Sonya golden pen biography. Sonya the Golden Pen (Sofya Blyuvshtein) - biography, information, personal life

The undisputed queen of the criminal world of St. Petersburg in the second half of the 19th century was the famous Sonya - the Golden Pen. Sophia Blueshtein (Sheindla-Sura Leibova Solomoniak) was born in the town of Powazki, Warsaw district. The family was the same - they bought stolen goods, they were engaged in smuggling. Her older sister Feiga was also a thief who had succeeded three husbands, but she, of course, was far from Sonya.

The first victim can be considered a certain Rosenbad: in 1864, Sheindla married him in Warsaw, gave birth to his daughter Sura-Rivka and immediately left her husband, robbing him goodbye. With a certain recruit Rubinstein, she flees to Russia, where her dizzying adventures begin. In January 1866, for the first time, the police of the city of Klin grab her for the first time on charges of stealing a suitcase from the cadet Gorozhansky, whom she met on the train. Sonya got out, saying that she had taken the suitcase by mistake, and went to St. Petersburg, where she cleaned the dachas of aristocrats with her lover Michel Brener.

Apparently, it was in St. Petersburg that the famous method of hotel thefts, called "guten morgen", was invented. The method was simple - beautifully dressed, elegant Sonya stayed in the best hotels in the city, carefully studied the room plans, looked at the guests ... Having outlined the victim, she entered his room early in the morning, putting on felt shoes, began to look for money and jewelry. If the guest woke up, Sheindla pretended to have the wrong number, was embarrassed, blushed, used her sexual charms - for business she could sleep with the victim, and she did it sincerely and naturally, as they say with fiction and a twinkle ... The stolen jewelry came true jeweler Mikhailovsky, who remade them and sold them.
Subsequently, in St. Petersburg, the method of stealing with the distraction of the victim for sex will become widespread - this method will be called "hypes" - "hypes" usually worked in pairs - the woman brought the client to her room and indulged him in bed, and her partner ("cat", watching for the interests of his "cat") rummaged through the pockets of clothes left somewhere in the hallway. "Cats" - hippies often made a lot of money. The famous St. Petersburg hipster Marfushka managed to accumulate a solid capital of 90,000 rubles by the beginning of the 20th century, her colleague Sonya-Sinichka, who "worked" at about the same time, settled on the amount of 25,000 and opened a fashion workshop. The beauty-hypes Petrushkina brought a fresh stream to the method - she used trained dogs to bark signals to her "cat". There were "hypes" usually because of quarrels at the time of dividing the booty - "cats" offended by their partners with purely female logic often "knocked" on their accomplices to the police.
In 1868, Sonya briefly leaves for Dinaburg, where she marries an old rich Jew, Shelom Shkolnik, but soon leaves him. In 1870, Sonya fell asleep heavily in St. Petersburg and barely managed to escape from the reception room of the Foundry, leaving the seized things and money to the police. Realizing that in the capital she had already become somewhat familiar, Golden Pen goes on a big "international tour".

Sophia did not like small things and impromptu. I prepared carefully, tried to predict the accidents. For her, there were no high walls, no state borders. She spoke five languages, perfectly mastered secular manners, and after a successful "case" she preferred to relax in Marienbad on the forged documents of some baroness. Surprisingly, at the same time, Sonya remained an "aristocrat" of the criminal world. She was proud of her nickname as a court title, her lovers were the most famous St. Petersburg swindlers. Preferring to act alone, she nevertheless created her own gang together with Levit Sandanovich, and even became a member of the prestigious criminal club in Moscow "Jacks of Hearts".

In 1871, she married the famous railway thief Mikhel Bluvshtein, a Romanian citizen whose parents lived in Odessa. From this marriage, a daughter, Tabba, was born to Golden Handle, and the marriage itself soon broke up, because Bluvshtein constantly caught his wife with some kind of baron, then with a count, or even just with a beggar officer who liked him, from whom there was nothing to take which especially annoyed her husband.
It is strange that for all the intensity of her adventures, Sonya kept away from the police all the time - later, when she was tried at the end of 1880 in Moscow, the testimony of one witness flashed during the trial, in which he said that at one time Sheindla was recruited as an informer, paying off from the police by the fact that they "surrendered" their competitors in the craft, but it is not known how reliable this information is. The popularity of the Golden Pen among the people was so great that in the era of the absence of television news, it was recognized on the street; at first, such popularity even helped her - several times an enthusiastic public pushed the police back from her, giving her the opportunity to hide, but this could not continue for a long time ... When Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka first appeared in the dock, all Russian newspapers reported about it.

For several days spent in the Smolensk prison, Sonya charmed the guards - she read them poems in different languages, poisoned stories about life in distant countries ... In general, one gendarme arranged an escape and fled with her. After he was caught and tried, Sonya continued her work. In 1871, she was caught by the police in Leipzig and transferred under the supervision of the Russian embassy, ​​but Russia tried to get rid of her as soon as possible by deporting her abroad. In 1876, she is caught in Vienna with her lover Elias Weniger, she is accused of stealing 20 thousand thallers in Leipzig, but Sonya again, charming the policemen, slips away, pawning four stolen diamonds in the capital of Austria-Hungary ... prison, she manages to rob her own lawyer, who, despite this, did not refuse to defend her, but still gets a ridiculous term - 12 days in prison ...
Little by little, she was getting old, luck was beginning to change her, besides, her next romance with the eighteen-year-old handsome thief-marviher Volodya Kochubchik (in the world - Wolf Bromberg, known for starting his thieving career at the age of 8, managing to rob fellow profession) was not very successful - Kochubchik himself quit stealing, but mercilessly exploited Sonya, who fell in love with him without memory, demanded money from her, becoming a capricious and irritable gigolo, losing everything Sonya "earned" at cards. She was forced to take more and more risks, she was nervous, and shattered nerves always very quickly affect the success of people in such professions. Considering herself an aristocrat of the underworld, Sonya nevertheless sank even to pickpocketing.

In September 1880, Wolf adorned the neck of his mistress with a velvet piece with a blue diamond, which was taken on bail from an Odessa jeweler. The mortgage was a mortgage on a part of the house on Lanzheron. The cost of the house was four thousand more than the cost of the stone - and the jeweler paid the difference in cash. A day later, Wolf unexpectedly returned the diamond, announcing that his lady did not like the gift. Half an hour later, the jeweler discovered a fake, and an hour later he established that there was no house on Lanzheron and never was. When he broke into Bromberg's rooms on Moldavanka, Wolf admitted that Sonya had given him a copy of the stone and she had concocted a fake mortgage. The jeweler went to Sonya not alone, but with a constable.

Her trial went on from December 10 to December 19, 1880 in the Moscow District Court. Playing out noble indignation, Sonya fought desperately, not admitting either the accusations or the evidence presented. Despite the fact that witnesses identified her from a photograph, Sonya stated that the Golden Pen was a completely different woman, and she lived on the means of her husband, familiar fans. Sonya was especially outraged by the revolutionary proclamations planted in her apartment by the police. In a word, she behaved in such a way that subsequently the attorney at law A. Shmakov, recalling this process, called her a woman capable of "plugging a good hundred men into her belt", and also noted that "Sofya Blyuvshtein is an outstanding example of what she can put on the criminal scene of Jewry". The verdict read: "The Warsaw petty bourgeois Sheindlyu-Sura Leibova Rosenbad, she is Rubinstein, she is also Shkolnik, Brenner and Blueshtein, nee Solomoniak, depriving all the rights of the state, exiled to a settlement in the most remote places of Siberia." And her young lover, having escaped with 6 months of a "working house", became a wealthy landowner in southern Russia. The place of exile for Sonya was the remote village of Luzhki, Irkutsk province. Soon she managed to escape from there, and again all of Russia started talking about Sonya.
In May 1883, a charming client appeared in von Mehl's shop. A young lady, secular and wealthy, cutely grazing, introduced herself as his wife famous psychiatrist L., chose products of French masters for thirty thousand rubles, wrote out an invoice and arranged a meeting at her home. At the appointed hour, a jeweler with a collection of diamonds entered the doctor's waiting room. The hospitable hostess met him, took the box to try on the treasures for an evening dress, and invited him to her husband's office. When the jeweler insistently demanded that the psychiatrist pay the bills or return the diamonds, the orderlies tied him up and took him to the hospital. As it turned out in the evening, the beauty introduced herself to the doctor as von Mehl's wife, said that her husband had gone crazy on "pebbles", and paid for his treatment in advance. Of course, the swindlers have caught a trace ...
Soon, incredible fame began to seriously interfere with Sonya's scams. In addition, over the years, Sofya Bluvshtein became sentimental. She returned 5,000 rubles to a widow who had been robbed by her and had two daughters. The actor of the Maly Theater in a fit of feelings sent to the stage a gold watch, taken in the hall of a neighbor. Seeing a sleeping person in a hotel room young man, next to which lay a revolver and a letter to her mother with a confession about the waste of 300 rubles given for the treatment of her sister, Sonya took out a 500-ruble banknote and slipped out of the room. In addition, she spent a lot of money on the education of her daughters, who, having inherited their mother's artistic talent, later performed on the operetta stage, but carefully concealed their origin.

The Golden Pen had its own "trademarks". Under specially grown long nails, she hid precious stones, for shoplifting she had a bag dress in which a whole roll of fabric could hide. She went to work with a monkey - while the hostess was bargaining, the animal swallowed stones, and at home was freed from them with an enema.
In October 1884, in the Fanconi cafe in Odessa, a certain banker met Madame Sophia San Donato. During conversations, she asked to change her annuity of a thousand rubles. It soon became clear that the lovely lady was leaving for Moscow by the evening train, the same one as Mr. Dogmarov. The banker offered himself as a companion. In the compartment they graciously talked and ate chocolate candies. In the morning, the businessman, having slept soundly, did not find either money or securities in the amount of 43 thousand rubles.
In August 1885, the store manager T. recommended a collection of jewelry worth 22,300 rubles to the Courland baroness Sofya Buxgevden. When the jewels were packed, the respectable lady remembered that she had left the money at home. She, along with the diamonds, hurriedly left for cash, leaving as a pledge the relatives accompanying her - her father, whitened with gray hair, and a female baby along with a bonne. When they called the police station two hours later, it turned out that these "relatives" had been hired at Khitrovka on the basis of an advertisement in the newspaper.

In 1881, the Golden Pen was in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, but in the summer of 1885 she fled from Siberia. However, she did not walk in the wild for long - in December of the same year, she was again arrested in Smolensk and tried. But on June 30, 1886, she escapes from the Smolensk prison together with warden Mikhailov, who fell in love with her ... After 4 months, she was caught again ... In the summer of 1888, she was sent by steamer from Odessa to Sakhalin to Aleksandrovsk-on-Sakhalin, from where she again trying to escape - through the taiga, disguised as a soldier ... She was caught the very next day, flogged with rods in the Alexander Prison ... For two years and eight months she wore hand shackles and was kept in solitary confinement (this was the first chained woman in the history of penal servitude!) . In 1890, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov visited Sakhalin and even looked into the cell to the "Golden Pen": "From those sitting in solitary confinement, the famous Sofya Blyuvshtein, the Golden Pen, who was sentenced for escaping from Siberia to hard labor for three years, especially attracts attention. This a small, thin, already graying woman with a crumpled old woman's face, shackles on her hands, and on the bunk bed only a gray sheepskin coat, which serves her and warm clothes and bed. She walks around her cell from corner to corner, and she seems to be sniffing the air all the time, like a mouse in a mousetrap, and her expression is mouse-like. Looking at her, I can’t believe that until recently she was beautiful to such an extent that she charmed her jailers ... ”

However, the funny thing is that in fact, even the authorities of the penal servitude were not sure that it was Sofya Blyuvshtein who was serving the term, and not a figurehead. Especially after a series of thefts swept across Europe in the late nineties, very familiar in handwriting. It is not surprising that they were attributed to Sonya the Golden Pen. Imagine the surprise of the Russian police when a sensational announcement appeared in all the newspapers of the world that the famous Sonya, the Golden Pen, had been seized by the police of one of the countries. She introduced herself as the wife of the Archduke, and in the police she called herself Sophia Beck. But it was not possible to find out anything - the fraudster escaped from under the convoy, charming one of the guards ... According to other sources, these crimes were committed by another adventurer - Olga von Stein, who copied Sonya's handwriting.
In Odessa, they say that Sonya lived incognito on Prokhorovskaya Street. In 1921, she was allegedly seen on Deribasovskaya, driving in a car and scattering money "for the wake of her husband" - her last lover, who was shot by the Cheka. The last days of her life, again according to rumors, the Golden Handle lived out in Moscow with her daughters, secretly, because the daughters did not want to spoil their reputation with such family ties.
The grave at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow, where, according to legend, the great adventurer was secretly buried, is a place of pilgrimage for people with a criminal present. Monument ( female figure from chic white marble under huge black palm trees) is covered with admiring admirers of her talent. The pedestal of the monument is covered with inscriptions like: “Sonya, teach me how to live”, “Solntsevskaya lads will not forget you”, “Mother, give happiness to Zhigan”. The tombstone was ordered with the money of Odessa, Neapolitan, London, St. Petersburg and other swindlers. The monument was damaged a few years ago, when dashing guys from the Urals, drunk, climbed to kiss him and accidentally tore off the head of the statue. According to some guides, the grave was built either for fun or for worship, but in fact it is empty, while others argue that the grave is real and the most bright Star of the thieves' world at the end of the 19th century Sonya the Golden Pen.

20.09.1902

Sonka the Goldhand
Bluvshtein Sofia Ivanovna

Legendary Outlaw

Sofia Blueshtein was born on April 2, 1846 in the Powazki district of Warsaw, Poland. The girl's father was a petty merchant who traded in smuggling and buying stolen goods. Childhood passed among merchants who bought stolen goods: horse dealers, usurers and smugglers. From childhood, Sonya turned out to be “hands-on”, distinguished by brilliant acting skills and had a rich imagination, which she used solely for her own benefit.

The woman played brilliant combinations, deftly stole money and at the same time managed not to leave behind any evidence. Any man could envy her mind and fortitude, and, in addition, she was a subtle psychologist, she knew how to win over any person. It was interesting to communicate with her, she knew five languages, she was stubborn and conclusive in her judgments and had a great talent. The brave, proud, independent adventuress Sonya was not afraid to rush into the most risky scams, as she had a sharp mind, and calculated the development of the situation several moves ahead.

Sofya Bluvshtein did not receive an education, but a life full of adventure and danger turned her into one of the most educated women of her era. Russian aristocrats and European countries mistook her for a lady of the world. For this reason, she traveled around Europe without much difficulty and presented herself either as a baroness, or as a countess, or as a viscountess.

The Golden Pen was mainly engaged in thefts in hotels, jewelry stores, hunted on trains, traveling around Russia and Europe. Smartly dressed, with someone else's passport, appeared in the best hotels in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa, Warsaw, carefully studied the location of rooms, entrances, exits, corridors. Sonya invented a method of hotel theft called "guten morgen": she put on felt shoes on her shoes and, moving silently along the corridors, entered someone else's room early in the morning. Under a strong pre-dawn dream of the owner, she quietly “cleaned out” his cash. If the owner suddenly woke up, a smart lady in expensive jewelry, not noticing the "stranger", began to undress, as if by mistake taking the number for her own. It all ended in a masterly act of embarrassment.

In 1864, when Sheindl-Sura Solomoniak was eighteen years old, she married a grocer Rosenband. In Warsaw, the act of her marriage has been preserved. A year and a half later, the young woman ran away from her husband with her daughter and five hundred rubles.

From 1868 to 1874, Sophia got married several more times. One of her husbands was the well-known card cheat and carriage thief Mikhel Bluvshtein, whose last name he will carry until the end of his days. In the criminal field, she made herself known quite early. Known for petty theft when she was thirteen years old.

In November 1885, the Golden Pen was nevertheless arrested and convicted of several thefts of jewelry for a large amount. It was guarded by the most trained guards. The Bluvshtein case caused big hype in Russia. The hall where the court session was held could not accommodate everyone. Sonya was sentenced to hard labor and sent to Sakhalin. On the day of the steamer's departure, there were a lot of people on the Quarantine Mole embankment. Odessa came to say goodbye to Sonya Golden Hand.

On Sakhalin, Sonya's criminal talent did not allow her to live without a "case". The woman rallied around herself notorious thugs and began to plan criminal operations against wealthy settlers. In May 1891 he escaped. This escape has become something of a legend. The loss of the Golden Pen was noticed immediately. Two detachments of soldiers were thrown in pursuit. One detachment drove the fugitive through the forest, the other was waiting for her at the edge of the forest. The chase continued for several days. A figure in a soldier's dress ran out of the forest to the edge of the forest. The commander of the detachment, tormented by anticipation, ordered "Pli". There was a volley of thirty guns. Shooting was to kill. But the figure, a moment before the shots, fell to the ground. Thirty bullets whistled overhead. It was Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka disguised as a soldier.

In June of the same year, Sonka Zolotaya Ruchka was punished with fifteen lashes for a second escape and imprisoned in solitary confinement for four years. All these years I worked hard from morning until late at night. The perpetrator was the first woman to be held in handcuffs. Then she was again transferred to a free settlement due to illness.

In the future, Sonya began to be listed as the keeper of kvass. She brewed excellent kvass, built a carousel, recruited an orchestra of four people among the settlers, found a magician among the vagrants, staged performances, dances, festivities, copying Odessa cafes in everything. Unofficially traded vodka, bought and resold stolen goods, organized a gambling house. Police officers complained that they searched her place three times a week, day and night, but no one knew how and where she managed to store vodka. They even checked the floor and walls: to no avail.

There are many legends about the last days of the Golden Pen on Sakhalin. But many historians agree that the already ill Sonya decided on a new escape in 1902. It turned out to be a gesture of desperation, a final push for freedom. The woman walked only about two miles, until her strength left her and she fell unconscious. She was found by escorts during the detour. A few days later, on September 20, 1902, without regaining consciousness, Sonya the Golden Hand died in the prison infirmary from a cold. Buried at the local cemetery.

According to another legend last years Life Golden Pen lived with her daughters in Moscow. Although they were ashamed in every possible way of the scandalous popularity of their mother. Old age and health undermined by hard labor did not allow him to actively engage in the old thieves' profession. Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka died at an advanced age. She was buried in Moscow at the first section of the Vagankovsky cemetery. After her death, legend says, a monument was ordered from Milanese architects with the money of Odessa and London swindlers and delivered to Russia.

In the biography of this famous adventurer, truth, lies, secrets and falsifications are so intertwined that it is now difficult to figure out where is the truth, where is fiction, and where is a beautiful legend. There are several versions of the fate of Sonya the Golden Handle, and each of them is fascinating, like an adventurous novel.

Sonya Golden Hand in the form of a noble lady

No wonder the name of the swindler and the story of her life are immortalized in books, films, TV shows and crime stories. The queen of the underworld of the 19th century became famous not by the number of scams, but by the fact that she elevated the ordinary theft to the rank of thieves' art, which, as you know, always balances on the verge of vice and nobility.

Childhood and youth

Sheindlya-Sura Leibovna Solomoniak - this is the name of Sonya, received at birth. The future star of the underworld was born into a Jewish family in 1846 in the village of Powazki (Warsaw province, Kingdom of Poland, Russian empire). This is confirmed by official court documents. But then the facts already alternate with myths.

Parents - petty merchants, traded either in smuggling or buying up stolen goods, which is quite reasonable, given the innate criminal talents of children. It is known that the sister of Sheindli-Sura - Feiga - was also a noble thief.

The girl announced her thieving abilities early: at the age of 13-14 she already committed petty thefts. And at the age of 18, calling herself Sofya Ivanovna, the girl flies out of her native nest in search of a better life.

crimes

In 1864, in Warsaw, Sonia charms the grocer Isaac Rosenbad, who became her first husband. Soon the young woman gave birth to a daughter, Sura-Rivka. It would seem that it's time to become the mother of the family, but the newlywed had the wrong character - she was drawn to wealth, adventures and revels. In a word, after a year and a half, the girl, having taken 500 rubles. from her husband's shop and leaving the baby in his care, she ran away.

According to one version, the fugitive was accompanied by a certain recruit Rubinstein. The couple went to Russia, where they began a criminal business, wandering around Russian cities and Europe.

The first detention of Sonya, indicated in the sources, refers to 1866. The woman was detained in the city of Klin for stealing a suitcase. The criminal got out, repenting that she had taken the thing by mistake, and she was released.

Then Sonya "lit up" already in the capital. In St. Petersburg, together with her lover Mikhail Brenner, she cleaned the dachas of aristocrats, and then put into play the talent of a born actress, which miraculously sprouted on criminal soil.

Sony's know-how has become the new kind hotel burglaries called Guten Morgen. The principle is as follows: Sonya checked into a hotel under the guise of a rich lady, looked closely at the guests, planning victims in advance. In the morning, still dark, the thief sneaked into the room, deftly cleaned the sleeping person and retreated. If the “victim” woke up, Sonya began to make excuses: they say she mixed up the number in the dark. And those who were too distrustful had to be appeased with the help of female charms. The main thing for Sonya was not to leave without a trophy.

The end of the 60s and 70s became literally golden for the young criminal. By this time, Sonya already had a signature style and a thieves' creed. First of all, she never took on small things. Only a premonition of a big jackpot evoked in her eyes those same demonic lights - true harbingers of success.

Sonya prepared for a large-scale scam for a long time, carefully thinking through the details. An integral part of her plans was the "theatrical" component: disguise, wigs, makeup, special attributes, hired "artists" and even trained animals were used.

So, to rob jewelry stores, Sonya came up with special shoes with hiding places built into the heels to hide the booty. The thief herself walked with grown nails, under which she cleverly hid precious stones. Sonia taught larger pebbles to swallow a pet monkey, and at home she gave an enema to the “comrade”.

For some time, the woman was operating in first-class trains. Realizing that this vehicle was simply filled to the top with "money bags", Sonya, as a passenger, sat down in the compartment with the gentlemen and used female charm, and sometimes a couple of drops of sleeping pills. By morning, the victim found an empty compartment and an equally empty wallet lying on the floor.

Trains, hotels, jewelry stores were the main "field of activity" of the swindler. And each time the woman managed to elude the clutches of the police. Success turned Sonya's head: in the early 70s, she decides to go to Europe: take a break and explore new horizons.

Here the swindler pretends to be a Russian aristocrat, which is beyond doubt due to her manners. Phenomenally, but Sonya, who did not receive proper upbringing and education, spoke several languages ​​perfectly, had good manners, exquisite taste and competent speech. In a word, she had best houses Old World, and the thief managed to take advantage of it.

Leipzig, Vienna, Warsaw, Krakow, Odessa. In these cities, the adventurer was repeatedly detained by the police. However, each time she left right from under the noses of the gendarmes or got off with a meager term. For 10 years of criminal "tours" Sonya became an honorary member of the criminal club "Jacks of Hearts" and the uncrowned queen of the thieves' world Sonya Golden Hand. The woman adored her nickname, considered it more important than titles and awards.

The people have also heard about Sonya's tricks: newspapers enthusiastically describe her scams and publish photographs. Such popularity was not in favor of the criminal. Her thieving enterprises became rarer, her beauty began to fade. In a word, in 1880 Sonya's star was already waning.

In this fateful year, Sonya found herself in the dock for the first time and, after a high-profile trial, was sent to hard labor in Siberia - the village of Luzhki in the Irkutsk region. A year later, the woman escaped and was captured only in 1885 in Smolensk, having managed to commit a number of thefts. Sonya escaped from the Smolensk prison, having fallen in love with the warden. But this time, she was not free for long. In 1888, she was transferred from Odessa to Sakhalin Island, from where the woman never returned, although she made attempts to escape.

Personal life

The turbulent personal life of the famous criminal was an integral part of her criminal existence. Sonya had many cohabitants from the criminal environment, who became faithful accomplices of her scams. At the same time, the woman had an ordinary appearance. Here is how contemporaries described Sonya:

“small (153 cm), thin, pockmarked face, a wart on her cheek, but lively intelligent eyes and charming manners.”

It is known about three marriages of a swindler: with a grocer Isaac Rosenbad, a wealthy Jew from Dinaburg Shelom Shkolnik, card cheat and the thief Mikhail Bluvshtein, in a marriage with whom Sonya gave birth to two more daughters - Tabba and Mikhelina.

However, all marriages meant nothing to Sony compared to the only love of her life - Wolf Bromberg, nicknamed Volodya Kochubchik. 20 year old lover turned out to be fatal man for Sonya and became her "swan song".

The Odessa cheater and raider turned out to be a burned-out gigolo: he carelessly spent and lost all the money of an elderly mistress. Sonya could not cope with her destructive passion and again gave her beloved diamonds, pulled them out of gambling houses.

To get rid of an annoying girlfriend, Kochubchik turned her in, and in a very extravagant way. He presented Sonya with a luxurious gift - a velvet with a blue diamond, which he bought from the jeweler under the "fake mortgage" of the mansion. A day later, Kochubchik returned the diamond to the jeweler, demanding that the deal be cancelled. Having carefully examined the brought stone, the jeweler was horrified to find a fake. The cheater “honestly” told the police who came to the police that he acted on orders from Sonya. So the woman began to wander through hard labor.

Death

It is not known how she met death and where the legendary thief is buried. The main version says that Sonya died of a cold on Sakhalin after an escape attempt in 1902 and was buried in the local cemetery in the Aleksandrovsky post.

According to another - Sonya survived last days with daughters and grandchildren in Moscow. This legend is probably believed by those who visit the grave and monument at the Vagankovsky cemetery, which allegedly belong to Sonya. The dilapidated memorial is dotted with inscriptions-requests: young thieves ask Sonya for good luck in "business".

• Sonya loved to live in luxury: her favorite vacation spots are the Crimea, Pyatigorsk and the foreign resort of Marienbad (today the Czech city of Marianske Lazne).
• Before her death in 1899, she converted to Orthodoxy, after baptism she was named Maria.
• Description of the convict Sophia Blueshtein is in the book "Sakhalin Island": the writer personally met with the criminal in 1890.

• It is also known about the noble deeds of a thief. So, operating in a hotel, Sonya found a sleeping young man, next to whom lay a pistol and a suicide note in which the young man repented that he had spent government money in favor of medicines for his sick sister. Sonya, without thinking twice, left a large sum on the table and left. Another time, Sonya, having learned that she had robbed a widow with two daughters, returned the money.

Memory

• 1914 - silent film "Sonka - Golden Pen" (actress Nina Hoffman)
• 2007 - the series "Sonka - Golden Pen" (actress)
• 2010 - the series "Sonka. Continuation of the legend "(actress Anastasia Mikulchina)
• 2013 - TV series "Time Loop" (actress Liana Ermakova)

"Sonka - the Golden Pen" - a woman who went down in history, becoming famous for her very dubious talent. It is difficult not to be surprised at the ease with which this small and very charming person could serious men, guardians of the law and prison officers.

Films are being made about her and her talents to this day, they write interesting books. The nickname "Sonka - the Golden Pen", which Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein had, spoke for itself.

The great swindler of Russia - "Sonka - the Golden Pen"

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Russia stood in the forefront among the most prosperous and richest powers in the world. Every eighth inhabitant of the planet knew the Russian language. There were external enemies, from which a reliable guard defended on the border of an endless state. Internal enemies were revolutionaries - terrorists and various kinds of criminal elements that harm civilians.

It was such a prominent representative of this community that a woman named Sofya Blyuvshtein was. She was the most famous among the representatives of the underworld tsarist Russia. All printed publications told about the thieves' adventures of the legendary criminal. Interesting stories passed from generation to generation. It was impossible to buy a postcard with her image. When silent films appeared on the screens, the main character of many films was Sonya.

Sofia Ivanovna Bluvshtein: biography

"Sonya - the Golden Pen" was far from the beauty. Here are the descriptions preserved in the documents (quote): “Thin in appearance, 1 meter 53 cm tall, pockmarked face, moderate nose with wide nostrils, a wart on the right cheek, curly hair, blond, brown eyes, mobile, too bold, talkative” . Sophia Blyuvshtein was like that at that time, whose biography has been preserved unreliable.

Sophia Solomoniak - Blueshtein - Stendel did not describe her life exactly, which is why it is impossible to find information about her birth anywhere. Official court documents have records that the adventurer was born in 1846 in the Warsaw province, in the town of Powazki. She was baptized in 1899. She was educated and could speak several foreign languages ​​fluently.

Sophia got married more than once. Her last husband, Mikhail Yakovlevich Bluvshtein, was an avid card player. Among all the names she used were: Rubinstein, Rosenbad, Shkolnik and Brener.

In the sixties and seventies, this woman was engaged in theft in the cities of Russia and Europe. In 1880 Sonya was again arrested for fraud. She was brought to Moscow. The Moscow court decided to exile her to the Irkutsk region, to the remote village of Luzhki. She fled from there in 1881.

In 1885, another arrest followed in Smolensk for theft of property on an especially large scale and a sentence to three years of hard labor in prisons in the European part of Russia. And already on June 30, the criminal escaped from the Smolensk prison. In 1888, she was serving another sentence in the post of Alexander.

Chekhov's meeting with Sofia Bluvshtein took place in 1890. He described her this way in his book: “... Thin, small, with gray hair and a badly wrinkled face. On the hands are shackles. On the bunk lay a fur coat made of gray sheepskin, which served as clothing and at the same time was a bed. She walked and seemed to sniff the air all the time, like a mouse in a mousetrap. Looking at her, it was hard to believe that so recently she was famous for her beauty ... "

In 1898, "Sonka - the Golden Pen", having freed herself, left for Khabarovsk. In July 1899, after being baptized according to the Orthodox rite, she acquired the name Maria.

Sofia Ivanovna Bluvshtein: children

The only thing known about the children of this lady is that she has three of them. The first Sura-Rivka Isaakovna was born in 1865. Her mother left her, father Isaac Rosenbad, who lived in the Warsaw province of Powazki, took care of her. How the fate of the child developed in the future is unknown.

Tabba Mikhailovna, the second daughter, (named Bluvshtein) was born in 1875. She became an operetta actress in Moscow.

Bluvshtein Mikhelina Mikhailovna is Sophia's third daughter. Year of birth - 1879, also an actress of the Moscow operetta.

Criminal Talent

Sonya did not waste herself on trifles. For each new conceived business, she prepared diligently, trying to foresee all the surprises, weighing everything to the smallest detail. For a clever swindler, there were no state borders or high fences. The young woman knew how to strike up a conversation with dexterity, she was accepted into society everywhere.

The brave thief, after every successful business, liked to relax in Marienbad, imagining herself as a baroness. Sonya has always preferred to remain an aristocrat in the criminal world. Her lovers were Peter's prominent swindlers.

She loved to “work” alone, sometimes she took assistants for herself, even created her own gang and became a member of a club of criminals called “Jacks of Hearts”.

Quotes by Sofia Blueshtein

The famous director wrote a wonderful book, which very interestingly describes the life story of "Sonya - the Golden Handle."

Below are quotes from Sophia Blueshtein.

“My dear mother... I am so lonely, so hard without you. Papa lives with the rude and uncouth Evdokia, who, it is not clear where it came from on our heads. For this redneck, the main thing is that dad steals more.

“I think He rewarded me… I take risks. But this is the life that drags me forward with such force that my head is spinning all the time.

And the most important saying is known to many.

What did you steal?

Gold, right?

Not only, more diamonds.

This is not theft. Pampering.

What is theft?

Theft is when souls are stolen.

The last years of the life of "Sonya - the Golden Handle"

As they say, in the last years of her life, Sofya Bluvshtein was in Moscow with her daughters, although they were ashamed of their unlucky mother. She could not practice her old thieves' trade, as her health was undermined by hard labor.

But there was such a case when the Moscow police discovered rather strange robberies. In jewelry stores, the monkey snatched rings or diamonds from the hands of visitors and ran away. It was predicted that the famous Sonya brought the monkey from Odessa.

When exactly Sophia died is unknown. There are only legends. According to one version, she lived in Odessa until old age and died there in 1947, according to another, she died in 1920 in Moscow and was buried there.

There are other inaccurate data: she lived in Primorye until her death, and they also say that representatives of the criminal world brought her body to Moscow and buried it at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

No one really knows what really happened. Of course, it is clear that Sofya Blyuvshtein definitely ended her life, but "Sonka - the Golden Pen" lives on the planet in our century.

The power of the monument to Sophia Blyuvshtein

What in Moscow is the grave of the legendary thief - the swindler "Sonya - the Golden Pen". It is made of marble in the form of a sculpture - a woman without arms and a head. Time made itself felt: the marble cracked, the fence was torn to pieces.

There is a belief that Sonya even after death helps those who ask for it. Near the grave is always crowded, thieves come, young girls visit with the hope of finding help. Good work, and others - just on a tour.

The folds of the dress, made of stone, are covered with black marker: “Darling Sonya, help me get rich”, “I really want money”, “Help me get well, become happy” and many others. At the foot of the monument - fresh flowers.

Sonya's life was strange, everything seemed to go the other way around in her. She became an actress not on stage, as she dreamed, but in carriages, love did not exalt, but pulled to the bottom. You can end the recollection of "Sonka - the Golden Pen" with the following words: Sofya Bluvshtein was and remains a model of what Jews can give to the criminal scene.

Sonya was certainly a gifted person, without education, she spoke five languages. Traveling around Europe, she presented herself first as a countess, then as a baroness, and no one had a shadow of doubt.

The whole life of this amazing woman was surrounded by secrets and mysteries, in the emergence of which she herself was largely involved.

According to one version, Sonya was born in 1859 in large family poor Jewish barber Stendel in Berdichev. After the death of her mother, and later her father, four-year-old Sonya was taken to Odessa, where she was raised by her unloved stepmother.

Having escaped from her stepmother at the age of twelve, the smart and pretty Sonya fell into the service of the famous actress Yulia Pastrana. The brilliance and luxury surrounding Julia gave rise to envy and a thirst for enrichment in the soul of the future swindler, which served as the impetus for the start of a dizzying thieving career ...

However, the version compiled by various historians based on metrics, materials of criminal cases and eyewitness accounts is considered the closest to reality. So…

Sofia Ivanovna Bluvshtein, nee Sheindla Sura Leibovna Solomoniak, was born in 1846 in the family of a small merchant in the town of Powazki, Warsaw district. The family did not differ in integrity - they traded in stolen goods, engaged in smuggling. Well, how, tell me, could a virtuous, God-fearing bourgeois woman grow out of little Sheindli (the girl thought up the name "Sofya" for herself)? And Sonya honed her skills, rotating among the best shtetl thieves.

However, she did not wear these marriage shackles for long. The husband, who regularly found either the military or the aristocrats on the marriage bed, could not stand it and filed for divorce.

Sonya was first arrested on April 14, 1866 in a hotel in the city of Klin. She was accused of stealing a suitcase from the cadet Gorozhansky, whom she met on the train. But Sonya was not convicted, because from the courtroom she was handed over on bail to a certain Lipson, the owner of the hotel, whom she managed to charm during her short stay in Klin. After this incident, Sonya became cautious ...

After the Klin failure, Sonya moved to St. Petersburg, where, together with Michel Brener, she carried out a series of thefts. There, in St. Petersburg, together with the famous thief Levit Sandanovich, she tried to create her own criminal group.

Obviously it was during this period that new method hotel burglaries "Guten Morgen". The method was as simple as it was ingenious: elegantly dressed, impeccable Sonya entered the victim's room and began to look for money and jewelry. If she was caught "hot" she was embarrassed, apologized, pretended to have the wrong number. Sonya never left the room without prey, if necessary, she could even sleep with the victim and did not see anything shameful in this. This method was worked out by her to the smallest detail, and she practically did not know failures.

In the seventies, Sonya, realizing that she had become somewhat familiar in St. Petersburg (and the scope was not the same!), She, along with several accomplices, went to Europe. Warsaw, Vienna, Paris, Leipzig - the geography of Sonya's crimes knew no bounds. The fraudster easily posed as a Russian aristocrat traveling abroad. The doors to the best houses of high society were opened before her ...

The wave of crimes that swept across Europe made the whole world talk about Sonya. The "Golden Pen" (Sonka received such a nickname in thieves' circles) was distinguished by particular scrupulousness. She carefully prepared for each crime. The best thieves in Europe worked in her team, in her arsenal there were many devices necessary for work: false nails, where the fraudster hid small jewelry stones, shoes with special heels, to which jewelry stuck “in time”, a bag dress where Sonya hid loot ... But the main thing in her arsenal of all sorts of tricks was undoubtedly acting talent, which helped her get out of any situation.

Sonya's reputation in the underworld grew every day. In 1872, Sofya Blyuvshtein received an offer to join the Jack of Hearts, the largest club of Russian swindlers, and a few years later she headed it. The activity of the club extended to the whole territory of Russia.

In 1885, luck again betrayed Sonya, this time for good. After robbing several large jewelry stores, she was captured and, after a long trial, sentenced to hard labor. On the day the convicts sailed on the embankment of the Quarantine Mole, there was nowhere for an apple to fall. It was Odessa that came out to say goodbye to Sonya the Golden Pen. She tried to escape from hard labor three times - unsuccessfully three times. After the third attempt, Sonya died ...

In the materials of the investigation in 1872 (according to the verdict of the court, Sonya was then deprived of all civil rights), it is mentioned that she is a “Warsaw petty bourgeois”, “nee Solomoniak”, “26 years old”. From which it is not difficult to conclude that the genuine Golden Pen was born in 1846. And, therefore, at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, she would have been the most deserved repatriate, which, perhaps, would have landed in the Guinness Book of Records.

known about three daughters Sofia Blueshtein:
Sura-Rivka Isaakovna (nee Rosenbad) (born 1865) - abandoned by her mother, remained in the care of her father, Isaac Rosenbad, in the town of Powazki, Warsaw province, fate is unknown.
Tabba Mikhailovna (née Bluvshtein) (born 1875) is an operetta actress in Moscow.
Mikhelina Mikhailovna (née Bluvshtein) (born 1879) is an operetta actress in Moscow.