We did not know a lot of things in the USSR and did not tell everyone. Now these stories surface and are published with all the details. They practically do not carry any necessary informational content, but it is always interesting to catch interesting historical moments and details in such stories.
I have just read how the historian Yevgeny Antonyuk told about the terrorist act of the Soviet era, about which I had never heard. Check yourself if you knew about it …
Peter Volynsky was born in Krasnodar shortly before the start of the Great Patriotic War - in 1939. During the war years, he became an orphan and ended up first in an orphanage, and then in the Suvorov school in Stavropol. During the war, many children were left orphans. Orphanages could not cope with the influx of orphans, so in 1943 it was decided to restore the system of cadet schools that existed before the war, when teenagers from a very early age were preparing for military service under the supervision of officers. But since the very phrase "cadet corps" sounded too old-fashioned and monarchical, it was decided to rename them to Suvorov schools (for sailors - Nakhimov schools).
The Stavropol Suvorov School, in which Volynsky studied, graduated several famous Soviet generals, three heroes of the Soviet Union and cosmonaut Glazkov. Who, by the way, was the same age as Volynsky.
However, Volynsky himself did not choose a military career and after graduating from college he returned to Krasnodar to the local medical institute. During his studies in it, he never made friends with anyone, was closed, isolated from his classmates and gave the impression of an eccentric. He practically never parted with a large suitcase, which he carried with him everywhere. This habit remained with him for the rest of his life at large. He graduated from the institute quite late, at almost 30 years old, but still received a diploma and began working as a therapist in a polyclinic.
By this time, his illness, most likely, began to progress, since he could not stay anywhere for a long time. He wandered from hospital to hospital, usually not staying anywhere longer than a probationary period. In those days, there was an article about parasitism, so employers rarely refused even the most nasty workers. In addition, there was always a shortage of personnel in rural and stanitsa hospitals, so they continued to be willing to hire him, not being too interested in the circumstances of dismissals.
This continued until 1970, when, after several complaints in the health department, they did not pay attention to him. Patients complained that therapist Volynsky was using very strange methods of treatment. In particular, he persistently tries to treat patients for all diseases with an alcohol lamp, burning his fingers with it.
Promotional video:
After that, in Krasnodar they recalled that at one time complaints had already been received about Volynsky's inappropriate behavior. Even during his studies at the institute, his flatmate came to complain to the administration about his oddities. Perhaps another would not have paid attention to him, but a KGB officer who had recently been transferred to the Kuban was added to Volynsky. He was surprised to find that Volynsky hung out a whole scattering of pot lids on strings outside the window every day. The explanation of why he did this was even stranger than the actual hanging of the lids. Volynsky, without a moment's hesitation, explained to the slow-witted neighbor that this was such a clever alarm in case of an intrusion of thieves into the window. However, the apartment was located high enough that thieves would not have climbed there if they wanted to.
A meticulous KGB officer went to the administration and complained about an inadequate student neighbor. But that time everything went well for Volynsky. He was just summoned to the rectorate and asked to stop kinking and take up his mind.
In addition, Volynsky was notable for his pathological slanderousness and regularly bombarded with letters (usually anonymous) all possible authorities, including local newspapers, with a variety of complaints about officials, colleagues, unbelievable youth, etc.
But after the complaints of patients whom Volynsky tried to treat with fire according to the method of the Spanish Inquisition, they decided to check his mental health more thoroughly. He was subjected to a psychiatric examination, after which he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The final diagnosis was made by Professor Khromov, his former teacher at the Kuban Medical Institute, where he headed the Department of Psychiatry.
Little revolutionary
With such a diagnosis, Volynsky could no longer work as a doctor. He managed to get a job only as a laborer at one of the enterprises in the city. Apparently, it was at this moment that Volynsky got stuck and he was finally convinced that tall people are the root of evil and the cause of all his troubles.
It is worth noting that Volynsky's height was not so small, about 162-164 centimeters. At that time in the Soviet Union, people were slightly lower than they are now, so he was definitely not considered to be completely short. The average height of a man in the USSR in the 60s did not exceed 167-168 centimeters, so Volynsky's small growth was hardly striking. But he himself, apparently, did not think so.
Probably, he was always a little shy and complex about his height. However, severe stress as a result of falling from the social ladder, as well as an exacerbation of the disease, had such a strong effect on his mind that Volynsky completely closed himself on this circumstance, which was of little significance for an ordinary person.
He came to the conclusion that tall people were to blame for all his troubles. He apparently considered everyone taller than him to be tall. The former physician developed a whole complex theory in the spirit of the class division of society according to Marx. But only Volynsky divided the whole world into tall and short people.
Undersized by default were considered by him to be more capable, intelligent and talented. However, due to the insidious intrigues of the tall, who envied their intelligence and abilities, the short people were in the corral. And the tall ones created their own dictatorship, in which the little person has no chance of not being successful. Because the tall ones take the best jobs, take the most beautiful women away, and so on.
But Volynsky was not going to give up so easily. He decided to make a revolution and return a better position to those who were more worthy of it - the little people. To this end, he created the League of Undersized People, into which he began to recruit like-minded people.
It turned out to be not so easy to do this, since the things that Volynsky talked about were not entirely obvious to his random interlocutors on the streets, especially since he recruited in a very specific way. He wandered the streets, looking for people of short stature in the crowd, after which he approached them and stunned them with questions in the forehead, asking if they were ready to put an end to the dictatorship of tall people, if they would agree to fight against them, etc. Most people waved away the eccentric and tried to leave as soon as possible. However, sometimes Volynsky himself had to take his feet. So, once he ran for several minutes from an angry passer-by, whom he asked if he understood that his wife would be fertilized by tall, thoroughbred men?
In his diary, Volynsky wrote that he had found several like-minded people. But later in the course of the investigation it turned out that he did not have any like-minded people, and those whom he considered as such agreed with him either in jest or so that he would quickly get behind them.
League of stunted attacks
Volynsky realized that talk alone could not overthrow the high dictatorship, and decided to start acting. Somehow he managed to get hold of books on explosives and engineering. He was able to take out some of the components necessary for the explosive device from the warehouse where he worked as an auxiliary worker. I managed to get a few parts through my fellow workers. I bought the fire extinguisher, which served as a shell for the device.
The first victim of the undersized avenger was to be his main offender - Professor Khromov, who diagnosed him. In January 1971, Volynsky tried to blow up his apartment by installing an improvised explosive device on the front door. It was designed in such a way that it came into effect after the door to the apartment was opened. But a happy accident intervened in the face of a neighbor. Leaving the apartment, she saw a strange structure on Khromov's door and decided to call the police. The policemen who arrived came to the conclusion that it was an explosive device. However, they did not actively search for the terrorist, deciding that this was teenage hooliganism or the tricks of disgruntled students.
Having failed, Volynsky decided to act in a different direction and undermine the largest cinema in the city. One day in February, Volynsky came there with a huge suitcase. On that day, there was a collective screening of the film by the local party administration (according to another version, a foreign film was simply shown, which at that time aroused great interest among viewers).
But this time too, chance intervened. The watchman flatly refused to let the stowaway Volynsky pass (the hall was full). He made a scandal, and in the end the woman called the police. The policeman who came to the call took Volynsky out of the cinema and let him go without asking about the contents of his large suitcase. The failed terrorist realized that he would not be able to get inside, and went home.
For the third time, the insane Volynsky still achieved his goal by blowing up a bus at rush hour. On June 14, 1971, at about 8:20 a.m., Volynsky boarded the LAZ-695 bus, which was following the route from Herzen Street to the radio plant.
The bus was overcrowded, people were driving to work or study. At the next stop, Volynsky got off, leaving his suitcase on the bus, to which no one in the crowd paid attention. About two minutes later, there was a powerful explosion.
The bomb was stuffed with iron balls, bearings and other damaging elements. In addition, Volynsky left her in the part of the bus that was next to the gas tank, which immediately started a massive fire.
With the help of the driver, who smashed the doors and windows, most of the wounded managed to leave the blazing bus. Only those who died on the spot or were too close to the epicenter of the explosion, were seriously injured and were unable to get out of the car remained inside. A total of 10 people died: five directly at the time of the explosion, five more died in hospitals. Almost everyone on the bus was injured, that is, about 90 people.
Search for the madman
At first, it was believed that the explosion was the result of technical problems. But after a few hours it became clear that we were talking about a deliberate detonation. The investigators found the remains of an explosive device: parts of a fire extinguisher, striking elements, etc.
This confused the investigation. This kind of crime was extremely rare during that period. During the entire post-war period, only one terrorist attack occurred in the RSFSR: in 1967, a resident of Lithuania blew himself up at the entrance to the Lenin Mausoleum. The investigation did not have experience in solving such crimes. Most importantly, no one knew where to start, since the criminal's motives were completely incomprehensible. Witnesses spoke of a short man who got off the bus a couple of minutes before the explosion, but it’s difficult to find the culprit just by the composite. It was supposed to look for a person who had military experience in handling explosives. From the very beginning, the investigation almost went down the wrong path.
But when looking at old cases, investigators drew attention to the recent case of the assassination attempt on Professor Khromov. What was then mistaken for hooliganism has now become a lead for the investigators, who went to him to find out if he had any ill-wishers. Khromov named his former student Volynsky, who also matched the composite made by the witnesses of the bus explosion.
The former doctor's house was searched, after which it became clear that this is exactly who they are looking for. They found explosives and stuffing for new bombs, literature on explosives and notebooks in which he wrote down his manifestos on fighting tall people.
At the trial that took place soon after, he was declared insane and sent for compulsory treatment to a closed psychiatric hospital, where he spent almost half a century. In the 2000s, rumors periodically appeared that Volynsky either died or was released, after which he went underground to continue his crazy struggle. However, later it turned out that Volynsky is alive and is still in one of the psychiatric hospitals in the Krasnodar Territory. The attending physicians assured that he is unlikely to be released, since he is still completely under the influence of his theory of the dictatorship of tall people and the need to fight it mercilessly.
Evgeniy Antonyuk