In December 1918, all the newspapers in the country wrote about the sensational robbery of a Rostov bank. Valuables worth millions of rubles were taken out of steel cells and armored safes, but the mysterious crime remained unsolved. The truth surfaced only a few years later. And she turned out to be incredible …
FOR THE JOY OF BANKERS
In the winter of 1918, Rostov was literally flooded with wealthy people of the nobility. Perhaps, such a number of wealthy citizens have never been seen here. They fled from St. Petersburg and Moscow, taking money and jewelry, and temporarily settled in the city on the Don. Local bankers rubbed their hands and rejoiced, calculating future profits. After all, the goods saved from the Bolsheviks - gold, diamonds and banknotes - had to be stored somewhere. And where, pray tell, if not in a safe deposit box of a reliable bank?
The White Guard Rostov celebrated Christmas 1918 with special hope for a happy tomorrow. It seemed that the end of anxiety, fear and hardship was near, because the volunteer detachments were firmly united under the leadership of General Denikin.
The Lord danced at the decorated Christmas trees, treated themselves to what God had sent. A few days later, alarming news spread throughout the city. It was rumored that on holidays the intruders had completely emptied the steel room of the bank, where millions of valuables taken from Moscow and Petrograd were hidden in reliable safes with the latest foreign locks. The tenants of the safes clutched at their hearts, drank valerian, and stomped for hours near the bank building surrounded by foot and horse guards. But, alas, there was no information.
HERE IS A GIFT
Promotional video:
Later it turned out that the terrible really happened on the holidays. All was well at the bank on Christmas Eve. The steel room was opened at the request of tenants from seven to eight in the evening. We did not notice anything suspicious. After that, the blind steel door with a very complicated secret lock mechanism was locked and sealed. And when it became necessary to resume banking operations, it turned out that the door to the steel room could not be unlocked.
An experienced specialist was invited. For several hours he worked on the lock, but in the end he declared that the mechanism was damaged, the door could not be opened. Maybe try to repair the damage from inside the steel room …
Easy to say! Try to get into a room without windows, the walls and floors of which are welded steel plates 9 mm thick. It was possible to get inside the storehouse only through the ventilation duct, but for this it was necessary to dismantle the stone wall with the ventilation system channels. Late in the evening of December 28, the masons set to work - and by the evening of the next day, the ventilation duct was opened. But it was still too narrow, so that only a long stick with a light bulb tied to it could be inserted into it. Dim light, dispelling the darkness of the sealed vault, illuminated the smashed safes …
Finally, the manhole was enlarged to the point where a secret lock specialist could squeeze through. When he got into the steel room, he saw that the front door to the vault was walled up with fresh clay and sand. Having cleared it, he established the cause of the lock malfunction. It turned out that wooden strips were attached to the locking mechanism, and its individual parts were carefully wrapped with pieces of electric cable.
By the morning of December 30, all the obstacles were finally eliminated and representatives of the banking administration were able to enter the destroyed vault.
There were 445 ravaged “safe” boxes-safes in a formless heap on the floor, and among them was a large steel cash register - naturally empty. Everyone was so overwhelmed by the sight that they did not immediately notice the huge hole carved into the steel floor.
UNDERGROUND TRAVEL
The bank stood at the corner of Nikolaevsky Lane and Kazanskaya Street. The underground passage began from the other end of the block from the basement floor of a house at the corner of Nikolaevsky Lane and Temeritskaya Street, where a three-room locksmith's workshop was located.
Most of the first room was occupied by a huge stove, all filled with clay and sand. In the second room there was a large locksmith's table, and in the third there was another table heaped with all kinds of burglary devices. An old wooden cabinet in the corner masked the entrance to a zigzag tunnel over a hundred meters long, equipped with both a telephone and electric lighting. The underground passage ended with a spacious earthen excavation directly under the steel room. It was from here that a hole was punched in the steel floor.
Despite such a thorough preparation, three and a half, and perhaps four days were not enough for the robbers to completely clear the bank storeroom. About half of the safes remained intact. And the evacuation of what they had managed to take out of the steel room, apparently, ended in those hours when the bank employees had already come to work. Everywhere in the locksmith's shop there were traces of haste. At the entrance lay a heavy sack, packed with jewels, ready for dispatch. In the back rooms, diamonds, gold and silver items, coins, securities, and torn credit bills were scattered on the floor. Moreover, securities - deeds of sale, notary deeds and others - remained intact, and the credit notes were painstakingly torn apart. The robbers did not want the owners to use the currency.
DEAR PEOPLE
The house, from the basement of which an underground passage was dug, belonged to respected people. But one of the homeowners was still taken into custody. The janitor was also detained. From the words of the arrested, it became known that in September of the same 1918, some private individuals rented a basement for a bakery. A few days later, tenants announced that the premises were too low for a bakery and needed to be deepened. The owners of the house did not object. Then earthworks began. From time to time, carts loaded with clay and sand drove out of the yard. Nobody attached any importance to this.
Then the investigators calculated that about 200-225 carts were removed. But who could have thought of keeping track of the clay wagons before? The fact that the work was delayed did not seem strange either. In addition, the tenants themselves complained about the protracted restructuring and, in the end, declared that they had to temporarily use the premises as a locksmith's workshop. The necessary equipment was brought in, and since then hammers have been knocking in the basement all day. Many attended the workshop. The janitor was somehow interested in why decently dressed people come to the basement in the evenings, but he was told that after work they play a card game there. This explanation was fine with him.
The necessary measures were taken to search for the criminals. The police were roused to their feet. Several repeat offenders were arrested. Every now and then there were rumors that the trail of criminals had already been found. There was a lot of talk. However, not a single rumor, not a single guess was confirmed. Valuables stolen from the steel room of the bank disappeared without a trace, the crime remained unsolved. And soon there was no time for him at all.
VIRTUOZ of the detective case
Whites were rapidly retreating under the onslaught of the Reds, and all they had to think about was how to get away with their feet. With the flight of whites from the south of Russia, the sensational case of the daring robbery was forgotten.
At the end of 1920, Soviet power was firmly established in southern Russia. In one of the Kuban cities, in Yeisk, the work of the Cheka in the fight against counterrevolution, sabotage and speculation was led by a man who was legendary. Experienced and smart, daring and careful, he was a virtuoso in his profession.
And then one day this very legendary man, being heavily drunk, told his comrades in the revolutionary struggle that in December 1918 in the Rostov underground, together with a group of like-minded people, robbed a Rostov bank. So the mysterious and incredible theft turned out to be the expropriation of the values hidden from nationalization. The Bolsheviks proved themselves to be excellent robbers!
Mikhail SMETANIN