Nicknamed Anka the Machine Gunner, singer Natalya Stupishina was born in 1960 April 4. Interesting fact From Natalya’s life, one can consider her birthday, which is indicated in her passport and other documents as April 3.
This happened because the girl’s father himself was born on April 3 and therefore decided to combine these two events.
The girl was involved in creativity from an early age; at 6 she was sent to music school, and at 12, little Natasha went to figure skating.
Since 1983, the girl studied in "Gnesenki", but she managed to get on the Luzhniki stage only with an ensemble called “Muscovites”. The girl sang and played the guitar.
Thanks to the celebrity of the vocal-instrumental ensemble, Natalya managed to travel all over Russia, at that time it was still Soviet Union. The famous Anka's schedule was so busy that sometimes she had to perform up to 5-6 times per day in completely different places.
But the Machine Gunner never upset her fans and continued to perform hits for them.
Exited in 1988, Stupishina's disc was not met with much applause, which greatly upset the girl, so she began to ask the author of some poems for songs to create unique poems for her on the subject of the Civil War.
It was since the 1990s that Natalya appeared in the image of the universally recognizable Machine Gunner, because in her songs there were three main characters Anka, Chapaev, Petka.
“The cart took us for a ride” and “You’re not a pilot” have been on the lips of fans of Stupishina’s work for a long time. For the performance of the first song, the artist was awarded the prize. In a short period of time, the singer receives universal recognition, there are a lot of tours, so many that poems for songs and music were created right on the way from one city to another.
Unfortunately, the hype around the artist’s repertoire quickly began to bore the public, so she had to leave the stage when her popularity plummeted. Opinions are divided regarding Anka's departure, with some believing that the lack of proper management is to blame. Others say that the hits that Natalia’s team promoted are too few to stay afloat for a long time.
The latter claim that the woman herself stopped striving for popularity having decided to open a recording studio and promote other talents. In fact, Natalya herself did not say anything about this. She really began to focus on opening a studio and recording songs by unknown or little-known singers there.
The singer's image was invented by her husband. They cut holes in a simple vest, sewed a hat for the girl and made a rolled-up cigarette from ordinary paper, on which a light was drawn.
In addition, for the first time Anka performed with real cartridges at the ready, however, due to their heavy weight, the girl asked to replace them with fake wooden cartridges, which they often did not want to let through at customs, they were so realistically made.
The very first clothing details were not in in full force to build a house. For the first time, fans took the artist’s hat from the stage. The woman threw away her hat during one of the emotional moments and she never saw the custom-made item again.
The second time she was robbed was when all the details of her clothes were stolen from the summer part of the house in which Natalya and her family lived. Some time after the Machine Gunner began performing her songs, the girl realized that such an image of a slightly vulgar woman would quickly begin to bore listeners, so there was an attempt to change the image for an assistant deputy in the Duma.
But due to the fact that both the song and the image itself were considered offensive, the woman’s performance was not broadcast on television.
Personal life
First and only husband became Stupishina Ruslan Gudiev. The man himself was a creative person. He was not only an artist, but music was no stranger to him. Therefore, the man had no complaints about his wife’s work.
He helped her create an image, supported her in difficult moments and made CD covers for the woman.
Now the woman devotes time to her family and creates jewelry.
The wedding took place when Natalya was 22 years old, in 1982. They still live happily, although often creative people diverge precisely because of creative differences. However, there were no serious quarrels in this union.
Children
Daughter Polina Gudieva was born shortly after the wedding. Despite the birth of the baby, Natalya still performed for a long time, and she had to take her daughter with her on tour.
Now the girl has grown up and lives in the United States of America. In addition, Polina followed in her mother’s footsteps and also sings. She is very creative person, like her parents.
On November 23, 1981, a certain Maria Andreevna Popova was buried at the Novokuntsevo cemetery in Moscow. As the 86-year-old woman bequeathed, with military honors. To the sound of gun shots, the coffin was escorted by the daughter of the deceased and well-known theater and film artists. The deceased never had a direct relationship with the world of cinema. However, until her death, she had to “play the role” for which Joseph Stalin personally “approved” her.
The first version of the film "Chapaev" and simply Maria
In the early thirties, Stalin was brought to watch the film “Chapaev,” directed by the Vasilievs. The leader did not like the picture, he called the directors to his place. Joseph Vissarionovich suggested that they introduce a female fighter into the film, as well as indicate a “romantic line.”
The Vasiliev brothers, who were actually just namesakes, got down to business.
All the women who fought in the legendary 25th Chapaev Rifle Division were invited to the Red Army Museum. They were asked to tell stories from front-line life for a future film. There were a lot of women gathered, their stories were recorded by a whole squad of stenographers. But only the stories told by Maria Popova, a soldier of the Chapaev division, were selected. In the future, when writing the script, the wife of Commissioner Dmitry Furmanov, Anna, will call her by her name.
So easily Maria will become Anka the machine gunner.
"She will be the heroine"
The film about the heroes of the Civil War, released on screens across the country in 1934, was a tremendous success. His characters were perceived by the audience as real people, all the events seemed genuine. Spectators watched the film more than a dozen times. However, like Stalin himself, who was interested in the military exploits of Maria Popova.
“Mom said that he asked the Vasiliev directors if it really happened. “Yes,” they answered. He then said: “she will be the heroine,” recalls Maria Popova’s daughter Zinaida Mikhailovna.
Maria Popova herself at that time, knowing nothing, lived in... Berlin. And when she was called to Moscow to be declared a national treasure, she was very scared.
"Masha, rub your eyes with onion"
The future "Anka the machine gunner" was born in 1896 in the Samara province. At the age of 16 she was married to Ivan Popov. But she and her husband did not live long. Ivan Popov died shortly after the wedding.
“When they buried her husband (he, by the way, was not my father), the neighbors whispered: Masha, you should at least rub your eyes with onions so that there will be tears,” says Zinaida Popova. “He, as my mother recalled, often suffered from stomach pains And during another acute attack he died. And I still don’t know who my real father is. My mother took many secrets with her to the grave, including the secret about my father.”
After the death of her husband, Popova got a job as a nanny in a hospital. Then she worked at the Samara Pipe Factory. Here I joined the party. When the Civil War began, Maria took part in the battles for Samara.
“In 1918, when the White Czechs took the city with the support of the White Guards, my mother was captured, but she and several other soldiers managed to escape,” says Zinaida Popova. “Somewhere in the steppe they came across the advanced units of the 25th Chapaev Division.” .
In the division, Maria Popova initially served as an assistant doctor. In one of the battles, she crawled up to a soldier wounded in the arm, and he literally forced her to fire a machine gun, because he himself could not press two triggers at the same time. For this fight, Chapaev awarded her a watch. He later decided that Maria Popova’s place was in horse reconnaissance.
Together with Vasily Ivanovich, they fought for a year - until Chapaev’s death.
“Chapaev could not stand the presence of female non-fighters in his division”
“It must be said right away that Vasily Ivanovich could not stand the presence of female non-fighters in his division,” says the granddaughter of the legendary division commander Tatyana Chapaeva. “He also quarreled with Furmanov precisely because he brought his wife Anna to the front. Vasily Ivanovich came in to the commissar’s hut and saw that some woman was lying in bed. Vasily Ivanovich demanded that Commissar Furmanov send Anna Nikitichna to the rear.”
"If we talk about the nonsense that recent years managed to write and reproduce, then I undoubtedly give first place to the one who came up with the idea that Vasily Ivanovich and Anna Furmanova were lovers,” says Tatyana Chapaeva indignantly. - Secondly, to the one who got it from somewhere that supposedly Pyotr Isaev (Petka) a year later, when the soldiers held a memorial for Chapai, shot himself. With the motivation that it was he who did not save his commander. There is another very common myth. It’s as if the wife of the actor Leonid Kmit, who played the role of Petka, was so jealous of her husband of the movie Anka that she committed suicide.”
Tatyana Chapaeva added that in fact Pyotr Isaev was not a peasant simpleton as shown in the film. This highly educated officer never served as Chapaev’s orderly, but was a special ensign important matters, and subsequently the head of the communications brigade. In principle, there could be no love between him and Anka - Maria Andreevna Popova. And in real life it was she who taught him how to use a machine gun.
“I have been friends with Maria Andreevna’s daughter Zinaida Mikhailovna for many years. I often visited them in their house on Tverskaya. Maria Andreevna always seemed to me a very calm, reasonable person. Of course, I asked her a lot about my grandfather. After all, she, who served in The reconnaissance company of the Chapaev division, unlike me, knew my grandfather personally,” said Tatyana Chapaeva.
“He has a representative appearance, but still doesn’t know how to dress himself like a woman with taste.”
After the Civil War, Popova studied at Moscow State University at the Faculty of Soviet Law. And in 1931 she was sent to Berlin, appointing her as an assistant in the legal department of the trade mission.
A young lawyer, Maria Popova, arrived in Berlin wearing a colorful jacket, fastened with two large pins instead of buttons. This is how she appeared for the first time before Evgenia Alliluyeva, head of the personnel department of the Trade Mission.
“Of course, a devoted comrade to us. In January 1931, after graduating from the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University, she was sent to work at the Soviet Trade Mission in Berlin. She speaks little German. She knows how to treat people. She has a representative appearance, but she still doesn’t know how to dress herself like a woman with taste.”
From the very first meeting, Popova and Alliluyeva became friends. Maria confessed to her that she was pregnant, whispered the name of the child’s father, and Evgenia kept this secret forever.
Maria learned to dress with taste from fashionista Evgenia Alliluyeva. By the time her daughter was born, she no longer stood out from the crowd of well-dressed Berlin Frau.
On a voluntary basis, Maria Popova was also appointed director of the club of the Soviet colony. All these positions provided opportunities for contacts and a certain freedom of movement. Maria Andreevna helped sent compatriots adapt to Germany and brought them together with the right people.
From the profile of Maria Andreevna Popova, an employee of the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters:
“In 1931-1934, she worked at the Soviet Trade Mission in Berlin as a referent and chairman of the joint committee of trade unions of the Sovkolonia. An intelligent, fairly theoretically trained corporate woman. A social activist.”
“I don’t know what my mother did in Germany, but I saw her so rarely that I called her “Frau Popova.” And “mummy” - “Mutillein” - she called her nanny Ani. I spoke German and thanks to the nanny I was a very politicized child, - Zinaida Popova recalls. - Nanny voted for Hitler in the 1933 elections, because he gave everyone a job. She went to almost all the rallies, and she took me with her in a stroller. I told everyone: mouth is front, mouth is front! when the fascists came to power, I also told everyone to put their mouths to front!”
“Did your mother bring a machine gun with her?”
Soviet newspapers quickly picked up the news about the real prototype of Anka the Machine Gunner and made Maria Popova a real heroine.
Popova did not object: fame pleasantly tickled her pride. Of course, some of the fighting friends were upset. Many risked their lives no less than Popova, but she alone got the glory.
However, Maria had no time for this. She received a new assignment.
From the profile of Maria Andreevna Popova, an employee of the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters:
“In November 1935, she was recruited to work in the RU of the Red Army. From May 1936 to May 1937, she was on a business trip to Stockholm through Intourist. She has a lot of practical intelligence and savvy. She works hard on the Swedish language. She has a calm, self-possessed character.”
Residents of the Soviet settlement in Stockholm greeted Maria Popova as a heroine. One boy asked Zina: “Did your mother bring a machine gun with her?”
Maria Andreevna developed an almost domestic relationship with the USSR Ambassador to Sweden Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai. They were very friendly.
In May 1937, Popova was informed that her business trip to Stockholm was over. With heavy forebodings, Maria Andreevna returned to Moscow. But so far everything was going well. She had a job, she was given an apartment on Tverskaya.
"Only Trotskyists beat children"
One day the doorbell rang. The call was persistent. It turned out that the neighbors were complaining about their daughter.
Zina organized a rally in the yard and explained to the children that adults were now conducting an operation in the Arctic Ocean to rescue the “Papaninites.” “Polar explorers are freezing,” said Zina, “they need clothes.” The kids ran to the Moscow River and threw their coats onto the floating ice floes. Zina told them that the ice floes would certainly wash out into the ocean.
“Mother took an old soldier’s belt from the wall and spanked me. She asked: “Why aren’t you crying, you bastard?” And I said: “I won’t. Only Trotskyists beat children,” recalls Zinaida Popova.
"Hero Chapaev walked through the Urals..."
Before the Great Patriotic War, arrests of fighters of the Chapaev division began.
Ivan Kutyakov was killed by the Chekists - he commanded the division after the death of Chapaev. When they came for Kutyakov, he shouted that he would not be released alive and began shooting at the guards. They returned fire.
Popova was not touched in those years. And in 1942 she was again called to the front to join the propaganda brigade.
Maria Andreevna took her daughter to her family in Kuibyshev, and she herself, as part of a lecture group, traveled to the fronts - raising the morale of the troops. After watching the film “Chapayev,” Maria Popova most often told the soldiers about the history of the creation of the song “Chapayev the Hero Walked Through the Urals.” She composed it after the death of the division commander.
One day, Alexander Alexandrov, the leader of the famous Red Banner Song and Dance Ensemble, heard the song. At his request, Maria Andreevna wrote a few more lines. “The Ural River is deep, the banks are steep, and the steppe and steppe are wide - that’s where our people beat the enemy.”
The war is over. Stalin died. The Khrushchev thaw began.
Sovremennik, CNN and the placebo effect
Friends of Maria Andreevna’s daughter increasingly began to come to the Popovs’ apartment in house number six on Tverskaya. Zinaida Mikhailovna had just graduated from the Institute of International Relations at that time. In the future, she will become the editor of the Moscow bureau of CNN, and will work in the bureaus of the Los Angeles Times and the Japanese newspaper Mainichi.
And then she introduced her mother to young artists of the Moscow Art Theater who decided to create their own theater - Sovremennik. Zinaida will marry one of them, actor Igor Vasiliev.
While little-known young and talented artists We were rehearsing the play "Forever Alive". Maria Andreevna let them in, allocating one of the rooms in her apartment for night rehearsals.
Many years later, a sign will appear on the front door of entrance No. 8 in the house on Tverskaya that it was in Maria Andreevna Popova’s apartment that “essentially, the future Sovremennik theater was born.”
Of course, the youth pestered “Anka the Machine Gunner” with questions.
The story about the placebo effect, repeatedly told by Maria Andreevna, has always enjoyed constant success.
In the destroyed pharmacy of the small town, where the Chapaevites entered, there were two bags of soda. Nurse Popova loaded them onto a cart and brought them to the division. She cut the paper into strips, poured powder, rolled it up and wrote: “from the head”, “from the stomach” and distributed it to the fighters. It helped some.
The medical fame of the medical assistant Maria Popova then eclipsed the authority of the division doctor, who did not give such medicines.
The Chapaevites complained about the doctor to the division commander and cited Maria as an example.
The young artists laughed while listening to Maria Andreevna. She laughed with them. But it became more and more difficult to seem like a cheerful housewife.
Denunciation
In 1959, Popova was summoned to the party Central Committee. From her foreign outfits, Maria Andreevna chose the most formal one and went to Old Square. And when she returned, the housekeeper Marusya, who had served the Popovs for many years, sensing something was wrong, rushed to get medicine.
It turned out that several old Chapaevites wrote a letter to the Party Control Committee of the CPSU Central Committee, in which they reported that Maria Popova was actually Novikova, the daughter of kulaks from the village of Vyazovy Gai. That she fought on the side of the Whites, she was allegedly seen among the White Guards. And when the advantage is Civil War they began to take the Reds, forged a party card and came to the Chapaev division.
The main thing the signatories accused Popova of was: “She is not Anka.”
An employee of the Party Control Committee left Moscow on a special assignment to Maria Andreevna’s homeland - Kuibyshev, former Samara.
Still Anka the Machine Gunner
And then Maria Popova proved that she is still Anka the machine gunner.
As in that battle with the Kappelites, in the famous scene from the film about Chapaev, she decided to let the enemies get closer.
Interviews with the famous Chapaevka Popova began to appear in large numbers in newspapers and magazines.
In them she said that she had never been the prototype of Anka the machine gunner, that this was a collective image. Maria Andreevna listed the names of her fighting friends who were worthy of no less glory than she was. Well, since Stalin called her Anka, she herself never claimed this. Opponents were confused.
And a man who had gone there on a special party assignment returned to Moscow from Kuibyshev. He worked conscientiously. The certificate submitted to the party Central Committee, a copy of which is still kept by the “daughter of Anka the machine gunner,” stated:
“Popova Maria Andreevna, a native of the village of Vyazov Gai, Samara province. Her maiden name was Golovin. Popova’s father, a poor peasant Andrei Romanovich Golovin, was called up to serve in the Black Sea Fleet, became one of the first Russian military divers. His name is mentioned in the story Soviet writer Konstantin Paustovsky. During one of the dives he received decompression sickness, was demobilized and died when his daughter Maria Popova was 4 years old. Maria Popova's mother died when the girl was 8 years old.
From this age, Maria Andreevna worked as a laborer for wealthy fellow villagers, including the kulaks Novikovs. Popova developed a close relationship with this family. It was they who were evacuated during the Great Patriotic War Popova's daughter Zinaida. And it was precisely as a relative of the Novikovs that Popova passed herself off when she tried to escape from white captivity in 1918. Information from a witness, Popova’s fellow soldier, that during interrogation by the White Czechs she called herself Novikova, is stored in the secret archives of the Red Army.
At the age of 16, Maria Andreevna was married to a poor fellow villager, Ivan Popov. But a few days after the wedding, the husband died of inflammation of the peritoneum.
Since 1914, Maria Popova has been working in Samara. In 1717 she joined the Red Guard and took part in battles on the Dutov Front. In 1918, she was given a ticket as a member of the Bolshevik Party. The ticket was presented by Nikolai Shvernik, a member of the party cell of the Samara Pipe Plant. As part of the Chapaev division since June 18. Popova repeatedly carried out important command tasks: she worked in the Bolshevik underground, and prevented a counter-revolutionary mutiny in the First Socialist Regiment of Military Sailors. She served in cavalry reconnaissance and at the same time performed the duties of a medical assistant.
A person of unparalleled personal courage: during battles she repeatedly took command of cavalry crews instead of commanders who died or fled from the battlefield. Wounded, shell-shocked. Awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In 1924, Army Commander Frunze personally sent her to study at the workers' faculty of the Kharkov Medical Institute. In 1928 she entered the Moscow state university. Further life path Maria Popova is not interested in the investigation."
“All that’s left is movies and jokes”
Popova was again summoned to the Central Committee. She was received by the Chairman of the Central Committee of Party Control Nikolai Ivanovich Shvernik. The same Shvernik who once handed her a party card when she worked in Samara at a pipe factory.
“He told his mother: well, Marusya, did they torture you? Calm down, you are acquitted on all counts,” recalls Zinaida Popova. “She wanted to answer him that he could have stopped this torment long ago, but she just waved her hand and left.” .
That same evening, a company of Chapaevites gathered for a traditional meeting in the house of Commissioner Furmanov’s daughter Anna. As always, Boris Babochkin, who played the role of the legendary division commander, was at Chapaev’s gatherings.
“Mom says: now I’ll tell you a joke. Petka comes to Chapaev and asks: Vasily Ivanovich, where is Anka? - Yes, there she is, lying on the stove with radiculitis. - Well, why couldn’t she find a Russian? - says Petka, - Zinaida Popova recalls her mother’s story. “Babochkin’s face wrinkled, he began to shout at his mother: “How dare you, Marusya, retell these nasty jokes? And my mother says: “Just think, what does it matter. All that’s left is movies and jokes.”
Maria Andreevna died in the winter of 1981. No matter how much her daughter asked, even before her death she never told her her father’s name.
A little later, in a notebook that always lay on her mother’s bedside table, Zinaida Mikhailovna found a slightly crumpled photograph of Maria Andreevna’s old front-line friend, People’s Commissar of Education Andrei Bubnov, who was shot in 1938.
"Birth" of Anka
Categories:
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- Anka, Paul
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Antonina Makarova born in 1921 in the Smolensk region, in the village of Malaya Volkovka, in a large peasant family Makara Parfenova. Studied at rural school, and it was there that an episode occurred that influenced her later life. When Tonya came to first grade, because of shyness she could not say her last name - Parfenova. Classmates began shouting “Yes, she’s Makarova!”, meaning that Tony’s father’s name is Makar.
Yes, with light hand teacher, at that time perhaps the only literate person in the village, Tonya Makarova appeared in the Parfenov family.
The girl studied diligently, with diligence. She also had her own revolutionary heroine - Anka the machine gunner. This film image had a real prototype - a nurse from the Chapaev division Maria Popova, which once in battle actually had to replace a killed machine gunner.
After graduating from school, Antonina went to study in Moscow, where the beginning of the Great Patriotic War found her. The girl went to the front as a volunteer.
Camping wife of an encirclement
19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova suffered all the horrors of the infamous “Vyazma Cauldron.”
After the heaviest battles, completely surrounded, of the entire unit, only a soldier was next to the young nurse Tonya Nikolay Fedchuk. With him she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They didn’t look for partisans, they didn’t try to get through to their own people - they fed on whatever they had, and sometimes stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his “camp wife.” Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.
In January 1942, they went to the village of Krasny Kolodets, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tonya alone.
Tonya was not expelled from the Red Well, but the local residents already had plenty of worries. But the strange girl did not try to go to the partisans, did not strive to make her way to ours, but strived to make love with one of the men remaining in the village. Having turned the locals against her, Tonya was forced to leave.
Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg. Photo: Public Domain
Salary killer
Tonya Makarova’s wanderings ended in the area of the village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The notorious “Lokot Republic”, an administrative-territorial formation of Russian collaborators, operated here. In essence, these were the same German lackeys as in other places, only more clearly formalized.
A police patrol detained Tonya, but they did not suspect her of being a partisan or underground woman. She attracted the attention of the police, who took her in, gave her drink, food and rape. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.
Tonya did not play the role of a prostitute for the police for long - one day, drunk, she was taken out into the yard and put behind a Maxim machine gun. There were people standing in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who took not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this did not amount to a lot of work. True, the dead drunk woman didn’t really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.
The next day, Makarova learned that she was now an official - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with her own bed.
The Lokot Republic ruthlessly fought the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground fighters, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. Those arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.
The cell accommodated 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones.
Neither the Germans nor even the local policemen wanted to take on this work. And here Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere with her shooting abilities, came in very handy.
The girl did not go crazy, but on the contrary, felt that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot her enemies, but she shoots women and children - the war will write off everything! But her life finally got better.
1500 lives lost
Antonina Makarova's daily routine was as follows: in the morning, shooting 27 people with a machine gun, finishing off the survivors with a pistol, cleaning weapons, in the evening schnapps and dancing in a German club, and at night making love with some cute German guy or, at worst, with a policeman.
As an incentive, she was allowed to take the belongings of the dead. So Tonya acquired a bunch of outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes made it difficult to wear.
However, sometimes Tonya allowed a “marriage” - several children managed to survive because, due to their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out along with the corpses by local residents who were burying the dead and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a female executioner, “Tonka the machine gunner”, “Tonka the Muscovite” spread throughout the area. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but were unable to reach her.
In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.
By the summer of 1943, Tony’s life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved to the West, beginning the liberation of the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but then she conveniently fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Greater Germany.
Honored veteran instead of a war criminal
In the German hospital, however, it also soon became uncomfortable - the Soviet troops were approaching so quickly that only the Germans had time to evacuate, and there was no longer any concern for the accomplices.
Realizing this, Tonya escaped from the hospital, again finding herself surrounded, but now Soviet. But her survival skills were honed - she managed to obtain documents proving that all this time Makarova was a nurse in a Soviet hospital.
Antonina successfully managed to enlist in a Soviet hospital, where at the beginning of 1945 a young soldier fell in love with her, a real hero war.
The guy proposed to Tonya, she agreed, and after getting married, the young couple, after the end of the war, left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, her husband’s homeland.
This is how the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and her place was taken by an honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg.
They searched for her for thirty years
Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous acts of “Tonka the Machine Gunner” immediately after the liberation of the Bryansk region. The remains of about one and a half thousand people were found in mass graves, but the identities of only two hundred could be established.
They interrogated witnesses, checked, clarified - but they could not get on the trail of the female punisher.
Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg led ordinary life Soviet person - lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the actions of “Tonka the Machine Gunner”.
The KGB spent more than three decades searching for her, but found her almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfyonov, going abroad, submitted forms with information about his relatives. There, among the solid Parfenovs, for some reason Antonina Makarova, after her husband Ginzburg, was listed as her sister.
Yes, how that teacher’s mistake helped Tonya, how many years thanks to it she remained out of reach of justice!
The KGB operatives worked brilliantly - it was impossible to accuse an innocent person of such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses were secretly brought to Lepel, even a former policeman-lover. And only after they all confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was “Tonka the Machine Gunner”, she was arrested.
She didn’t deny it, she talked about everything calmly, and said that nightmares didn’t torment her. She didn’t want to communicate with either her daughters or her husband. And the front-line husband ran around the authorities, threatening to file a complaint Brezhnev, even at the UN - demanded the release of his wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya was accused of.
After that, the dashing, dashing veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. You wouldn’t wish what these people had to endure on your enemy.
Retribution
Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the fall of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors to the Motherland in the USSR and the only trial of a female punisher.
Antonina herself was convinced that, due to the passage of time, the punishment could not be too severe; she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. My only regret was that because of the shame I had to move and change jobs again. Even the investigators, knowing about Antonina Ginzburg’s exemplary post-war biography, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR.
However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.
At the trial, her guilt in the murder of 168 of those whose identities could be established was documented. More than 1,300 more remained unknown victims of “Tonka the Machine Gunner.” There are crimes that cannot be forgiven.
At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for clemency were rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.
