Three women were officially executed in the USSR during all the post-war years. Death sentences to the fairer sex were passed, but not carried out, and here the case was brought to the point of execution. Who were these women, and for what crimes they were still shot. Crime stories of Antonina Makarova, Tamara Ivanyutina and Berta Borodkina.
Antonina Makarova (Tonka-machine gunner) (1921-1979)
In fact, her name was Antonina Makarovna Parfenova, but at school the teacher confused her name when writing in the class journal, so she was recorded in school documents as Antonina Makarova.
She volunteered for the front, worked as a nurse. During the defense of Moscow, she was captured, from which she was able to escape. For several months she wandered through the forest until she reached the village of Krasny Kolodets in the company of soldier Fedchuk, with whom she managed to escape from captivity. Fedchuk had a family in this village, so he left Makarova, who during their wanderings became his "field wife".
Now the girl came alone to the village of Lokot, occupied by the German invaders. Here she decided to get a job with the invaders. In all likelihood, the girl wanted a well-fed life after months of wandering through the forests.
Antonina Makarova was given a machine gun. Now her job was to shoot Soviet partisans.
At the first execution, Makarova was a little confused, but they poured her vodka and it went well. In a local club, after a “hard day's work,” Makarova drank vodka and worked as a prostitute, pleasing German soldiers.
According to official figures, she shot more than 1,500 people, and only the names of 168 who died were restored. This woman did not disdain anything. She gladly took off her favorite clothes from the executed and sometimes complained that very large blood stains remained on the things of the partisans, which were then difficult to remove.
In 1945, Makarova, using forged documents, pretended to be a nurse. She got a job in a mobile hospital, where she met the wounded Viktor Ginzbur. Young people registered their relationship, and Makarova took her husband's surname.
They were an exemplary family of honored front-line soldiers, they had two daughters. They lived in the city of Lepel and worked together in a garment factory.
The KGB began looking for Tonka the machine gunner immediately after the liberation of the village of Lokot from the Germans. For more than 30 years, the investigation unsuccessfully checked all women named Antonin Makarov.
The case helped. One of Antonina's brothers filled out the documents for traveling abroad and indicated his sister's real name.
The collection of evidence has begun. Several witnesses identified Makarova, and Tonka the machine gunner was arrested on her way home from work.
It should be noted that during the investigation Makarova behaved very calmly. She believed that a long time had passed and that the sentence would not be very harsh.
Her husband and children did not know about the real reason for the arrest and actively began to seek her release, however, when Viktor Ginzburg learned the truth, he left Lepel with his daughters.
On November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova to be shot. She reacted very calmly to the verdict and immediately began to file petitions for clemency, but they were all rejected.
On August 11, 1979, she was shot.
Tamara Ivanyutina (? -1987)
In 1986, Ivanyutina got a job as a dishwasher in a school. On March 17 and 18, 1987, several school workers and students immediately sought medical help. Four people died immediately, and another 9 were in intensive care in serious condition.
The investigation went to Tamara Ivanyutina, who, during a search in her apartment, found a toxic solution based on the waist.
Further investigation showed that since 1976 the Ivanyutin family has been actively using the waist to eliminate nasty acquaintances and, of course, for selfish purposes.
It turned out that Tamara Ivanyutina poisoned her first husband in order to take possession of his living space, and then remarried. In her second marriage, she had already managed to send her father-in-law to the next world and slowly teased her husband so that he would not have a desire to cheat on her.
I would like to note that the sister and parents of Tamara Ivanyutina also poisoned many people. The investigation proved 40 poisonings, 13 of which resulted in the death of the victims.
Tamara Ivanyutina was sentenced to death, her sister Nina to 15 years in prison, her mother to 13, and her father to 10.
Berta Borodkina (1927-1983)
By a fateful coincidence, the merited trade worker Berta Naumovna Borodkina, who did not kill anyone, was included in this mournful list along with the murderers. She was sentenced to death for theft of socialist property on an especially large scale.
In the 1980s, a confrontation broke out in the Kremlin between the chairman of the KGB Andropov and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov. Andropov tried to unleash large-scale embezzlement cases in order to discredit the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was in charge of the OBKhSS. At the same time, Andropov tried to neutralize the head of the Kuban - Medunov, who at that time was considered the main contender for the post of General Secretary of the CPSU.
Since 1974, Berta Borodkina has headed the restaurant and canteen trust in Gelendzhik. During her "reign" she received the nickname "Iron Bertha". There is even a legend among the people, they say that Berta Naumovna developed her own special recipe for Gelendzhik-style meat, which was cooked in seven minutes and at the exit had almost the same weight as raw.
The scale of her theft was simply colossal. Every waiter, bartender and head of the canteen in the city was obliged to give her a certain amount of money in order to continue to work in the "bread place". Sometimes the tribute turned out to be simply unbearable, but Iron Bertha was adamant: either work as you should, or give way to another applicant.
Borodkina was arrested in 1982. The investigation revealed that over the years of her leadership of the trust of restaurants and canteens, she stole more than 1,000,000 rubles from the state (at that time it was just a fantastic amount).
In 1982 she was sentenced to death. Berta's sister says that in prison she was tortured and used psychotropic drugs, as a result of which Borodkina finally lost her mind. Not a trace remained of the former Iron Bertha. From a blooming woman, in a short time she turned into a deep old woman.
In August 1983, the sentence was carried out.
