“While in Abkhazia at the end of the 20s, Beria lived in a luxurious special train in which he arrived in Sukhumi. The train stood on sidings some distance from the station building and consisted of three Pullman cars, a bedroom car, a saloon car with a bar and a dining car.
That evening, when Beria was preparing to leave for Tbilisi, a girl of about sixteen, of average height, with black eyes and a plump build, approached him near the station.
The girl came from her native Mingrelian village, neighboring the village of Merkheuli, where Beria himself was from. She asked him to intercede for her arrested brother.
Beria noticed the beauty of the girl. Ostensibly wanting to get information about his brother, he invited her onto the train, but not into the lounge car or into the restaurant.
In the sleeping compartment, Lavrentiy ordered the girl to undress. When she, frightened, wanted to run away, Beria locked the door. Then he hit her in the face, twisted her hands behind her back, and leaned on her with his whole body. The girl was raped.
Beria kept her all night. The next morning he ordered the orderly to bring breakfast for two. Before leaving on business, Lavrenty locked his victim again. Beria was captivated by the freshness and charm of this girl, he also realized that she was exactly the type that fully corresponds to his sensuality. She was young and innocent, but she looked mature. She was modest, graceful, but in no way thin. She had small breasts, large eyes that radiated a kind light, and a small sensual mouth.
It would be stupid of him to refuse such a creation of nature. Beria spent several more days in Sukhumi, checking the implementation of the five-year plan 1928-1933 in the construction of local roads and highways, new housing, hospitals and schools. All this time he kept his captive locked in the train.
So little Nina became his wife.”
This rotten “strawberry” is cited in his book “Marshals and General Secretaries” by N. Zenkovich, who has the honor of unearthing the primary source of most of the legends about Beria’s sexual adventures. However, judging by the knowledge of the biography of the characters, surroundings, etc., it is already clear what’s what. For a Russian author, even if he does not have a brilliant knowledge of history, such, as Bulgakov put it, “virginity” is still impossible. And savoring sexual details is not accepted in Russia.
This story came to us from the sexually preoccupied West. At one time, in the wake of the market situation, a certain Mr. Vitlin wrote a little book “Commissar”. Excerpts from it gradually found their way into the USSR and began to be used first in “samizdat”, and then, during the years of perestroika, openly.
There is a technique of “black PR” when compromising evidence is first published in some small and meaningless newspaper, sometimes specially established for such purposes. The newspaper is subject to prosecution, pays fines, and is closed, but it has done its job - now, with a link to it, materials can be reprinted anywhere. So, this is exactly the case.
This must be where the rumors came from that Beria kidnapped his wife - and perhaps the author was feeding on such rumors. This is all beside the point. A similar story exists about Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva, and if you dig deeper, about many others. It is generally common for a person to believe that if he does not like someone, then not a single woman will voluntarily marry him.
However, the reader will have to be disappointed. In this side of Beria’s life, everything is incredibly banal. He got married normally, as expected, by mutual consent.
...But in the biography of Nina Teymurazovna Gegechkori there are certain oddities. Her life as a child is known from the story of her son Sergo and from two sources signed with her name, in which this biography looks different.
First, a word from Sergo Beria:
“Mom was born in 1905 in Marvili. Her father, Teimuraz Gegechkori, is of noble origin, and her mother, Dariko Chikovani, is of princely origin. Before getting married, both of them were already married. My grandmother had three children from her late husband Shavdiy, also a nobleman: two daughters and a son. Typhoid took my grandfather's wife and two children within two weeks. Teimuraz was much older than Dariko, and my mother is their only daughter. Her parents sent her to a four-year school in Martville. Then she continued her studies at the Kutaisi gymnasium. In 1917, grandfather Teimuraz, it turns out, led some kind of anti-tsarist uprising. An almost seventy-year-old man died from a guard's bullet. After that, my mother moved from Kutaisi to Tbilisi and graduated from St. Nino’s gymnasium there... The young orphan in the capital was looked after by the famous Bolshevik Sasha Gegechkori...
Sasha Gegechkori is my uncle, and Evgeniy Gegechkori, a member of the Menshevik government, was my mother’s cousin. By the way, my father met my mother in Kutaisi prison, where he was in the same cell with Sasha. Mom carried parcels there for my uncle. When Soviet power was established in Georgia, my father continued to work in Baku, so he specially came to Tbilisi to ask Sasha for his niece’s hand in marriage. Sasha refused: the girl was underage. And my mother decided that she could get married without the blessing of her elders, so the father’s abduction of his beloved is just a beautiful legend...”12
On January 7, 1953, Nina Beria wrote a letter from prison addressed to Khrushchev (more precisely, there is a document handwritten and signed with her name). An excerpt from it, telling about her early childhood, is given in the first chapter. Here's what it says next:
“Under the Menshevik government in Georgia, from the ages of 11 to 16, I lived in Georgia in extreme poverty (like the majority of the population) without a father and with a sick mother. For the opportunity to have a piece of bread and attend school, I worked as a laborer in Kutaisi in the house of Razhden Khundadze for two years, where, as a result of overwork for my age, I fell ill. My maternal brother Nikolai Shavdiya took me to Tbilisi, who served as a bookkeeper or accountant at customs. I served him and studied... We lived in Nakhalovka, on Magistralnaya Street No. 19, in Utoshev’s house, which was inhabited by railway workers. In order to be able to get to the school by tram, I washed the entire yard, but since this did not always work out for me, I covered distances of more than fifteen kilometers daily barefoot, putting on slippers only in the entrance of the school ... "
She told something completely different in an interview with the Tbilisi newspaper “7 DGE”: that she lived in Kutaisi, in the family of her relative Sasha Gegechkori, and studied at school. Together with Sasha’s wife, she visited him in prison, and it was then that she met Lavrenty, who was in the same cell with Sasha (which is quite consistent with Beria’s biography - it was then, in prison, that he met Nina, who came on dates to his cellmate). Meanwhile, in the first version there is not a word about Sasha Gegechkori, and it is not clear why the girl suddenly began going on dates with him. We will talk about why these discrepancies are important later...
“After the establishment of Soviet power in Georgia, Sasha was transferred to Tbilisi. And, naturally, I moved with his family. She was already a grown girl. I remember that I had one pair of shoes then, but Mary (Sasha Gegechkori’s wife - E.P.) did not give it to me every day, she took care of it. I wore old clothes to school, avoided the central streets, was shy...
Once on the way to school I met Lavrenty (after Sovietization he often came to Sasha, I already knew him). He asked if I wanted to meet him and talk. I agreed. We met in Nadzala Devi, where my sister and brother-in-law lived, so I knew this place well. They sat down on the bench. Lavrentiya was wearing a black coat and a student cap. He told me that for a long time he liked me very much... Yes, he said that he fell in love with me and wants to marry me. I was 16 years old at that time.
As he explained. The Soviet government wants to send him to Belgium to study issues of oil refining. But with one condition: he must have a wife. He promised that he would help me in my studies. I thought and agreed - rather than living in someone else’s family, it’s better to create my own. Lavrenty was twenty-two years old at that time.
True, I didn’t tell anyone that I was getting married. This is probably why the gossip was born that Lavrentiy allegedly stole me. No, I left of my own free will..."13
As we can see, the story of mother and son is consistent with each other, except for some little things. But the version set out in the letter is sharply different. Why is it important? Because after Khrushchev came to power, a lot of work was done in the archives. According to some reports, several trains of (railway) archival documents were destroyed. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but the archives were cleaned very well. At the same time, many fakes were made. Later we will meet with some documents that are given in books and which are referred to as reliable, because they are signed by big names, but these documents bear little resemblance to the real ones.
So the question is: could one person present his biography so differently? Or is Nina Beria’s letter from prison also a fake?
Be that as it may, they got married. Lavrentiy was twenty-two years old, his bride was sixteen, which, according to Georgian standards of that time, was a completely normal age for marriage. In 1924, their son Sergo was born. True, they did not go to Belgium, and he did not have to engage in oil production - the wheels of Lavrentiy Beria’s fate turned onto a completely different path.
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After finishing the seven-year school in 1938, he and his parents Lavrentiy Beria and Nino Taimurazovna moved to Moscow. As a child, the boy was interested in music and actively studied foreign languages - in addition to German and English, he learned Dutch, Japanese and French and subsequently spoke many of them fluently.
The family's move to the capital was forced. Lavrentiy Beria received the position of First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs - according to Stalin's promise, for only a couple of years, and then he would allegedly be allowed to return to his native Georgia.
Lavrenty and Sergo Beria Beria arrived alone, which angered the leader, and soon the rest of the family members were taken to the capital by force. The head of security received the order to “bring to Moscow everything living that is in Beria’s family,” which he carried out with meticulous precision, delivering to the new address not only his wife and son, but also grandmothers, a deaf-mute aunt and 2 cats.
Sergo Lavrentievich settled with his family in a mansion on Mikheevskaya Street and went to Moscow school No. 175. After finishing 10 classes, the young man went to work at the Central Radio Engineering Laboratory of the NKVD.
When the war began, the leadership of the Komsomol district committee gave Sergo recommendations for admission to intelligence school. There, in 3 months, he mastered the specialty of radio engineering and went into active service with the rank of lieutenant. Soon the young officer was responsible for carrying out several important tasks, for example, participating in operations in Kurdistan and Iran.
A year later, Sergo Beria returned to Moscow and became a student at the Military Academy of Communications, which did not prevent the military authorities from calling him from time to time for other secret assignments. For his responsible service, the young man was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the medal “For the Defense of the Caucasus.” During his senior year, Sergo developed a graduation project for a rocket control system, which the commission rated as excellent and recommended for implementation.
The science
In 1947, Beria, having graduated from the institute, received a position as deputy chief designer of the SB No. 1 MV bureau. His training achievements were put into action: based on the drawings, a group of specialists created the S-25 Berkut anti-aircraft missile system.
The bureau was an institution that worked in the strictest secrecy: employees were delivered and taken away on special buses, conversations on them, as well as movement along the corridors during working hours, were prohibited, and specialists had special passes and were considered a “special contingent”. The name itself, according to rumors, received an ironic decoding - “SB - “son of Beria””, but there were few who wanted to repeat this joke publicly.
Over the years of work in the organization, Sergo Lavrentievich created a project for a new weapon - the Comet system, for which he received the Stalin Prize and the Order of Lenin. In 1948 he defended his candidate's dissertation, and in 1952 - his doctorate.
After Stalin's death, the scientist, along with other associates of the leader, fell into disgrace. Sergo and his mother were locked up in a dacha near Moscow and then arrested. Beria's son met 1954 in a solitary cell in Butyrka prison - he was charged with organizing a counter-revolutionary conspiracy aimed at overthrowing Soviet power and reconstructing capitalism.
Soon the Central Committee of the CPSU issued a resolution depriving Sergo Lavrentievich of the title of Stalin Prize laureate, scientific and military ranks (by the time of his arrest he had risen to the rank of colonel). At the meeting of the Higher Attestation Commission it was announced that both dissertations do not contain the personal achievements of the scientist, but are the fruit of the joint work of a group of other engineers and calculations.
Sergo Beria and his mother Nino In November 1954, Sergo Beria was sent into administrative exile, however, retaining the opportunity to work in the military defense specialty. He and Nino Taimurazovna were given documents under the name Gegechkori (mother’s maiden name) in order to hide their relationship with Stalin’s accomplice. Sergo settled in Sverdlovsk and for the next 10 years worked as a senior engineer at a research institute under the close supervision of investigative authorities.
In 1964, Sergo’s mother became seriously ill, and he, who by that time had again become a prominent scientist, was allowed to move to Kyiv. There Beria went to work at the organization now known as the State Enterprise Research Institute "Kvant", where he stayed until 1988. Later, the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR invited him to the position of chief designer in the Department of New Physical Problems.
Beria's son was repeatedly offered to leave the country, but he never took advantage of any opportunity, considering this a betrayal of his father's memory. In addition, Sergo preferred to serve his native country, and never associated himself with the ruling elite.
In 1990-1999, Sergo Lavrentievich was the scientific director and chief designer of the Kyiv Research Institute "Kometa". During perestroika, as part of conversion projects, he created new materials for oil and gas pipelines and fuel tanks. It was from this organization that he was taken into retirement.
Personal life
In Beria’s biography there is only one marriage - with Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova, granddaughter. Judging by the surviving photographs, in their youth they were a beautiful couple: both tall, with delicate features, and their children were also very good-looking.
The marriage was preceded by a serious passion. Sergo Beria became the first love of Stalin's daughter -. They studied at the same school, and the tall, slender brunette won the heart of the young girl. The parents reacted differently to what was happening: according to rumors, Stalin was not against their union, and Beria was very wary of being so closely associated with a high-ranking family and advised his son to stay away from Alliluyeva.
To the relief of his father, Sergo’s youthful love quickly cooled down, and he chose another wife - the beautiful Marfa, but Svetlana was still worried about the failed relationship for a long time. While married, she even tried to divorce him from his wife, but by that time she no longer caused Sergo any feelings other than irritation.
Karen Galstyan played Sergo Beria in the series “Svetlana” This story is shown in the TV series “,” which was released in 2018. The film focuses on the life of the chief's daughter and her love interests. Young Beria was played by Karen Galstyan.
Marfa Peshkova gave birth to three children to the scientist - a son, Sergei, and daughters, Nina and Nadezhda. When Sergo Lavrentievich was in exile in Sverdlovsk, his wife filed for divorce. According to her, the reason was her husband’s infidelity.
Later, the grown-up son moved to his father in Kyiv. Now Sergei is married and works as a radio electronics engineer. The eldest daughter Nina is an artist, graduated from the Stroganov School and moved to Finland to join her husband. Nadezhda became an art critic and lives in Moscow.
Sergo spoke respectfully about his father all his life. He reluctantly renounced the name Beria and returned it at the first opportunity. According to his son’s recollections, Lavrenty Beria was a multi-talented person: he was fond of architecture and drew beautifully, passing on his hobbies to Sergo. He treated children with love and gentleness, trying to instill in them hard work and independence.
The son was especially indignant at the propaganda-created image of Beria as a rapist, dissolute and cruel to women. He did not deny Lavrenty Pavlovich’s extramarital hobbies - he sometimes shared details of his personal life with his adult son, but did not seek to condemn them.
“Father was not without sin,” Sergo said in an interview. “But which man has not allowed himself such weakness at least once in his life?” He assessed other aspects of his parent’s activities just as gently: “Those who accused him of all earthly sins, the same Khrushchev, for example, have much more sins.”
Until the end of his life he fought to restore his father's good name. Sergo wrote the book “My Father - Lavrenty Beria” in the genre of memoirs, where he not only recalls warm moments associated with his family, but also reveals some previously unknown pages of Russian history. Later, 2 sequels were released: “The son is responsible for the father” and “In the corridors of Stalin’s power.”
Death
Sergei Beria died at the age of 75 in Kyiv on November 11, 2000. Despite his achievements in the field of the military industry, most Russian media ignored this event.
The cause of death is believed to be heart disease. The grave of the famous designer is located at the Baikovo cemetery.
Bibliography
- 1994 – “My father is Lavrentiy Beria”
- 1998 – “Cruel Age: Kremlin secrets”
- 2002 – “My father Beria. In the corridors of Stalin's power"
- 2013 – “My father Lavrenty Beria. The son is responsible for the father"
The very name of Stalin's security chief Lavrentiy Beria terrified ordinary citizens. But his wife was considered the first Kremlin beauty. Nina Beria was a bright brunette with burning eyes, and many men sighed for her. But Nino did not start any affairs - all her life she remained faithful and devoted to her husband. Even when he was gone...
How did Lavrenty and Nino meet?
N. Zenkovich in the book “Marshals and General Secretaries” sets out the following version of the acquaintance of future spouses. They say that 16-year-old Nino came from a Mingrelian village located not far from the village of Merheuli, where Beria himself was from, to plead for her arrested brother.
In Sukhumi, at the railway station there was a train on which Beria was going to go to Tbilisi. This was in the early 20s. The girl began to ask for her brother, and Lavrenty invited her to his compartment. There he locked the door and raped Nino. After that, he kept her locked in his compartment for several more days, and then asked her to become his wife.
Nina Teymurazovna Gegechkori
True, Nina Teymurazovna herself denied these details. She claimed that Beria simply asked her to marry him after several months of dating.
I.A. Mudrova in the book “Great Love Stories. 100 stories about a great feeling” writes: “Lavrentiy Beria was married to Nina Teymurazovna Gegechkori. She was the niece of the Bolshevik Sasha Gegechkori and the cousin of the Menshevik and freemason Gegechkori, who headed the government of Georgia in 1920, and the niece of Noah Zhordania, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Menshevik government of Georgia, who fled abroad after the Bolsheviks seized power.”
In the early 20s, Nino, who was left an orphan, lived in the family of her relative Sasha Gegechkori. When he went to prison for Bolshevik activities, the girl began to carry packages for him and that’s how she met his cellmate Lavrentiy Beria.
Nina Teymurazovna Beria
When Soviet power was established in Georgia, Beria specially came from Baku to ask Gegechkori for Nino’s hand in marriage. But he refused because she was underage. Then Nino decided to marry Lavrenty without permission. At least that’s how she described the events in an interview with the Tbilisi newspaper “7 DGE”, after perestroika.
According to Nina, the Soviet government was going to send Lavrenty to Belgium to study issues of oil refining. With one condition: he must be married. “I thought and agreed - rather than live in someone else’s family, it’s better to create my own,” explains Nino.
Kremlin wife
The marriage of a 22-year-old young man to a 16-year-old girl was the norm at that time. Nina Teymurazovna assured more than once that she entered into marriage of her own free will. But I never had to go to Belgium.
The family lived in Georgia, then moved to Moscow, where Nina Teymurazovna worked as a researcher at the Timiryazev Academy. Beria entered Stalin's inner circle and was involved, among other things, in issues of the defense industry, including the development of nuclear weapons and missile technology.
Lavrentiy Beria with his family
Unlike the wives of many other leading officials - Molotov, Kalinin, Budyonny, Poskrebyshev - Beria's wife never came under repression. She was envied by other “Kremlin wives”: among them she was known as the first beauty, wore elegant outfits, always looked impeccable, was smart, graceful, with amazing taste and sense of style.
Beria's widow
A dark streak began for their family after the death of Stalin. June 26, 1953 N.S. Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and raised the question of Beria’s suitability for his position. As a result, Lavrenty Pavlovich was removed from all posts and arrested on charges of espionage and conspiracy to seize power.
In addition, he was also accused of sexual immorality, that he had many mistresses, and not all of them entered into relations with him voluntarily.
Nina Teymurazovna Beria denied this information both during interrogations and later in interviews. She claimed that all the women with whom her husband allegedly had relations were in fact... state security agents. According to her, Beria disappeared all day at work and he simply did not have time to have affairs...
Lavrenty Beria and Nina
After Beria’s arrest, Nina Teymurazovna and her son Sergo were first kept under house arrest at one of the state dachas near Moscow, then sent to prison. Until the end of 1954, both of them were kept in solitary confinement: she in Lubyanka, he in Lefortovo prison. To influence Nina, they even staged the execution of her son in front of her...
When Beria was shot, the family was sent to Sverdlovsk. There Sergo got a job as a senior engineer, but he and his mother were under constant surveillance. At the end of their exile, they returned to Georgia, from where they were forcibly taken back to Russia. Subsequently, at the request of a group of prominent scientists and in connection with Nina Teymurazovna’s illness, the family was allowed to move to Kyiv. Nina Beria died in Kyiv in the mid-90s, Sergo Beria died in 2000.
Shortly before her death, Nina Teymurazovna gave an interview in which she completely justified her husband. She argued that Lavrenty Pavlovich was not involved in mass repressions, since Beria’s family moved to Moscow only in 1938, and the bulk of the repressions occurred in the 37th. Nowadays it has become known that Beria, on the contrary, released from prison many who were arrested by his predecessors.
According to the widow, in everyday life Beria was quiet, calm, restrained, never raised his voice to his household, loved his wife, son and grandchildren, and tried to spend every free minute with his loved ones. She believed that her husband was killed “without trial or investigation” and that in fact Beria and other associates of Stalin served “lofty goals” and were devoted to their country and their people.
But a little about something else. In 1994, a book by Beria’s son Sergo entitled “My Father is Lavrenty Beria” was published. And in 2002 - the second edition with the participation of colleagues from France. A good, solid, interesting book. An example of how a son should treat his father, even despite all the zigzags of his, the father’s, life. An example of how a son should fight for the honor of his father, even one recognized by history as a scoundrel. It is difficult to doubt the life episodes cited by Sergo. Yes, by the way, Sergo does not report any special news on the main milestones of his life. Except, perhaps, for the assumption that his father L. Beria was killed by unknown soldiers back on June 26, 1953, on the first day of his alleged arrest, and at the trial a make-up double was used instead of him.
But first things first.
First, about Sergo himself. He was born on November 28, 1924 in Tbilisi from the marriage of Lavrenty and Nino. This was their second child. The first died in infancy. His mother reports this during interrogation. Sergo began studying at school in Tbilisi. He studied well and was an excellent student. He was involved in music and sports. By 1938, he had completed seven classes. That year, Sergo’s father Lavrenty Pavlovich already held a major post in Georgia. More precisely, the main one - he was the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. At the end of 1938, L. Beria was transferred to work in Moscow. To the post of First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. The People's Commissar at that time was N. Yezhov. I think the appointment of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of one of the leading republics to the post of first deputy. People's Commissar can safely be called a demotion down the career ladder. It was usually considered normal and approximately equal personnel situation when the first secretary of the regional party committee was appointed people's commissar or later minister. And here it’s not the regional committee, but the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Republic, and not the people’s commissar, but the first deputy. It is clear that Stalin planned to make a small “castling” and replace Yezhov in such a responsible position with a person close to himself. It turned out to be Beria - a young 39-year-old fellow Georgian, a responsible party worker, a former security officer and a reliable person, worthy of replacing Yezhov, who was boring to everyone and, moreover, had committed fines in everyday trifles. I don’t know if Stalin revealed his cards to Beria that within a short time he would become the first person in the NKVD. They probably had such a conversation after all. In any case, this should follow from the situation itself: Stalin must somehow explain to Beria why the idea suddenly arose of moving the latter to Moscow, and even with a visible demotion. Sergo recalled that his father initially resisted the transfer, about which there are even documents, but then, apparently understanding the prospect, he agreed. The Politburo made a decision, and Beria went to work in Moscow. One. Without family. Sergo and his mother remained in Tbilisi. His mother, his wife Beria, was working in Tbilisi at that time, doing agricultural science, and Sergo was studying at school. Sergo recalls that in the same year, 1938, the head of Stalin’s security, Vlasik, unexpectedly came to Tbilisi for them. The whole family - he, Sergo, his mother, grandmother and aunt - were put into a comfortable saloon carriage and taken to Moscow to see his father. Vlasik said that this was being done by order of Stalin, who was unhappy that his “protégé” was living in deep loneliness. The family settled in the Government House on the street. Serafimovich. It is also called “House on the Embankment”. A famous, historical object, repeatedly described in the literature. Address: Serafimovicha street, building 2. After some time, they moved to a well-known mansion on the corner of Nikitskaya and Garden Ring (Kachalova street, building 28). Sergo began studying at a Moscow school. “As usual,” it was school number 175, in Staro-Pimenovsky Lane, on Mayakovka. The famous Moscow school, where the children of high-ranking officials, including Stalin, studied. With good, experienced teachers, a well-thought-out program, a reliable boss - the publishing house of the Izvestia newspaper, which is still located 300 meters from this school. Among the teachers, by the way, was Galina Bulganina, the wife of Nikolai Alexandrovich. She taught English. Sergo studied well here too. He was interested in radio, which would later become his life's work and main profession. He practiced boxing at Dynamo. He was trained by the famous athlete - Honored Master of Sports and absolute champion of the country Viktor Mikhailov. By the beginning of the war, Sergo was almost 17 years old. They didn’t take him to the front, despite the fact that he asked to go there. At the military registration and enlistment office, as usual in such cases, they offered to “grow up.”
And yet, in the fall of 1941, Sergo began his military career. Not without the help of his father, as soon as he turned 17 years old, he became a cadet at the NKVD intelligence school. Where this intelligence school was located and what it did, where it trained its graduates, we, of course, do not know. Sergo is silent about this too. But that doesn't matter. It is clear that the scouts were trained for reconnaissance. And then reconnaissance had to be carried out behind enemy lines. The son of the People's Commissar of the NKVD is in intelligence. The phenomenon is normal. By the way, Stalin's children - Yakov and Vasily, Mikoyan's children - Stepan, Vladimir and Alexey, Frunze's son - Timur, Shcherbakov's son - Alexander and other guys - Sergo's friends at that time also went to fight. True, they were luckier: they were two or three years older than Sergo, by that time they had graduated from military schools and gone to the front. All of them, as is known, were pilots, with the exception of Yakov - he was an artilleryman. Sergo was a scout. He liked this business for a long time. His father supported him in this. Sergo recalled: “My father had a tremendous influence on my formation. For example, when I was only twelve years old, he gave me military-technical bulletins and asked me to make collections of materials on a given topic. In Moscow, he complicated my task - he suggested making similar selections from foreign magazines. He drove me into a certain direction so that I could learn to think and analyze. Only later did I realize how much he gave me.”
And yet S. Beria tells something about the beginning of his intelligence career:
“They were preparing us then for transfer to Germany. Twice in 1941 they tried to throw it into the Peenemünde area, where the institute that developed rocket engines was located. Then they abandoned the parachute drop, preferring the long journey from Iran to Turkey, Bulgaria and further to Germany. In the end, they never hired me. No one said anything about the reasons for what was happening, but I had to stay in Iran for a total of about four months. Then our group was recalled to Moscow, and then sent to the Caucasus. I was able to go home for literally one hour to see my mother. She told me that my father was also going to the Caucasus.”
During 1942, Sergo took part in hostilities in the Caucasus. Let me remind you that he was 18 years old at the time. He was part of the NKVD border groups that opposed German reconnaissance teams ensuring the advance of their troops to the mountain passes. At the same time, his father also took part in the defense of the Caucasus, but, of course, Lavrenty Pavlovich himself did not climb mountains or sit in ambushes. He performed there, so to speak, strategic functions. Sergo was awarded a medal for his participation in the defense of the Caucasus, and his father was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
At the end of 1942, by order of the Supreme High Command headquarters, military academies were replenished with new students: the army needed competent military personnel. Sergo was offered the intelligence department of the Military Academy. Frunze. He trained then and is now training officers - commanders of military intelligence.
Sergo refused and asked to join the Leningrad Military Electrical Engineering Academy (later the Academy of Communications) to study at the radar department. During his studies, Sergo is also recruited to perform special tasks. In particular, as he writes, during the Tehran Conference in 1943, as part of a special group, he provided information about the “informal situation” of the allies. Simply put, I listened to their conversations and reported them “up.” Stalin himself accepted his reports on this matter. At that time, Stalin was pleased with the work of the intelligence officers. Actually, Stalin treated Sergo well. One day, seeing Sergo together with his son Vasily, he said reproachfully to his son, who was not in a very sober state:
Take the example of Sergo. He graduated from the academy, postgraduate studies!
Vasily muttered displeasedly at this:
Have you finished with us?
Sergo himself recalled this.
While studying at the academy, Sergo meets famous scientists Berg, Shchukin, Kuksenko. They offered him a job in the field of radar. In 1947, he graduated from the academy with a gold medal and remained in graduate school. Engaged in the development of radar beam guidance systems.
The topic is interesting and relevant. Sergo defended his thesis on it at the end of the academy.
After completing his postgraduate studies, S. Beria was the chief designer of the Almaz Design Bureau, which was located in Moscow near the Sokol metro station. He worked hard and conscientiously. The team respected him. Defended his candidate's and doctoral dissertations. Received the rank of colonel and the Order of Lenin. And he was only 28 years old then. Undoubtedly, his father supported him. But I think that this is exactly the case when such support does more good than harm.
He was arrested in a very original way: on June 26, 1953, on the day of his father’s arrest, he, his pregnant wife Marfa, two children and his mother were transported to a special dacha of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where they were kept for about a month, and then he and his mother were arrested for real, with a transfer to Lefortovo. Sergo describes all the horrors that he and his mother had to endure in Lefortovo and then in Butyrka. They interrogated me often, including at night, did not allow me to sleep, made some idiotic accusations - such as “restoration of capitalism and the revival of private property”, staged a mock execution in order to force the mother, who was watching this “performance” from above from the window, to sign that -That. Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova, Sergo’s wife, recalls that he was brought to her on a date, thin, emaciated, in prison clothes, belted with a rope. Marfa Maksimovna brought him parcels to Butyrka. Having been kept in custody for a year and a half, after the execution, Sergo’s father was released and, together with his mother, sent into exile in the Urals. The last name is not Beria, but Gegechkori, and the middle name is not Lavrentievich, but for some reason Alekseevich. Demoted from colonel to private, deprived of awards. Marfa Peshkova and three small children remained in Moscow. Nuclear scientists Khariton, Kapitsa, and Kurchatov participated in his liberation. They wrote to Malenkov and Khrushchev. Before his release, the new KGB Chairman I. Serov and Prosecutor General R. Rudenko met with Sergo. They had a “touching” conversation with him and released him. In addition, they suggested that Sergo change his last and patronymic names. He agreed and for the rest of his life began to be called Sergei Alekseevich Gegechkori. Frankly, I think that then, in 1954, and later, it was in his interests. Malenkov spoke to Sergo twice in prison. He was interested in his father's archives. In Sverdlovsk, Sergo worked in an old secret specialty: he worked on missile and torpedo weapons for submarines. Marfa Maksimovna recalls that they were given a good apartment in Sverdlovsk - a three-room apartment, although far from the center. Sergo went to work at his research institute by bus. It's cold in winter and you could get sick. My mother-in-law got a job at the Khimmash plant. And she, Marfa, stayed with the children and “cruised” between Moscow and Sverdlovsk. The eldest daughter, Nina, went to school in September 1954, and they decided that she should study only in Moscow. Two other small children (daughter Nadya and son Sergei - he was born in 1953, when Sergo was imprisoned in Lefortovo) were also in her arms in Moscow. Marfa Maksimovna recalls that in Sverdlovsk Sergo had a woman about whom she became aware. The marriage broke up.
In 1964, with the permission of the country's leadership, Sergo and his mother moved to Kyiv, where he worked as a designer and later as director of the Kyiv Research Institute "Kometa", doing the same thing as before. His son Sergei moved to Kyiv.
Sergo's mother, Nina Teymurazovna, died in 1992.
When I was writing a book about Vasily Stalin, I went to Kyiv to see Sergei Alekseevich and interviewed him. He met me normally, talked for a long time about Vasily, then moved on to the Lavrenty Pavlovich case. Sergei Alekseevich did not raise any question about the rehabilitation of his father, which is attributed to him, and even explained to me the reason - our society is not yet ripe for this...
Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova lives near Moscow, in Barvikha. I recently met with her and gave her my book about Stalin’s son Vasily. She knew him well too. He says that Vasily was a good guy, but he only drank a lot. The children of Sergei Alekseevich and Marfa Maksimovna (a son and two daughters) are already adults. They have their own children.
This is Sergo's fate.
Now closer to the materials of his criminal case.
According to the distribution of responsibilities between the members of the investigative team, carried out by Rudenko when initiating a criminal case, Sergo “got” the assistant to the USSR Prosecutor General Alexander Kamochkin. More precisely, not so, Kamochkin got Sergo. This meant that Kamochkin would investigate all episodes related to Sergo. First of all, interrogate, conduct confrontations, bring charges, conduct searches, and then send the case to court. Of course, provided that there are grounds for this. And if not, then issue a resolution to terminate the case. In thieves' language, all this is called in short - “twist”.
So, from the moment of his arrest, Kamochkin began to “twist” Sergo Beria.
It must be said that Alexander Nikolaevich Kamochkin himself was already a middle-aged, experienced investigative worker. He had the rank of State Counselor of Justice, 3rd class, and was a major general in the military. Throughout his prosecutorial life he was associated with the preliminary investigation, by 1953 he reached the rank of assistant prosecutor general, and later, after the end of the Beria case, he would become the deputy prosecutor general of the USSR, supervising the preliminary investigation in the prosecutor's office. A very serious position.
The procedure for investigating the case against Sergo was established in such a way that a separate case was opened against him, as well as against other persons arrested in parallel with L. Beria and his six “accomplices,” and it was subject to independent investigation. The preliminary investigation protocols, interesting for the “main” case, were duplicated, that is, they were made in two copies - one for Sergo’s case, the second for his father’s case and, as N.S. Khrushchev, “his gang”. There are no major violations here. Now this is called “separation of the case into separate proceedings.” You just need to carefully monitor the capacity in which people are interrogated in this case (witness, suspect, accused). When I was a prosecutor, I demanded that my investigators “not get lost” in this. In my time, it was possible to run into penalties here, including from the Prosecutor General. In the Beria case, no one paid attention to these “little things,” including Rudenko himself. They even came up with a special form - a protocol for the interrogation of the arrested person. So guess who this “arrested” was?
I will not rewrite the entire criminal case against Sergo Beria into a book. I’ll say it again, it wasn’t easy for him in Lefortovo, and then in Butyrka; you wouldn’t wish this experience on your enemy.
At first, he was charged with a short “duty” charge under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, in almost all of its interpretations (conspiracy against Soviet power, an attempt to restore capitalism, the revival of private property and other nonsense).
Kamochkin interrogated him several times on this issue. Sergo denied his guilt. A little later, according to the records in the protocols, Kamochkin began to find out all sorts of nonsense from him. Similar to this one.
Answer: When we lived in Tbilisi until 1938, my mother Nina Teymurazovna was given a manicure by a hairdresser named Manya, an Armenian by nationality, I don’t remember her last name. Mani had a daughter, Lyusya, whom I knew as a child. About four years ago, hairdresser Manya found herself in Moscow, she began to come to our dacha, did a manicure for Nina Teymurazovna and dyed her hair. From Mani I learned that her daughter Lyusya was married to mechanic Plygunov; he worked at one of the factories where Glushko was the chief designer. Perhaps I told Manya that her son-in-law could come to the KB-1 hiring department, but I did not give a recommendation to Plygunov. Plygunov was accepted into one of the workshops, and then worked in workshop 16. In 1953, Plygunov received the title of laureate of the Stalin Prize. I personally did not nominate him for the award, but I saw him on the list.
Question: Tell us, who compiled the dissertations for you, for the defense of which you were awarded a candidate’s and then a doctor’s degree?
Answer: The deputy knew that my dissertations were compiled by the theoretical department of SB-1. Minister of Armaments Ryabikov Vasily Mikhailovich, later head of the 3rd Main Directorate, and Shchukin Alexander Nikolaevich - deputy. chairman of the radar committee, later deputy. Head of the 3rd Main Directorate. Academician Mints, an opponent in the doctoral dissertation, knew that the dissertation was being prepared in the theoretical department of SB-1. A.N. Shchukin was also an opponent. - academician
Question: Consequently, you defended your candidate and then doctoral dissertations, using the work of a team of workers from the theoretical department of SB-1, and appropriated the work of the latter. When compiling your diploma project, which you defended in 1947, did you previously use materials compiled by G.V. Korenev, who was then a prisoner at the 4th Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs?
Answer: I cannot remember whether Kravchenko gave me the materials that Korenev was working on. However, these materials were not fully used in my thesis project. I admit the possibility that a drawing from Korenev’s materials was attached to the diploma project. I can’t remember whether Korenev told me in 1948 about the sketch used in his graduation project, in which the car was missing a tail, or whether such a conversation did not take place. I did the wrong thing regarding the preparation of my dissertation.
Question: Do you know that b. Secretary Beria - Vardo, with whom Beria L. cohabited and had a child with her, were sent by him to France and Turkey?
Answer: I don’t know Vardo, I don’t know her. In March 1953, in Barvikha, Sarkisov told me that Beria also cohabited with his secretary Vardo.”
After this, more specific questions and answers regarding the father begin. It must be said right away that what you will read next was obtained from a young man, on the one hand, driven to extremes, on the other, not experienced in all the “delights” of prison life, who testified virtually under torture, under the threat of execution of himself and his loved ones. Here are excerpts from Sergo's case.
Protocol of July 31, 1953
(The interrogation started at 21:00 and ended at 0:50 on August 1, 1953)
Question: What can you show about the merits of the case and the charges brought against you?
Answer: Having read the decision on filing charges dated July 31, this year. g., I declare that I do not plead guilty to the charges brought against me. I was not a member of the anti-Soviet treasonous group of conspirators, I don’t know who this group consists of, and I never set as my goal the seizure of power, the liquidation of the Soviet system and the restoration of capitalism. I didn’t even have the thought that my father, L.P. Beria, could take the path of betrayal of the Motherland. But if he had such criminal goals, he did not share these goals with me. Beria L.P. is my father, but he moved away from me and my mother, towards whom he turned out to be a scoundrel.
Now here are more serious questions and answers. Apparently, the stay in Lefortovo brought its fruits. We read excerpts from the protocols. 08/07/1953 (21 hours - 0 hours 50 minutes)
...I went to my father’s apartment only when he called me or through the housekeeper, asking him for permission to come to him. By nature he was domineering, intolerant of comments, he very rarely spoke to me, and interrupted conversations. He did not talk to me about issues of public administration; I rarely turned to him about these issues. I remember separate conversations with my father. After an editorial appeared in the Pravda newspaper about serious shortcomings in the bodies of the Ministry of State Security in connection with the doctors’ case, I turned to my father with the question: “Why is Ignatiev’s work being denigrated, since he is the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee?” I asked my father this question because it was clear to me that without my father’s knowledge the front line would not have appeared, since he worked as the Minister of Internal Affairs. Beria P.P. he answered my question with irritation and contempt at Comrade Ignatiev: “What kind of secretary of the Central Committee is he, he... (expletive) a dog. And in general, don’t mind your own business”...
08/08/1953 (16 hours - 17 hours 35 minutes)
...Question: Tell us everything you know about the enemy activities of L.P. Beria.
Answer: I assert that about my father’s enemy activities - Beria L.P. I don’t know anything, he never spoke to me about his intentions. I knew that Beria L.P. led a depraved lifestyle, had a second family, which I learned about from Sarkisov...
Here is another interrogation report.
08/10/1953 (21 hours 45 minutes - 0 hours 55 minutes)
...Question: Tell us everything about the criminal activities of the enemy of the people L.P. Beria.
Answer: I reiterate that I was not aware of the facts of the criminal activities of L.P. Beria. I did not know that my father was the leader of an anti-Soviet, treasonous group of conspirators whose goal was to seize power, eliminate the Soviet system and restore capitalism. Personally, I was not a member of any conspiracy group. If Beria L.P. headed a conspiratorial group, he hid his criminal activities from me.
Never in my presence Beria L.P. did not speak negatively about the leaders of the party and government. In only one case, in response to my question, why, after the termination of the case against doctors, a politically sensitive editorial was published in the newspaper Pravda, while Ignatiev was the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee - L.P. Beria. expressed himself in an insulting manner towards Comrade. Ignatieva.
Interrogation protocol for the next day.
08/11/1953 (21 h -0 h 30 min.)
Question: Give evidence about the criminal activities of the enemy of the people Beria L.
Answer: I affirm that I was not aware of the criminal activities of L.P. Beria. I knew that he was an immoral, depraved person, he acted vilely towards his mother and me. I did not know all the details about the depraved lifestyle of Beria L.P., but what I learned from Sarkisov gave me reason to believe that Beria L.P. a morally corrupt person.
At that time I could not imagine that Beria L.P. was an enemy of the people. Hostile statements from L.P. Beria I didn’t hear, he didn’t share in the family about his work, his intentions, plans.
And another interrogation. Again the next day.
08/12/1953 (21 hours - 0 hours 15 minutes)
Question: Your father, L.P. Beria, has been exposed as an enemy of the people, an agent of international imperialism. Having lost the guise of a communist, becoming a bourgeois degenerate, the adventurer L.P. Beria hatched plans to seize the leadership of the party and the country in order to restore capitalism in our country. Tell us about the criminal activities of L.P. Beria.
Answer: It is now clear and understandable to me that my father, Beria L.P. exposed as an enemy of the people and I have nothing but hatred for him. At the same time, I reiterate that he did not tell me about his criminal activities, criminal intentions and goals, as well as the criminal paths by which the enemy of the people Beria walked towards his criminal goal. Living with him in the same house, but in different apartments, I knew that he led a depraved lifestyle, that he was an immoral person. Now it is clear to me that a depraved lifestyle is just one disgusting feature of the enemy of the people Beria L.P. However, I did not have the thought then that he could betray the interests of the Motherland. Obviously, while living with us, the enemy of the people L.P. Beria disguised himself as a statesman, and we in the family believed it...
And another interrogation. Again the next day. Fifth in six days.
08/13/1953 (23 hours - 0 hours 30 minutes)
Question: Tell us about the criminal actions of the enemy of the people L.P. Beria?
Answer: I remembered a statement by L.P. Beria, which characterizes him as an adventurer. At the end of 1952, upon returning from a business trip, I, along with other workers, was in the office of L.P. Beria. in the Kremlin. During the discussion of one of the issues, one candidate began to be discussed and during the discussion someone said that this person (whose candidacy was discussed) works not for fear, but for conscience. Beria L.P. seriously noted that “there are no people who work out of conscience, everyone works only out of fear.” This statement by L. P. Beria struck me so much that at the same meeting I told him: “How can this be, because Soviet people work because of their convictions, because of their conscience.” To this Beria P.P. He told me that I don’t know life..."
All this appears in the materials of the criminal case of Sergo Beria, everything is recorded and personally signed by him. Of course, I would like Sergo to be as solid as a stone, so that after reading the originals of his testimony in the case, the same feeling remains as after reading his book. But... And yet, I would like to remind you once again that this testimony of Beria’s son, who was not guilty of anything, was brought about by bullying against him, and this must be taken into account. And the literary editing and processing of the protocols of his interrogations do not surprise me personally: although he was a doctor of technical sciences, he had very little understanding of these issues and did not know that in the authorities, it turns out, at that time there were investigators who were “slaughterers” and investigators who were “writers.” " The latter were such masters in literature and presentation of testimony in Russian that even experienced editors of any publishing house would envy them.
So you shouldn’t be offended by Sergo Beria for his weakness. Put yourself in his shoes.
Why in his book he came up with a version (more precisely, even an assumption) that his father was killed on the first day of his arrest on June 26, 1953 - I cannot answer this question, you need to ask Sergo himself or his publishers.
Moreover, this fact does not carry any burden.
Beria's wife Nina Teymurazovna (Nino in Georgian) was arrested on July 19, 1953. She was accused of complicity in an anti-Soviet conspiracy, “revival of capitalism,” relations with foreign citizens and other crimes of an “on duty” nature. The investigation began with the clarification of personal data. Nino’s case was led by the investigator for the most important cases of the USSR Prosecutor’s Office, Tsaregradsky. The first interrogation on July 19, 1953, together with Tsaregradsky, was conducted by Rudenko. It must be said that the structure of the criminal legislation in those years made it possible in such situations to brutally deal not only with the head of the family accused of committing a counter-revolutionary crime, but also with his numerous relatives, at any distance: wife, parents, brothers, sisters, etc. This opportunity was actively used before the war and especially during it. The well-known abbreviations CHSIR (family member of a traitor to the motherland) or SOE (socially dangerous element) were then, as they say, widely known. According to the law, this was called “connection with a criminal environment.” Since in 1953 the Criminal Code of 1926 was in force, in which all this was provided for, Rudenko, who headed the investigation into the Beria case, on, in general, legal and understandable grounds, actively used this right in relation to Beria’s relatives, especially his son and wife. Now all this, of course, is illegal, but then... This is what the Criminal Code of the RSFSR said about this in those years.
"St. 7. In relation to persons who have committed socially dangerous actions or pose a danger due to their connection with the criminal environment or due to their past activities, social protection measures of a judicial-correctional, medical, or medical-pedagogical nature are applied.”
For this category of persons, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR provided for punishment under Article 35, which was actively applied.
"St. 35. Removal from the borders of the RSFSR or from a separate locality with mandatory settlement in other localities is imposed for a period of three to ten years; this measure as an additional one can be applied only for a period of up to five years. Removal from the borders of the RSFSR or from a particular locality with compulsory settlement in other localities in combination with corrective labor can only be used as the main measure of social protection. Removal from the borders of the RSFSR or from a particular locality with a ban on residing in certain localities or without this restriction is imposed for a period of one to five years.”
It should be noted that “as an exception,” all this was often applied without a trial, without a sentence, but only by decision of the authorities in the course of administrative proceedings. This means: the criminal case has been terminated or was not initiated at all, but you will still be sent into exile. By the way, this is what the Soviet government did at the end of 1954 with the wife and son of L. Beria, as well as with the relatives of the other convicts.
But let's turn to the criminal case of Nino Beria. Undoubtedly, her personality attracted the investigation due to her closeness to her husband - the main person involved in this whole story. But what role could Nino play in his “criminal” activities? Yes, none! But, of course, she could know something: she knew her husband’s circle, friends, enemies, was in companies, met the wives of other accused, and could tell a lot. So Nino Beria represented a certain operational interest for the investigation. How is all this installed? There is only one way - interrogations. And preferably in isolation. It must be said that Rudenko did not abuse this right. None of the children and wives of the other accused (and subsequently convicted) were arrested during the investigation. They were simply deported after the trial to a “remote area of the USSR”, prohibited from living in Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Tbilisi, the Caucasus and Transcaucasia. After the trial, the Central Committee made a special decision about this.
Under the “old” government the examples were different. Tougher. In 1951, after the arrest of the head of the MGB, V. Abakumov, not only his wife was placed in prison, but also his infant child, for whom the investigators themselves bought milk, since the mother had lost it. And they kept them there for more than two years. Abakumov’s son began to walk there, in his prison cell. But let's return to Beria's wife.
The main issue with which the proceedings began was to clarify her “non-proletarian origin.” There are still legends around this, born of her princely surname Gegechkori. N. Rubin in the book “Lavrentiy Beria. Myth and Reality” writes: “Unlike her future husband, she was distinguished by a noble origin: her father, Teimuraz Gegechkori, was a nobleman, her mother’s ancestors, Dariko Chikovani, came from a princely family.”
Agree that Georgian surnames ending in “shvili” or “dze” sound somehow simpler and no questions arise here. And then suddenly “Gegechkori”. It will probably look the same as if some Tsaregradsky suddenly appears among the company of the Ivanovs, Petrovs and Sidorovs. Nino’s aristocratic appearance gives rise to further “revelations.”
N. Rubin notes: “A straight, thin nose, large, penetrating eyes, an impeccable figure, preserved, by the way, into old age... And the proud carriage of the head and a slightly arrogant and majestic look speak precisely of a princely origin, at a minimum.”
True, the writer L. Vasilyeva in her book “The Kremlin Wives”, with reference to the wife of Marshal M. Katukov, unexpectedly clarifies: “She (N. Beria. - Author) skillfully hid the curvature of her legs.” Well, God bless her, “with crooked legs.” This, as they say, is a matter of taste. Nino Beria was truly spectacular.
Nina Teymurazovna Beria was born in Georgia in 1905, six years later than Lavrenty, in the village. Martvili. Already under Soviet rule, the village was renamed Gegechkori, and the district was named Gegechkorsky. By the way, here, too, the ignorant have questions: is it not her family estate there? I’ll say right away that no, she didn’t have a family estate there. It turned out the same way as, say, in the Russian village of Ivanovka, when many Ivanovs live there.
At the time of the wedding with her father Teimuraz Sikuevich Gegechkori, Nino’s mother Daria Vissarionovna Chikovani already had four children from another marriage - three daughters (Ksenia, Vera and Natalya) and a son, Nikolai Shavdia. Her first husband, Nestor Shavdiya, as well as her father’s first wife, died of illness. Thus, in the family of Teimuraz and Daria (in Georgian Dariko) Gegechkori there were five children. The youngest and only one from their common marriage is Nino.
The materials of the criminal case contain a statement from Nino Beria, sent by her from Butyrka prison on January 7, 1954, addressed to N. Khrushchev. This letter was sent to the CPSU Central Committee from the main military prosecutor's office, duplicated and sent out on the instructions of N.S. Khrushchev to the members of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “in a circle” for discussion in working order. This is a large statement, in which N. Beria asks for release. But first it touches on the question that interests us.
She writes.
“My social origin is from small landed nobility, but as far as I know, my father’s ancestors received the nobility during the period of the Turkish invasion of Georgia in the fight against them, while the majority bearing this name are peasants by origin. My father owned two hectares of land, a wooden house of three rooms, under the roof of which there were always wooden vats in case of rain, there were no draft animals, there were no cows and even poultry, because there was not enough corn collected from this piece of land, even for people in the family; I saw meat or a glass of milk only on major holidays, and I tried sugar for the first time in my life at the age of eleven. Under these conditions, naturally, there could be no talk about any kind of hired force; even the hands of my mother’s children from her first husband, who could be helpers in the household, had nothing to do and nothing to live on in the house. They were forced to work as farm laborers for others, but since at that time they were ashamed of this, they left our village for other areas (sister Ksenia in the city of Poti was a nanny in a merchant family, brother Nikolai Shavdiya was a farm laborer in Kutaisi in the family of a priest) . My father, in my memory, being already quite an old man, barefoot and undressed, poured sweat all day long on this small piece of land. In 1917, he was shot by a royal guard and died six months later. This is my “noble origin”.
All this, if there is a need for it, can be accurately established on the spot - in Georgia (Gegechkor district, Gegechkori village, former Martvili), where I was born in 1905.
During interrogation by Rudenko and Tsaregradsky, Nino confirms all this. Here is an excerpt from the case.
“Question: Tell us about your biographical information.
Answer: My father was a minor nobleman who had 2 hectares of land. My maiden name is Gegechkori. In 1917, my father was killed by a Menshevik guard... After his death, I lived in the house of my step-brother Shavdiy in Tbilisi. He worked as a bookkeeper, accountant and supported me. I studied.
In 1921, when I was 15 years old, my cousin Gegechkori Alexey took me in to raise me. He was a Bolshevik and worked as Minister of Internal Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee...”
During interrogation by Rudenko and Tsaregradsky, Beria testified about the beginning of the married life of Nino and Lavrentiy.
“In 1922, when I was in the 7th grade, I met L.P. Beria, who came from Baku on official business. I didn’t know Beria before and met him through my relative Birkai David, who studied at a technical school. Birkaya was the son of a railway worker, with whom, as Beria told me, he hid during his work in the underground.
In 1922, I left Beria for Baku, and then, when he was transferred to Tbilisi, I returned with him and his mother.
I started working as a bookkeeper at a bank. In 1924 my second child was born (the first died) and I was at home for some time. From 1928 to 1932 I studied at the institute in Tbilisi.”
However, there are a lot of rumors, fantasies and inventions here too. And some are more terrible than others.
“While in Abkhazia at the end of the 20s,” says Tadeus Wittlin, “Beria lived in a luxurious special train in which he arrived in Sukhumi. The train stood on sidings at some distance from the station building and consisted of three Pullman cars: a bedroom car, a lounge car with a bar and a dining car.
That evening, when Beria was preparing to leave for Tbilisi, a girl of about sixteen, of average height, with black eyes, approached him near the station. Comfortable build.
The girl came from her native Mingrelian village, neighboring the village of Merheuli, where Beria himself was from. She asked him to intercede for her arrested brother.
Beria noticed the beauty of the girl. Ostensibly wanting to get additional details about his brother, he invited her onto the train, but not into the lounge car or into the restaurant.
In the sleeping compartment, Lavrentiy ordered the girl to undress. When she, frightened, wanted to run away, Beria locked the door. Then he hit her in the face, twisted her hands behind her back, pushed her onto the bed, and leaned on her with his whole body.
The girl was raped.
Beria kept the girl all night. The next morning he ordered his orderly to bring breakfast for two. Before leaving on business, Lavrenty locked his victim again. Beria was captivated by the freshness and charm of this girl, he also realized that she was exactly the type that fully corresponds to his sensuality. She was modest, graceful, plump. She had small breasts, large eyes that radiated a kind light, and a plump, sensual mouth.
It would be stupid of him to refuse such a creation of nature. Beria spent several more days in Sukhumi, checking the implementation of the five-year plan 1928-1933 in the construction of local roads and highways, new housing, hospitals and schools. All this time he kept his little captive locked in the train.
So little Nina became his wife.”
It must be said that fantasies in the field of “sexual outrages” committed by the top officials of our state are very diverse. How can one not recall here the common tale about the rape of 17-year-old Nadya Alliluyeva by 39-year-old Joseph Stalin in a saloon car near Tsaritsyn in 1919. There are even references to “eyewitnesses” - sister Anna and Nadezhda’s father Sergei Yakovlevich.
S.M. is “exposed” of sexual promiscuity. Kirov, N.A. Bulganin, N.S. Vlasik. Even grandfather M.I. got it. Kalinin - All-Union Elder. He, it turns out, preferred operetta prima donnas. He moved, however, with difficulty, using the old man’s stick for many years.
But nevertheless, in the biographical labyrinths of Nino Beria, not everything is so simple.
During the investigation, for example, it was established that on her father’s side she had two uncles (i.e., siblings of Teimuraz Gegechkori). One, Alexander, is a Bolshevik - that’s good. But her other uncle, Evgeniy, is a “scoundrel” - he was already the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Menshevik government of Georgia and, when Soviet power was established in Transcaucasia, he emigrated to France. This is already a “puncture” in the biography of the wife of the People’s Commissar of the NKVD, and later the minister. And off we go.
“Question: The testimony of Shavdiy Teimuraz dated June 29, 1953 is being read to you.
“...In Paris, Evgeniy Gegechkori and his wife asked to convey greetings to close relatives, including Nina Teymurazovna, Nikolai Nesterovich, Daria Vissarionovna and others. At the same time, Gegechkori’s wife handed over gifts - two pairs of suede gloves, Lorigan perfume, and a large silk scarf. I asked to give these gifts to close relatives...”
Do you confirm this?
Answer: I did not receive any greetings or gifts. Shavdia didn’t tell me anything about his visit to Gegechkori. Therefore, I don’t know anything about the issue.”
Now about the mentioned Teimuraz (in Russian - Timur) Shavdia. There is also a “puncture” here. This is Nino’s nephew, the son of her half-brother Nikolai Shavdia. He is the same age as Nino’s son, Sergo, and was friends with him. Just unlike his cousin - he was not distinguished by good studies and exemplary behavior. I got mixed up with some company in Tbilisi and stole. But this, as they say, is not so bad. During the war, 20-year-old Timur was captured at the front, then served with the Germans in France in the legion, received a non-commissioned officer rank and some kind of award. In 1945, he was repatriated to Georgia from Paris, where he remained after the war. He explained that he was simply in captivity. But on February 18, 1952, he was arrested by the MGB and on July 9, 1952, sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason by the military tribunal of the ZakVO. In April 1953, Beria ordered a review of the legality of T. Shavdia’s conviction. On the personal initiative of B. Kobulov, Shavdiya was transferred to Moscow, and his case was requested to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for study. This was regarded as an attempt to rehabilitate the traitor, who was also a relative of Beria’s wife, and was used as an asset for the prosecution.
This issue was dealt with separately with N. Beria, but nothing was really achieved. She really was not involved in the fate of her nephew.
Here are excerpts from the case.
“Question: Tell us more about Shavdiy Teimuraz.
Answer: I can’t add anything new to what I showed about Shavdiy Teimuraz during previous interrogations.
Question: Tell me, did Shavdia’s family in Tbilisi live in the house next to yours?
Answer: Yes, they lived on the same street, in a neighboring house. We lived together, that is, next door, for several years before our departure to Moscow in 1938.
Question: Didn’t Shavdia Teimuraz at that time, i.e. before you left for Moscow, constantly visit your house, being friends with your son Sergo?
Answer: As a rule, I didn’t let him into my house.
Question: Was Shavdia Teimuraz at your dacha, where and when?
Answer: In my opinion, he was at our dacha in Gagra in 1951. His wife worked as a doctor somewhere there and I met her on the beach. She said that Teimuraz came to her and was leaving today, and she, due to her busy schedule, could not see him off. I invited them to my dacha, fed them lunch and they left.
Question: How do you explain that a man who betrayed his homeland, went over to the Germans and fought against Soviet troops, had an award - a green ribbon - for good service from the German command and the rank of non-commissioned officer in the German army, subsequently served in the CC troops and took part in suppressing the movements of French patriots and shooting them, remained unpunished until April 1952, although all this was known to state security agencies back in 1945?
Answer: I didn’t know anything about this. That. whoever knew this must answer for it, for he himself is essentially a traitor and an enemy, without punishing the traitor. You need to ask Rapava, who was then the Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia. I asked him to check Shavdiy Teimuraz.
Question: Why, when Shavdia Teimuraz was arrested by state security agencies in Georgia on November 18. 1952, and then by the verdict of the military tribunal on July 9, 1952, he was sentenced to 25 years in labor camp for treason, then his case, when Beria became the Minister of Internal Affairs, was urgently requested to Moscow, where Shavdia Teimuraz was also taken?
Answer: I don’t know that and couldn’t know.”
Investigator Tsaregradsky spent a lot of time to clarify issues related to Beria’s entourage. He was especially interested in the families of Kobulov, Merkulov, and Goglidze. We received nothing here either. So, general conversations, small everyday issues: who bought what, what they brought, what they got, what they gave, what they said. The situation at the dacha, on vacation, in apartments, etc. is described in detail.
“I first saw Beria’s wife, Nina Teymurazovna, in 1935, when I was working in Gagra, and she came there to her dacha.
I know that when I was the Minister of State Security of Georgia from 1948 to 1952. Beria's wife came to her dacha in Georgia every year.
I would like to note that her visit to Georgia was annually accompanied by obligatory meetings with senior Georgian officials.
She always arrived in a separate salon carriage. In the same way, she left Tbilisi for one of the dachas they owned in a saloon car. As a rule, in connection with her arrival, she was assigned to the dacha - a cook, a masseuse, a tennis instructor, security, and maintenance staff. It was mandatory to install a “HF” telephone at the dacha. Special horses were provided for walking.
I did not always participate in the meeting and seeing off of Beria’s wife, but I became aware that she asked if I was present at the meeting. From this I had to conclude that I needed to meet her, otherwise there might be trouble.”
Do you confirm these statements?
Answer: I cannot confirm these testimonies: I did not demand any meetings or farewells for myself, and I was even embarrassed when someone came to meet me. The cook, when my children went to the dacha with me, came with me from Moscow. And there was no tennis instructor, but I asked for one. security release one of the security guards playing tennis to play with me..."
As you can see, there are significant contradictions here: Rukhadze says one thing, Nino Beria says another. According to the law, it is possible to conduct a confrontation between Rukhadze and N. Beria. But she's not there. Yes, this is understandable. You shouldn’t waste your energy on confrontations over such a trifle. I admit that everything that Rukhadze says really happened, and still happens now, when the top officials are served.
As you understand, everything established by the investigation had no judicial prospects for Nino herself. We can safely say that the cases against her and her son Sergo were initiated illegally. There were also no grounds for their arrest and detention for a year and a half. And they were sent into exile without any legal grounds.
Nino Beria in Butyrka was driven to despair. I will cite part of the letter dated January 7, 1954, already known to us, which she sent to Khrushchev. By the way, in my opinion, this letter testifies to her high culture, education and intelligence. Although this is quite understandable: she was already a candidate of science then. True, agricultural.
“...Considering myself absolutely innocent before the Soviet public, before the party, I take upon myself the inadmissible courage to appeal to you, to the party, with a request to petition the Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union - Rudenko, so that I would not be allowed to die alone, without the consolation of my son and his children in a prison cell or somewhere in exile. I am already an old and very sick woman, I will live no more than two or three years, and then in more or less normal conditions. Let me be returned to my family with my son, where there are three of my little grandchildren who need the hands of their grandmother.Nina Teymurazovna Beria"
If my communication with people, as with someone who is disgraced and despised by everyone at the present time, is inappropriate, I undertake to observe at home the prison regime that I now have. If I can earn my bread on my own, I will do the work entrusted to me with all conscientiousness, as I have always done in my life.
Regarding L.P. Beria, in the future I will proceed from the decision that the Soviet people and the justice they have developed will make.
If the prosecutor nevertheless finds that I am to some extent involved in hostile action against the Soviet Union, I can only ask him for one thing: to speed up the verdict I deserve and its execution. I no longer have the strength to endure the moral and physical (due to my illness) suffering with which I now live.
Only a quick death can save me from them, and this is precisely what will be a manifestation of the highest humanitarianism and mercy towards me.
In November 1954, after a year and a half of imprisonment and almost a year after the execution of her husband, Nino and his son were released from prison and sent into indefinite exile. According to the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee, they initially wanted to go to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, but then they “outplayed” it to the Urals. Closer to Moscow. Here it is appropriate to recall the old Russian proverb “horseradish is not sweeter than radishes.”
It must be said that during the investigation into the cases of Nino Beria and her son, investigators persistently tried to understand the “moral and everyday decay” of Lavrentiy Beria and his “women’s affairs.” We sorted it out long and hard. We managed to find out something. But more on that later. A separate chapter.
Until now, Beria is one of the most mysterious historical figures of the Stalin era: some attribute devilish traits to his image, others consider him an innocent victim of circumstances. After the execution of Beria, members of his family - wife Nina Gegechkori and son Sergo Gegechkori - were arrested...
Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was born on March 17, 1899, into a family of peasants, in the Georgian village of Merkheuli. From childhood, the future statesman had great vanity. Using common village money, he was sent to the Sukhumi elementary school as the best student. Peers and teachers said that the student Beria had an unsurpassed talent for intrigue, others called him a detective.
Beria was married to Nina Teimurazovna Gegechkori (1905-1991), daughter of Dariko Chikovani. She was the niece of the Bolshevik Sasha Gegechkori and the cousin of the Menshevik and freemason E. Gegechkori, who headed the government of Georgia in 1920. Beria's children: son Sergo (b. 1924; rocket physicist, currently lives under his mother's name in Kiev, was married to A.M. Gorky's granddaughter M. Peshkova; children - Nina, Nadya, Sergei) and daughter (married to V Grishin, former first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee).
After Beria's arrest, his wife and son were arrested (they were imprisoned until the end of 1954). In July 1954, Beria's mother was evicted from Tbilisi to the Gulripsha region of the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The repeatedly mentioned mansion in Moscow (“Beria’s Palace”) on Malaya Nikitskaya Street (in Soviet times - Kachalova Street), building 28, is now occupied by the Tunisian Embassy.
I got the impression that Beria’s successes in creating the atomic bomb and reliable guarantees of the security of the Soviet Union created the basis, the “greenhouse” basis, for the advancement of “leaders” of the Khrushchev type to the top. There were no external enemies, the economy and ideology within the country worked well by inertia. Beria was sure that he would not be touched, because the country needed him. But everything was fine in the country even without him. It was possible to engage in intrigue.
... if Stalin is still reluctantly recognized as a certain state mind, and some “subverters” are still ready to recognize his actions and decisions as sensible, then L.P. Beria still appears in the mass consciousness as the personification of all vices and the author of unthinkable atrocities, a figure downright demonic.
From the memoirs of Nami Mikoyan: 
... I, a five- or six-year-old girl, admired his courage when he swam far, far into the raging sea and when, in the strongest waves, he got into a kayak and took me with him, despite the pleas of women. Well, he knew how to insist on his own. And we went into the distance, taking off on the waves. I didn’t experience fear as a child, especially around him.
On Sundays, Beria liked to gather his fellow neighbors for a volleyball game! Having played enough, the men gathered at Beria's for tea, the windows were open, and their noisy voices and loud conversations could be heard from afar. All of them were shot in 1937. The father committed suicide. After my father’s death, I was raised in my uncle’s family...
Beria was also interested in photography. At his dacha, where we often visited, he photographed me too.
Beria successfully used theater and film stars in foreign intelligence .
It seems that even Lavrenty Pavlovich’s “sexual mania” worked for the glory of the Soviet Union. Documents from his interrogations claim that about 700 of his mistresses were security and intelligence agents. It is impossible to check this, and most importantly, it is not necessary. There is a result - our Victory, in which Beria solved technical and intelligence problems very successfully.
Actually, for the first time I thought that the “villain Beria” could not have led the most successful military industry in the history of world civilization if he had been a vulgar village bandit and pervert, when I watched the wonderful Russian TV series “ The Legend of Olga“.
... A document has been preserved on which on November 22, 1945 Beria will write: “ Comrade Abakumov, what is proposed to be done regarding Chekhova?“In response, counterintelligence takes care of food products for Chekhova’s family, gasoline for her car, building materials for renovating a new house, “protection of family members and armed escort” on numerous trips. Olga was allowed to travel everywhere - to the American zone, to Austria, on tour, on filming. She still worked a lot, reaching her “pre-war norm” - seven films a year.
Apparently, it was no coincidence that Lavrenty Pavlovich “fed” such a valuable personnel. Beria, who hatched a plan for the unification of the two Germanys, “intended to use it for negotiations with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.” In this regard, on June 26, 1953, a meeting took place between Olga Chekhova and the head of the German foreign intelligence department, Zoya Rybkina-Voskresenskaya, a future writer.
Ironically, on the same day, Beria himself, who started this “operation,” was arrested, and after him the head of the 4th Directorate, Lieutenant General Pavel Sudoplatov, “side by side” with whom Voskresenskaya worked for two decades, including and in an illegal situation.
Zoya Ivanovna stated at the party committee that she and Sudoplatov were family friends. She was quickly assigned to Vorkuta for the unregistered position of senior lieutenant, and then fired. So, apparently, there was no “practical continuation” of the meeting with Olga Chekhova.
Information that Chekhova was an intelligence officer, in addition to V. Frischauer’s article in People, is also available from other competent sources. In 1993, the oldest security officer Pavel Sudoplatov called Olga Chekhova “one of the top secret agents of Beria and Stalin.” Sergo Gegechkori (Beria) said the same thing in his book “Father’s Personal Agents,” where he calls Chekhova “the most experienced Soviet intelligence officer.” According to some reports, it was Olga Chekhova who informed our command of the time of the German tank attack near Kursk.
It is interesting that Chekhova herself always categorically denied her involvement in Soviet counterintelligence: “ I don’t take these dubious reports seriously, because over the years of living in the limelight I have learned not to pay attention to gossip and gossip,” but “vaguely hinted” at some “spy story,” which allowed the English magazine “People” to claim: Chekhova should have to provide “NKVD agents with access to Hitler for the purpose of assassination, the group was already in Germany, but Stalin abandoned this project“. ..
Beria's sexual passion allowed him to perform miracles. The recruitment of Olga Chekhova was not an accident! Lavrenty Pavlovich also recruited the Austrian film star of Hungarian origin, Marika Rökk.
From book Sergo Gegechkori « My father is Lavrentiy Beria»:
- Are you the only son of Lavrenty Pavlovich?
- He’s the only one in the family, and in general the father has another daughter. She was born much later, and her fate was also quite difficult.
I received a very good education, in the sense that there were no restrictions on access to information. On the contrary, all my life my father made sure that I met with scientists, people who could bring something to my knowledge, and I considered it my duty to religiously carry out his instructions, so I did not have a carefree youth.
After this misfortune happened, I was arrested. I was released only after a year and a half and was exiled to Sverdlovsk.
My biography should be divided into two parts. In my youth, even before the misfortune (I mean the death of my father and everything that followed), I felt much more constrained than now. Our family had strict traditions, and I was raised in such a way that from an early age I knew: this is possible, but this is not. I had to always look back at the position that my father occupied.
Sergo BERIA: “Marshal Zhukov suggested to my father to carry out a military coup and shoot the entire party leadership. My father did not listen, and he was brutally killed right in the mansion without any trial or investigation.”
Another famous actress, Hungarian by nationality, Marika Rokk, also worked for the Soviet Union.
If Olga Chekhova was a person close to Hitler’s family, then Marika Rokk was an insider in the house of Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda. Magda Goebbels was a rather stern woman in everyday life, but she sympathized with the famous actress. Goebbels himself treated his wife’s friend with the same sympathy. However, Marika was not a special exception - the Reich Minister was generally interested in women. Hitler did not accept him for a long time, say, because of a love affair with a Czech film star.
But be that as it may, Marika Rokk had access, without exaggeration, to the most valuable intelligence information, which went through Soviet strategic intelligence to Moscow. When our units entered Germany, she moved to Austria, where they helped her create a film company. Later, as far as I know, Marika Rokk left for Hungary.”
... Marika is a shortened name. The full name of the actress is Maria Carolina. Her parents were Hungarians. She was born on November 3, 1913 in Cairo, and spent her childhood in Budapest. When Marika was eleven years old, she told her parents that she was ready to support them and her older brother with her dancing, which she had been doing for a long time, slowly and with her mother’s approval. The girl’s father, who had always opposed his daughter’s hobby, after watching his daughter dance, was forced to agree and even promised that from now on he would play the role of her impresario. And soon Marika was already performing solo with the Hungarian csardas - first in Paris, a little later in New York.
“At the age of eleven I danced in the variety show “Moulin Rouge” in Paris, at twelve I tried my hand at Broadway, and became a favorite of the public on the boulevard ring in Budapest. In Vienna, for my role in “The Ring Star,” I was praised to the skies as a new luminary under the big top,” wrote Marika Reck in her autobiographical book “Heart with Pepper,” published in 1974.
... The last time, after a long break, Marika Rekk decided to go on stage in 1992 in Budapest on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Imre Kalman, triumphantly performing the role of Countess Maritza, which she had the opportunity to perform more than 700 times... Marika Rekk died in May 2004 in Austria - from a heart attack
After Beria was taken into custody, his wife and son were arrested. They were behind bars until 1954, when they were sent into exile. According to Beria’s wife, Nina Gegechkori, investigators staged the execution of Sergo (son), but she did not say anything about her husband, and when the shots rang out, she fainted.
December 18, 1953. Beria was accused of espionage for Great Britain, of striving for “the liquidation of the Soviet worker-peasant system, the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie.” The trial lasted only five days, the sentence of Beria and his accomplices was pronounced on December 23, and on the same day it was carried out. Some sources report that before his execution, Lavrenty Pavlovich admitted to “moral corruption”: according to the investigator, the defendant had relationships with 221 women.
Today, there are a lot of “blank spots” in Beria’s case. Many people try to justify him in the eyes of society, but the image of Beria as the devil of Soviet times has long been entrenched in the minds of the people. In 2000, Beria was denied rehabilitation.
