Sonya golden pen life story. Sofia Bluvshtein: photo, biography, children

Sonya Golden Pen- Sofya Ivanovna Blyuvshtein

(1846 - late 1890s)

She was called the devil in a skirt, and her adventures formed the basis of many detective stories - novels, plays, films, one of which is “Desire” (1936) with the famous Marlene Dietrich in the title role...

According to surviving court records, she was born in 1846 into a Jewish family in the town of Powonzski near Warsaw. A girl was born from her mother’s second marriage and was recorded by the name of her father, a small merchant (and in fact a moneylender and buyer of stolen goods) as Sheindlya-Sura Leibovna Solomoniak. As an adult, she will call herself Sofia Ivanovna.

According to other sources, the future swindler was born in 1859 near Odessa.

Be that as it may, Sheindlya grew up to be a nimble, cunning and tenacious girl. By the age of fifteen, she had already graduated from school, spoke excellent Polish, German, Russian, and knew Yiddish. And at seventeen, she also mastered conversational French: fashionable Warsaw, where Sonya visited on trade business, then called itself nothing less than “the second Paris.”

It was in Warsaw that eighteen-year-old Sheindlya married the merchant I. Rosenband. But the happiness of the young family was short-lived. After the birth of her daughter, Sonya ran away from her husband, taking the child and her husband’s wallet with a huge amount of money. This was her first serious “offense.”

At the age of twenty she was arrested in Klin under the name of Sima Rubinstein. This lady, the mother of two daughters, was detained with a suitcase stolen at the station and released, given bail to a certain Lipson. Since then, Sonya has never been caught red-handed...

Usually she was involved in thefts in hotels, jewelry stores and railway trains. The elusive fraudster appeared in Berlin, St. Petersburg and Moscow, Odessa and Warsaw. Dressed in diamonds and a veil, she silently entered hotel rooms, expertly using master keys. If everything went according to plan, then the guests’ money and jewelry disappeared.

“Sofochka constantly wore makeup, false eyebrows, wigs, expensive Parisian hats, original mantillas, which she strewn with jewelry,” says Stas Sadalsky about her acting abilities. - On the train, exquisitely dressed, she sat in a compartment, playing the role of a marquise, a countess or a rich widow. She endeared herself to her fellow travelers, made them fall in love with her, laughed, flirted and waited for the victim to begin to be shackled by Morpheus... She couldn’t stand less than three thousand for the trip. Sofa did not count money, did not save for a rainy day. Pawnshops in Paris, Nice, Vienna, and Budapest easily gave collateral for stolen items left to an “influential” lady. Sonya squandered them in an instant.”

She loved to dress well and live luxuriously. She got down to business only when the money ran out or she had to send another sum for the maintenance and education of her daughters, whom she sent to Europe.

One day, the police found an original dress in her Odessa apartment. At the bottom it was connected to the petticoat, and there was a secret pocket at the bodice. It’s easy to put anything into such a pocket - even a roll of expensive fabric! However, most of all Sonya loved jewelry. Her graceful hands with well-groomed nails always sparkled with expensive rings. Entering a luxury store, the “rich lady” asked to see the diamonds, and sometimes the precious stones ended up under her nails, while the fake ones remained on the counter.

Sonya could not be called a beauty. But slender, charming, with regular facial features, she seemed, as eyewitnesses say, “hypnotically sexy.”

Journalist Vlas Doroshevich, who talked with her on Sakhalin, admitted: “Her eyes were wonderful, infinitely soft, velvety... and they spoke in such a way that they could lie perfectly.”

If at first Sonya operated alone, then she began to act with a group of accomplices, according to a carefully developed plan. One of her favorite “performances” is a robbery on a train. An exquisitely dressed lady was seated in a first-class compartment and began to “work on” her rich fellow traveler: she flirted, drank champagne, carried away and seemed carried away herself. Finally, the victim was put to sleep by the offer of a cigarette, intoxicating perfume, or a pill dissolved in a glass. Money and gold cigarette cases immediately disappeared behind Sonya's bodice... She herself also disappeared - into third-class carriages. There, I immediately changed my clothes and got off at the first station.

In the 70s of the 19th century, Sonya the Golden Hand, as her fellow craftsmen began to call her, acquired enormous authority in the criminal world. She was constantly traveling: Paris, Nice, renting luxurious apartments in Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Leipzig...

The gang organized by Sonya included her ex-husbands and relatives. The inveterate swindler was no stranger to compassion: once, having read in the newspaper that she had robbed the widow of a poor official, who had received a one-time allowance of five thousand rubles for the death of her husband, Sonya immediately returned the stolen goods.

“Dear Madam! - she wrote. - I read in the newspaper about the grief that befell you, the cause of which turned out to be me (due to my thoughtless passion for money). I'm sending you your money. And I advise you to hide them deeper in the future. Once again I apologize."

Zolotoruchka maintained an orphanage, listed large sums to churches, supported thieves in trouble, giving bribes to prosecutors and judges for them.

They tried to try her in Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Kharkov, but she always either simply slipped away from the police station, or the case was closed for lack of evidence. Confident in herself, she became furious when her freedom was encroached upon. From the multi-volume investigative materials you can find out what scandals Sonya caused the police. Her ability to justify herself with sincere fervor and sometimes with tears, to defend her “decency and purity”, confused even experienced servants of the law. But somehow, by order of the chief police chief of Moscow, she was sent to Bessarabia, and in 1879 she was again arrested red-handed in Odessa and taken under guard to the capital. Her name and portraits appeared endlessly in the press. Three daughters, having learned the truth, turned away from their mother. Her passion for twenty-year-old Odessa resident, gambler and thief Wolf Bromberg turned into bitter disappointment. Having inexplicable power over Sonya, he extorted large sums from her. Her next husband, railway thief Mikhel Bluvshtein, left her...

The latest dossier shows that Sonya's trial took place in Moscow in December 1880. She desperately fought for her freedom, even declaring Sonya the Golden Hand to be a completely different, mythical woman. But by decision of the Sheindl court, Bluvshtein was “deprived of all rights of the estate” and sent to settle in Siberia, from where she escaped in 1885. Having reached Smolensk, she was captured and sentenced to three years of hard labor and forty lashes. But even here, while the trial was going on, Sonya, who had exchanged her fifties, charmed the prison guard. At night, he gave her a civilian dress and led the prisoner out as an employee of the Smolensk prison.

She was arrested again in Nizhny Novgorod. They were sent to the end of the world, like a convict, to Sakhalin. At hard labor, Sonya first lived outside prison, almost freely. Disguised as a soldier, she set off on the run through the wild, impenetrable taiga, and was caught again. After flogging with rods, the famous thief was put in shackles and put in a damp solitary cell with a dim, dim window for three years. Here Anton Pavlovich Chekhov saw her in 1890, traveling around Sakhalin.

“Of those sitting in solitary confinement,” he wrote, “the famous Sofia Bluvshtein, the Golden Hand, especially attracts attention... She is a small, thin, already graying woman with a rumpled, old woman’s face... Looking at her, I can’t believe that just recently she was beautiful to such an extent that she charmed her jailers..."

After serving solitary confinement, Sonya returned to the settlement in the late 1890s, but she was still, and not without reason, suspected of cleverly concealed crimes. Having become the owner of a local café, she became friends with a former repeat offender, the stupid and cruel Nikolai Bogdanov, who beat her mercilessly.

One day, already sick, broken and madly yearning for her daughters, Sonya, in a last burst of despair, rushed to freedom. The next day she was found two miles from the village, collapsed and no longer needed by anyone. According to one version, the guards broke her ribs and a few days later the former Golden Hand left this world.

However, historians claim that after Sakhalin, Sonya lived happily in Moscow with her daughters. In 1921, she was still alive and, driving through the streets, scattered money to commemorate the soul of her last lover. According to this version, Sophia Bluvshtein is buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

Life story - Sofya Bluvshtein "Sonka the Golden Hand"

Who should a Jewish woman be in Russia at the end of the century before last in order to become everyone’s favorite, so that before any television she would be recognized by sight, so that the first domestic series of eight silent episodes would be filmed about her life, so that cards with her image would sell out like newspapers, in which articles about her sometimes took up more than one page? A talented thief.

“Sonka the Golden Pen” shocked the human imagination at the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, her thieves' nickname (like the name of the English innkeeper Hooligan, who robbed and killed his guests) became a household name and long time existed in Russian colloquial language.

However, in the memory of people of the older generation, “Sonka the Golden Hand” was not an extortionist and a talented deceiver, like Olga von Stein, but a Russian version of Professor Moriarty, a kind of queen of the underworld. According to legend, while in prison, she knew how to join her hands so skillfully that she could freely remove her hand shackles.

Chronological inconsistencies also arise. For example, Sonya’s exploits occurred at the end of the 19th century, and Olga “worked” until 1912.The image of “Sonka - the golden pen” was created by word of mouth. This was the thieves' nickname of Sofia Ivanovna Bluvshtein, a Jewish woman from Odessa, born in 1855.

A.P. Chekhov, who visited Sakhalin Island in the summer of 1890, left interesting memories of this lady. Then the most famous thief in Russia and Europe was imprisoned in solitary confinement in hand shackles. Before that, the Golden Hand was in prison in Smolensk, from where she managed to escape along with the warden who was guarding her. Like all women exiled to Sakhalin, at first she lived outside prison in a free apartment. Soon, disguised as a soldier, she and her partner escaped again, but were caught, shackled and placed in solitary confinement.

While Sonya was free, several daring crimes were committed at the Aleksandrovsky post - the murder of shopkeeper Nikitin and the theft of 56,000 rubles from the Jewish settler Yurkovsky, a huge sum at that time. Everyone knew that Sonya was hiding behind these crimes, but investigators were unable to prove this fact. Both in freedom and on Sakhalin, Sonya had a trail of loud glory. They said that she knew how not only to professionally organize crimes, but also to hide their traces well.

Vlas Mikhailovich Doroshevich, a talented reporter of his time, wrote in more detail about “Sonya the Golden Pen”. He met her during his trip to Sakhalin in 1905, when Sofya Ivanovna was already living in the settlement with her partner, exiled settler Bogdanov. According to camp terminology, she was considered an “exiled peasant woman.”

Doroshevich was looking forward to meeting “Mephistopheles,” “Rocambole in a skirt,” with a powerful criminal nature that was not broken by hard labor, solitary confinement, or heavy hand shackles. She wore them for two years and eight months. Unlike Olga von Stein, who turned out to be a charming extortionist, Sofya Bluvshtein was the organizer of many unsolved robberies and murders.

And finally, the long-awaited meeting took place. Before the eyes of the famous journalist and reporter stood a small, fragile old woman with traces of bygone youth, with rouged, wrinkled, baked apple, face, in an old hood. “Really,” thought Doroshevich, “it was She?” All that remained of the old Sonya were soft, expressive eyes that could lie perfectly. In her manner of speaking she was a simple Odessa bourgeois, a shopkeeper who knew Yiddish and German. An excellent judge of human characters, Doroshevich could not understand how her (Sonka’s) victims could mistake the “Golden Hand” for a famous artist or an aristocratic widow?

An all-Russian, almost European celebrity, Sonya was in the spotlight on Sakhalin too. There were various legends about her there. The opinion was stubbornly held that she was not real at all, but a “replacement worker” who was serving a sentence for the real Sonya, who continued her criminal “activities” in distant Russia. Even Sakhalin officials, who learned that Doroshevich had seen and remembered photographs of the “Golden Pen” taken before the trial, asked him: “Well, is she? The same one?” To which the journalist, who had an excellent professional memory, replied: “Yes, but only the remains of that Sonya.”

Her criminal nature did not give up and stubbornly fought against the convict regime of Sakhalin. She was flogged, and according to the terrible Sakhalin executioner Komlev, in the most cruel way. A local photographer organized a profitable business on Sonya, selling photographs of the “Golden Pen”. She was taken to the prison yard, placed next to an anvil, a blacksmith with a hammer, guards and Sofya Bluvshtein in hand shackles. Sailors from ships coming from the mainland and tourists of that time readily bought such photos. The Sakhalin penal servitude treated the “Golden Hand” with respect. “Baba is the head,” they said about her. In modern thieves' jargon, she would be called a "thief in law."

Sofia Bluvshtein. Photo from the book of Count Amaury. "Sonka - Golden Hand"

“Golden Handle” is an old street nickname for a highly skilled pickpocket.

Sophia’s partner, Bogdanov, told Doroshevich about her: “Now Sophia Ivanovna is sick and doesn’t do anything.” Officially, she brewed excellent kvass, built a carousel, organized an orchestra from the settlers, found a magician, organized performances, dances and celebrations. And unofficially, she sold vodka, which was strictly prohibited on Sakhalin. And although this was widely known, no searches revealed the manufacturer of the “green serpent.” Only empty bottles the kvass was found by law enforcement officers. She kept a “raspberry”, sold and bought stolen things, but the police were unable to detect the stolen goods.

Thus, she “fought for life,” dreaming of returning to Russia again. She bombarded the capital's reporter with questions about the city of her childhood - Odessa. During one of the meetings, Sonya told Doroshevich that she had two daughters left in Odessa who performed in the operetta as pages. She begged to be informed of their fate, since she had not received any news from them for a long time. As Doroshevich wrote about this story, “There was no more Rocambole in a skirt.” An old woman, the mother of her unfortunate children, about whose fate she had known nothing for a long time, was sobbing in front of a metropolitan reporter.

This is the end of the story of the true “Sonya the golden hand” - Sofia Ivanovna Blyuvshtein. Taking into account the testimony of two independent, highly authoritative informants - A.P. Chekhov and V.M. Doroshevich, one can understand how two people turned out to be combined into one different people- Olga von Stein and Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, “Sonka the Golden Pen” became a symbol of the superstar of the criminal world. At the time when the real Sophia was serving her exile on Sakhalin, her name was floating around the cities and villages of Russia. It is quite natural that another adventuress, Olga von Stein, inherited the famous thief nickname.

Sources - « X-Files XX century", 2001, http://tonnel.ru/?l=gzl&uid=450, http://www.gzt.ru/http://a-pesni.golosa.info/

P.S. In the mid-nineties, a series of mysterious robberies swept across Europe. And the main suspect was a woman. The handwriting and description of the criminal resembled our heroine. The criminal was not caught. Again everything pointed to the handwriting of the Golden Hand. But she was in hard labor.
Recent years life, as the legend says, the Golden Hand lived with her daughters in Moscow. Although they were in every possible way ashamed of their mother’s scandalous popularity. Old age and health undermined by hard labor did not allow him to actively engage in the old profession of thieves. But the Moscow police were faced with strange and mysterious robberies. A small monkey appeared in the city, which in jewelry stores jumped on a visitor who was picking up a ring or diamond, swallowed the valuable item and ran away. Sonya brought this monkey from Odessa.
Legend has it that Sonya the Golden Hand died at an old age. She was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, plot No. 1. After her death, says legendyes, with the money of Odessa, Neapolitan and London scammers, a monument was ordered from Milanese architects and delivered to Russia.

What was the cost of one poem by the Odessa raider Volodya Kochubchik, dedicated to his star friend and read by him with the expression at the court hearing:

Even if you were born a gypsy,
Darkened hands and face,
But you are in front of an Italian woman
There is no comparison whatsoever.
There is no sweeter love for you,
Everyone pales in front of her
And there’s only one me, meaner than everyone else,
I laugh at her like fools.

Sonya-Golden Hand (Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein) - Madonna criminal world, whose name is surrounded by the most amazing legends; so much so that now hardly anyone can know for sure where the truth is and where the fiction is. The grave at the Vagankovskoe cemetery (1st site) in Moscow, where, as legend says, the great adventurer was secretly buried, is a place of pilgrimage for people with a criminal present. The monument is covered with admiring admirers of her talent.
What a pity that there are no photographs of which one could say with complete confidence that it depicts Sonya herself. But this is her monument, although someone managed to behead it.....

Page 8 of 15

Mysterious Sofia Bluvshtein - Sonya - Golden Hand...

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the so-called “Blue Magazine” was published in Moscow under a dark cover. In the few copies that accidentally fell into my hands, I became acquainted with stories, short stories, feuilleton novels, entirely dedicated to the category of outlaw people: all kinds of swindlers, shipping cheats, “billiard kings,” merchants of human goods and other shady personalities. Much more fascinatingly, this world was represented by the fair sex; provincial touring actresses, chansonettes in search of an engagement, elderly ladies with a brood of young and pretty girls, beautiful and chic adventurers, sometimes accompanied by a young, elegant, shaven and powdered gigolo, were described.

Among this aristocracy of vice, the first place is occupied by the adventures of the notorious Sonya the Golden Hand, which made a splash from Warsaw to Harbin. Her popularity was unheard of. The end of the career of the brave raider was exile to the island of Sakhalin, where, after serving her sentence, she remained to live, maintaining a “duvan”, i.e. buying stolen goods.

Gradually, Blue Magazine, having taken possession of her nickname and embellished the legend, began to portray Sonya as a lady of the demimonde, a chic high-flying adventuress, with a rich wardrobe, jewelry and a collection of false passports in the name of baronesses and countesses. "Blue Magazine" glorified the image of the heroine, her beauty, intelligence, tact, courage and truly devilish dexterity. Her personal charm and power of suggestion bordered on the miraculous.

We must not forget the main thing: Sonya the Golden Hand, as a figment of the Blue Magazine’s imagination, was a product of crazy years late XIX
and the beginning of the twentieth century, the only era in the history of Russia of unprecedented industrial and financial takeoff, a hysterical stock exchange, new quickly rich people. Life flowed under a golden rain: the wars of 1905 and 1914 gave birth to a legion of millionaires, they were in a hurry to live and in a hurry to feel... From now on everything was allowed, crazy money destroyed all barriers - excitement and gold on the green cloth of tables, unprecedented revelries, sleepless nights and women , women... princesses and models, cocottes in diamonds and sables, champagne with ether, cocaine and tango - the dance of love and death, and the poet of our time - pale Pierrot - Vertinsky.
There is little reliable information about Sofya Bluvshtein.

According to some, she was born in Russian Poland, in Warsaw, according to others - in Odessa. One date of her birth is 1859, the other is 1869. Neither her maiden name nor the place and date of death are known. Only one thing is known - that she was born into a poor, decent Jewish family and married a professional thief, Mikhail - Mikhel - Blyuvshtein. The marriage soon broke up due to Sophia's constant adultery. But its loud trial during the reign Alexandra III, in 1886, was covered by all Russian and even foreign newspapers. As a result, she was convicted and exiled to Sakhalin, where she was seen by Chekhov and famous journalist Vlas Doroshevich. Both left their impressions of her and the place of her imprisonment.

One thing is surprising - that even in modern times Sonya has a considerable number of fans. A monument made of expensive stone unexpectedly appeared at a famous Moscow cemetery. Again there is no date of death, nor an indication of the place where the famous adventuress died. The myth about Sonya continues to live.

Alla TER-ABRAMOVA, Moscow–Paris

Who are you, Sonya - Golden Hand?

There were legends about this woman. They loved her, they worshiped her, they fawned over her. Books were written about her and films were made. The most brilliant houses in Europe opened their doors to her...

So who is she, Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein, Sonya – the Golden Hand, the queen of the thieves’ world?

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 the poor Jewish barber Shtendel 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 run away from her stepmother at the age of twelve, the smart and pretty Sonya ended up in the service of the famous artist Julia 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 career as a thief...

According to another version, Sophia’s criminal talent awoke after an unsuccessful romance with a young Greek - the son of a famous shopkeeper in Odessa. Then the young lovers ran away from home, taking a decent amount of money from one of the shops of their Greek father. However, the money did not last long, and along with the money, love evaporated. The failed lover returned to the family hearth, but Sonya...

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

Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein, nee Sheindlya Sura Leibovna Solomoniak, was born in 1846 in the family of a small merchant in the town of Powazki, Warsaw district. The family was not distinguished by its integrity - they dealt in stolen goods and were involved in smuggling. Husband older sister Feiga was repeatedly convicted of theft, and Feiga herself was a talented thief. Well, tell me, how could little Sheindly (the girl came up with the name Sophia herself) grow into a virtuous, God-fearing bourgeois? And Sonya honed her skills, moving among the best local thieves.

The parents dreamed of seeing their girl as a respectable mother of the family, so that she could escape from the filth in which they themselves lived. The persuasion had an effect, and in 1864, eighteen-year-old Sonya married the venerable grocer Isaac Rosenbad. At first, she diligently tried to play the role of a good wife and even gave birth to Rosenbad’s daughter Sura-Rivka, but her patience did not last long: after a year and a half family life Sofya Rosenbad, taking her daughter and 500 rubles from her husband’s grocery store, disappeared in an unknown direction.

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, since 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...

Sophia was not a beautiful woman. This is how she was described in police documents: “Height 1 m 53 cm, pockmarked face, moderate nose with wide nostrils, wart on the right cheek, brunette, curly hair on the forehead, mobile eyes, impudent and talkative.” And yet, Sophia enjoyed incredible success with men. She married several times, having been Sofia Rubinstein, and Sofia Shkolnik, and Sofia Brener, and Sofia Blyuvshtein...

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. Apparently it was during this period that a new method of hotel theft, “Guten Morgen,” was invented. The method was as simple as it was ingenious: elegantly dressed, impeccable Sonya entered the victim’s room and began looking for money and jewelry. If she was caught in the act, she would be embarrassed, apologize, and pretend that she had the wrong number.

Sonya never left her room without loot; if necessary, she could even sleep with the victim and saw nothing wrong with that. This method was worked out by her to the smallest detail and she practically did not know the details.

In the seventies, Sonya, realizing that she had become somewhat familiar in St. Petersburg (and not on the same scale!), she and several accomplices went to Europe. Warsaw, Vienna, Paris, Leipzig – the geography of Sonya’s crimes knew no bounds. Despite the lack of education, she had a sharp mind and strong intuition. In addition, over the years of her vigorous activity, Sofya Bluvshtein perfectly mastered the languages ​​- German, French, Polish. The fraudster easily posed as a Russian aristocrat traveling abroad. The doors were open to her best houses high society... The wave of crimes that swept across Europe made the whole world talk about Sonya.

The Golden Hand (Sonka received this nickname in thieves' circles) was particularly scrupulous. She carefully prepared for each crime. The best thieves in Europe worked on 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 they stuck “in time” jewelry, the dress was a bag where Sonya hid the loot... But the main thing in her arsenal of all kinds of tricks was undoubtedly her acting talent, which helped her get out of any situations.

Sonya's reputation in the criminal world grew every day. In 1872, Sofya Bluvshtein received an offer to join the largest club of Russian scammers, “Jack of Hearts,” and a few years later she headed it. The club's activities extended to the entire territory of Russia.

Sonya got caught several times, but she always managed to avoid punishment. In 1871, it fell into the hands of the Leipzig police, who chose to immediately get rid of it by transferring it under the supervision of Russia. However, Russia did not want to get involved with her, and Sonya was expelled from the country... In 1876, she “fell asleep” in Vienna, but she managed to escape from custody with the help of a warden who was in love with her... Having fallen into the hands of the Krakow police, Sonya manages to rob her( !) lawyer, who, despite this, did not refuse to defend her, and Sonya got off with only a two-week sentence...

But soon luck turned away from her. In 1880, after a high-profile trial, Sofya Bluvshtein was convicted by a Moscow court and sent to Siberia, but she managed to escape from there. And again, all of Russia started talking about Sonya. She robbed jewelers, bankers, industrialists...

In 1885, Sonya’s luck changed again, this time completely. After robbing several large jewelry stores, she was captured and, after a long trial, sentenced to hard labor.

On the day of the sailing of the Katarzhan women, there was nowhere for an apple to fall on the Quarantine Pier embankment. It was Odessa who came out to say goodbye to Sonya the Golden Hand.

She tried to escape from hard labor three times - three times unsuccessfully. After the third attempt, Sonya died...

...At the beginning of the twentieth century, after Sonya’s death, a wave of crimes swept across Europe again, the style of which was surprisingly reminiscent of the famous swindler. 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 Hand, had been captured by the police of one of the countries. She introduced herself as the wife of the Erz-Duke, and to the police she called herself Sophia Beck. But nothing was found out - the fraudster escaped from the convoy, charming one of the guards...

In Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery there is a monument brought from Italy depicting beautiful woman under three palm trees. There are always fresh flowers and scatterings of coins on the grave. They say that under this monument lies Sonya the Golden Hand. They say…

Grave of Sophia Bluvshtein

Sonya Golden Handle, aka Rubinstein, aka Shkolnik, aka Brenner, aka Bluvshtein, nee Sheindlya-Sura Solomoniak.

Sofia Ivanovna Bluvshtein was born in 1846 in the small town of Powonzki, Warsaw district. Sheindley spent his childhood among merchants who bought stolen goods - profiteers, moneylenders and smugglers.

As they say, she did not sparkle with beauty, but she had that inner charm that was simply impossible to resist. This is how she was described in the police report: “Height 1 m 53 cm, pockmarked face, moderate nose with wide nostrils, wart on the right cheek, brunette, curly hair on the forehead, mobile eyes, impudent and talkative.” But, apparently, the ability to use makeup and wigs made the swindler’s external flaws invisible.

This woman played brilliant combinations, cleverly stole money and at the same time managed not to leave any evidence behind her. Any man could envy her intelligence and fortitude, and, in addition, she was a subtle psychologist who knew how to win over any person. It was interesting to communicate with her, Sonya knew five languages, and was persistent and convincing in her judgments. And she had the main thing that made her stand out from the crowd of ordinary scammers - she had enormous talent. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this talent was channeled into crime. The brave, proud, independent adventurer Sonya was not afraid to plunge into the most risky scams, because... 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 adventures and dangers turned this person into one of the most educated women of her era. Aristocrats of Russia and European countries they took her for a society lady. For this reason, she traveled around Europe without much difficulty and introduced herself as a baroness, a countess, or a viscountess... No one doubted her belonging to the aristocracy.

The Golden Hand was mainly involved in thefts in hotels, jewelry stores, and hunted on trains, traveling around Russia and Europe. Smartly dressed, with someone else's passport, she appeared in best hotels 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 felt shoes on her shoes and, silently moving along the corridors, entered someone else's room early in the morning. While the owner was fast asleep before dawn, she quietly “cleaned out” his cash. If the owner unexpectedly woke up, an elegant lady in expensive jewelry, as if not noticing the “stranger,” began to undress, as if mistakenly mistaking the room for her own... It all ended in skillfully staged embarrassment and mutual shuffling.

She loved to go to the famous Nizhny Novgorod fair, but she often traveled to Europe, Paris, Nice, preferred German-speaking countries: Germany, Austria-Hungary, rented luxury apartments in Vienna, Budapest, Leipzig, Berlin. She lived on a grand scale. Favorite places her holidays were Crimea, Pyatigorsk and the foreign resort of Marienbad, where she posed as a titled person, fortunately she had a set of different business cards. She did not count money, did not save for a rainy day. So, having arrived in Vienna in the summer of 1872, she pawned some of the things she had stolen in a pawnshop and, having received 15 thousand rubles as bail, spent it in an instant.

In 1864, when Sheindla-Sura Solomoniak turned eighteen, she married the grocer I. Rosenband. In Warsaw, the act of her marriage has been preserved to this day. 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 married several more times. One of her husbands was the famous card sharper and carriage thief Mikhel Bluvshtein, whose surname she would bear until the end of her days. In the criminal field, Sophia declared herself quite early. There are known petty thefts when she was 13 - 14 years old.

There are known cases where Sonya showed nobility towards poor people who suffered from her actions. One day she learned from the newspapers that one of the women she had robbed was a poor widow of a common employee. After the death of her husband, the widow received a one-time benefit of five thousand rubles. Golden Hand, as soon as she recognized her “client” in a newspaper article, immediately hurried to the post office. Sonya sent the poor widow an amount exceeding the amount of stolen money and escorted remittance letter: “Dear Madam! I read in the newspaper about the misfortune that befell you. I regret that my passion for money was the cause of the misfortune. I return your money to you and advise you to hide it deeper in the future. Once again I ask for your forgiveness. I send my regards to your poor little ones ".

While “working” at the hotel, Sonya looked at one of the rooms. Opening the door, she entered the room, dimly lit by a candle standing on the table. Sonya looked around. On the bed she saw a man sleeping with clothes on top of the bedspread young man. The Golden Hand approached the table where purses, watches and other pleasant accessories of hotel clients are usually kept. But on the table, next to the candle, there were only some papers and a revolver. Sonya took the letters in her hands. They were addressed to the chief of police, the city prosecutor, the innkeeper and the mother. From the letters she learned that the young man had decided to commit suicide. It turned out that this young man spent 300 government rubles on the treatment of his seriously ill sister. He asked to calmly accept the news of his suicide as the only remedy for dishonor. Sonya put 500 rubles in one bill next to the letters and quietly left.

In November 1885, the Golden Hand was nevertheless caught in several thefts of jewelry worth a large amount. She was guarded by the most trained guards. The Bluvshtein case caused a great stir in Russia. The hall where the court hearing was held could not accommodate everyone. The sentence was strict - hard labor. Sending to Sakhalin.

On the day the ship departed, the entire embankment of the Quarantine Pier was dotted with people. Odessa came to say goodbye to Sonya the Golden Hand. On the deck of the ship departing for Sakhalin, among the officials of the administration was the Odessa mayor P. Zelenoy. High authorities wanted to take a closer look at the famous thief. After a short conversation, Mayor Zelenoy wished Sonya a successful journey and felt sorry for the Sakhalin authorities. Touched by such attention, Sonya decided to give a farewell gift to the governor. She extended her hand to the governor with a gold watch with an applied coat of arms eagle on the lid.
“Thank you,” the governor weakly thanked Sonya, looking at the dangling empty chain on his jacket, and immediately, to the cheerful laughter of the sailors, he hurried to go ashore.

On Sakhalin, Sonya’s criminal talent did not allow her to live without a “case.” She rallied notorious thugs around her and began planning criminal operations against wealthy settlers. In May 1891, Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka escapes. This escape became legendary in its own way. The disappearance of the Golden Hand was noticed immediately. Two squads of soldiers were sent in pursuit. One squad chased the fugitive through the forest, the other was waiting for her at the edge. 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 detachment commander, tormented by anticipation, commanded “Fire.” A volley of thirty guns was heard. The shooting was to kill. But the figure fell to the ground a moment before the shots were fired. Thirty bullets whizzed overhead.
- Don't shoot! “I give up,” said a desperate female voice.
It was Sonya the Golden Hand dressed as a soldier.
In June of the same year, for the second escape, Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka was punished with 15 lashes (from official document).

Officially, she began to be listed as the owner of the kvass plant. She brewed excellent kvass, built a carousel, recruited a four-piece orchestra from among the settlers, found a magician among the vagabonds, organized performances, dances, festivities, copying Odessa cafes in everything. She unofficially sold vodka, bought and resold stolen items, and organized a gambling house. Police officials complained that they searched her 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 were a lot of legends about her on Sakhalin. For a long time the opinion was held that this was not Sonya at all, that she was a “replacement”, a figurehead who was serving her sentence while the real Golden Hand continued her elusive activities in rich Europe. It is a known fact that even the high Sakhalin authorities could not fully believe that Sofia Bluvshtein was serving a sentence at hard labor.

ABOUT last days There are many legends about the Golden Hand on Sakhalin. But many historians agree that the already ill Sonya decided to escape again. They say that it was a gesture of despair, the last push towards freedom. Sonya walked only about two miles. Her strength left her and she fell unconscious. The guards found her during their rounds. A few days later, without regaining consciousness, she died in the prison infirmary.

True, in the mid-nineties a number of mysterious robberies swept across Europe. And the main suspect was a woman. The handwriting and description of the criminal resembled our heroine. The criminal was not caught. Again everything pointed to the handwriting of the Golden Hand. But she was in hard labor.

The last years of her life, as the legend says, the Golden Hand lived with her daughters in Moscow. Although they were in every possible way ashamed of their mother’s scandalous popularity. Old age and health undermined by hard labor did not allow him to actively engage in the old profession of thieves. But the Moscow police were faced with strange and mysterious robberies. A small monkey appeared in the city, which in jewelry stores jumped on a visitor who was picking up a ring or diamond, swallowed the valuable item and ran away. Sonya brought this monkey from Odessa.

Legend has it that Sonya the Golden Hand died at an old age. She was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, plot No. 1. After her death, legend claims, with the money of Odessa, Neapolitan and London scammers, a monument was ordered from Milanese architects and delivered to Russia.

Her life was ruled by passion. Once upon a time, a 17-year-old unfortunate girl, Sonya, ran away with a young Greek man from her evil stepmother. Later she married an Odessa swindler Blyuvshtein, and when he was in prison, left alone, she took over the “family business” in order to feed the children. And she also went to prison because of passion - she took on the blame of her young lover.

Sofia Bluvshtein or Sonya-Golden pen. Oh, how many stories and legends were told about her nimble fingers. And even more - about the charm and charm that the deceiver so cleverly used. This girl had brilliant ingenuity and talent. She found it easy to rob jewelry houses and wealthy bankers. Luck went hand in hand. Sonya's main trump card was artistry and the ability to transform, trying on the life and image of other people. The public adored her. Each scam became a sensation in society. The thief lived with passion and excitement. Another success, the desire for profit and power kindled real flames in her soul, turning passion into the meaning of life. But, probably, the main scam of her life was her love for a young gambler named Kochubchik.

Fatal meeting

Sonya the Golden Hand is a legend of the criminal world.

It was truly a fateful visit to Odessa. Sonya fell in love with this city, and also, unexpectedly for herself, developed a strong, burning feeling for the young, thin sharpie. Never knew this before strong feeling, Sonya was ready to do anything to keep her young lover. And he, in turn, taking advantage of such a gift of fate, knew no restrictions either in money or in revelry. Kochubchik lost a lot and constantly demanded more. Volodka saw in the famous thief an opportunity to live in grand style.

One of the few lifetime portraits of Sofia Bluvshtein.

At first, he even called Sonya mom, and not beloved, as the young lady herself wanted. Almost every night, the sharper took the stolen treasures and went to play cards. Sonya rushed after him, hoping to bring her beloved to reason. Kochubchik quickly got tired of such guardianship; the thief irritated him and caused him aggression. The gambler raised his hand against the girl and did not spare bad words, driving her out of the gambling houses. And she justified his behavior with another loss, she believed that her love would be enough for both of them.

Photo of Sofia Bluvshtein from police archives.

The girl was full of hopes of melting the heart of the sharpie, endured all the humiliation and showered her lover with diamonds. And it wasn’t enough for him. Living in such tension, Sonya became careless and was forced to take more and more risks. The gambler quickly became tired of Sonya herself and her dependence on her. He spent all her money and jewelry; he didn’t need her anymore. The thief was left completely destitute, with no money or jewelry. Moreover, she has a tail and is being followed everywhere. She understood perfectly well that the only way out was to run.

Road to Sakhalin

But how to escape? When the only meaning of her life will remain in this city. It's easier to die than not to see him. And she stayed, knowing what she was going to certain death. She looked for her beloved everywhere, followed on his heels. And Volodka was so disgusted with poor, old Aunt Sonya that he dreamed of getting rid of her in any way. Volodka, without hesitation, betrayed his patroness in order to recklessly plunge into the world of excitement and young ladies. Sonya ended up in the dock, and then was exiled to hard labor on the island of Sakhalin. And Volodka Kochubchik, having taken the thief’s money into his hands, settled down well for himself, buying himself an estate with these funds.

Sonya the Golden Pen in hard labor.

Sonya tried to escape from hard labor three times. And not in order to live in freedom or continue his glorious activities. The only purpose of the escape was to see my beloved, to look into Volodka Kochubchik’s eyes at least once. She forgave him a long time ago and was ready to forgive all his antics and betrayals for the rest of her life. But she didn’t have freedom and life without her beloved gambler. Imprisonment on the island was not hard labor for Sonya. Hard labor was in her heart. In the impossibility of existing without ever winning the affections of a young lover.

Inscriptions-requests on the monument to Sonya the Golden Pen.

The history of Sonya the Golden Hand is shrouded in riddles, secrets and, of course, deception. Her whole life is a legend that the deceiver created with her own hands. To this day, there are many secrets surrounding the life and death of the great fraudster. However, there is no doubt that only Volodka Kochubchik saw Sonya’s true face. For his sake, the thief tore off all her masks, trampled her pride and laid her life and freedom at his feet.

A marble sculpture of a woman without arms and head is a monument to the legendary swindler Sonya Zolotoy Ruchka.