Homemade weapon of the Tolstoyov gang. The Fantomas gang: the Tolstopyatov brothers terrified Rostov-on-Don

In Road showdowns on the streets of Soviet Rostov

They were the real masters of life, the kings of the roads. The traffic cops nodded ingratiatingly as they drove past the guards, and private drivers in old Moskvich cars respectfully gave way. Taxi drivers. And it's 1973.
That day, Vitek, Seryoga and Pasha were driving through the central streets of Rostov in a brand new Volga GAZ-24, belonging to their own taxi company. There were no checkered marks on it; the canary color did not give away its registration. The black polished sides of the “swallow” reflected the ancient merchant mansions of Bolshaya Sadovaya, then Engels Street. Private owners in Pobeda and Moskvichion cars clung to the side of the road - everyone understood that ordinary people don’t drive a black Volga.
It was unheard of impudence! The old 402nd was going to ram. Seryoga sharply jerked the steering wheel, the Volga was thrown to the side, and only this saved him from a collision. This impudent man in the Moskvich rushed on as if nothing had happened. It was a shock... The decision was made instantly and without discussion - catch up, catch up! No one, you hear, the riffraff under the fence, no one is allowed to behave like that... The Volga, raising a column of dust, with a slip, rushed in pursuit. The taxi drivers didn't even know who they were chasing...

Vyacheslav sat behind the wheel of the Moskvich with blood caked on his lips, tenaciously clutching the steering wheel. Nearby, on the next chair, half-mad Vladimir was moaning in pain, behind him, lying on a bag of money, Sergei, who had received a bullet in the heart, was dying. There were machine guns spattered with blood on the floor...

"Volga" overtook the boor on "Moskvichyonka", the professionals knew how to punish insolent people! Squealing brakes, adrenaline. The Moskvich flew onto the sidewalk and landed on its belly on the curb. Now is the time of reckoning. Three big guys came out of the Volga, rolling up their sleeves.

Slowly, like in a movie, the front door of the 402 opened. A man in a bloody shirt crawled out of it. He held a machine gun in one hand and a live grenade in the other.

I don’t know how the cool taxi drivers felt at that moment. But they were lucky. Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov had no time for them. Somewhere two blocks away, police cars were rushing at full speed, sirens wailing...

Exactly 40 years have passed since then. But the streets of Rostov still remember the events of those distant days. The Tolstopyatov brothers and their gang forever inscribed their names in the criminal history of Rostov, and indeed the entire USSR.

Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov was undoubtedly a unique person.

Vyacheslav especially loved to draw as a child. He could pore over some book for hours, redrawing an illustration, and achieving absolute similarity - down to the smallest detail. At about 15 years old, Vyacheslav became adept at drawing banknotes. He drew 50 and 100 ruble bills banknotes.

At first, Slava exchanged them in wine and vodka stores. He threw the purchased bottle into the bushes, and spent the real money on sweets, books, and tools. Over time, Vyacheslav got used to selling the drawn money to taxi drivers: he drove a short distance in a car, handed the driver a bill folded into a quadrangle, took the change and disappeared.

Seeing that taxi drivers never unfold banknotes, Vyacheslav became bolder to such an extent that he began to draw money on only one side. This is what destroyed him. On February 23, 1960, a taxi driver named Metelitsa, having given Vyacheslav a ride to the Suburban Station, nevertheless unfolded the bill offered to him - and was stunned when he saw reverse side blank sheet of paper!..

"Vyacheslav admitted everything at once, - recalled the investigator in Tolstopyatov’s first case, A. Granovsky. - In an investigative experiment, using colored pencils, watercolors, BF-2 glue, a compass, a ruler and a blade, Vyacheslav drew absolutely exact copy 100-ruble bill. We all gasped. Even in the police, even while under investigation, Vyacheslav won everyone’s sympathy with his politeness, modesty, and erudition. It was a pleasure to talk with him. “I petitioned the court for a mitigation of the sentence - given my young age, complete repentance, and assistance provided to the investigation.” Counterfeiting banknotes is classified as a serious crime against the state, but the court sentence was unusually lenient; four years of imprisonment in a general regime colony.

It was then that I decided further fate talented guy. Vyacheslav began to put together his gang “in the zone.” He perceived the court's verdict, even such a mild one, as a personal insult inflicted on him by the state.
Then there was a lot of things - robberies, murders. And it was absolutely American history". The famous "Bonnie and Clyde" cannot be compared with the gang of Fantômas. That is what they began to be called, for their masks made of green stockings. And this is also the history of our country. Remember how this film thundered at the turn of 60-70 -X?

A distinctive feature of the gang was their weapons. At that time in the USSR this was something completely unheard of! By the fall of 1968, the gang had 4 self-loading pistol and 3 machine guns. Vyacheslav formulated his main goal as follows: to “earn” a million and stop criminal activities. He planned to “take” a million in one fell swoop - by robbing a regional bank.

Vyacheslav loved romance and despised people who were not romantic. Once, during the hunt for cashiers, in a seized car (the driver was tied up in the back seat), Vyacheslav drove along Khalturinsky Lane, past the city police department. “It’s boring to live without risk,” this is how he explained his action. Another “nice gesture”: when the cashier of motor vehicle service number 5, Matveeva, had her bag containing the salary of the entire enterprise (2,744 rubles) taken away, Vyacheslav calculated that 44 rubles were Matveeva’s personal money. The next day he found her house (using her passport) and dropped a bag with documents and 75 rubles on the doorstep of the house. “Why?..” - they asked Vyacheslav during the investigation. “They just felt sorry for the woman and to at least somehow compensate for the trouble caused,” he answered.

But the most striking thing was, of course, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov’s talent for designing weapons. Lacking deep theoretical knowledge, he created real masterpieces “by touch” (naturally, adjusted for super-limited technological capabilities)

By the fall of 1972, they created the most famous “gangster” machine gun, shooting 9-mm balls. The rate of fire and penetration ability of this terrible weapon were amazing. From three meters away, a shot from such a machine gun pierced a railway rail! The barrel of the machine gun was made to break, and this feature made it possible to carry the weapon unnoticed under clothing.

From the conclusion of the forensic ballistic examination of the All-Russian Research Institute of Forensic Expertise (01/25/1974):
"None of the known examples of manual firearms was not the model on which the submachine guns brought for examination were made... This weapon, when fired from short distances, has excessive lethal force... The kinetic energy of the smooth-bore machine gun created by Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov exceeds kinetic energy conventional weapon bullets 4.5 times".

The uniqueness was that they usually make handicrafts of existing weapons, changing something in them. Or inventing something new under an existing cartridge. Tolstopyatov designed both the machine gun and the cartridge for it!

The Tolstopyatov brothers and Vladimir Gorshkov were sentenced to death penalty with confiscation of property. The remaining accomplices of the “phantomas” were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

For another year, after the verdict was passed, the Tolstopyatovs were on death row in the Novocherkassk strict prison ST-3. They were given paper and drawing supplies. The brothers designed. They still hoped to invent something for which they would be given life.
From the cassation appeal of Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov (dated July 15, 1974): “I ask you for life, since it is given once and cannot be neglected. It is a pity, of course, that we realize the value of life late, but it is better to feel it late than never..."
Vyacheslav, while on death row, developed a new design for an automatic 11mm pistol. Vladimir, his older brother, invented the "perpetum mobile" - perpetual motion machine. He claimed to know how to build it: "...for about 20 years I was engaged in the invention of an engine without fuel, which I started, and I saw with my own eyes its endless movement..."

There are still persistent rumors in Rostov that the Tolstopyatovs were left to live and locked up in some secret design bureau - for the sake of their design abilities.

The founder of the first gangster group in the Soviet Union took revenge on the state for his unrecognized talent.
Bandits in life and in movies
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, first in Rostov region and then throughout Soviet Union Rumors spread about an elusive gang of robbers in black masks raiding banks and stores. At that time, French films about Fantômas with Louis de Funès and Jean Marais were very popular in the USSR, so the newly minted Soviet gangsters were also called “Fantômas.”
Of course, the rumors greatly distorted reality, but the gang of “phantomas” really operated in Rostov for several years. Desperate efforts of the Soviets law enforcement to neutralize it did not lead to success until June 7, 1973.
On this day, the bandits' raid on the cash desk of the Yuzhgiprovodkhoz Research Institute ended in failure, and a chase began after the criminals' car. During it, one of the criminals was killed, the rest were detained.

The gang's history, which ended in the summer of 1973, began many years before the criminals first took up arms.

Criminal talent
Vladimir and Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov, the creators of the “gang of phantomas,” were born in the Bryansk region, and moved to the Don to distant relatives with their mother at the beginning of the war, along with columns of other refugees. The eldest, Vladimir, was 15 years old at that time, and the youngest, Vyacheslav, was one year old.
The father of the Tolstopyatov brothers was the head of the police department and died in the first days of the war.
In childhood, Vladimir and Vyacheslav were not noticed to have bad inclinations - they studied well, helped their mother, were fond of design, and Vyacheslav also showed talent as an artist.
This talent brought him to the dock for the first time. One of Vyacheslav’s hobbies was the careful redrawing of various pictures and illustrations, down to the smallest detail. Having achieved success with book drawings, at the age of 15 Slava took up something more difficult - he began to redraw 50- and 100-ruble bills.
At first it was just, so to speak, a sporting interest, and then Vyacheslav decided to try to benefit from his hobby. He took the drawn bill to the store and successfully exchanged it for real money - the seller did not notice the trick.
Vyacheslav decided that this way he could earn money for books, sweets, various tools, etc. Taxi drivers became the young counterfeiter’s favorite “clients”: he would get into the car, drive a short distance, hand the driver a bill folded into a rectangle, take the change and leave.


Soviet ruble. Humane sentence
Tolstopyatov Jr.'s self-confidence let him down - noticing that taxi drivers did not unfold the bill, he began to draw it only on one side. But on February 23, 1960 young man I came across an incredulous taxi driver who unwrapped the bill and... Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov ended up in the police station.
There he honestly admitted everything, during an investigative experiment he perfectly drew a 100-ruble bill, and surprised the investigator with his modesty and erudition.
Law enforcement officers found themselves in a difficult position: on the one hand, in front of them was a talented guy who could bring great benefit to the country, and on the other hand, counterfeiting banknotes in the USSR was punished very strictly. Moreover, Tolstopyatov had not one, but a whole series of similar episodes.
As a result, 20-year-old Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov received 4 years in a general regime colony - an extremely lenient sentence for this type of crime.
"Take a million"
But Tolstopyatov Jr. believed that he had become a victim of state tyranny. Once in the colony, Vyacheslav began to hatch a plan for revenge. There, in the colony, he also found his first like-minded person - Sergei Samasyuk, convicted of malicious hooliganism.
After leaving the colony, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov proceeded to implement his plan - creating an armed gang for raids on banks, shops and enterprises.
Vyacheslav was 14 years younger than his brother Vladimir, but in this pair he was the leader. Vladimir, who until that moment had not shown any criminal inclinations, supported his brother’s idea and provided him with premises for a workshop and the headquarters of the future gang.
The third member of the gang was Sergei Samasyuk, who was released from prison, and the fourth was a childhood friend of the Tolstopyatov brothers, Vladimir Gorshkov, whom the aspiring gangsters initiated into their plans.


Vladimir Gorshkov. Photo: Shot from NTV channel
The “strategic goal” of the gang was defined by Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov - “to take a million and stop criminal activities.” Million rubles after monetary reform 1961 was simply a gigantic sum, but Tolstopyatov Jr. was determined to bring his plan to completion.
Vyacheslav was the brain of the group, and Vladimir was his “ right hand" They solved the issue of weapons on their own: they developed unique folding machine guns of their own design, as well as revolvers.
Shaped parts for weapons were ordered from familiar factory milling operators under the guise of spare parts for household appliances, and the brothers carried out the final assembly themselves, in their own workshop. In total, four small-caliber seven-round revolvers, three small-caliber folding submachine guns, hand grenades and even body armor.
Bandits could get caught right away
Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov dealt not only with weapons: he carefully developed the tactics of the bandits during raids, distributing tasks of observation, capture, covering and leaving the crime scene among the gang members. Since getting your own car in those years was unrealistic, Tolstopyatov developed a plan to seize cars to quickly leave the robbery scene.
The gang's tactics included two main attack options.

Option one. One of the bandits stops a car in the city asking for a ride. In the place named by him, under the guise of his friends, the rest of the gang are waiting. Once they get into the car, the driver is tied up and placed in the back seat or trunk. Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov gets behind the wheel and drives the car to the scene of the attack. The attack itself is carried out by Samasyuk and Gorshkov. After grabbing the money high speed leaving the crime scene, the car and driver are abandoned in an inconspicuous place.

Option two. The collector's or cashier's car is seized directly at the scene of the attack. They all carry out the attack together and hide in the same car. After careful preparation, the criminals first went on the “case” on October 7, 1968, intending to rob a cashier at the Regional Office of the State Bank of the USSR.
But the raid went wrong - the driver of the car in which they were going to commit the robbery, seeing the gun pointed at him, jumped out of the car and ran away. The criminals had to retreat empty-handed.
However, no one took the incident seriously, especially since the bandits left the car near the site of the failed raid.
First murder
On October 10, an attempt to rob the cashier of the Rostov shoe factory failed - the woman was saved by the fact that the bandits were late, and the driver carrying the cashier drove into the gate of the enterprise, grossly violating traffic rules.
On October 22, 1968, “Phantomas” burst into store No. 46 in the village of Mirny, opening indiscriminate fire. But here, too, everything went wrong - the women who worked in the store managed to hide from the criminals in a utility room with for the most part revenue. The raiders got only 526 rubles.
When the bandits jumped out of the store, pensioner Guriy Chumakov stood in their way. The war veteran, hearing the screams of the saleswomen, realized what was happening and tried to stop the bandits. One of the “phantomas” shot him with a machine gun.
After this first murder of the gang members, panic set in, but the eldest of the Tolstopyatovs, Vladimir, intervened. He told his accomplices that they had been “baptized by fire” and there was now no turning back. After that speech, other gang members nicknamed Vladimir “political officer.”
“Fantômas” continued what they started. On October 25, 1968, near the building of the Oktyabrsky branch of the State Bank, a female cashier was robbed with 2,700 rubles in her bag. On December 29, 1968, the Tolstopyatov gang attacked a grocery store on Mechnikov Street; production amounted to 1,498 rubles.
But a raid on the cashier of the Chemical Plant named after October revolution broke thanks to a security guard who entered into battle with the criminals. As a result, the bandits retreated, and Vladimir Gorshkov was wounded.
For some time, the gang chose to go into the shadows, especially since the violent Samasyuk was again in prison, receiving a year and a half for a fight in a pub.
Big jackpot

But in August 1971, the “Phantomas” made themselves known loudly, raiding construction organization UNR-112 - production amounted to 17 thousand rubles.

On December 16, 1971, the gang attacked collectors near savings bank No. 0299. The driver of the collection car, not accustomed to attacks by gangsters, submitted to them meekly, but the senior collector Ivan Zyuba entered the battle, wounding Gorshkov in the arm. The bandits shot the collector with machine guns and fled with 20,000 rubles.
In total, during their career, the “phantomas” carried out 14 armed attacks, and their total loot amounted to 150,000 rubles.
Tostopyatov Jr. was, however, dissatisfied - time passed, and the planned million remained still an unattainable goal.
The raid, which was the last for the Phantomas, was their biggest undertaking. They intended to rob the cashier of the Yuzhgiprovodkhoz design institute on payday, when, according to the gangsters’ calculations, they were supposed to bring 250–300 thousand rubles to the enterprise.
The raid was extremely daring - Samasyuk and Gorshkov penetrated directly into the territory of the enterprise, approached the cash register, where workers who were waiting for their salaries had gathered, threatened with revolvers, took the money and tried to escape.
Die on a bag of money
But then the unexpected happened: the workers began to pursue the raiders, not paying attention to their threats. Already on the street, 27-year-old store loader Vladimir Martovitsky entered into a fight with the bandits. The enraged Gorshkov and Tolstopyatov Jr., who came to his aid, shot the daredevil.
Screams and shots attracted the attention of senior police sergeant Alexei Rusov, who rushed in pursuit of the bandits. In a shootout, he wounded two bandits - Gorshkov and Samasyuk, for whom this wound turned out to be fatal.
While Rusov was reloading his weapon, the bandits managed to seize a Moskvich car, in which they tried to escape.
In the back seat of this car, lying on a bag with stolen 125 thousand rubles, Sergei Samasyuk died. As his accomplices said during interrogations, dying drunk on a bag of money was his dream, so we can assume that the gangster died happy.


Murdered Sergei Samasyuk.
This time the “phantomas” did not manage to escape. Rusov was picked up by the fire department's gas car, which contained Sergeant Gennady Doroshenko and Captain Viktor Salyutin, who had joined the chase. Another policeman joined the chase - local inspector of the Oktyabrsky District Department of Internal Affairs, junior lieutenant Evgeniy Kubyshta, who stopped the UAZ minibus. Through joint efforts, the criminals were captured.
Myths and truth
During interrogations, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov willingly talked about the weapons he had developed and shared new design ideas. Just like 13 years before, he seemed not to understand the seriousness of what he had done, and was convinced that instead of being punished, he would be sent to work in a secret design bureau.
Decades later, already in new Russia, recalling the “case of the phantoms,” some will say that Tolstopyatov Jr. became a victim of the Soviet system, which did not give talent the opportunity to realize itself. Researchers of the case, however, both then and now claim that this is a lie. Unlike many designers and engineers who achieved worldwide recognition in an honest way, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov wanted recognition here and now, believing that talent is allowed more than “mere mortals.”

This conviction pushed him onto the path of crime, onto which he also enticed his older brother. As for the other gang members, they were driven by a thirst for profit and a desire to feel power over others.

It is also a myth that the “phantomas” acted almost as people’s avengers who decided to settle scores with the Soviet system for the execution of workers in Novocherkassk in 1962. The “phantomas” had nothing to do with those events.
And such motivation crumbles at the first encounter with real facts. Gangsters did not hesitate to rob cashiers of enterprises, leaving workers without their hard-earned money. During the last raid they threatened to shoot ordinary people who demanded a refund.
And if the deceased collector Ivan Zyuba can, at least with a stretch, be called a “servant of the regime,” then the murdered war veteran Guriy Chumakov and Vladimir Martovitsky one hundred percent belonged to the same working class, for whose violated honor the “phantomas” allegedly took revenge.
Unlike the bandits, Ivan Zyuba, Guriy Chumakov and Vladimir Martovitsky were real citizens of their country who did not want to put up with lawlessness even under the threat of death.
On July 1, 1974, the court pronounced a verdict in the case of the “gang of phantomas” - Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov, Vladimir Tolstopyatov and Vladimir Gorshkov were sentenced to death, and eight of their accomplices, who performed auxiliary functions in the gang, received different prison terms for complicity and failure to report.
The Tolstopyatovs and Gorshkov filed appeals and asked for pardon, but the sentence was left unchanged.
For many years, there were rumors in Rostov that Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov was nevertheless sent to a closed research institute to work on new types of weapons. The truth, however, is more prosaic - on March 6, 1975, the death sentence against the “Phantomas” was carried out.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, first in the Rostov region and then throughout the Soviet Union, rumors spread about an elusive gang of robbers in black masks raiding banks and stores. At that time, French films about Fantômas were very popular in the USSR. Louis de Funes And Jean Marais, that’s why the newly-minted Soviet gangsters were also called “phantomas.”

Of course, the rumors greatly distorted reality, but the gang of “phantomas” really operated in Rostov for several years. Desperate efforts by Soviet law enforcement agencies to neutralize it did not lead to success until June 7, 1973.

On this day, the bandits' raid on the cash desk of the Yuzhgiprovodkhoz Research Institute ended in failure, and a chase began after the criminals' car. During it, one of the criminals was killed, the rest were detained.

The gang's history, which ended in the summer of 1973, began many years before the criminals first took up arms.

Criminal talent

Vladimir and Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov, the creators of the “gang of phantomas”, were born in the Bryansk region, and moved to the Don, to distant relatives, with their mother at the beginning of the war, along with columns of other refugees. The eldest, Vladimir, was 15 years old at that time, and the youngest, Vyacheslav, was one year old.

The father of the Tolstopyatov brothers was the head of the police department and died in the first days of the war.

In childhood, Vladimir and Vyacheslav were not noticed to have bad inclinations - they studied well, helped their mother, were fond of design, and Vyacheslav also showed talent as an artist.

This talent brought him to the dock for the first time. One of Vyacheslav’s hobbies was the careful redrawing of various pictures and illustrations, down to the smallest detail. Having achieved success with book drawings, at the age of 15 Slava took up something more difficult - he began to redraw 50- and 100-ruble bills.

At first it was just, so to speak, a sporting interest, and then Vyacheslav decided to try to benefit from his hobby. He took the drawn bill to the store and successfully exchanged it for real money - the seller did not notice the trick.

Vyacheslav decided that this way he could earn money for books, sweets, various tools, etc. Taxi drivers became the young counterfeiter’s favorite “clients”: he would get into the car, drive a short distance, hand the driver a bill folded into a rectangle, take the change and leave.

Soviet ruble. Photo: www.russianlook.com

Humane sentence

Tolstopyatov Jr.’s self-confidence let him down - noticing that taxi drivers did not unfold the bill, he began to draw it only on one side. But on February 23, 1960, the young man came across an incredulous taxi driver, who unwrapped the bill and... Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov ended up in the police station.

There he honestly admitted everything, during an investigative experiment he perfectly drew a 100-ruble bill, and surprised the investigator with his modesty and erudition.

Law enforcement officers found themselves in a difficult position: on the one hand, in front of them was a talented guy who could bring great benefit to the country, and on the other hand, counterfeiting banknotes in the USSR was punished very strictly. Moreover, Tolstopyatov had not one, but a whole series of similar episodes.

As a result, 20-year-old Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov received 4 years in a general regime colony - an extremely lenient sentence for this type of crime.

"Take a million"

But Tolstopyatov Jr. believed that he had become a victim of state tyranny. Once in the colony, Vyacheslav began to hatch a plan for revenge. There, in the colony, he found his first like-minded person - convicted of malicious hooliganism Sergey Samasyuk.

After leaving the colony, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov proceeded to implement his plan - creating an armed gang for raids on banks, shops and enterprises.

Vyacheslav was 14 years younger than his brother Vladimir, but in this pair he was the leader. Vladimir, who until that moment had not shown any criminal inclinations, supported his brother’s idea and provided him with premises for a workshop and the headquarters of the future gang.

The third member of the gang was Sergei Samasyuk, who was released from prison, and the fourth was a childhood friend of the Tolstopyatov brothers, whom the aspiring gangsters initiated into their plans.

Vladimir Gorshkov. Photo: Shot from NTV channel

The “strategic goal” of the gang was defined by Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov - “to take a million and stop criminal activities.” A million rubles after the monetary reform of 1961 was simply a gigantic sum, but Tolstopyatov Jr. was determined to see his plan through to completion.

Vyacheslav was the brain of the group, and Vladimir was his “right hand”. They solved the issue of weapons on their own: they developed unique folding machine guns of their own design, as well as revolvers.

Shaped parts for weapons were ordered from familiar factory milling workers under the guise of spare parts for household appliances, and the brothers carried out the final assembly themselves, in their own workshop. In total, four small-caliber seven-round revolvers, three small-caliber folding submachine guns, hand grenades and even body armor were manufactured.

Bandits could get caught right away

Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov dealt not only with weapons: he carefully developed the tactics of the bandits during raids, distributing tasks of observation, capture, covering and leaving the crime scene among the gang members. Since getting your own car in those years was unrealistic, Tolstopyatov developed a plan to seize cars to quickly leave the robbery scene.

The gang's tactics included two main attack options.

Option one. One of the bandits stops a car in the city asking for a ride. In the place named by him, under the guise of his friends, the rest of the gang are waiting. Once they get into the car, the driver is tied up and placed in the back seat or trunk. Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov gets behind the wheel and drives the car to the scene of the attack. The attack itself is carried out by Samasyuk and Gorshkov. After seizing the money, they leave the crime scene at high speed, abandoning the car and driver in an inconspicuous place.

Option two. The collector's or cashier's car is seized directly at the scene of the attack. They all carry out the attack together and hide in the same car.

After careful preparation, the criminals first went on the “case” on October 7, 1968, intending to rob a cashier at the Regional Office of the State Bank of the USSR.

But the raid went wrong - the driver of the car in which they were going to commit the robbery, seeing the gun pointed at him, jumped out of the car and ran away. The criminals had to retreat empty-handed.

However, no one took the incident seriously, especially since the bandits left the car near the site of the failed raid.

First murder

On October 10, an attempt to rob the cashier of the Rostov shoe factory was foiled - the woman was saved by the fact that the bandits were late, and the driver carrying the cashier drove into the gate of the enterprise, grossly violating traffic rules.

On October 22, 1968, “Phantomas” burst into store No. 46 in the village of Mirny, opening indiscriminate fire. But here, too, everything went wrong - the women who worked in the store managed to hide from the criminals in the back room with most of the proceeds. The raiders got only 526 rubles.

When the bandits jumped out of the store, a pensioner stood in their way Guriy Chumakov. The war veteran, hearing the screams of the saleswomen, realized what was happening and tried to stop the bandits. One of the “phantomas” shot him with a machine gun.

After this first murder of the gang members, panic set in, but the eldest of the Tolstopyatovs, Vladimir, intervened. He told his accomplices that they had been “baptized by fire” and there was now no turning back. After that speech, other gang members nicknamed Vladimir “political officer.”

“Fantômas” continued what they started. On October 25, 1968, near the building of the Oktyabrsky branch of the State Bank, a female cashier was robbed with 2,700 rubles in her bag. On December 29, 1968, the Tolstopyatov gang attacked a grocery store on Mechnikov Street; production amounted to 1,498 rubles.

But the raid on the cashier of the October Revolution Chemical Plant was foiled thanks to a security guard who entered into battle with the criminals. As a result, the bandits retreated, and Vladimir Gorshkov was wounded.

For some time, the gang chose to go into the shadows, especially since the violent Samasyuk was again in prison, receiving a year and a half for a fight in a pub.

Big jackpot

But in August 1971, the “Phantomas” made their presence known loudly, raiding the construction organization UNR-112 - the loot amounted to 17 thousand rubles.

On December 16, 1971, a gang attacked collectors near savings bank No. 0299. The driver of the collection vehicle, not accustomed to attacks by gangsters, submitted to them meekly, but senior collector Ivan Zyuba entered the battle, wounding Gorshkov in the arm. The bandits shot the collector with machine guns and fled with 20,000 rubles.

In total, during their career, the “phantomas” carried out 14 armed attacks, and their total loot amounted to 150,000 rubles.

Tostopyatov Jr. was, however, dissatisfied - time passed, and the planned million remained still an unattainable goal.

The raid, which was the last for the Phantomas, was their biggest undertaking. They intended to rob the cashier of the Yuzhgiprovodkhoz design institute on payday, when, according to the gangsters’ calculations, they were supposed to bring 250-300 thousand rubles to the enterprise.

The raid was extremely daring - Samasyuk and Gorshkov entered directly into the territory of the enterprise, approached the cash register, where the workers who were waiting for their salaries had gathered, threatened with revolvers, took the money and tried to escape.

Die on a bag of money

But then the unexpected happened: the workers began to pursue the raiders, not paying attention to their threats. Already on the street, a 27-year-old man entered into a fight with bandits store loader Vladimir Martovitsky. The enraged Gorshkov and Tolstopyatov Jr., who came to his aid, shot the daredevil.

Screams and gunshots attracted attention senior police sergeant Alexey Rusov, who rushed in pursuit of the bandits. In a shootout, he wounded two bandits - Gorshkov and Samasyuk, for whom this wound turned out to be fatal.

While Rusov was reloading his weapon, the bandits managed to seize a Moskvich car, in which they tried to escape.

In the back seat of this car, lying on a bag with stolen 125 thousand rubles, Sergei Samasyuk died. As his accomplices said during interrogations, dying drunk on a bag of money was his dream, so we can assume that the gangster died happy.

Murdered Sergei Samasyuk. Photo: Shot from NTV channel

This time the “phantomas” did not manage to escape. Rusov was picked up by the fire department's gas car, which contained those who joined the chase. Sergeant Gennady Doroshenko And Captain Viktor Salyutin. Another policeman joined the chase - a local inspector from the Oktyabrsky District Department of Internal Affairs. junior lieutenant Evgeniy Kubyshta who stopped a UAZ minibus. Through joint efforts, the criminals were captured.

Myths and truth

During interrogations, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov willingly talked about the weapons he had developed and shared new design ideas. Just like 13 years before, he seemed not to understand the seriousness of what he had done, and was convinced that instead of being punished, he would be sent to work in a secret design bureau.

Decades later, already in the new Russia, recalling the “case of the phantoms,” some will say that Tolstopyatov Jr. became a victim of the Soviet system, which did not give talent the opportunity to realize itself. Researchers of the case, however, both then and now claim that this is a lie. Unlike many designers and engineers who achieved worldwide recognition in an honest way, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov wanted recognition here and now, believing that talent is allowed more than “mere mortals.”

It is also a myth that the “phantomas” acted almost as people’s avengers who decided to settle scores with the Soviet system for the execution of workers in Novocherkassk in 1962. The “phantomas” had nothing to do with those events.

And such motivation crumbles at the first encounter with real facts. Gangsters did not hesitate to rob cashiers of enterprises, leaving workers without their hard-earned money. During the last raid, they threatened to shoot ordinary people who demanded their money back.

And if the deceased collector Ivan Zyuba can, at least with a stretch, be called a “servant of the regime,” then the murdered war veteran Guriy Chumakov and Vladimir Martovitsky one hundred percent belonged to the same working class, for whose violated honor the “phantomas” allegedly took revenge.

Unlike the bandits, Ivan Zyuba, Guriy Chumakov and Vladimir Martovitsky were real citizens of their country who did not want to put up with lawlessness even under the threat of death.

On July 1, 1974, the court pronounced a verdict in the case of the “fantomas gang” - Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov, Vladimir Tolstopyatov and Vladimir Gorshkov were sentenced to death, and eight of their accomplices, who performed auxiliary functions in the gang, received different prison terms for complicity and failure to report.

The Tolstopyatovs and Gorshkov filed appeals and asked for pardon, but the sentence was left unchanged.

For many years, there were rumors in Rostov that Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov was nevertheless sent to a closed research institute to work on new types of weapons. The truth, however, is more prosaic - on March 6, 1975, the death sentence against the “Phantomas” was carried out.

Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov, Vladimir Tolstopyatov, Sergey Samasyuk, Vladimir Gorshkov

Gang of Tolstopyatov brothers- a criminal group operating in Rostov-on-Don in 1973.

The scale, technical equipment, preparedness and the very fact of the emergence and successful long-term existence of this criminal gang are unique for the USSR of the 1960s - 1970s, which gave the gang a legendary character and made it part of the folklore of the city of Rostov-on-Don and the USSR/Russia.

Structure and weapons

The founder and leader of the gang, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov Jr., was born in a village in the vicinity of Bryansk in 1940. Since childhood, he has been interested in designing, drawing and drawing. The first attempt to put his abilities into practice for personal gain ended in failure: Tolstopyatov was sentenced to four years in prison for counterfeiting paper money. In prison, Tolstopyatov met Sergei Samasyuk and the gang’s plan emerged. Upon his release, Tolstopyatov Jr. enlisted the support of his older brother Vladimir, who provided him with premises adapted for the gang’s headquarters and workshop. The fourth member of the gang was an old acquaintance of the brothers, Vladimir Gorshkov.

All the gang's weapons were manufactured by the Tolstopyatov brothers themselves in semi-industrial conditions: the blanks were made in an underground workshop, the secret entrance to which was hidden using in a special way rotating mirror, and the shaped parts were ordered from familiar factory milling operators under the guise of spare parts for household appliances. In total, four small-caliber seven-round revolvers, three small-caliber folding submachine guns of a unique design, hand grenades and even improvised body armor were manufactured.

Since the acquisition of personal vehicles was virtually an impossible and unnecessary task (a personal vehicle in those conditions would instantly unmask and expose the group), the Tolstopyatovs worked out the tactics of seizing other people's cars and taking the driver hostage.

Information about an alleged attempt to assemble a helicopter for air raids should most likely be classified as an urban legend, but such a legend the best way characterizes the degree of technical ambitions of the gang’s militants.

Robbery tactics

In general, it should be recognized that the gang’s tactics were at that time advanced for the criminal world of the USSR, and the degree of its development inevitably provokes comparison with the actions of Chicago gangsters, urban partisans and intelligence services (many Rostov residents suspected the gang of collaborating with Western intelligence services). These tactics included the “correct” bank robbery, hostage taking, surveillance and collection of information after the action, evasion, conspiracy, alibi preparation, retraining, conspiratorial treatment and disguise. For personal disguise, the gang members used black stockings, which is why they received the nickname “Fantômas”.

The bandits developed two main robbery tactics:

• One of the bandits stops a car in the city asking for a ride. In the place named by him, under the guise of his friends, the rest of the gang are waiting. Once they get into the car, the driver is tied up and placed in the back seat or trunk. Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov gets behind the wheel and drives the car to the scene of the attack. The attack itself is carried out by Samasyuk and Gorshkov. After seizing the money, they leave the crime scene at high speed, abandoning the car and driver in an inconspicuous place.

• The collector's or cashier's car is seized directly at the scene of the attack. They all carry out the attack together and hide in the same car.

Vladimir Tolstopyatov’s responsibilities included monitoring the situation after the crime, the actions of the police, and the stories of witnesses.

It is worth noting the gang's independence from public services: when Vladimir Gorshkov was wounded during one of the robberies, he was treated by a doctor bribed by the gang, but the treatment was unsuccessful, and then Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov independently carried out surgery, guided by the diagram in the medical textbook.

The gang carried out several successful robberies, leaving human victims and stealing a total of 150 thousand rubles (for comparison: a three-room cooperative apartment cost 5 thousand rubles in those years, a Volga GAZ-24 car - 9 thousand), and more than once evaded prosecution.

Attacks

The gang attempted its first attack on October 7, 1968. On this day, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov, Samasyuk and Gorshkov seized a car from the Rostov Watch Factory with the aim of robbing a cashier at the building of the Regional Office of the State Bank of the USSR on the corner of Engels Street (now Bolshaya Sadovaya) and Sokolov Avenue. The attack was preceded by a long preparation: the bandits monitored the process of cashiers receiving money and established on what days and hours the most intensive issuance of money occurs. However, the driver D. Arutyunov managed to leave the car after the seizure. Then the bandits decided not to attack that day, realizing that he would report the capture to the police. The car was abandoned in the courtyard of the House of Actors.

Three days later, an attempt was made to attack the cashier of the Rostov shoe factory in the car of the Tolstopyatovs’ accomplice Srybny. To prevent Srybny from being suspected of complicity, his hands were first tied. But even here the Fantomas were unlucky: first they did not have time to attack the cashier before she got into the car, and then this car unexpectedly, in violation of traffic rules, turned into the factory gates.

All cassation appeals were rejected, and on March 6, 1975, the sentence was carried out.

In culture

• Mentions of the “Fantômas” can be found in novels of modern Russian writer Danil Koretsky, living and working in Rostov.
• “Fantômas” are also the heroes of the novel “Rostov-Papa” by the famous Don writer Anton Gerashchenko.

Other

In Rostov, one of the streets bears the name of the worker Martavitsky, who tried to detain the bandits and was killed by them.

Links

• N. I. Buslenko The end of the “phantomas” (the case of Tolstopyatov and others) // Prosecutor’s Office of the Rostov Region at the turn of the century. - Rostov-on-Don: Expert Bureau, 2000. - P. 269-277.
• Kostanov Yu.A. The case of “Fantomas” // Judicial speeches. And not only.(speech by the public prosecutor at the trial)
• Ionova L.

,
Vladimir Pavlovich Tolstopyatov
(genus. ) ,
Sergey Samasyuk,
Vladimir Gorshkov.

Gang of Tolstopyatov brothers- an armed organized criminal group operating in Rostov-on-Don in 1973 under the leadership of Vyacheslav Pavlovich Tolstopyatov, a native of the Bryansk region.

The scale, technical equipment, preparedness and the very fact of the emergence and successful long-term existence of this criminal gang are unique to the USSR of the 1960s - 1970s, which gave the gang a legendary character and made it part of the folklore of the city of Rostov-on-Don and the USSR.

Structure and weapons

Since childhood, he has been interested in designing, drawing and drawing. Vyacheslav especially loved to sketch. He could pore over some book for hours, redrawing an illustration, and achieving absolute similarity - down to the smallest detail. At about the age of fifteen, Vyacheslav became adept at drawing banknotes. He drew 50 and 100 ruble banknotes (this was before the monetary reform in the USSR in 1961).

At first, Slava exchanged them in wine and vodka stores. He threw the purchased bottle into the bushes (Vyacheslav almost never drank alcohol all his life), and spent real money on sweets, books, and tools. Over time, he got used to selling drawn money to taxi drivers: he drove a short distance in a car, handed the driver a folded bill (it should be noted that “pre-reform” post-war banknotes were much larger than the current ones), took the change and disappeared.

Seeing that taxi drivers never unfold banknotes, Vyacheslav became bolder to such an extent that he began to draw money on only one side. This is what destroyed him. On February 23, 1960, a taxi driver named Metelitsa, having given Vyacheslav a ride to the Suburban Station, nevertheless unfolded the bill offered to him - and was stunned when he saw a blank sheet of paper on the reverse side!

“Vyacheslav confessed to everything at once,” recalled the investigator in Tolstopyatov’s first case, A. Granovsky. - In an investigative experiment, using only colored pencils, watercolors, BF-2 glue, a compass, a ruler and a blade, Vyacheslav drew an absolutely exact copy of a 100-ruble bill in four hours (!). We all gasped. Even in the police, even while under investigation, Vyacheslav won everyone’s sympathy with his politeness, modesty, and erudition. It was a pleasure to talk with him. “I petitioned the court for a mitigation of the sentence - given my young age, complete repentance, and assistance provided to the investigation.”

Counterfeiting banknotes is classified as a serious crime against the state, but the court sentence was unusually lenient; four years of imprisonment in a general regime colony. In prison, Tolstopyatov met Sergei Samasyuk and the gang’s plan emerged. Upon his release, Tolstopyatov Jr. enlisted the support of his older brother Vladimir, who provided him with premises adapted for the gang’s headquarters and workshop. The fourth member of the gang was an old acquaintance of the brothers, Vladimir Gorshkov.

One of homemade weapons gangs.

All the gang’s weapons were manufactured by the Tolstopyatov brothers themselves in semi-industrial conditions: the blanks were made in an underground workshop, the secret entrance to which was hidden using a specially rotating mirror, and the shaped parts were ordered from familiar factory milling workers under the guise of spare parts for household appliances. In total, four small-caliber seven-round revolvers, three small-caliber folding submachine guns of a unique design, hand grenades and even improvised body armor were manufactured.

The Tolstopyatovs developed and practiced the tactics of seizing other people's cars and taking the driver hostage, since the use of personal vehicles was virtually an impossible and unnecessary task, since a personal car in those conditions would instantly unmask and expose the group.

Information about an alleged attempt to assemble a helicopter for air raids should most likely be classified as an urban legend, but such a legend best characterizes the degree of technical ambitions of the gang’s militants.

Robbery tactics

In general, it should be recognized that the gang’s tactics were at that time advanced for the criminal world of the USSR, and the degree of its development inevitably provokes comparison with the actions of Chicago gangsters, urban partisans and intelligence services (many Rostov residents suspected the gang of collaborating with Western intelligence services). These tactics included the “correct” bank robbery, hostage taking, surveillance and collection of information after the action, evasion, conspiracy, alibi preparation, retraining, conspiratorial treatment and disguise. For personal disguise, the gang members used black stockings, which is why they received the nickname “Fantômas”.

The bandits developed two main robbery tactics:

• One of the bandits stops a car in the city asking for a ride. In the place named by him, under the guise of his friends, the rest of the gang are waiting. Once they get into the car, the driver is tied up and placed in the back seat or trunk. Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov gets behind the wheel and drives the car to the scene of the attack. The attack itself is carried out by Samasyuk and Gorshkov. After seizing the money, they leave the crime scene at high speed, abandoning the car and driver in an inconspicuous place.
• The collector's or cashier's car is seized directly at the scene of the attack. They all carry out the attack together and hide in the same car.

Vladimir Tolstopyatov’s responsibilities included monitoring the situation after the crime, the actions of the police, and the stories of witnesses.

Attacks

The gang attempted its first attack on October 7, 1968. On this day, Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov, Samasyuk and Gorshkov seized a car belonging to the Rostov Watch Factory with the aim of robbing a cashier at the building of the regional office of the State Bank of the USSR on the corner of Engels Street (now Bolshaya Sadovaya) and Sokolov Avenue. The attack was preceded by a long preparation: the bandits monitored the process of cashiers receiving money and established on what days and hours the most intensive issuance of money occurs. However, the driver D. Arutyunov, when he saw the gun, sharply pressed the brake and jumped out of the car. Then the bandits decided not to attack that day, realizing that he would report the capture to the police. The car was abandoned in the courtyard of the House of Actors. In order not to give unnecessary noise to this matter, Vyacheslav himself called the police from a pay phone and reported where the car was, adding that he and his friends decided to play a prank on the driver, but he did not understand the joke and was afraid of a water pistol.

Three days later, an attempt was made to attack the cashier of the Rostov shoe factory in the car of the Tolstopyatovs’ accomplice Srybny. To prevent Srybny from being suspected of complicity, his hands were first tied. But even here the Fantomas were unlucky: first they did not have time to attack the cashier before she got into the car, and then this car unexpectedly, in violation of traffic rules, turned into the factory gates.

Sentence

All cassation appeals were rejected, and on March 6, 1975, the sentence was carried out.

In culture

• TV series “Once upon a time in Rostov” (24 episodes, 2012, director - Konstantin Khudyakov, producer - Sergei Zhigunov). In the role of Vyacheslav Tolstopyatov - Vladimir Vdovichenkov.
• Mentions of “Fantômas” can be found in the novels of the modern Russian writer Danil Koretsky, who lives and works in Rostov.
• “Fantômas” are also the heroes of the novel “Rostov-Papa” by the Don writer Anton Gerashchenko.
• A two-part series is dedicated to “Fantômas” documentary“Threat against phantomas” from the series “The investigation was carried out...”.
• A film was made about the Fantomas from the documentary series “Bandits of the Socialist Era.”
• The film “Fantomas vs. MUR” was made about “Fantomas” from the documentary series “Legends of Soviet Investigation.”
• Documentary film “Weapon Workshop of Phantomas” from the “Secret Signs” series on the TV-3 channel.
• It is widely believed that the activities of the Tolstopyatov gang formed the basis of the plot of the feature film “Rooks” (1982). In fact, the prototypes of the Rooks were members of another family gang from the Rostov region - brothers Pyotr and Vladimir Bilyk and their sister's husband Afanasy Stavnichy (in the film his character bears the last name Osadchy).
• Tolstopyatov’s gang is mentioned in the series “Gangster Petersburg” (part 2 “Lawyer”, episode 1), when Evdokia Andreevna tells Chelishchev about her past life.
• Released in 2009 Feature Film In Paris! , where father and son rob stores and cash-in-transit vehicles. The main characters hid their faces under women's stockings and used a homemade revolver. The film takes place in 1968. What’s noteworthy is that the police officers also gave the main characters the nickname “phantomas.”
• In 2018, rapper Vlad Valov (SHEFF) recorded the song “Rostov Fantomas”