Nowadays, Soviet people are sometimes sarcastically called "homo sovieticus". And it should be admitted that people in the USSR were really childishly naive in many things. For example, they seriously believed that they could only get rich by winning the lottery or printing money in the barn.
The Soviet government made a thorough effort to stifle the ideas of free enterprise. The situation is as in the saying: "Wherever you throw - everywhere a wedge." It was impossible to engage in private entrepreneurial activity, there was a corresponding article 153 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR in this regard. It is also impossible to engage in private trade - Article 154 of the Criminal Code was threatened for speculation.
Unnecessary inventions
But the state considered counterfeiters the most terrible of its enemies. For them, it reserved Article 87 of the Criminal Code and punishment up to the death penalty. This crime belonged to the category of especially grave, and it was supposed to go to the investigative-operational group in full force as to murder. However, upon closer examination, the terrible counterfeiters for the most part turned out to be eccentrics out of this world, who were interested in the process of making money. And only two people managed to profit from this criminal business in the USSR - the author of the so-called Ural version, who escaped punishment, and Viktor Baranov.
Baranov worked in the garage of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU. The work is responsible and honorable, it was necessary to carry the top officials of the region, including the future president of the country, Mikhail Gorbachev. But just turning the steering wheel was boring for Baranov. Somewhere inside the inventive streak itched and did not let me sleep peacefully. Noticing technical shortcomings in various areas of production, he came up with innovations. It is not known whether they were ingenious or naive. The main thing is that they were simply not needed in the country. This is one of the peculiarities of "homo sovieticus" - when everything is common, popular, why try to change something, let the high authorities do it. And the top bosses needed a plan, not innovations that could increase this very plan.
Baranov offered his device for sorting potatoes to the Committee for Inventions under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He was refused. Then he offered the chief engineer of the winery folding boxes for transporting glass containers, but he honestly told the inventor: "I don't need this." Baranov even invented a one-wheeled car, but this in the USSR did not interest anyone at all. And then he decided to start inventing for himself, and not for the state.
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Rejuvenated Ilyich
By the nature of his activity, Baranov had to visit the printing house of the newspaper "Stavropolskaya Pravda". Perhaps, watching the process of letterpress printing, he came to the idea of printing money himself. It was in this printing house that Baranov began to collect samples of various paper, which he later used. He went to Moscow, where in the Lenin Library he thoroughly studied the literature on printing. Returning home, he equipped a laboratory in a barn, where he mastered paper production and the manufacture of watermarks. In general, I independently mastered the specialties of a printer, artist, photographer, chemist and engraver. And he also invented his own technology for producing the so-called crunches - sheets of paper that would crunch like money.
Later, after the release of Baranov, journalists were eagerly eager to interview the “king of counterfeiters,” as they christened him. And then, with the filing of Viktor Ivanovich, many legends about his criminal activities were born, which are already difficult to distinguish from reality. However, we will try.
First, Baranov learned to counterfeit 50-ruble bills. But, as if in a mockery, he rejuvenated Lenin on watermarks for fifteen years. The bills sold out without any problems, no one noticed that the leader had become younger.
Then, in 1976, Viktor swung at the most difficult to produce Soviet 25-ruble denomination. And again he managed to achieve almost perfect similarity. His home-made equipment made it possible to reproduce all the smallest details of the money design in the barn. He went to sell a batch of freshly baked quarters to the Crimea. And in Simferopol, according to legend, having bought tomatoes from some granny on the street, he forgot a briefcase next to her, which contained about five thousand counterfeit rubles.
I remembered the briefcase only in the telephone booth. I rushed back, but my grandmother and my briefcase were gone. Frustrated, Baranov returned to Stavropol and re-launched his money machine. However, the Simferopol incident knocked him out of balance, and he made a mistake. While fixing the cliché to create a protective grid, Baranov mistakenly set it the other way around. And only at the exit of the finished product I discovered that the 25-ruble coins had a descent in the place where the wave should have a rise. Remembering that no one noticed the rejuvenated Lenin, Victor decided that he would do well. And this was his fatal mistake. A sharp-eyed bank teller was found, who discovered the inconsistency of the wave, and they began to double-check all the quarters.
Only within the zone
As a result, counterfeit banknotes were found in the banks of 105 cities of the USSR. After that, the country's law enforcement system set its sights on searching for an unknown counterfeiter. After analyzing the places where counterfeit 25-ruble notes were found, a special operational-investigative group came to the conclusion that their manufacturer should be sought in the Stavropol Territory, where 86 counterfeit banknotes were found in banks in a month. The most interesting thing is that Baranov knew that they were looking for him from familiar operatives, since he was a freelancer with the Stavropol police. But he couldn't stop. And he went to sell a new batch of fakes in Cherkessk. There he was caught on April 12, 1977. An Adygean seller on a collective farm market showed the police a man who asked him to change 25 rubles. The man was detained, and in his briefcase they found 1925 rubles in quarter tickets. He himself admitted that his name is Viktor Baranov and he is the counterfeiter whom they are looking for. But they didn’t believe him. They decided that he was a courier and was covering the leader of the scam. Victor had to prove to the police that he was not lying. In his barn on a homemade press, Baranov made them a batch of fakes. Only then they believed him. In the course of the investigation, it was found that he had sold 851 counterfeit 25-ruble bill, bought a car with this money, and “pounded” his wife. And for this he was "weighed" 12 years of captivity.that he sold 851 counterfeit 25-ruble bill, with this money he bought a car, "pounded" his wife. And for this he was "weighed" 12 years of captivity.that he sold 851 counterfeit 25-ruble bill, with this money he bought a car, "pounded" his wife. And for this he was "weighed" 12 years of captivity.
Baranov not only confessed, but also in a letter addressed to the Minister of Internal Affairs gave out his corporate developments for making money and proposals for their protection. But again no one was interested in his inventions.
But his abilities came in handy in the colony near Solikamsk, where Baranov created a portrait of Lenin measuring four by nine meters, which was visible for several kilometers. There is a legend that in the zone Victor, in order to punish the greedy guard, "made" several ten rubles for him. And when he was caught with them in the store and Baranov was summoned to the head of the colony, he showed that on his banknotes instead of the phrase “indeed throughout the entire territory of the USSR” it was written “really only on the territory of the zone”.
Upon his release in the 1990s, Baranov finally had the opportunity to realize his talents. He was engaged in the production of women's perfume and linen fragrances. But similar Polish and Chinese products were cheaper. And he again failed to get rich.
Fatal number
Some people are said to have fatal numbers. Viktor Baranov once lamented that he was haunted by the number 12 all his life. He lived in a small-size, 12-square-meter kraikomovskaya, spent 12 years improving the technology of issuing counterfeit money, was arrested on April 12, jailed for 12 years, served 11 years and 1 month (can also be recognized as 12), and the purchased car showed 12 kilometers on the speedometer.
Journal: Secrets of the USSR №5 / С. Ivan Smyslov