Baranov Victor is a cult personality in the criminal history of the USSR. This man was able, using only his own mind and ingenuity, to establish the issue of high-quality state banknotes in an ordinary barn. For a long time, the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR searched for a gang of counterfeiters and did not expect to detain a genius inventor who worked without accomplices.
Victor Baranov (counterfeiter): biography of an unrecognized genius
Baranov Victor was born in 1941, from early childhood the boy showed a special interest in paper money. Considering banknotes, he did not think about wealth and their value, but assessed the artistic value and quality of performance. Victor collected a collection of old money and could spend hours sifting through his treasures. At the secondary school, the boy studied well in all subjects.
At the same time, Victor was seriously interested in drawing. At the art school, the success of the boy was also noted. What is remarkable, Victor Baranov could not only talentfully draw something of his own, but also make a high-quality copy of the famous painting. It was obvious that the young artist was interested in looking at the original for a long time and carefully reproducing it.
After finishing seven classes, the young man entered a construction school in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Victor received the profession of a carpenter-SUV. At that time, the young man dreamed of service in the Airborne Forces, began to visit the flying club and made several parachute jumps. These dreams were not destined to come true, on the advice of his mother, Victor graduated from DOSAAF driver courses and served in the automobile battalion.
Inventors in the USSR are not needed
Baranov considers himself an inventor and researcher from birth. Coming from the army, the young man began to try to translate his creative ideas into reality. Many times, Victor offered his own inventions to the enterprises of his native city. However, every time he was greeted with miserly praise and polite refusal for all his labors. In the USSR, state-owned plants and factories focused on the implementation of plans. Despite the promotion of respect for inventors, few in the country were interested in introducing innovations and modernizing production processes.
Baranov Victor was upset by this state of affairs and a similar neglect of his own person. After another failure, the inventor remembered his childhood hobby and decided to try to make banknotes. As the counterfeiter later said, he did not count on success. Victor's goal was not to make money that could be sold in stores and markets. The inventor wanted to fully master the technology for the production of state banknotes.
Counterfeiter Self-Education
Most modern people cannot imagine how difficult it was to search for information before the massive emergence of computers and the Internet. Production technologies and all the intricacies of the future specialists associated with them were taught in specialized educational institutions. Specialized literature was quite difficult to acquire or find in libraries.
However, Viktor Baranov did not even think of giving up. He found a way to get to the Stavropol printing house, where he was able to observe the process of printing newspapers. To obtain information about making money, the inventor was not too lazy to travel to Moscow and visit the Lenin library. And still, too much had to be tried and “invented” personally.
After the detention, Victor will tell that he was able to fully study the technology in 12 years. The first money created by the counterfeiter was superior in quality to the original ones printed on Goznak. The inventor deliberately degraded the quality so that his bills looked realistic.
An exemplary family man and a hardworking driver
Baranov’s creative laboratory was his barn, located in Stavropol on Zheleznodorozhnaya Street. By the time the secret of money production was revealed, Viktor worked as a driver in the garage of the Stavropol District Committee of the CPSU. He had a reputation as an exemplary family man. The neighbors noticed that the man spends too much time in his own barn. But no one could even think that Viktor Baranov was a counterfeiter. From time to time, the inventor “accidentally” left the doors open to prying eyes. Then, the curious could observe the bench fitter and photo printing equipment. The most interesting exhibits were hiding under the tables.
Monetary disaster in the USSR
Victor Baranov - a counterfeiter unique. He exchanged his own money in the markets. At the same time, the inventor's family lived modestly; there was not even a TV in the house. Victor invested fake money in his hobby - he acquired new tools and equipment. But the inventor always gave his beloved wife, in principle, only real bills. For all the time, the spouse only once asked about the income of the inventor, he replied that he received money from one enterprise for the proposed project.
The case of fake banknotes was not seriously interested in public services only in the mid-70s of the last century. Almost 500 counterfeit notes were found throughout the USSR. The KGB considered various versions: from the factory printing of fake rubles in the United States to the cooperation of attackers with Goznak employees. The investigation was ongoing, but fakes continued to appear. What is noteworthy, often even bank employees could not distinguish fake money from real money .
Unexpected exposure
On April 12, 1977, Viktor Baranov was detained while selling counterfeit bills. Stavropol and all surrounding cities at that time were actively monitored by public services. A man exchanging new bills in denominations of 25 rubles was detained at the direction of a market trader in Cherkessk. With him, Victor had a suitcase filled with fake money. The detainee himself proudly said: “I am a counterfeiter!” Employees of public services refused to believe that one person is able to establish such a high-quality production of notes. Then inventor-artist Viktor Baranov brought investigators to his barn and began to proudly disclose production technologies.
Favorite money Baranova
The ingenious inventor began faking
Soviet money with fifty-ruble notes. He released them only about 70 pieces. After that, the counterfeiter (1st number in the USSR) switched to twenty-five-ruble notes. Baranov explains this decision by the fact that the bill of 25 rubles is the most protected of the Soviet. The inventor never worried about the money; he was interested in the process itself and the quality of its products.
Baranov told investigators that he would also fake 1 ruble if this bill seemed to him the most difficult. Out of scientific interest, Victor tried to fake antique money as well. But he never liked the currency. “Printing dollars is like making coffee!” - philosophized unrecognized genius, emphasizing the ease of falsification of foreign bills.
Cooperation with the investigation
During investigative experiments, Baranov demonstrated in stages the entire technology for the production of banknotes. The counterfeiter's talent was recognized, and Goznak even introduced one of his inventions into his own production. The inventor, while waiting for the trial, was not too lazy to even write recommendations for the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR on improving the protection of Soviet bills. The story of Viktor Baranov is also noteworthy by the very fact of cooperation of the detainee with the investigation. The counterfeiter behaved as if he was not afraid of punishment in principle. But he could have been sentenced to death.
Court and sentence
At the trial, Baranov personally refused protection and represented his own interests on his own. The Counterfeiter frankly told his own story. He told about facts unknown to the investigation. For such frankness, the inventor received a sentence with a prison term of three years less than the maximum. In total, Baranov printed about 30,000 rubles, however, he put into circulation only a small part of the funds. The convict was sent to serve his sentence in a special regime colony in Dimitrovgrad (Ulyanovsk Region).
Imprisonment
Victor Baranov is a counterfeiter, whose biography is unique. In prison, he instantly earned credibility. In his free time, the prisoner Baranov continued to engage in inventions and directed amateur performances. For all the performances, Victor made elaborate decorations. While in “places not so distant,” the counterfeiter wrote articles in newspapers and even once won a creative contest. Baranov was released in 1990, being free, the inventor decided to start life from scratch.
How the king of counterfeiters lives today
No one was waiting for Viktor Baranov to be released, his first wife divorced him during his imprisonment. The former counterfeiter got a job at the Analog factory. There he invented a new method for building up a nickel grid in batteries. Then Baranov tried to become an entrepreneur and founded a company that produces perfumes. The perfume of the inventor was distinguished by quality, but was not in demand due to the abundance of cheaper Chinese aromas.
How was Viktor Baranov's life? Today he is married a second time, and together with his new wife he is raising a young son. The family lives very modestly in a dorm room. Baranov himself continues to invent something from time to time. Among his copyright developments is an innovative method of cleaning potatoes after harvesting, and finishing materials, and technology for the production of furniture from recycled materials. The real pride of the inventor is the method of protecting goods, which is recognized as more effective than a barcode.
Looking at the photo of a gray-haired man with kind eyes, it is difficult to believe that this is the counterfeiter Viktor Baranov. The USSR was often dismissive of the talents of its ordinary citizens. Why Baranov cannot achieve success and public recognition even in modern Russia remains a mystery. Often the inventor is asked why he never thought about immigration. Victor habitually answers that he does not see any sense in moving abroad, since he was never interested in money.