. They seem to know everything. But in fact, the information that this machine grinds and the current state of affairs in enterprises and industries are two different realities. Bottom line: production chains in the industry are barely able to function due to the irregularity of supplies from subcontractors. Store shelves are empty. Agriculture, where state money is pumped and pumped, suffers from a shortage of the most necessary materials, the same board.

...

Considering that almost half of the Soviet official economy worked for the defense industry, it turns out that private traders provided every fifth ruble of the Soviet “peaceful” GDP.

And then there are "pushers", "guild workers", "speculators" - people who are driven by enterprise, initiative. They provide the clumsy, unbalanced machinery of the Soviet economy with the lubricant that keeps it functioning. Pushers, not Gosplan, organize the delivery of the right amount of components from subcontractors at the right time. Guild workers from defective raw materials, or even materials simply stolen from Soviet production, produce goods in demand by the population - shoes, clothes and other consumer goods. Speculators, reducing the acuteness of supply problems, provide supplies of scarcity.

Who are these people whose activities gave the Soviet economic system at least a minimal degree of flexibility? Perhaps they can be called entrepreneurs. They took risks, they schemed, they made money. Their activities formed a whole sector of the Soviet economy, the so-called shadow economy. According to estimates - up to 10% of the official. And if we consider that almost half of the Soviet official economy worked for the defense industry, it turns out that private traders provided every fifth ruble of the Soviet “peaceful” GDP.

How many were there? Despite the official ban on entrepreneurship, almost all Soviet citizens earned their living privately. They grew potatoes in their backyards. Rabbits were bred and handed over to the state. Sabbaths at construction sites. Sewing bags. But there were, of course, fewer real entrepreneurs, those who earned money, and were not engaged in self-sufficiency. Probably, at best, several million people for the entire Union.

The most amazing thing is that they were. despite government repression. Despite the intolerance and condescending attitude cultivated in society. These people were. Otherwise, where in the archives of the “Society for the Protection of Convicted Business Executives” would the manuscript of Mark Sherman, the Soviet “trader”, as he called himself, written in the colony, come from?

Here is just one of the brightest episodes from Sherman's manuscript. sixties of the last century. Transit prison in Ust-Labinsk. A party of prisoners freshly arrived from the stage. In the corridor they are stretched into a line: “Undress! Naked! Sidor in front of you! The prison is old. The corridor is in the women's section. The women look through the cracks from the cells and squeal with happiness ... The guards gut the bags. Photographs of those who have them with children, mothers, wives, sisters, relatives are torn up and immediately thrown on the floor. Twitching to collect scraps - they beat.

"Step back!" Stepped back. "Sit down! Get up! Sit down! Get up! Bend over!” They look at the "point" - or "gnus" according to prison science. Then they go in front. "Roll back!" They look to see if they are wearing anything on the penis. "We've got the bags! Fast, fast! Get dressed in the cells!” Prisoner Mark Sherman, along with the others, was shoved into the cell. There are fifteen people inside. Solid racks in two tiers, in the shape of the letter "P". The newcomers settled in. Have settled down. The people got tired and fell asleep. However, at night Sherman woke up - some fuss was heard from below.

16.09.2016 16:13

The whole country knew one official millionaire - this is Sergey Mikhalkov, - says the famous film director Alexander Stefanovich. - I was lucky to write several scripts with him. After the war, film directors and other artists had their fees cut. But writers (Mikhalkov and, say, another Soviet millionaire, the “red” Count Alexei Tolstoy) ensured that this did not apply to screenwriters. And circulation in Soviet times were huge.

There was even a bike that Mikhalkov had so much money that he had an “open” account in the bank - that is, he could take any amount without restrictions. Once I asked: is it true? Mikhalkov said - nonsense. But once, walking with him around St. Petersburg, I jokingly asked, pointing to a four-story Art Nouveau mansion: “Sergey Vladimirovich, can you buy it?” He glanced at the building and, with a characteristic stutter, replied seriously, “P-perhaps I can. But I won't!"

Deficit on the table in the USSR was the main sign of prosperity

precious baby

People of art, who did not irritate the Soviet authorities, lived really at ease. Nevertheless, not everyone managed to accumulate a million. For example, Stefanovich himself received a six-figure fee for a film shot in France, already at the end of the USSR, during a period of inflation. The most popular satirist Mikhail Zadornov also failed to do this.

In Soviet times, I had about 800 thousand rubles in my account, ”he admitted to Express Gazeta. - But since there was no point in saving then, I rented and spent all the time.

How Mikhail Nikolaevich looked into the water! By 1990, 369 billion rubles, still far from wooden, lay on the accounts of citizens, which irrevocably “burned out” after the Yeltsinoids seized power.

Anyone who had 50 thousand rubles in the seventies was already considered a rich man, - the writer Mikhail Veller recalls those times. - One of the few categories of official Soviet millionaires were songwriters. When Vladimir Voinovich, who was not yet a dissident, composed the verses “Let's have a smoke before the start, guys,” in which, however, vile prudes replaced “light up” with “sing”, he secured years of prosperity for himself. Now the old, forgotten, mendicant poet Alexei Olgin, the author of poems for Maya Kristalinskaya's hit "Top-top, the baby is stomping," received eight to ten thousand a month. What could he spend it on? The choice is small. I bought a Volga, had a three-room apartment in the center, vacationed in Pitsunda, Gagra, Sochi, giving fantastic tips, and wore the most expensive sheepskin coat.

Vladimir Semyonovich with prospector TUMANOV

Georgian moneybag

And there were also currency millionaires in the USSR!

Once Georgy Pavlov, Brezhnev's manager, purchased foreign furniture for the patron's residence for as much as a million dollars. But the Secretary General did not appreciate the zeal. “What am I to you, Arab sheikh?!” - Leonid Ilyich was indignant. And he demanded to place an order with domestic producers, - Stefanovich shared his story. - Pavlov was charged, but the question arose - what to do with the furniture purchased for the people's currency? At one of the meetings of the Politburo, Eduard Shevardnadze took the floor: “I have a person in mind. Sculptor, laureate of the Lenin Prize, young guy Zurab Tsereteli. His relative, the architect Posokhin, builds Soviet embassies all over the world, and Tsereteli designs them. He has been living abroad for years, taking private orders and may well solve our problem.”

Tsereteli was summoned to the Central Committee of the CPSU. “Zurab Konstantinovich,” they told him, “there is a party assignment. We know that you have a mansion in Georgia, where you plan to create your own museum. You must purchase furnishings for it from us. For a million American dollars!” Tsereteli smiled: “Actually, I am non-partisan. But, of course, I will fulfill the request of such a respected organization.” Officially, the dollar then cost 60 kopecks. But on the black market it sold one to four. By the way, Tsereteli was not even 30 at that time.

Yevgeny TSYGANOV played the role of Jan Rokotov in the TV series Fartsa

Owner of Gorky Street

Far 1976. Alla Pugacheva, whose song "Harlekino" was already heard by the whole country, was returning by train from a tour from Odessa with her husband Alexander Stefanovich. There was a gentle knock on the door.

A typical middle-aged Odessa citizen very politely said that he did not want to be imposed, but since the dining car will open only in two hours, he invites you to have a bite to eat in the next compartment, Stefanovich recalls. - We, having taken a bottle of cognac, went to visit. And there everything is littered to the ceiling with boxes! Instead of the traditional road chicken, the owner began to throw scarce balyks, kilogram cans of caviar and other delicacies onto the table. It turned out that the man is the director of the legendary Privoz, and “people gave him boxes on the road.” Under cognac, Alla told a pleasant interlocutor that she received only 8 rubles for a concert. He goggled his eyes: “Frankness for frankness. I earn several million times more.”

He was on his way to his son's 18th birthday, whom he hired at MGIMO, "despite our nationality." As a gift, he carried a kilogram gold medal, on which the inscription “Monya, 18 years old” shone.

And he wasn't the only trading millionaire knocking on our door. Once, in the absence of Alla, a bell rang in the apartment at 37 Gorky Street. A respectable man with a box stood on the threshold. Strangers were not allowed in the entrance, our neighbors were the famous ballerina Semenyaka, the director Mark Zakharov lived downstairs.

A stranger - you can immediately see a decent person. He introduced himself as a great admirer of Pugacheva and brought a gift - a spectacular floor lamp in the form of a ball. I asked what his name was. "Sokolov," he answered simply. "What are you doing?" - I ask. The guest looked at me as if I were crazy: "I am the owner of Gorky Street." It was the legendary director of the Eliseevsky grocery store, a front-line soldier, who was subsequently shot.

Let's add on our own: even the executioner who executed the sentence sincerely regretted the death of this man. Although the state accused him of causing damage of three million rubles.

By selling paintings in the apartment of Ilya Ehrenburg, it was possible to build another Tverskaya street on which he lived. Photo: ITAR-TASS

Buy the head of the KGB

Weller has a book "Legends of Nevsky Prospekt". It bred the Leningrad Jew Fima Blyayshits, the founder of the Soviet fartsovka:

“Maids and porters in hotels, prostitutes, taxi drivers and guides, policemen - all made up the base of Fimin's pyramid. The clothes exchanged with foreign tourists were handed over to the commission, and the money flowed like water. However, Fima far-sightedly invested most of it in business and, in a fit of pride, thought of taking on the content of the head of the Leningrad department of the KGB.

According to Weller, the legendary Fima is a real person who was shot in 1970. And at its core, the book is true. But Mikhail Iosifovich emphasizes that Blaishitz is an exception:

Usually they didn’t rise like that on farce. There were no underground millionaires in Leningrad. They lived in the Caucasus or Central Asia. Asia - registry and trade. In the Caucasus - guilds. And these are already real super-rich people who, for example, could afford a white Mercedes. It's like buying a rover now.

In the Slavic republics, underground merchants were forced to behave more modestly. We drove a maximum of "Volga". But somewhere you have to invest innumerable earnings! It came to curiosities. In the late 60s, they arrested the Simferopol owner of an underground clothing factory, whom everyone called Uncle Zero or Tsekhovik. Among other things, they seized from him ... the front door of the car, made of gold. It never opened, allegedly due to a breakdown.

Although the king of Moscow currency traders Yan Rokotov dined every day at the Aragvi restaurant, he lived in a communal apartment with his aunt, walked in the same shabby suit, in which he appeared in court. Valuables worth $1.5 million were confiscated from him.

The author of the illustrations of the "Wizard ..." provided for himself for life

A masterpiece in the toilet of Ehrenburg

Refined people invested in paintings and antiques. Like, for example, the director of a car service on Varshavskoe Shosse, who showed Stefanovich his unique collection.

But the most amazing private art gallery, which the Hermitage would envy, I saw not at the shop worker, speculator or merchant, but in the apartment of the legendary writer Ilya Ehrenburg, who lived opposite the Moscow City Council, the film director admits. - All the walls were hung with originals of Chagall, Modigliani, Chaim Satin, Picasso, Kandinsky - these were his friends. He even had a toilet like a museum. Above the toilet and on the door hung the work of the artist Fernand Léger. He did not get a place, poor fellow, among the artists of the first row ... Now a meter-long painting by Léger costs an average of 10 million euros.

Director of the Eliseevsky grocery store Yuri SOKOLOV...

Instead of an epilogue

... the little daughter did not refuse anything. Photo from Pasmi.ru

"Golden" Mists

Amazingly, private enterprise officially existed in the USSR. After the Great Patriotic War, the country's economy lay in ruins. The authorities turned a blind eye to the emergence of a class of small handicraftsmen who sewed clothes and produced various household trifles. In the late 50s, there were 150 thousand artels in the Union. But not everyone wanted to swim shallowly. The fate of the legendary Vadim Tumanov is proof of this.

A sailor, a young boxer of the Pacific Fleet team, ended up in camps under the "political 58th article" - for his love for Yesenin. He served eight years, tried to escape several times. How he survived, only God knows. The film "Lucky" with Vladimir Epifantsev in the title role based on the book "Black Candle" by Vladimir Vysotsky and Leonid Manchinsky is about Tumanov.

After his release, he organized a dozen and a half of the largest prospecting artels in the Union, prototypes of future cooperatives that mined 500 tons of gold for the country. His people received salaries more than the members of the Politburo - an average of two thousand rubles!

Here is how the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote about him:

“Our legal Soviet millionaire waved to the porter through the glass of the door with a lilac quarter. When a gap appeared in the door, Tumanov immediately put a quarter-piece in the gap, and it disappeared, as in the hand of a fakir. The doorman was short, majestically slightly reminiscent of Napoleon.<…>Suddenly something happened to his face: it crawled simultaneously in several different directions.

Tumanov? Vadim Ivanovich?

Captain Ponomarev? Ivan Arsentievich?

It turned out that the Kolyma legend met her former overseer. The meeting, oddly enough, turned out to be cordial.

DROPPED

* Superstars of the level of Raymond Pauls or Yuri Antonov earned about 12 - 15 thousand rubles a month only on copyright. And yet they were getting paid. The creator of "The roof of his house" in the early 80s carried cash not in a wallet, but in a suitcase.

* Mikhail Sholokhov "dripped" legal millions both from publications in the USSR and from translations.

* Playwright Anatoly Baryanov received 920,700 rubles in interest for the public performance of his play "On the Other Side" in 1949.

* The artist Leonid Vladimirsky, having made the famous illustrations for the fairy tale "The Wizard of the Emerald City", did not draw anything else - it was enough for a lifetime!

* The great chess player Anatoly Karpov says without embarrassment: “Was I a legal Soviet millionaire? Yes".

http://www.eg.ru/daily/politics/55805/

In the USSR, people did not attach as much importance to money as they do today. One could live on a small wage without denying oneself anything. Especially if there were acquaintances, for example, in the field of trade.

As Raikin said: “You come to me, I got a shortage through the store manager, through the store manager, through the merchandiser, through the back porch!” Nevertheless, in the country of developed socialism there were really rich people. Even millionaires.

precious baby

In Soviet times, I had about 800 thousand rubles in my account, ”he admitted to Express Gazeta. - But since there was no point in saving then, I rented and spent all the time.

Georgian moneybag

And there were also currency millionaires in the USSR!

Owner of Gorky Street

He was on his way to his son's 18th birthday, whom he hired at MGIMO, "despite our nationality." As a gift, he carried a kilogram gold medal, on which the inscription “Monya, 18 years old” shone.

Let's add on our own: even the executioner who executed the sentence sincerely regretted the death of this man. Although the state accused him of causing damage of three million rubles.

Buy the head of the KGB

Weller has a book "Legends of Nevsky Prospekt". It bred the Leningrad Jew Fima Blyayshits, the founder of the Soviet fartsovka:

According to Weller, the legendary Fima is a real person who was shot in 1970. And at its core, the book is true. But Mikhail Iosifovich emphasizes that Blaishitz is an exception:

A masterpiece in the toilet of Ehrenburg

Refined people invested in paintings and antiques. Like, for example, the director of a car service on Varshavskoe Shosse, who showed Stefanovich his unique collection.

"Golden" Mists

Here is how the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote about him:

Tumanov? Vadim Ivanovich?

Captain Ponomarev? Ivan Arsentievich?

It turned out that the Kolyma legend met her former overseer. The meeting, oddly enough, turned out to be cordial.

Instead of an epilogue

To mention all the Soviet underground magnates, you need to write a book. This is the guild worker Shah Shaverman, who set up a sewing workshop ... in a psychiatric dispensary, where he was the director. And Kharkiv "Uncle Borya", who flooded the country with his products: from shorts and galoshes to fake crystal chandeliers. And the Azerbaijani Teymur Akhmedov, who was shot on the personal orders of Aliyev. Among them, of course, there were dishonest businessmen - deceivers, informers, scammers. But there were also many hard-working smart people who were simply unlucky to be born 30-40 years later.
*
Superstars of the level of Raimonds Pauls or Yuri Antonov earned about 12-15 thousand rubles a month from copyright alone. And yet they were getting paid. The creator of "The roof of his house" in the early 80s carried cash not in a wallet, but in a suitcase.
*
Mikhail Sholokhov "dripped" legal millions both from publications in the USSR and from translations.
*
The playwright Anatoly Baryanov received 920,700 rubles in interest for the public performance of his play "On the Other Side" in 1949.
*
The artist Leonid Vladimirsky, having made the famous illustrations for the fairy tale "The Wizard of the Emerald City", did not draw anything else - it was enough for a lifetime!
*
The great chess player Anatoly Karpov says without embarrassment: “Was I a legal Soviet millionaire? Yes".
*
The authors of the song "Victory Day" David Tukhmanov and Vladimir Kharitonov each May 9 earned a new car.

http://www.m24.ru/articles/42291

"Unsolved secrets": How the black market of goods worked in the USSR

In the USSR, which lived behind the Iron Curtain, one could get rich only by trading on the black market. What was traded in the country of the Soviets, how people found out where and how much to get a deficit, and why the authorities often turned a blind eye to the black market - this was filmed by the Moscow Trust TV channel.

Fight against speculators

In the mid-1980s, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev for the first time announced the value of the turnover on the black market - 10 billion rubles. Soon the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a law on cooperatives. They received equal rights with state-owned enterprises: they pledged to pay taxes and keep official accounting. Entrepreneurs began to "come out of the shadows."

Economist Nikita Krichevsky argues that the Soviet economy did not take into account the needs of the people. Half of the inhabitants of a giant country was forced to purchase goods, bypassing stores.

According to Krichevsky, it was the economy of the means of production, and the Soviet leaders in those years, since the days of industrialization, were busy trying to produce as many machine tools, equipment, machines, mechanisms and rockets as possible. “And the inhabitants, the population, will somehow trample on, because times are difficult, we are surrounded by enemies, there is a confrontation between the two systems. In a word, it’s not up to you, gentlemen,” says Krichevsky.

Yevgeny Chernousov, senior detective for especially important cases of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, more than once had to round up speculators. The Soviet government controlled defense enterprises and collective farms, there were no thefts recorded there, but it was not possible to trace unaccounted products in the fisheries, factories and factories, they immediately went to the black market.

“Due to the creation of surplus products and materials, they made new products, stuck labels of foreign companies and passed them off as good products, and then sold them. And it was a lot of money, and it was difficult to fight because no one advertised it. Then they didn’t build there were no dachas, mansions, a few cars - everyone was afraid. They were kept "in a pod", it really was a problem," the detective recalls.

In 1989, Gorbachev again touched on the subject of the shadow economy. The success story of Muscovite Artem Tarasov pushed him to this: he opened the first marriage agency in Moscow and earned 100 thousand rubles in the first five days, and the average salary in the country then was 120 rubles. Tarasov was immediately declared a speculator who illegally arranged marriages of convenience in pursuit of a Moscow residence permit.

In those years, everything was sold only from under the floor - from meat to Helga sets from the GDR (people stood in lines for these sets for three, four years). Tarasov had a friend, an illegal millionaire, and he knew dozens of ways to make money without stealing.

He shared one of these secrets: “A furniture set arrives, I go to the warehouse with a nail and scratch on the sidewall, I make a huge scratch. Then the commission comes from the head office and looks at the set, it is damaged during transportation, it is discounted. And my cabinetmaker closes up the scratch so that the client will never see it. The client comes in turn, receives a satisfied and happy headset for the full price, and also tries to give me a bribe - 50 or 20 rubles. Of course, I don’t take it - it’s stupid to take a bribe. "

The first Soviet millionaire

Despite an unsuccessful attempt with a marriage agency, Tarasov started a new business: the Moscow House of Life allowed him to open a workshop for repairing equipment that was exclusive in those days in the Soviet Union - imported.

Tarasov took two engineers with soldering irons who could repair Japanese household appliances. At that time, there was no way to repair it anywhere in Moscow, there was only one organization that brought these spare parts. Moreover, spare parts waited for a year, two, and paid a lot of money. And these "craftsmen" began to repair Japanese tape recorders, video recorders, televisions.

The company had a huge flow, because the engineers managed to put Soviet transistors in Japanese portable tape recorders. And when one of the users opened the lid and looked at what was there - there were huge transistors, a bunch of wires, all this was filled with epoxy, but most importantly, the tape recorder worked.

The company was accused of stealing foreign parts, the process began. The book of complaints saved Tarasov: there was not a single complaint in it, all thanks, and the investigators had nothing to catch on to. But soon he gave a new reason for arrest.

"Management - I, my deputy, second deputy and chief accountant, divided 10 million among themselves. They wrote out 3 million salaries, and 700 thousand were given to the accountant so that she would stay with us. She almost hanged herself from horror," says the entrepreneur . As soon as the statement was signed, it came to Gorbachev himself.

"From time to time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs opened criminal cases on speculation, opened cases of operational development and identified the organizers of the supply of those products from abroad or unaccounted for. But it was a drop in the ocean, so it was simply impossible to overcome it. And the authorities, understanding this, pretended to that they are fighting these black markets, and so on, but in fact, there was certainly no such efficiency of work in this direction," detective Chernousov believes.

Tarasov also had to communicate with speculators, otherwise the system would not work: to get one, you need to get something else. His imported equipment repair firm grew, they switched to buying computers and software for all structures in the country, including the Star City of the Academy of Sciences and even the KGB.

Payment in those years was only in cash. By the beginning of 1989, the company had 100 million rubles on its account, and this at a time when a luxurious Mercedes cost 12 thousand.

Tarasov's firm had an acquaintance in the USSR Ministry of Justice, who reported all the news about the legislation. And once he said: “Soon there will be a limit on the cash that the cooperative can spend per day - only 100 rubles. There should be 100 rubles in the cash register. All the rest should be placed somewhere in banks and cannot be spent.” And the cooperative "Tekhnika" had 1800 people in the state. It was then that Tarasov came up with the idea to divide the salary fund among "his own", so that later during the year he would spend it on the needs of the cooperative. But when they made party contributions for 90 thousand rubles, this was immediately reported "upstairs".

Soon a commission came - eight different organizations: OBKhSS, the KGB of the USSR, the GRU, the Ministry of Finance, the KRU of the Ministry of Finance, and financial territorial departments. When they removed the cash register, it turned out to be 959 thousand 837 rubles 48 kopecks. The commission was preparing a protocol stating that everything was legal, but Gorbachev spoke and said: "We will not allow our socialist homeland to be turned into capitalism. We must call these moneybags to account."

The commission returned, the protocol was torn, the cooperative stopped work, everyone quit. Tarasov was left alone, he was threatened by the 93rd article of the Criminal Code of the USSR "Theft of state property on an especially large scale." There is only one punishment - execution. Under the same article, a few years ago, the father of a friend of Tarasov, the director of the Eliseevsky store Sokolov, was sentenced, at one time this story made a lot of noise.

The Soviet millionaire Artem Tarasov took a desperate step: he came to television, to the progressive program "Vzglyad", and told his story to the whole country. Moreover, he made a loud statement: if they prove that he is a speculator, he is ready to be shot even on Red Square.

"Vzglyadovtsy" were afraid that they would be closed, but they were not closed, and I became popular: in the following days I was surrounded by a huge number of all sorts of journalists, "Moscow News" wrote about me - at that time a very progressive newspaper, in English. I was interviewed by all the agencies of the world: Associated Press, all sorts of Japanese. And, of course, it was difficult to touch me," Tarasov said.

It got to the point that he was elected people's deputy of the RSFSR. Then Tarasov gained "immunity" and could already calmly, being in the Yeltsin camp, in unison with everyone say that it was time for Gorbachev to leave, that this perestroika was wrong and a free market was needed.

History of free trade in the USSR

The word "market" at that time in itself was considered criminal. An article could be imputed for private trade. If a person bought a product and resold it, this is speculation: five to seven years in prison with confiscation of property. For commercial mediation (there was such an article) - three years.

True, life in the Soviet Union was not always like this. In the mid-1920s, trading on the streets was conducted openly - these were the years of the NEP. Moscow historian Tatiana Vorontsova devotes a separate excursion to a short but such a bright period in history.

“Many of us believe that the Aurora fired, and then immediately the metro was launched, these 10-15 years all the time disappear somewhere from our history, but, nevertheless, it was a very interesting time when trade flourished. There was both private and cooperative trade, there were many artels. And state trade also began to rise. There was competition, there was a variety of goods, "Vorontsova believes.

True, even then private traders were somewhat infringed: they were not allowed to print color advertisements or use the help of professional poets, while Mayakovsky himself promoted public services.

An interesting fact: in 1927 in Moscow there were 25 fashion magazines (children's fashion, women's fashion, summer, spring) on free sale - for any request. But at the end of the 1920s, when the five-year plans began, they had to forget about free private trade, the country embarked on the rails of industrialization.

However, the publicist Alexander Trubitsyn recently made a peculiar discovery: he discovered that under Stalin, entrepreneurs as a class were not destroyed, but, on the contrary, they flourished very, very much.

For example, in the "Collection of documents of the NKVD during the Great Patriotic War", it was written that at such and such a factory there are so many shells in production, so many in production, so many at the output, so many prepared, so many can produce, deadlines and so on - the usual technical report. But the most important thing is that this production belonged to the artel.

An artel is when people united in brigades for seasonal earnings or established small-scale production. As a rule, they occupied the niche where the state did not have time. By the way, in 1953, about 6% of the gross national product was made by private entrepreneurs, and the first televisions and the first radiograms were made in artels.

In the documents of the Stalinist period, members of artels were indicated along with workers and collective farmers. They were full citizens, who were also awarded orders and promoted to the honor roll. Not only that, in order to exclude corruption, the Council of People's Commissars provided for the exact rates at which raw materials are delivered to the artels. The only requirement for them is that the price of products should not exceed the state price by more than 10%.

Under Khrushchev, such a phenomenon as fartsovka appeared. This became especially noticeable after the International Festival of Youth and Students, arranged in Moscow in 1957. Then the Soviet people saw how to dress. Soviet mods were immediately dubbed dudes. At first, only they were the main clients of the black marketers, and then illegal trade grew to an all-Union scale.

Hotel "Intourist" - the most famous hotel company, which was inhabited by merchants, black marketeers. By the 70s, the network of black marketers included almost all the maids, storeys, bartenders, and hotel cleaners. Their task is to bargain fashionable things from unlucky foreigners by any means and then give them to resellers.

At "Intourist", "Metropol" and other hotels popular among foreigners, black marketers were on duty for days. For a fee, the porters did not drive them away. They often sold the booty right there, in the nearest Moscow courtyard and even in a public toilet. One of them was once located in Kamergersky Lane, not far from Red Square.

"Currency" cases and red dollars

And if the authorities often turned a blind eye to petty trade, then foreign exchange transactions in the country were illegal. For a couple of dollars you could get a lot of time. This happened to the actor Vladimir Dolinsky: five years before the filming of the film "The Same Munchausen", he, an artist of the Satire Theater, was caught red-handed selling currency. He served almost four years in a strict regime colony. The petition of friends-artists and evidence of the randomness of the transaction had no effect on the investigation. And all because of $ 30 - he bought them when the theater was going abroad on tour. Then the trip was canceled, and Dolinsky wanted to return his rubles.

As the economist Krichevsky recalls, illegal foreign exchange transactions in the Soviet Union sometimes reached the point of absurdity. So, in the 70s in Moscow, an amusing episode that happened in the so-called "pipe" - the transition from the current Okhotny Ryad to Revolution Square received wide, naturally, informal, non-newspaper publicity. One comrade who wanted to buy dollars, on the advice of friends, collected all the free Soviet rubles, came to this point, went to the "pipe" and quickly enough found the one who had the dollars in stock.

Then the most interesting began. The seller informed our unlucky buyer that the real dollar was not green, but red. And if he buys red dollars and travels abroad, he will be able to exchange these dollars for European currency at a higher rate. The seller was very surprised that the buyer, who wanted to buy these dollars, knew nothing about it and had not heard anything.

By the way, the buyer was not the last Soviet athlete. He bought red dollars and, of course, was ridiculed by absolutely all his buddies.

Persecution of antiquarians

In the wake of perestroika, a wave of raids came: the police arrested large speculators who had not been dared to touch before. There were operations to capture the guild workers - these are those who produce goods underground and on a large scale. Most often they forged foreign brands. The denim business was especially popular, and the highest rates were in the antiques market. One of the few private collectors at that time was Mikhail Perchenko.

He had a passion for antiques and collecting since childhood. Perchenko still remembers that day in the smallest detail: he was walking along the old Arbat and accidentally noticed a beautiful service in the window of a commission store, or rather, its price tag. The service cost 96 thousand rubles (for comparison: the ZiM limousine, which no one could buy, cost 42 thousand).

The service, by the way, was not easy: it was for 48 people, weighed 146 kilograms and belonged to Nicholas II, with his monograms and native gilding. Perchenko was able to buy his first item at the age of 19. True, he sold it a long time ago - he says that you can’t assemble a real collection without parting with anything.

Mikhail Perchenko admits that in the Soviet years he collaborated with speculators - he bought icons from them. But there was one ironclad rule that he adhered to, and which, he believes, saved him from prison - never mess with smugglers.

"The black market in Russia was huge. True, even now it is rarely possible to buy something worthwhile from a shop window, everything is sold in offices, in hands, and so on. It was possible to accuse every antiquarian of speculation and imprison him for a long time, and many of the collectors sat. When I began to collect Western European art, they began to hunt me. Somehow I managed to catch me on a bribe of 10 rubles, and the bribe was not to an official, but to the seller, and not in the form of money, but in the form of sweets, " Perchenko said.

The search in the collector's house began at 6 o'clock in the morning and continued until late in the evening. He's already learned the procedure - this is the third time they've tried to arrest him. Only later did his friends tell him that 13 collections had been confiscated that day in Moscow, and only Perchenko managed to get everything back thanks to his connections.

According to unwritten laws, the shadow economy appears everywhere and always, if there are restrictions on trade in a particular product. The profit in such a market is much higher, although the risks are also higher. The black market in the USSR became an integral part of Soviet life. It was impossible to forbid to live beautifully even behind the Iron Curtain.

The myth of global income equality in the Soviet Union has long been debunked. As elsewhere, there were ordinary citizens in the country, whose income was limited by rates and salaries, but there were very rich people. We are not talking about underground guild workers or those who were called plunderers of socialist property. Surprisingly, the leaders of the party and government were not the legal millionaires.

Scientists-inventors received very decent fees for their discoveries, real legends were made about the income of nuclear physicists, some titled athletes could compete with them. But the largest number of legal Soviet millionaires was in the field of culture and art.

Lidia Ruslanova

As a child, Agafya Leykina happened to beg, later she ended up in an orphanage, changing her last name, because the children of peasants were not taken there. Stunning vocal data allowed Lidia Ruslanova not only to conquer Moscow, but also to become the highest paid singer in the Soviet Union. Hunger and poverty have long been forgotten, and jewelry and antiques have become the real passion of the people's favorite.

A simple village girl very quickly learned to understand all these riches, she could determine whether the original of the picture was in front of her or her, albeit a good one, but a copy. She was not shy about wearing her diamonds even to concerts in the Kremlin. During the Great Patriotic War, she not only gave concerts at the forefront, but also invested in the purchase of armored vehicles for the front.

In 1948, the singer was arrested along with her fourth husband, General Vladimir Kryukov. All material assets were confiscated from the married couple: apartments, dachas, cars, antique furniture, paintings by famous artists. But most of all, the singer regretted the 208 diamonds confiscated in the house of her housekeeper, as well as sapphires, emeralds, and pearls. Lidia Ruslanova was released only in 1953, after the death of Stalin.

Sergei Mikhalkov

Authors' fees in the Soviet Union could not be called excessively high. For example, for the text of the Anthem of the Soviet Union, Sergei Mikhalkov received only 500 rubles and a good food ration. However, the income of the authors also consisted of circulation payments. And Sergei Mikhalkov published very actively, not only in the USSR, but also abroad. Surprisingly, copyright in a country of developed socialism was strictly observed.

Yuri Antonov

He was called the first Soviet millionaire from show business. Yuri Antonov made no secret of the fact that his royalties were very high. Officially, the singer and composer received about 15 thousand rubles a month. And this is with an average salary in the country of just over 100 rubles.

For the concert, the singer received only about 50 rubles, but the fees for each performance of the song he wrote were already added up on a savings book in a very decent amount.

Natalia Durova

The famous trainer was famous for her love of jewelry and antiques, devoting no less time and effort to her collection than working with animals. It is no secret that Natalya Durova owned the unique blue diamonds of Catherine the Great and the ring of the cavalry girl Nadezhda Durova, who was in the family of a famous family.

For decades, the Durovs were able not to lose, but to increase their wealth. Natalya Durova wore her diamonds with pleasure and was proud of her antique collection. After her death, serious disputes broke out over the inheritance, and as a result, the illegitimate daughter of the son of the trainer Mikhail Bolduman, Elizaveta Solovyova, became the heiress.

Ludmila Zykina

A talented singer owes her well-being entirely to her talent and unimaginable ability to work. She toured not only in the Soviet Union. The singer visited with her concerts in 62 countries of the world. The circulation of records with songs of one of the favorite singers of the Soviet era amounted to more than 6 million copies.

After the departure of Lyudmila Zykina, they started talking about her passion for diamonds and antiques, although her relatives and friends claim that she was never a money-grubber and thoughtless collector of jewelry. She always wore her jewelry.

After the death of Lyudmila Zykina, a serious struggle broke out for her inheritance, a criminal case was even initiated about the disappearance of valuables belonging to the singer. The jewelry collection of the famous performer was sold at auction in 2012 for more than 31 million rubles.

Anatoly Karpov

Mikhail Sholokhov. / Photo: www.m-a-sholohov.ru

The Soviet writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, winner of the Stalin and Lenin Prizes received far more than one million from foreign translations of his books. At the same time, he donated the Nobel and Lenin Prizes to the construction of schools in the Rostov Region, while he gave the Stalin Prize to the Defense Fund.

It is not necessary to shine with your own talents to become a millionaire. Sometimes it is enough to be Some cats were initially lucky enough to be born under a lucky star and settle with rich owners, and some, on the contrary, helped their owners to significantly increase their capital. So who are they - cats that literally bathe in money?