Iron Bell: the history of the most famous swindler of the USSR
'31.03.2021'
Source: Lenta.ru report
Berta Borodkina, nicknamed Zheleznaya Bella, managed to grow from a simple waitress into the shadow mistress of Gelendzhik and made a fortune on scams in the restaurant business, says Lenta.ru. She gratified high-ranking officials and gave them generous bribes. Borodkina became the only woman in the Soviet Union to be shot for economic crimes. They say she knew too much and too many ...
Kitchen secrets
The future queen of Gelendzhik Bella Borodkina - nee Bertha King - was born in 1927 year. She was one of ten children in the family of a wealthy shoemaker from the Ukrainian town of Belaya Tserkov. From an early age, the girl seemed to everyone Bella - she absolutely did not like the name of Bert. Her peers for knowledge and stubbornness distinguished her from their peers, but because of the Great Patriotic War she did not even graduate from the ninth grade.
However, a horror story went to Kuban for a long time - it was alleged that Bella was born much earlier and during the war years actively helped the Germans. It was rumored that she had from that time left a tattoo on her forearm, which Bella cut off along with a piece of skin ... But Borodkina’s “biography” was not documented.
When the war ended, Bella decided not to waste time on study: after moving to Odessa, she married a city dweller by the name of Ezinberg. But the boring family life soon became boring to her - in 1951, she left the hateful spouse and moved to Gelendzhik. There, Bella married again, this time for a retired third-rank captain by the name of Borodkin, but after a couple of years she was widowed. After that, she married four more times.
Bella chose the bread trade and became a waitress at a Gelendzhik cafe. Vacationers usually did not stint and generously gave the smiling girl a tip. But Borodkina's outwardly good nature was deceptive - there was a lack of discretion and lack of principle behind him. Bella did not intend to linger in the waitresses and quickly went up the career ladder: she became a barmaid, and then - the head of the cafe.
Borodkina turned out to be a very enterprising manager: first of all she taught chefs to save on meat dishes. For example, if you add a little more bread or cereal to patties, an inexperienced Soviet visitor will hardly notice it. The meat that remained after such manipulations was sold by Bella to the side - barbecues were made from it, which yielded far greater profits than cutlets. According to rough estimates, only this simple scheme made Borodkin richer by about 80 thousand rubles for several years.
The sly manager didn’t disdain to save even tea brewing: she personally taught the kitchen staff how to make tea with caramelized sugar to give the desired color. And the prescription portion of butter, under the strict guidance of Borodkina, was reduced by half.
Queen of Gelendzhik
Arranging endless frauds, Bella was terribly afraid to incur the wrath of the inspection bodies, and this could easily have happened if the guests had been fed with expired or low-quality food. Therefore, when Borodkina’s people served diluted sour cream or milk in a cafe, they diluted them with exclusively boiled water. If the hostess was reported on disobedient persons who used unboiled water, they would face fines and punishment, up to and including dismissal.
At the same time Borodkin did not care much about the moral qualities of the workers, unlike their salaries. Each of the employees of her cafe without fail gave the head of a part of his earnings and ensured her a luxurious existence. Feeling like a local queen, Bella didn’t hide her wealth - she loved furs, flashy jewels and young men, who did not stint on gifts in response to sympathy.
For the love of luxury, the residents of Gelendzhik called Borodkin Shahine. And those who knew the crook closer, called her Iron Bella behind her eyes. And for good reason - thanks to her penetrative character for 1974, Bella became the head of the trust of local restaurants and canteens, in other words, the owner of the catering services of the entire resort city.
Borodkin did not tolerate competitors and got rid of them in the most sophisticated ways. In the private sector, where not only did the campers live, but also the visitors of the camp came to eat, Sahin under the guise of vacationers sent their people. Those settled in rented accommodation and, after tasting home-cooked food, depicted poisoning, after which the supervisory authorities filled up complaints. Checks and fines rapidly reduced the number of private traders who want to make money on food guests.
Cheating at the bottom of the glass
Meanwhile, the position of head of the restaurant trust opened new horizons for illegal earnings in front of Borodkina: Iron Bella has attended to the alcoholic component of the rest of Soviet citizens. Earn on this was easy. At the end of each evening, the withered guests of Gelendzhik's entertainment establishments stopped counting cash - and the waiters began to actively cheat them.
But if resort dwellers could still catch the crooks by the hand, the diluted strong alcohol and wine were not noticed at all. This is not surprising - after all, the same cognac Borodkina assistants diluted by no means with water. Rye vodka was generously added to the noble drink, which had such a taste that it was almost impossible to feel it in cognac. As you might guess, alcohol fraud turned out to be super-profitable.
Deceiving simple holiday-makers, Iron Bella tried very hard to appease the powerful. When a serious and influential personality came to Gelendzhik, Borodkina had an exclusive menu ready with the freshest, scarce products and elite alcohol. In addition to buffets in restaurants, the swindler set tables for important guests on the decks of cruise ships and organized picnics on tourist trips. On top of that, having the right connections, Iron Bell could easily provide bureaucrats with easy-going girls so that they would have the warmest memories of Gelendzhik.
Fatal porn
Borodkina's efforts were not in vain: she gradually acquired influential patrons in the highest echelons of power, not to mention the local party leaders and inspectors of the USSR Anti-Theft Department of Socialist Property (OBKhSS). They were not interested in luxury feasts - they preferred bribes, which they regularly received from Shahini in envelopes.
The first secretary of the Gelendzhik city committee of the CPSU, Nikolai Pogodin, turned out to be lured by Iron Bella. It was rumored that even the “owner of Kuban” - the first secretary of the Krasnodar Regional Committee of the CPSU, Sergey Medunov, receives money from her. Be that as it may, Medunov was very pleased with Borodkina, if only because she constantly fed his high-ranking guests at her own expense, without demanding a penny from the regional treasury.
But in the 1981 year, despite all the connections, law enforcement agencies seriously took up the queen of Gelendzhik. And she didn’t burn at all at restaurant frauds - as it turned out, Iron Bella organized private shows of porn films in one of the city cafes. Of course, not everyone was allowed there, but only by invitation and for decent money.
But an underground resident of Gelendzhik accidentally heard about the underground film salon. A man rattling for the morality of the townspeople complained of depravity to the prosecutor's office - and the cafe employees were soon detained red-handed. They, in turn, did not remain silent and said that the shows are held with the knowledge of Borodkina, who receives part of their income from them. Formally, it was from that moment that Iron Bella found herself under the gun of Soviet justice.
However, in practice, the reasons for the interest of the law enforcement agencies in it were much deeper. The fact is that it was then that the flywheel of the “Krasnodar case” spun up in Kuban - a large-scale operation against bribe takers and corrupt officials, initiated personally by the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. By coincidence, Bella Borodkina was destined to be accused in a demonstration process.
Wedding Crashers
Shortly after the defeat of the underground film showroom, the guards came to the head of the restaurant trust. After learning about the purpose of their visit, Iron Bella just laughed at the operatives face and slammed the door. She remained confident in her integrity, even when the police broke down the door and entered the house. The unruffled Borodkina stood her ground and demanded an apology from the uninvited guests for her behavior. But they did not stand on ceremony and proceeded to search.
It was immediately clear that the search would give the investigation a lot of interesting things: the interior of the house of Queen Gelendzhik was striking in its luxury. Crystal was everywhere, cabinets were crammed with furs and fashionable clothes, and caskets were full of jewels ... But the main catch of the operatives were numerous glass jars filled to the brim with money. The hostess hid them in the basement behind rows of blanks for the winter and in the yard among a pile of bricks. Later, wads of money were found behind the batteries and on the walls — behind expensive carpets. As a result, the search of Iron Bella turned into a withdrawal of money and valuables of more than 500 thousand rubles - a huge sum for those times.
According to some reports, Shaheena did not always hide cash so carefully: she began to do this only after her apartment was robbed at the end of 70. Bella was short-sighted about the theft to the police. The burglar was soon found, and he confessed that a very decent amount of 20 thousand rubles was his booty. But at the trial Borodkina denied the testimony of the thief, who caused her troubles, and stated that she had lost only two thousand rubles, while she took half of this amount. But at that moment, justice simply did not reach Iron Bella.
One way walk
When Borodkin was taken to the detention center, she was perplexed and insisted on her - that an embarrassing mistake had occurred that had to be resolved in a matter of hours ... A month passed. The prisoner began to complain about the torture and abuse that she was subjected to during interrogation. Iron Bella told me that every evening she was severely beaten and knocked out all her teeth. Relatives who had a chance to see Borodkin some time after their arrest, noted that the once-powerful Shahinya had passed much. She tried to portray the madness, but in vain - experienced psychiatrists quickly saw through the trick.
Despite all this, Bella continued to wait for powerful patrons to intervene and release her. But those who had previously participated with great pleasure in the feasts organized by Shahine, now chose to step back and not come into the view of the Andropov department. In addition, Borodkina knew too many secrets of big people - and for many, its elimination was only on hand. The “owner of the Kuban,” Medunov did not bail her out either: he quickly forgot how Iron Bell tried for him.
As for Pogodin, first secretary of the Gelendzhik city committee of the CPSU, lured by Borodkina, he was completely missing. In the middle of June, 1982, Pogodin visited the reception at Medunov, after which he went for a walk along the seashore and disappeared. There were various rumors: for example, Nikolai agreed with the owner of a ship, and he sent it abroad. There were also less optimistic versions: according to one of them, Pogodin became an “extra” witness of frauds at the highest level, and he was killed.
Whatever it was, but since then no one has ever seen the first secretary of the CPSU city committee. Meanwhile, do not disappear Pogodin - he would certainly become a person involved in the criminal case. After all, the indictment in the case of Iron Bella read: “Over the past two years [from 1979 to 1981] was transferred to the secretary of the city committee of the party Pogodinu with valuables, money and 15 products of thousands of rubles.” After the disappearance of one of their main patrons, Borodkina finally realized that no one would come to her aid.
Last dive
The Borodkin case consisted of 20 volumes, along with her 70 accomplices were on the dock. For a head of the restaurant trust dragged the prosecutor of Gelendzhik Nikolai Kovalev, saying that he had covered his wedding expenses. Kovalev tried to justify himself and even presented the saved spending checks, but lost his position after all.
But even when Borodkina realized that she couldn’t get out of the water dry, she could not even imagine how severe the punishment would be. Although at that time the death penalty could formally be applied to women, in practice there were no such precedents in the field of economic crimes. Therefore, Iron Bella was expecting 15 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property. In the worst case, 20 years, if she is still sentenced to death, but will have mercy (Art. 24 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR 1960g. - approx. "Tapes.ru").
The verdict of the court - the shooting - was a surprise for everyone, but he just killed Borodkin morally. Finally frustrated, she returned to her cell and began to howl terribly. The only one who tried to save a suicide bomber was her daughter. The girl wrote petitions for clemency at various instances, but her efforts were in vain - they refused everywhere. And for a completely formal reason: allegedly for Borodkina’s refusal to participate in mass cultural and politically significant events at a time when she was free ...
The last year of her life, the former queen of Gelendzhik spent in the Novocherkassk prison. The death sentence was carried out in August 1983. Soon after, Borodkina’s daughter was refused by the last petition — to take the mother’s body and bring it to the ground. Iron Bella was buried with state funds in an unmarked grave.
