"Sonya - Golden Pen" - a woman who went down in history, famous for a very dubious talent. It’s hard not to be surprised at how easy this small and very charming person could circle serious men, law enforcers and prison officers around the finger .
To this day, about her and her talents make films, write interesting books. The nickname "Sonya - Golden Pen", which had Sophia Ivanovna Blyuvshteyn, spoke for itself.
The Great Russian Cheater - Sonya - The Golden Pen
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Russia was in the forefront among the most prosperous and richest powers in the whole world. Every eighth inhabitant of the planet knew the Russian language. There were external enemies from whom a reliable guard on the border of an endless state defended. Internal enemies were revolutionaries - terrorists and various kinds of criminal elements that harm civilians.
Such a vivid representative of this community was a woman named Sophia Bluewstein. She was the most famous among the representatives of the criminal world of tsarist Russia. All print media described the thieves' adventures of a criminal legend. Interesting stories passed from generation to generation. It was impossible to buy a card with her image. When silent films appeared on the screens, the main character of many films was Sonya.
Sofya Ivanovna Bluewshtein: biography
"Sonya - Golden Handle" to the beauty was far away. Here are the descriptions that have been preserved in the documents (quote): “Thin-looking, 1 meter 53 cm tall, puffy face, moderate nose with wide nostrils, wart on the right cheek, curly hair, blond, brown eyes, mobile, too impudent, talkative” . That was such at that time Sophia Bluewstein, whose biography was preserved unreliable.
Sophia Solomoniak - Blyuvshtein - Shtandel did not describe her life accurately, because of which birth information is nowhere to be found. Official court documents have records that the adventurer was born in 1846 in the Warsaw province, in the town of Powzki. In 1899, she was baptized. She was educated, was fluent in several foreign languages.
More than once Sophia got married. Her last husband - Mikhail Yakovlevich Bluewstein, was an avid card player. Among all the names that she used were listed: Rubinstein, Rosenbad, Schoolboy and Brener.
In the sixties and seventies, this woman was engaged in theft in the cities of Russia and Europe. In 1880, Sonya was again arrested for fraud. She was brought to Moscow. The Moscow court decided to send her to the Irkutsk region, to the remote village of Luzhki. In 1881, she fled from there.
In 1885, another arrest was followed in Smolensk for theft of property on an especially large scale and the sentence to three years of hard labor in prisons in the European part of Russia. And already on June 30, the criminal escaped from Smolensk prison. In 1888 she was serving another punishment in the post of Alexander.
Chekhov's meeting took place with Sophia Bluewstein in 1890. He described it in his book: “... Slender, small, with a gray and strongly wrinkled face. On the hands are shackles. A gray sheepskin coat was lying on the bunks, which served as clothing and, at the same time, was a bed. She walked and seemed to sniff the air all the time, like a mouse in a mousetrap. Looking at her, it was hard to believe that until recently she was famous for beauty ... "
In 1898, Sonya - the Golden Pen, freed, went to Khabarovsk. In July 1899, after being baptized in the Orthodox rite, she acquired the name Mary.
Sofya Ivanovna Bluewshtein: children
The only thing known about the children of this lady is that she has three of them. The first Sura-Rivka Isaakovna, was born in 1865. Her mother left, took care of her father Isaac Rosenbad, who lived in the Warsaw province of Powzki. How was the fate of the child in the future, is unknown.
Tabba Mikhailovna, second daughter (by the name of Bluewstein) was born in 1875. She became an operetta actress in Moscow.
Blyuvshtein Michelina Mikhailovna - the third daughter of Sophia. Year of birth - 1879, also an operetta actress of the city of Moscow.
Crime talent
Sonya did not waste herself on trifles. For each new business conceived, I carefully prepared, trying to predict all the surprises, weighed everything to the smallest detail. For the clever fraudster, there were no state borders or high fences. A young woman with agility knew how to start a conversation, she was everywhere accepted into society.
The courageous thief after each successful business loved to relax in Marienbad, introducing herself as a baroness. Sonya always preferred to remain an aristocrat in the criminal world. Her lovers were prominent fraudsters of Peter.
She loved to "work" alone, sometimes she took helpers for herself, even created her own gang and became a member of the criminal club called "Jack of Hearts".
Sophia Bluewstein quotes
The famous director Viktor Merezhko wrote a wonderful book, which very interestingly describes the life story of Sonya - Golden Handles.
Below are quotes from Sophia Bluewstein.
“My dear mother ... I’m so lonely, so hard without you. Dad lives with the rude and uncouth Evdokia, who for some reason came from our heads. For this redneck, the main thing is that dad steal more. ”
“I think He rewarded me ... I risk it. But this is the life that drags me forward with such force that my head is spinning all the time. ”
And the most important saying is known to many.
“What did you steal?”
- Gold, or what?
- Not only, more diamonds.
- This is not theft. Pampering.
- And what is theft?
“Theft is when souls steal.”
The last years of life "Sonya - Golden Handle"
As they say, in the last years of her life, Sophia Blyuvshtein was in Moscow with her daughters, although they were ashamed of their bad-looking mother. She could not engage in her long-standing thieves craft, as her health was undermined by hard labor.
But there was such a case when the Moscow police discovered rather strange robberies. In jewelry stores, a monkey pulled rings or diamonds from the hands of visitors and ran away. They predicted that the famous Sonya brought the monkey from Odessa.
When exactly Sofia died, is unknown. There are only legends. According to one version, she lived in Odessa until she was old and died there in 1947, according to another, she died in 1920 in Moscow and was buried there.
There are other inaccurate data: she lived in Primorye to death, and they also say that representatives of the criminal world brought her body to Moscow and buried it in the Vagankovsky cemetery.
No one really knows how things really were. Of course, it is clear that Sophia Blyuvshtein definitely ended her century, but “Sonya is the Golden Pen” and lives on the planet in our century.
The strength of the monument to Sophia Bluewstein
At the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow, there is the grave of the legendary thief - swindler Sonya - Golden Handle. It is made of marble in the form of a sculpture - a woman without arms and a head. Time made itself felt: the marble was cracked, the fence was torn to pieces.
It is believed that Sonya helps those who ask about it after death. Near the grave it’s always crowded, thieves come, young girls come in hoping to help find a good job, and others just go on an excursion.
The folds of a dress made of stone are covered with a black marker: “Dear Sonya, help me to get rich”, “I really want money”, “Help me recover, become happy” and many others. At the foot of the monument are fresh flowers.
Sonya’s life was strange, everything was going on in it as if on the contrary. She did not become an actress on stage, as she dreamed, but in cars, love did not exalt, but pulled to the bottom. You can end the memory of “Sonya - The Golden Handle” with these words: Sophia Bluewstein was and remains a model of what the Jews can give to the criminal scene.