As the hero of the novel by Ilf and Petrov, The Golden Calf, Ostap Bender said, “if banknotes are circulating in the country, then there must be people who have a lot of them”. History confirms the words of the "great schemer." In any era and in any socio-economic system, there were people who, through honest labor, but more often through fraud or exploitation of other people, made huge amounts of money.
The era of the Great Patriotic War was no exception. In this difficult time, people not only demonstrated heroism and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal. There were also those who "stuffed their pockets." There were quartermasters and civilian suppliers who, taking advantage of the total shortage of food and industrial goods in the country caused by the war, made good "gesheft", selling food, clothing, and fabrics through the "black market". In besieged Leningrad, a loaf of bread was exchanged for eggs by the Fabergé jewelry house. However, among the people who were able to profit in wartime, the figure of Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko stands apart. In Stalin's time, he was able, in fact, to create a private construction company. And not just some small office dealing with construction "covens", but an organization that had branches in the Ukrainian,Belarusian, Moldavian and Baltic republics of the USSR. The revenues of Pavlenko's firm were in the millions. Then the figure of 38.7 million rubles appeared in court. A lot of money for that time.
Not Koreiko
Was Nikolai Pavlenko like another character in the novel The Golden Calf - the underground millionaire Alexander Koreiko? No, because Koreiko did nothing constructive - he “made money out of thin air” through all sorts of scams, because of him the construction of the hydroelectric power station was stopped, and the suffering in the Volga region did not receive medicine.
Based on the autobiography of Nikolai Pavlenko and the facts established by the investigation, the life path of the "construction magnate" was as follows. Nikolai Maksimovich was born in 1908, as he himself argued (or in 1912, as investigators established) in the village of Novye Sokoly, Kiev region, in the family of a wealthy peasant who was later dispossessed. Nikolai himself worked as a builder in Belarus, then entered the Minsk Polytechnic Institute (MPI) at the road department, where he studied for two courses; then he took the documents and left the university. Why? Apparently, questions arose about the personal data, because the son of a "kulak" could not study at a Soviet institute. When Nikolai Maksimovich entered the MPI, he clearly did not indicate that his father was dispossessed, which means that he falsified his personal data. For this in those days he was threatened with a term. But it cost "little blood". After Pavlenko worked as a foreman in the Office of the main military construction. However, he was caught stealing state property, for which he spent 35 days in prison. Then he was released. There is a version that Pavlenko received freedom in exchange for agreeing to cooperate with the NKVD.
Nikolay Maksimovich Pavlenko.
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War
After the start of the war, Nikolai Pavlenko was drafted into the army and was promoted to assistant engineer of the 2nd rifle corps. There were not enough specialists, so Pavlenko, who had an incomplete higher education and experience in construction activities, was appointed to an officer's position. The first months of the war, he took part in hostilities. But further in the biography of the hero "blank spots" appear. Pavlenko ended up in Kalinin (now Tver - approx. RuBaltic. Ru). He himself claimed that he was sent there, but the investigation concluded that Pavlenko had deserted and went to Kalinin without permission. There, with the help of several more swindlers, he made documents, forms and stamps for the non-existent military construction unit "Site of military construction work No. 1 (UVSR-1)". With bribes received by military commissars,he also managed to recruit personnel for the UVSR-1. Soldiers who were discharged from hospitals or lagged behind their units, military commissariats, as a rule, were sent to the Pavlenko unit. Outright criminals also ended up in UVSR-1. Several people already in Germany Pavlenko personally had to be shot for looting. Then the organization became known as UVRS-2. Apparently, by changing the names, Pavlenko "confused" the tracks. Then the unit "joined" the structure of the airfield construction of the Air Force of the Western Front. Pavlenko "confused" the tracks. Then the unit "joined" the structure of the airfield construction of the Air Force of the Western Front. Pavlenko "confused" the tracks. Then the unit "joined" the structure of the airfield construction of the Air Force of the Western Front.
From 1942 to 1945, the Pavlenko military unit earned more than a million rubles on contracts. Then the war ended. During demobilization, all soldiers and officers received a generous bonus, Nikolai Pavlenko wrote out 90 thousand rubles for himself.
And here an interesting question arises: how could a "fake" military unit have existed for almost four years? Yes, there is always some confusion during war; This was especially noticeable in 1941, when parts of the Soviet army were retreating under the attacks of the Wehrmacht. Yes, bribes and personal contacts at any time help to resolve many issues. There is an eastern proverb: “There is no wall so high that a camel loaded with gold cannot cross.” And Pavlenko knew how to establish contacts and be "generous" with the right people.
But there is also a second side to the coin. During the war, people become very suspicious and any anomaly attracts attention. A military unit created from "air" simply could not but interest anyone for four years! In addition, the Smersh counterintelligence service was actively working within the Soviet army during the Second World War, there was a military prosecutor's office, and a political administration. It cannot be that at least one of these structures is not interested in a fictitious military unit or its commander. And if this happened, then Pavlenko would have been shot during the war.
Nikolay Maksimovich Pavlenko.
Perhaps Pavlenko was really connected with the NKVD and the patronage of this structure allowed him to keep his head on his shoulders in the 40s.
After the war
The presence of high patrons is also confirmed by the further activities of Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko. It would seem that a person “played” such a scam during the war, earned a lot of money, and the fact that he did not come to the attention of law enforcement agencies is a miracle. Logically, what should Pavlenko do next? Legalize. Even under a different name, settle in some provincial town, get a job and lead a quiet, inconspicuous life, without attracting attention to yourself. But no. In 1948, in Lvov, Mykola Pavlenko created a new fictitious military unit "Directorate of Military Construction (UVS-1)". Moreover, in order to set things up, he invites "comrades" from the times of the war. Again, as in 1941, false documents, letterheads, stamps were made. With the help of bribes, officials managed to legalize the organization.
It turned out that many leaders of cities and regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, the Baltic republics wanted UVS-1 to carry out construction work. In addition, Pavlenko paid contract specialists two to three times more than workers at state enterprises received. But the demand from him was different, and he himself could not stand hack work. There are cases when Nikolai Maksimovich came to check the object, found flaws and did not leave until they were all fixed.
And now the question arises. How, in fact, a private construction company (remember, in the USSR there were officially only state-owned enterprises), operating and having branches on the territory of six union republics, from 1948 to 1952 did not attract the attention of the special services, law enforcement or party bodies of the USSR? In the end, any economic activity is fraught with disputes and conflicts, which means that Pavlenko's company was complained about to the party and Soviet bodies, possibly sued. All this again speaks of the presence of very powerful patrons.
End of the company
According to the most widespread version, the following incident attracted the attention of the Soviet authorities to UVS-1. Engineer Ivan Efremenko worked for Pavlenko's company. He resigned, 200 rubles were withheld from his salary during the calculation under the state loan program, but the bonds were not given to the engineer. This angered Efremenko, and he wrote a letter to the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers Klim Voroshilov, in which he accused Nikolai Pavlenko of disrupting the bond campaign. Oddly enough, the case was set in motion. The letter was forwarded to the military prosecutor's office, and then it turned out that no UVS-1 exists in nature - neither in the structure of the army, nor in the MGB.
Weapons and ammunition seized during a search at the UVS.
There is another version as to what served as a catalyst for law enforcement. Companion Pavlenko Yuri Konstantinov flew from Odessa with two large suitcases, at the airport one of his suitcases opened. It turned out to be completely filled with hundred rubles, and many saw it. The prosecutor's office immediately became interested in the personality of the person who transported a lot of money.
Be that as it may, a criminal case was opened against Pavlenko and his accomplices. Nikolai Maksimovich was charged with three articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code: 58.7 - "Undermining the state industry", 58.10 - "Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" and 58.11 - "Counter-revolutionary activities". The court found him guilty only under Article 58.7 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR - “Undermining of the state industry”. The investigation was able to documentarily prove that Pavlenko misappropriated 36 million state rubles.
Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko was sentenced to be shot.
Who patronized him is unknown. There is a version that it was a friend of Leonid Brezhnev and the future deputy of Yuri Andropov in the KGB - Deputy Minister of State Security of the Moldavian SSR Semyon Tsvigun. However, it seems that Tsvigun could hardly cover up the activities of Pavlenko's company on the territory of all six republics where the construction was carried out. He just at that time was not a figure of such a scale to provide a “roof” for a private construction company in the territory of the western republics of the USSR. Most likely, the Soviet millionaire had patrons in high offices in Moscow.
As for Nikolai Pavlenko himself, he was a man with very good organizational skills. Another thing is that he used them both for creation when performing construction work, and for personal illegal enrichment, when he created a fictitious construction company. Or maybe he was just born at the wrong time.
Sergey Mirkin