Biography
Crime bosses often become heroes of literary works and cinematic films. They are surrounded by a romantic flair of adventurism and risk, attracting young people, a female audience and men who love to remember past years.
Mishka Yaponchik is a thief in law whose history is not limited to fraud and hooliganism. He is the leader of the Odessa bandits, stories about whom still do not subside in his homeland. The adventurous life of this man is surrounded by rumors and gossip, because he managed to subjugate the underworld of a city famous for its dissolute spirit.
Childhood and youth
The hero's biography is full of adventures and extraordinary events. He was born in the center of Moldavanka in 1891. According to his passport, the future celebrity of Odessa was listed as Moishe-Yakov Volfovich Vinnitsky. The Vinnitsky family was large and friendly, despite the stern disposition of its head.
Real photos of Mishka Jap
Mishka was educated in the synagogue, attending it for several years in a row. The father planned that his son would continue his business by getting involved in the carriage industry, and the mother dreamed that Moishe-Yakov would devote himself to spiritual service. The boy himself considered both options boring and wanted to build his life differently.
Mishka was captivated by social life - trips to theaters and restaurants surrounded by lovely ladies. Due to the fact that the available resources were not conducive to such a life, as a teenager he vowed to conquer Odessa. The nationality and origin of the hero played a significant role in his development.
Mom and brother of Mishka Yaponchik
Moldavanka was famous for being a place rife with smuggling. Getting into the business was not easy; everyone involved in it was tied to each other. The bandits, whose refuge was this area, made a living by carrying out raids in collaboration with innkeepers, coachmen and shopkeepers to enrich the participants in the transaction.
Rumors of crimes spread quickly, and the “fame” of Moldavian woman spread throughout the area, and children playing raiders reinforced the generally accepted opinion. They dreamed of a better life and those who managed to rise became heroes. Among them was Mishka Yaponchik, who, observing everything, planned “things” and calculated individual plans.
Criminal activity
Mishka first participated in an organized crime at the age of 16. The year was 1907. It was in a flour shop. The next object chosen by the young robber was a rich apartment.
The first arrest happened a couple of months later, during a police raid in a brothel. After clarifying the circumstances, the court sentenced Mishka to 12 years in prison. Here, it would seem, the hero’s life should be darkened by the prospect of terrible impressions from the prison, the local contingent and living conditions. But he did not fall into confusion. Vinnitsky figured out how to be released early, and another person served the remaining years for him.
Mishka Yaponchik's courtyard on Moldavanka
The deception was quickly discovered, but no one wanted to tell anyone about the police’s mistake, and the matter was hushed up. Mishka at this time decided that it was time to conquer Odessa. At the age of 24, he asked to join the gang of Mayer Gersh, where he later received the nickname Jap. In a short period of time, the man became known as a criminal authority.
Having formed his own gang, he kept factories and shops at bay. Two years later, the criminal world of Odessa considered Mishka the leader, and Mayer Gersh turned out to be an assistant. Thousands of bandits and smugglers united under the leadership of Yaponchik, who had “his” people everywhere, gave bribes and deftly avoided raids.
A criminal syndicate organized by a bandit united groups in the regions of the Russian Empire. He became the first who managed to rally around himself a coalition of enemies of law and justice. Yaponchik's connections were so great that he drew resources from the treasury, and the criminal cartel had a clear structure and hierarchy. With the light hand of a man, a “raider code” was formed, which provided for punishments for disobedience and a set of rules regarding robbery activities.
Fashionista Yaponchik walked along the main street of the city, accompanied by security, and received bows from those around him. An intelligent and prudent man, he was aware of commercial affairs and aspects of business. The hero’s personal life was not inferior to his “professional” one. A regular at the opera and literary evenings, the hero attended social events and maintained friendships with cultural and artistic figures. For the luxurious receptions and parties that Yaponchik hosted, in Odessa he was nicknamed the King.
The crime boss managed to retain power even during the Civil War. Cunning and resourcefulness made it possible to assemble a large detachment under the leadership of the raiders, which easily repelled the attacks of those who disagreed with the King of Odessa. Neither Denikin's General Schilling nor the Bolsheviks took the Jap. The White Guards had to establish relations with him, but the constant tension and conflict situation did not allow anyone to relax.
The Bolsheviks resorted to the help of authority when organizing public events. Posters promising peace in the city were often found on the streets with the signature of the leader of the Odessa mafia. When the time came to show who the true owner of the city was, the Reds decided to oppress Yaponchik and took extreme measures such as executions without warning. The hero quickly got his bearings in the current situation and came up with a cunning plan: he joined the ranks of the Red Army.
Arrest and term
There are two versions of what crime Yaponchik ended up in hard labor for. One of them is for the murder of that same police chief. They say Mishka was even sentenced to hanging, but then they took pity and gave him 12 years. According to another version, the arrest happened a little later - Moses was caught after robbing a private apartment with his friends. One way or another, he was arrested already in 1907 and then sent to Siberia. In prison, he met Grigory Kotovsky and actively defended political prisoners from violence from criminal elements.
Personal life
Enough is known about the family of Mishka Yaponchik to make several assumptions about his upbringing and the environment in which the character of the future leader of the Odessa gangster was formed. He was born into a family that belonged to the famous Jewish Korotich dynasty. From a village in the Kherson province, parents and their children moved to Odessa. Mishka had four brothers and a sister. Abram, Gregory and Yuda died at the front, and Isaac moved to America and died in New York. Yaponchik's sister died in 1919 from Graves' disease.
Tsilya Averman, wife of Mishka Yaponchik
The hero's father died early. But the stern worker, who loved drinking and strong words, made the boy’s character hardened since childhood. Family values meant a lot to Yaponchik. This was explained by his origin and intelligent disposition, so his wife and children were never defamed in public. The bandit's wife, Tsilya Averman, was a beautiful woman who bore him a daughter, who was named Ada. The girl was born at the moment when Yaponchik formed the Ukrainian regiment.
Ada Vinnitskaya, daughter of Mishka Yaponchik
Having learned about the death of her husband, Tsilya went abroad with the husband of her sister Yaponchik, in whose arms she found solace. The daughter of a crime boss remained in Odessa to be raised by her mother-in-law. Tsilya managed to live in India and France. She constantly looked for ways to take her daughter, but everything was unsuccessful, Jap’s mother stopped any attempts.
Ada died in Baku in 1983. For a long time, parcels from her mother in France arrived at her address. Tsili's biography after leaving and subsequent events in the USSR confirmed that her decision to escape was correct.
Daughter Adele
Adele - according to the documents of Udaya Moishe-Yakovlevna Vinnitskaya - lived with her grandmother in Odessa. In 1937, she had a son, whom she named Mikhail. Who the father was is shrouded in mystery. During the war, Adele and her son were able to leave for Azerbaijan. But after the victory, tragedy overtook her - she was trading at the bazaar and received a prison sentence for speculation.
A relative was found who took in Mikhail, Yaponchik’s grandson. The boy hardly knew the Russian language, because he spent his entire childhood in Azerbaijan. But thanks to my relatives, I learned and then started a family. And he became Mikhail Alahverdiev, for some reason he took his wife’s surname.
Adele was buried in a Muslim cemetery, with only “Adel Khanum” written on the plaque. The reason for this was Jewish practicality - Adele was afraid that the Jewish cemetery was far away and it would be difficult to visit her grave.
Death
Loud statements about the participation of Mishka Yaponchik in the Civil War were provoked by himself, and describe the moments when he decided to join the ranks of the Red Army. The man gathered a regiment of 2,500 people and went to the front. Odessa residents were proud of their brothers, who turned from raiders into soldiers. Yaponchik's regiment was part of Kotovsky's brigade, and the influence of his charges on those who had previously been civilians soon seriously worried the leaders of the Red Army. The military leaders lured the hero into a trap, and the criminal leader was killed.
The grave of Mishka Jap
Jap knew about the plot in advance and, when he was sent for reinforcements, prophesying a new rank, he ordered the regiment to return to Odessa without permission. Having taken a detachment, he went for reinforcements, captured the train and sent the train to Odessa. The hero did not reach the city, since there was a traitor among his trusted people. He surrendered the commander, and in Voznesensk a cavalry division arrested the deserters. The Jap refused to be captured and was shot by Nikifor Ursulov, the commander of the capture detachment. The causes of Jap's death were betrayal and two shots in the back.
Memory
More than one film has been made about the life and adventures of Mishka Yaponchik. Many of them use real photos, and the scripts contain the best phrases rumored to have belonged to the raider himself. All the paintings show the places where the hero lived in Odessa, and some even show the place where he was buried.
Mikhail Vodyanoy as Mishka Yaponchik
In 1968, a film jointly produced by the USSR and Bulgaria was released on big screens. In it, actor Nikolai Gubenko portrayed Yasha Baronchik, whose prototype was the image of Mishka Yaponchik. Mikhail Vodyanoy tried on the role of a famous character in the 1965 film “The Squadron Goes West.”
In 1989, Nikolai Karachentsov played Jap in the film “Deja Vu” produced in the USSR and Poland. This character can also be seen in the 2006 film “Utesov. A song that lasts a lifetime”, performed by Alexei Gorbunov and Mikhail Shklovsky.
Evgeniy Tkachuk as Mishka Yaponchik
The most exciting project about the legendary bandit was the 2011 series “The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik.” The main role was played by Evgeniy Tkachuk. The serial film does not pretend to be historically accurate, but the cast involved in it helped the project gain the love of the public and make quotes from the film popular among viewers. In the series, special importance is given to the love motive of Jap and Tsili. Actress Elena Shamova embodied the main female character of the series on the screen.
Bear Jap: King of the Raiders
In his famous “Odessa Stories,” Isaac Babel talentedly portrayed the Odessa raider Benya Krik, whose prototype was Misha Yaponchik. The writer created the image of a sweet, almost honest and even romantic raider, but, alas, a little primitive. It was a social order. In life, Yaponchik, or rather, Moses Vinnitsky, was far from being like that.
Meeting at one of the Bolshevik appearances
He was born on October 30, 1891 in the family of van driver Meer-Wolf Mordkovich Vinnitsky and his wife Doba Zelmanovna. At birth he was named Moishe-Yakov. He grew up like all the children of Odessa, and nothing predicted that in some twenty years the guy would become the head of a powerful criminal syndicate. Yaponchik began his career as an electrician and before the revolution he was a completely law-abiding citizen of the Russian Empire. “It seemed quite logical that materials about such a venerable criminal could be found in the funds of the Odessa detective department, but Moses Vinnitsky was not involved in any major criminal cases in pre-revolutionary times,” says historian Igor Shklyaev. “We managed to find several documents only in the Central State Archive of the Soviet Army.”
The name of Mishka Yaponchik began to make waves in 1918. The Bolsheviks even then relied on the criminal element, which was very useful in the struggle for power. The first time the appearance of Yaponchik was recorded in party documents was in 1918, when an intelligence officer of the Odessa underground regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) was robbed by the henchmen of the Odessa king of the raiders, or rather by the men of Vaska Kosoy. The scout was given a black eye and his wallet was taken away along with his personal weapon - a parabellum. This trouble happened in the evening at the Illusion cinema on the corner of Myasoedovskaya and Prokhorovskaya.
Four days later, at one of the Bolshevik gatherings, in the Molochnaya cafe, a meeting took place between the head of the intelligence center of the underground center, Boris Severny, and Mishka Yaponchik. The latter came to the meeting in an officer's uniform. The scout was insured by a young security officer, Nikolai Mer. He did not hear what was being discussed, but an understanding was reached between representatives of the future Soviet and current criminal empires. Soon, Yaponchik’s courier delivered a box containing stolen items and weapons to the underground center. It is unknown what arguments the security officers used in the conversation. This episode was later recalled in the memoirs of the secretary of the Odessa Operational Headquarters of the Military Revolutionary Committee, Frenkel, in the journal Chronicle of the Revolution.
In the same year, Yaponchik played a luxurious wedding with factory worker Zhako Tsilya, and soon an appeal from a “group of thieves” appeared in the Odessa Post newspaper. In it, the bandits swore to rob only the rich and demanded “respect” for themselves. Each Jap raid was a small but well-staged performance. The robbed people were always given 10 rubles per driver. It is curious that, while preparing an armed uprising in Odessa, the Bolsheviks used the services of Yaponchik’s empire, obtaining and purchasing weapons and ammunition from them: “Mikhail Yaponchik provided us with an invaluable service in delivering weapons, selling lemons and revolvers to the headquarters for a reasonable sum.”
Anton Denikin wrote in the terrible year of 1919: “To be honest, I don’t see a fundamental difference between the activities and goals of the Bolsheviks and the criminal element.” Therefore, underground fighters often resorted to the inexpensive services of Yaponchik: they purchased weapons, carried out reconnaissance, and used raiders in terrorist attacks. The “aces” of the criminal world looked to the future with experienced eyes and bet on future power.
“The old life is over!”
December 12, 1918 will forever go down in Odessa history. On this day, at a socialist rally that took place in the city circus, a proposal was put forward to destroy police stations. We decided not to put it on the back burner, especially since the underground already knew that there would be armed support. While one part of the demonstrators destroyed police stations, the second group moved towards the city prison. Here, near the prison, the workers met with Yaponchik’s militants. The latter were already ready for the assault, since the cells contained not only political prisoners, but also their own “brothers”.
Four hundred raiders, armed to the teeth, rushed to storm the prison. At the head of the detachment was Mishka Yaponchik, armed with a Browning and a lemon gun. The gates were instantly blown to shreds by some “safeguard” - fortunately, he had experience in blowing up safes. While the workers were releasing the political prisoners from their cells, the men with tears in their eyes hugged the arrested swindlers. On this day, the prison governor died a terrible death - he locked himself in the prison barn and did not want to open it. The barn was lined with straw, and the unfortunate man was burned alive. But you can’t go into town in prison clothes. And the laughing raiders quickly found a way out: they stopped a tram passing by and stripped all the passengers. Then the Odessa residents rode in prison uniforms.
Soon, an intelligent young man of average height, with naive, almost childish blue eyes, entered the Special Department of the 3rd Army headquarters. He softly introduced himself: “Misha is Japanese. And this is my adjutant." The king of the raiders spoke about his class hatred of the bourgeoisie: “We robbed only the bourgeoisie, who came to Odessa from all over Soviet Russia in the hope of sitting out. We raided banks, late-night variety shows and clubs. The interventionists could not feel calm anywhere - neither in gambling houses, nor in restaurants, nor in cafes. But the old life is over! I want to invite you to try my guys. They will join the Red Army and fight under my command. Give me a mandate to form a Red Army detachment, and you will not regret it. Moreover, my people have weapons and I don’t need money.”
After long and painful deliberations, the command of the 3rd Army allows Mishka Yaponchik to form a regiment. On May 23, the decision of the General Staff was placed on Vinnitsky’s desk. But the organization of this military unit did not delight everyone: the chairman of the Odessa Economic Council begged to free his institution from its nightmarish neighbors - at night, mirrors and curtains disappeared in all the rooms. The leadership of the Economic Council was afraid that everything else would soon disappear. According to eyewitnesses, the army of Mikhail Yaponchik was a more than original spectacle. When the regiment moved around Odessa, passers-by's mouths dropped open in surprise. “In front is the commander on a black stallion with mounted adjutants on his sides,” an eyewitness wrote. “Behind them are two Jewish orchestras from Moldavanka, then marches infantry with rifles and Mausers, dressed in untucked white trousers and vests, although the headdresses were very diverse - from top hats and boaters to felt hats and caps.”
Of course, the attempts of the General Staff to accustom this regiment to reading party literature looked quite funny. Therefore, when the detachment commissar appointed from above, the famous and popular anarchist revolutionary Alexander Feldman in Odessa, arrived at the unit, he was greeted with thunderous laughter. In the summer of 1919, the regiment of Odessa raiders received its own number and began to be officially listed in the documents as the 54th regiment of Mikhail Vinnitsky. Soon an order was received for active preparations to be sent to the front. The games of “desperate and tough” are over.
Ambush in the old depot near Vinnitsa Petliura tried with all his might to break through the front, almost the entire Odessa province was engulfed in a counter-revolutionary rebellion. And the lessons realized that it was time to “molt.” Former criminals began to look for ways to officially leave their regiment. On July 15, 1919, an emergency meeting of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) took place, on the agenda of which there was only one question: what to do with the Vinnitsa regiment? In the end, they decided: to prevent escape and desertion and to speed up the sending of the 54th regiment to the front. Moreover, officials in it already, without hesitation, took bribes, “dissuading” those who wanted from mobilization. At the end of August, it was decided to transfer the 54th Ukrainian Soviet Regiment to the 45th Yakir Division.
Before being sent to the front line, a luxurious “farewell evening with Odessa-mother” took place in the building of the Odessa Conservatory. There were long tables in the hall, on which there were collection wines and French champagne, pheasants and geese in apples with truffles. Misha Yaponchik sat in the center of the table and looked at his subordinates with pride. And Odessa at this time was plump from hunger. The meeting at the luxurious table was opened by the city commandant: in solemn silence, he presented Mikhail Vinnitsky with a silver saber with a revolutionary monogram, as a preliminary reward for future exploits. The wives and girlfriends of the soldiers came to see off the regiment to the banquet. Dressed in aristocratic outfits, they had fun until the morning.
The next day, the 54th regiment of Odessa raiders was supposed to be loaded onto a train and set off on the road to the front line. But Yaponchik’s subordinates were in no hurry to follow the instructions of the command. At the station, shouts were heard from all sides that they could not go, since all counter-revolution had not yet been eradicated in Odessa. Three times the regiment was loaded into wagons and three times the “woeful soldiers” fled to their homes. Finally, with little effort, they managed to load about a thousand Yaponchik fighters into the train and the train moved towards Vapnyarka. And yet, for peace of mind, the General Staff instructed the Cheka authorities to carry out secret control over the behavior of Yaponchik and his detachment. Yakir himself had doubts about the reliability of the 54th regiment - he even initially suggested to his headquarters to disarm “this rabble” just in case.
On the way, some of the echelon did escape, and only seven hundred people arrived at the position along with Vinnitsky - the most desperate heads. The first combat operation carried out by the 54th Regiment was brilliant. Yaponchik's men made a successful attack using lemon grenades. They rained down at the height of the attack on the heads of the Petliurists straight into their trenches, and the enemy fled in horror. According to one version, panic seized the fighters and they ran. Others argued that the regiment occupied the combat area, but did not want to dig in.
Historians consider this desertion to be the result of a skillful provocation. The flight from the positions of the Yaponchik regiment led to the Petliurists breaking through the front. Mishka and his people, having captured a steam locomotive with several carriages at the Birzula station, rushed towards Odessa. The Cheka decided to intercept Vinnitsky near Voznesensk, where detachments of Odessa security officers were urgently transferred.
The ambush chose a huge old railroad depot and hid in the thickets of lush corn. The locomotive driver stopped the train in front of a previously closed semaphore. Jap, his adjutant and Jap's field wife Lisa, armed with Mausers, got off the locomotive and ran to the switchman's booth to find out the reason for the stop. The first bullet killed Mishka himself, the second killed the adjutant, and the last one killed Lisa. What actually happened in that distant autumn of 1919 and who signed the verdict for Yaponchik is still unknown. All the Jews of Voznesensk gathered for Mishka’s funeral, and there were many visitors from Odessa. The funeral service for the Vinnitsa regiment was performed by the famous cantor of the choral synagogue Pinya Minkovsky and the singers and soloists of the opera house.
Film about "Odessa Robin Hood"
The Raider King is dead, but his legend lives on to this day. Sometimes he is called the first thief in law. “Mishka Yaponchik really did not like violence, especially “wet cases,” but he was not a thief in law, if only because the law of thieves itself appeared only in the late 20s,” says crime researcher Professor Yakov Gilinsky. – Jap created a “thieves’” rifle regiment and even managed to fight for Soviet power, and then the same government killed him. As a result, the death of Yaponchik helped create the “broth” from which thieves in law later turned out.” After Mishka, an honest thief should not only not have fought with the state, he should not have had a relationship with it at all: neither get married (through the registry office), nor work (through the personnel department).
About the king of the raiders, the “Odessa Robin Hood,” director Sergei Ginzburg shot the series “The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik,” the second title of which is “Once Upon a Time in Odessa.” “At first, Mishka sincerely believed in the ideals of the revolution,” says Sergei Ginzburg about the film’s hero. “He gathered more than 2,000 people, declaring cooperation with the Bolsheviks. The people of Mishka Yaponchik were a huge force - they had both weapons and food. And Petliura’s gangs were just heading towards Odessa. Mishka Yaponchik's people were thrown into the inferno like cannon fodder. When he realized that he had been set up, he ordered his men to leave. But he didn’t save himself - he was caught and shot.”
There are many inconsistencies with reality in the series. For example, there was no way whites could have been in Odessa in May and summer of 1919, when several episodes of the film take place. They entered Odessa only on August 23, 1919, when Yaponchik was no longer alive. Although the Whites were temporarily in Odessa after the defeat of the Petliurists from March 18 to April 6, 1919.
In the film, Mishka has one love - his wife Tsilya. However, as the bandit’s biographers assure, in Jap’s life he was surrounded by many beautiful women. Among them was the same Lisa who died together with Mishka. But Tsilya managed to arrange her destiny: she emigrated with part of her husband’s money, opened a store abroad and then lived without problems.
Prepared by Lina Lisitsyna, based on materials from Segodnya and Sobesednik
