What kinds of beliefs are there? Main types of religions
Mishka Yaponchik is called the forerunner of Russian “thieves in law”. He was the “king” of Odessa crime, keeping the rich at bay and organizing theatrical robberies. At one time, Mishka Yaponchik even commanded a detachment of the Red Army.
Young will
According to the main version, the future “king” was born on November 30, 1891 in Odessa into the family of Meyer Wolf Vinnitsky. The boy was named Moisha-Yakov, according to documents - Moisey Volfovich. When Moishe was seven years old, his family was left without a father. To earn at least some money for food, Moishe got a job as an apprentice at the Farber mattress factory. At the same time, he studied at a Jewish school, and managed to complete four classes. At the age of 16, Moisha Vinnitsky went to work as an electrician at the Anatra plant.
Moisha's life changed radically in 1905, when, following the publication of the Tsar's manifesto on the granting of freedoms, Jewish pogroms began in Odessa. The police preferred not to interfere too much in the bloody riots organized by the Black Hundreds on Moldovanka, and the local population began to organize Jewish self-defense units. It was in one of these detachments that the future Mishka Yaponchik received his first combat experience.
Since then, he has not parted with his weapon. Moisha Vinnitsky joined the anarchist detachment “Young Will”, which became famous for daring raids, robberies and racketeering. In 1907, the hand of justice finally grabbed Moisha by the collar. The anarchist received 12 years of hard labor. If Moishe had been an adult, we definitely wouldn’t have recognized Mishka Yaponchik. Based on the totality of all his actions, the death penalty was provided to him.
King
Yaponchik returned to Odessa in the summer of 1917. This was no longer the boy who could be sent to carry a bomb to blow up the police chief - during his hard labor, Moisha managed to communicate with both “political” and “thieves”.
Moishe quickly assessed the situation. Taking advantage of the unrest that is constantly happening in Odessa, Yaponchik quickly puts together his own gang, “taking out” cash registers and stores.
Moishe also adopted revolutionary rhetoric. Now he not only robs, but expropriates for the needs of the revolution and the working class. He organizes a large revolutionary detachment of Jewish self-defense. The story of his gang robbing a gambling club became a textbook story. Yaponchik's people were dressed in the uniform of revolutionary sailors. The revenue was significant: 100 thousand from the horse and 2,000 thousand from visitors. One of the club visitors literally died on the spot when he saw a crowd of armed people in front of him.
Artists' Friend
Growing up in poverty, Yaponchik loved to be chic, go on big walks and spend money. He had his own restaurant “Monte Carlo” on Myasoyedskaya Street and the cinema “Corso” on Torgovaya Street. During the wedding of Mishka and Tsilya Averman, while seven to forty hundred guests were dancing in the dance hall of Dvoyres, Yaponchik’s people set fire to the police station. This fact became the basis for one of the episodes of Babel’s Odessa Stories.
Odessa loved Mishka Yaponchik. Firstly, because he tried to avoid bloodshed, and secondly, because he robbed the rich and distributed the proceeds among his people, who in this Robin Hood model were “poor”. Yaponchik was also no stranger to art and supported artists. Yaponchik's friend was singer Leonid Utesov.
Red Commander
The special environment that formed in Odessa required great flexibility from the Bolsheviks. If at first the Red commanders wanted to “strangle” banditry and thieves, then later, realizing that this could not be done quickly, they decided to cooperate.
The Odessa Post newspaper on February 2, 1918 published an appeal from a “group of thieves of Odessa.” Professional thieves were obliged to rob only the rich and demanded respect.
The thieves wrote: “We, a group of professional thieves, also shed blood in the sad January days, walking hand in hand with fellow sailors and workers against the Haidamaks. We also have the right to bear the title of citizens of the Russian Republic!”
The “bandit-vagrant element” played a big role in the life of Odessa. And if it could not be suppressed, then it was necessary to lead it, putting your own man in the place of the “king”. Mishka Yaponchik turned out to be such “one of our own”. He knew Grigory Kotovsky through exile, and he also knew other Red commanders who grew up from yesterday’s criminals.
Behind him was a great force - the Jewish self-defense squads, as well as the support of the poor population of Odessa and its suburbs. We must pay tribute to Yaponchik himself, he skillfully used the situation and the game of politics, and secured serious financial and organizational support from the Bolsheviks
Jap even became the commander of a Red Army detachment. The regiment was assembled from Odessa criminals, anarchist militants and mobilized students. Before the regiment was sent to the front against Petliura, a luxurious banquet was held in Odessa, at which Mishka Yaponchik was solemnly presented with a silver saber and a red banner.
However, one could not expect reliability and revolutionary consciousness from Yaponchik’s people. Of the 2,202 people in the detachment, only 704 people reached the front. The thieves also did not want to fight for a long time and quickly “made war.” On the way back to Odessa, Yaponchik was shot by Commissioner Nikifor Ursulov, who received the Order of the Red Banner for his “feat.”
Hero of literature and cinema
The first contribution to perpetuating the image of Mishka Jap was made by Isaac Babel. Main character“Odessa Stories” by Benya Krik was created on the basis of the stories that Babel was told about Mishka Yaponchik. The stories about Benya Krik were translated into several languages and received recognition not so much in the Soviet Union (where, of course, they were criticized), but in Europe and even America.
In 1926, the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” published the film story “Benya Krik”, on which a film of the same name was made literally a year later. The film's reception was far from unequivocal. Critics attacked the director for romanticizing the image of Moldovan bandits.
There was also a reasonable element in this criticism. The boys looked at the brave and enterprising Benya Krik and wanted to be like him. However, not only boys. Actor Kucherenko, who played the role of a bandit in Ben Creek, and the role of Makhno himself in the film Little Red Devils, was so imbued with the romance of a free criminal life that he put together his own gang of raiders. Kucherenko's gang robbed stores and cash registers. The criminal world of Odessa remembered Kucherenko by his nickname “Makhno.
Teddy Bear Jap. Real name - Moishe-Yakov Volfovich Vinnitsky. Born on October 30, 1891 in the village of Golta, Ananyevsky district, Kherson province ( Russian empire) - shot on August 4, 1919 in Voznesensk, Kherson province. The famous Odessa raider.
Moishe-Yakov Volfovich Vinnitsky was born on October 30, 1891 in the village of Golta (now the city of Pervomaisk, Nikolaev region of Ukraine), Ananyevsky district, Kherson province, in the family of a van driver, Meer-Wolf Mordkovich Vinnitsky.
Descendant of the famous Jewish Korotich dynasty. When the child was four years old, the family moved to Odessa, to Moldavanka. According to other sources, he was born in Odessa.
Received at birth double name Moishe-Yakov, which is why he is sometimes incorrectly called “Moisey Yakovlevich.”
He had four brothers and a sister. Three brothers - Abram, Gregory and Yuda - died at the front during the war. Brother Isaac died in New York. Sister Zhenya died in 1919.
In the sixth year of his life he lost his father. He worked as an apprentice in a mattress workshop, while attending a Jewish school, then became an electrician at the Odessa Anatra airplane plant (branch on Kanatnaya Street, 22).
During the Jewish pogroms in October 1905, he participated in Jewish self-defense. After that, he joined the Young Will detachment of anarchist-communists. After the murder of the police chief of the Mikhailovsky precinct, Lieutenant Colonel V. Kozhukhar, he was sentenced to death, which was replaced by 12 years of hard labor (1907). In prison I met G.I. Kotovsky.
According to researcher V. A. Savchenko, the investigative materials in the Yaponchik case included raids on Lanzberg’s flour shop and Lander’s rich apartment in 1907 together with anarchists from the Young Will.
Artist Leonid Utyosov, who personally knew Yaponchik, described him as follows: “Short in stature, stocky, quick movements, slanted eyes - this is Mishka “Yaponchik.” “Yaponchik” - for his slanted eyes... In Babel he is Benya Krik, a raider and a romantic . "Jap" has good organizational skills. This made him the king of the criminal world on an Odessa scale. Brave and enterprising, he managed to get his hands on all the Odessa thieves. In American conditions, he would undoubtedly have made a great career and could have stepped firmly on even Al Capone's toes. He has a brave army of well-armed Urkagans. He does not recognize wet cases. At the sight of blood he turns pale. There was an incident when one of his subjects bit his finger. The bear screamed as if he had been stabbed to death. He doesn’t like the White Guards.”
In 1917, he was released under an amnesty, organized a large gang of raiders and became the “thunderstorm” of Odessa.
Origin of the nickname Jap. According to one version, he was nicknamed Jap for his characteristic eye shape. According to another, his nickname is due to the fact that he told Odessa thieves about the lifestyle of Japanese thieves in the city of Nagasaki. Japanese “colleagues,” according to him, agreed on common rules of “business” and never violated them. Vinnitsky invited Odessa residents to follow their example.
Already in the fall of 1917, Yaponchik's gang carried out a number of daring raids, including robbing a Romanian gambling club in broad daylight. On New Year's Day 1918, Goldstein's store and sugar factory Yu. G. Gepner were robbed.
At the same time, Yaponchik organizes the so-called Jewish Revolutionary Self-Defense Squad under the pretext of fighting possible pogroms and issues an “appeal” calling to rob “only the bourgeoisie and officers.” In November 1917, one of the robbers was even killed by Yaponchik himself for robbing a worker.
Jap is establishing contacts with the Odessa anarchist movement. In November-December 1917, a group of so-called “anarchist-rip-offists” (“ripping off” the “bourgeoisie”) appeared in Odessa. According to researcher V. A. Savchenko, “rip-offists” staged a powerful explosion on Deribasovskaya in 1917, demanding an end to lynchings of captured bandits. In December 1917, anarchists and bandits seized Eisenberg's brothel on Dvoryanskaya Street, setting up their headquarters there.
In January 1918, Mishka Yaponchik’s squad, together with the Bolsheviks, anarchists and left Socialist Revolutionaries, took part in street battles. The bandits took advantage of these events to raid the Police Registration Bureau, during which the file cabinet of 16 thousand Odessa criminals was burned.
On December 12, 1918, during the evacuation of Austro-German troops from Odessa, he organized a successful attack on the Odessa prison, which resulted in a mass escape of prisoners.
At the beginning of 1919, he actively collaborated with the Bolshevik underground (including through Grigory Kotovsky). According to Leonid Utesov, who was his friend, he tried to avoid murder and patronized artists.
During the period of the Franco-Greek intervention, the Yaponchik gang committed many new daring robberies and was also involved in kidnappings and racketeering. A number of entrepreneurs who did not want to pay the bandits were killed: Masman, Liteyman, Engel. In January-February 1919, a daring raid was made on the Civil Public Meeting of Odessa during a gala dinner, and the apartment of Princess Lyubomirskaya and the room of the Spanish consul at the Londonskaya Hotel were also robbed.
After Odessa fell into the hands of the Reds in April, according to some allegations, he commanded the Soviet armored train No. 870932, directed against Ataman Grigoriev.
In May 1919, rumors spread in Odessa that Mishka Yaponchik allegedly served as secretary of the Odessa Cheka. On May 28, the chairman of the Cheka was forced to publish a refutation in the official newspaper of the Odessa Council of Workers' Deputies, in which he said that in fact the secretary of the Cheka was Mikhail Grinberg, who had nothing to do with Mishka Yaponchik.
In May 1919, he received permission to form a detachment as part of the 3rd Ukrainian Soviet Army, later transformed into the 54th Lenin Soviet Revolutionary Regiment. His adjutant was Meyer Seider, nicknamed “Majorchik,” who subsequently, according to the official version, shot Kotovsky.
Yaponchik's regiment was assembled from Odessa criminals, anarchist militants and mobilized students of Novorossiysk University. Yaponchik's Red Army soldiers did not have a uniform uniform; many wore boater hats and top hats, but everyone considered it a matter of honor to wear a vest.
Attempts to establish “political work” in the formed unit failed, since many communists refused to join the regiment to conduct propaganda work in it, saying that it was life-threatening. Anarchist Alexander Feldman “Sasha” was appointed the official commissar of the regiment. According to researcher Viktor Kovalchuk, when Commissar Feldman arrived in the regiment, Yaponchik’s “fighters” greeted him with thunderous laughter.
The regiment was subordinate to the Kotovsky brigade as part of the 45th Infantry Division of Iona Yakir and in July was sent against the troops of Simon Petlyura. Before the departure, a magnificent banquet was held in Odessa, at which the regiment commander Mishka Yaponchik was solemnly presented with a silver saber and a red banner. It was possible to begin the shipment only on the fourth day after the banquet, and kegs of beer, wine, crystal and caviar were loaded into the regiment's convoy.
The desertion of criminal “fighters” began even before dispatch. According to researcher V. A. Savchenko, in the end only 704 out of 2,202 people were at the front. Even then, division commander Yakir proposed disarming the Yaponchik regiment as unreliable. However, the command of the 45th division recognized the regiment as “combat ready,” although the bandits strongly resisted attempts to establish military training.
The first attack of the regiment in the Birzula area against the Petliurists was successful, as a result of which it was possible to capture Vapnyarka and take prisoners and trophies, but the counterattack of the Petliurists that followed the next day led to complete defeat. The Yaponchik criminals threw down their weapons and fled from the battlefield. Then they decided that they had already “made war” and captured a passing car. passenger train to return to Odessa. However, the train did not reach Odessa, being very soon stopped by a special detachment of Bolsheviks. The Jap tried to resist - and was shot by the communists right on the platform. The remaining “fighters” of the 54th regiment were partially killed by Kotovsky’s cavalry, and partially caught by special forces; Only the former “chief of staff” of the regiment, the bandit Meyer Seider, survived, who 7 years later would shoot Kotovsky himself. In addition, up to 50 people were sent to forced labor.
Yaponchik's surviving people blamed regimental commissar Feldman for his death and killed him in October 1919. According to researcher Savchenko, Feldman arrived at Yaponchik’s grave only four hours after the funeral and demanded to dig it up to make sure that Yaponchik was really buried there. Two days later, the People's Commissar of Military Affairs of Ukraine N. Podvoisky arrived at the site and demanded that the grave be opened again.
At the same time, according to archival data, in reality Mishka Yaponchik was shot by the district military commissar Nikifor Ivanovich Ursulov, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for this. In his report to the Odessa district commissar for military affairs, Ursulov mistakenly called Mishka Yaponchik “Mitka the Japanese.”
Teddy Bear Jap
Personal life of Mishka Yaponchik:
Wife - Tsilya Averman. After the death of her husband, leaving her little daughter Ada to her mother-in-law, she went abroad with the husband of Vinnitsky’s late sister. She lived in India (in the city of Bombay), then moved to France, to Paris.
Tsilya Averman - wife of Mishka Yaponchik
daughter of Mishka Yaponchik
Mishka Jap in literature and art:
The Jap became the prototype of the literary and cinematic character of the raider Benny Krik from Isaac Babel’s Odessa Stories and their stage productions.
Since the early 1960s, Oscar Sandler’s operetta “At Dawn” was shown at the Odessa Musical Comedy Theater, where the role of Mishka Yaponchik was played by Mikhail Vodyanoy. Also, Yaponchik’s verses from this operetta were performed by Boris Sichkin and G. Plotnik.
Jap became one of the prototypes of “Semyon” in some of the criminal songs of the “Odessa” cycle of 1981-1984 by Alexander Rosenbaum.
There is a song by Mikhail Sheleg “Monument to Mishka Yaponchik”.
In 1968, the film “The First Courier” was shot (USSR-Bulgaria). The role of Yasha Baronchik was played by Odessa resident Nikolai Gubenko.
Odessa resident Mikhail Vodyanoy played the role of Mishka Yaponchik in the Soviet feature film “The Squadron Goes West” (1965).
In the film by Polish director Juliusz Machulski "Deja Vu" (1989; USSR-Poland), which takes place in Odessa in 1925, there is a character Mishka Yaponchik, his role was played by Nikolai Karachentsov.
The character Mishka-Yaponchik appears in the biographical series “Utyosov. A song that lasts a lifetime" (2006), starring Alexey Gorbunov and Mikhail Shklovsky.
In 2011, the series “The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik” (starring Evgeniy Tkachuk) was filmed, which does not pretend to be historically accurate and in many ways contradicts it. So, Yaponchik’s father died when Moishe-Yakov was about six years old; Grishin-Almazov, removed from his post as military governor of Odessa in March 1919, was machine-gunned at night and not by Yaponchik; there were no whites in Odessa at all in May and the summer of 1919, although the whites were in the city after the defeat of the Petliurites in March-April 1919, and when on August 23, 1919 they again entered Odessa, Mishka Yaponchik was no longer alive, etc. . P.
Odessa without Jap is not Odessa. It was Moses Vinnitsky, aka Misha Yaponchik, the terror of the gendarmes and the people's favorite, who made the provincial seaside city the criminal capital of Russia and ruled unchallenged in this capital. Even if it was only a few months, he ruled. And how beautifully he ruled! With its own code of honor, with ceremonies, almost Japanese.
Why did he become a Jap? Not just for slanted eyes and wide cheekbones. He offered the Odessa gentlemen good luck living according to the laws of the Yakuza: creating their own community of thieves with an army hierarchy, not robbing the poor and generally working well. And they agreed. What kind of Odessa resident doesn’t want to work beautifully! Each Jap raid was a small but well-staged performance. The robbed people were always given 10 rubles per driver.
The uninjured public adored Jap. He was no stranger to artistry - after all, he was from Odessa, Mishka (born in 1891 in the courtyard at 9 Tikhaya Street). And I’ve been involved in raids since childhood. At the age of 14, he joined an anarchist squad and was sentenced to hard labor for the murder of a policeman. And after the revolution he returned to recruit thieves under black and red banners.
Moses Vinnitsky, aka Mishka Yaponchik
It was then, at the beginning of 1918, after a luxurious wedding with factory worker Jaco Tsilya (in 1923 she fled to France, where she lived to see her gray hair), 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. Yaponchik himself is still respected in Odessa. And they even see the ghost of Jap: they recognize him by his characteristic difference - his narrow eyes and striped suit. Most often, his ghost walks around Tikhaya Street. An employee of one of the bars, who lives nearby, almost agreed on a date with the late thief. “I remember when I was returning home from work at night, I noticed a handsome young man“, but he was dressed somehow strangely,” says cafe administrator Natalya. “He turned to me and offered to go have a cup of coffee, but I was in a hurry to go home and refused the man, but as soon as I walked a few meters, I looked back, and there was no trace of him.”
A thief in law
Odessa historian Igor Shklyaev set out to unearth documents about Mishka Yaponchik in order to separate reality from myths.
– 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. It was possible to find several documents only in the Central State Archives of the Soviet Army. Here is the testimony of the secretary of the Odessa Operational Headquarters of the Military Revolutionary Committee, Frenkel: “Great services to the headquarters of the Military Revolutionary Committee in the delivery of weapons were provided by Mishka the Japanese, who for a relatively small fee sold the headquarters mainly lemons and revolvers.” In a conversation with Fyodor Fomin, head of the Special Department of the 3rd Ukrainian Soviet Army, Vinnitsky already stated: “I did not come to repent. I have a proposal, I would like my guys under my command to join the Red Army..."
And here is evidence of the solemn march of the Japanese detachment through the streets of the city: “In front is the commander on a black stallion and with mounted adjutants on the sides, behind them are two Jewish orchestras from Moldavanka, then the infantry with rifles and Mausers, dressed in untucked white trousers and vests, marches , headdresses were very diverse - from top hats and boaters to felt hats and caps.”
However, only 700 people reached the front, and even those fled after the first battle with the Petliurites. During that retreat in August 19th, the Bolsheviks shot Yaponchik, who is considered the first Russian thief in law.
From the Jap of the 20s to the Jap of the 90s
Babel's Benya Krik, whose prototype, as you know, was Mishka Yaponchik, is almost the first “noble bandit” in Soviet literature.
“Mishka Yaponchik really didn’t 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 Professor Yakov Gilinsky, a researcher of domestic crime. – 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” that later became thieves in law.
After Mishka Yaponchik, an honest thief should not only not have fought for 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).
“If you really want to, Mishka Yaponchik can be called the forerunner of thieves in law,” says Gilinsky. - However, the current “crowned” can already kill themselves, although thieves were prohibited by law. By the way, Yaponchik, who is Ivankov, was kept in prison precisely on suspicion of murder. In addition, the honorary title of thief in law can now be purchased. Previously, the candidate had to go through the zone, and more than once, but then “thieves in law” began to appear, who had not had a single walk. They are legalized and enter the leadership of business structures, banking structures, and government bodies. Therefore, today the line between bandits and thieves in law is very arbitrary.
Dossier
Victim of the regime
“Regarding my activities from the day I was released from prison by decree of the Provisional Government, before which I was sentenced for revolutionary activities to 12 years, of which I served 10 years, I can show documents that were in counterintelligence, as well as an order from the same counterintelligence , which says that they promised me 100 thousand rubles for my capture as an organizer of detachments against counter-revolutionaries, but only thanks to the working masses I could, hiding in shacks, avoid execution.”
From Jap's autobiography
Yana Poplavskaya: Yaponchik had his own idea, Sokolovskaya had hers
– I chose the role of the revolutionary Sokolovskaya in the series “The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik” (“Channel One”) for myself. Then I still had such an opportunity (the director of the series is Sergei Ginzburg, with whom the actress divorced only recently. - Ed.). I wanted to play Sokolovskaya for the reason that she was different from the roles that are offered to me in other TV series. It was very interesting. That time was distinguished by the readiness of people to violate any social norms. Mishka Yaponchik had his own idea, Sokolovskaya had hers. I managed to find my great-grandfather, who served as an officer in the tsarist army. I remember his stories about crazy women who, being noblewomen, did absolutely idiotic things in the name of an idea. Many, declaring themselves a fighter, became asexual. My Sokolovskaya is exactly like this. Playing a woman who replaces her feminine happiness with a fight for an idea, I wanted to show how absurd this is.
Bandit with a drunken face
“Mishka Yaponchik’s regiment parades through the streets to maintain order...
Horror emanates from these robber faces. What can it come to? Soviet authority... About two weeks ago, Mishka Yaponchik staged a performance at the city theater - a concert, at which he himself gave a speech.
And in the very theater where the best traditions of Russian art were preserved, in the very theater whose walls saw Komissarzhevskaya, Savina and Davydov, Moses Vinnitsky - Mishka Yaponchik - a bandit with a worn-out face and a hoarse voice called for new murders.” - From the diary of V. Margulies, 1919
Behind the shoulders of adventurous and famous man, as a rule, a beautiful and wise woman stands. She not only shares family life with him, being a reliable support and like-minded person, but also his glory. So, at the beginning of the last century, news spread across Russia about the king of Odessa thieves - Mishka Yaponchik. And his beloved woman and muse was Tsilya Overman.
Her vague biography and mysterious disappearance have given rise to doubts and disputes among historians. But the short, sparkling romance and family life of the Odessa raider and an intelligent girl were nevertheless reflected in art, and the unquenchable fame of Yaponchik forever left its mark on the Overman surname.
Biography
Tsilya Overman (according to another version, Averman) was born in Odessa, into a Jewish aristocratic family. Exact date Her birth and death are not indicated in any source. But according to researchers, this was the period of the 1890-1970s. Tsilya had a younger sister - Sofia. Only her close family circle knows about her fate. It is only known that she did not manage to survive the Great Patriotic War.
Tsilya received a good education and had intelligent manners. The beginning of the new century was marked by a difficult economic situation in Russia, so at about 20 years old, aristocrat Overman Tsilya went to work at the Jaco factory, which produced blacking.
Personal life
There would hardly be a person in Odessa who could boast of a close acquaintance with a Jewish beauty named Overman Tsilya. Her personal life is not rich in hot love stories. On the contrary, the girl was very well-mannered and modest, moderately witty and sharp. Some guys were even afraid to approach her. But not the young and enterprising raider. Moisha-Yakov Vinnitsky (or Mishka Yaponchik) and Tsilya Overman met at the dawn of his gangster fame, in line for water. For Odessa, the water problem has always come first. Huge queues lined up at the pumps, in one of which fate brought together a young, stocky hooligan and a tall, big-eyed girl. At first, Tsilya ignored and even rejected the advances of Misha Yaponchik. But his assertiveness and patience still broke his temper and melted the beauty’s severity. And in 1918 (according to other sources, 1917) news spread across Odessa: Tsilya Overman was the wife of Mishka Yaponchik.
Wedding
The wedding of Yaponchik and Tsili took place in all Jewish traditions. The celebration was the most magnificent and loud event in Odessa at that time. Hundreds of guests were invited and accommodated in the dance classes of Dwoires. The wedding was celebrated for several days. They danced indoors and outdoors. The whole of Odessa thundered, of course, this could not fail to attract attention from the authorities. But this was also foreseen by the criminal groom. To prevent the event from being suddenly ruined and disrupted by the police chiefs (then “dragons” in thieves’ slang), Yaponchik’s gang set the police station on fire. This was done with another intent - to burn the criminal files of friends and the king of thieves.
Child
Tsilya was a wise wife and was condescending towards her husband’s affairs. Soon the young couple had a daughter. She was named Ada (Adele). According to metric data, her name is recorded as Udaya Moishe-Yakovlevna Vinnitskaya (August 18, 1918). But the happiness in the “royal” family did not last long. In 1919, Mishka Yaponchik got involved in the revolutionary struggle. But his gang was quickly losing people, which gave rise to a lot of rumors and condemnations against him. While trying to save the remaining people, he was shot without trial by the military district commissar. And his entire family was now under the supervision of the authorities and the Odessa bandits themselves.
Escape
Tsila faced arrest or even death. And she had a little daughter in her arms. Therefore, she simply could not risk staying in Odessa. In 1921, Tsilya Overman (her biography is now fragmentary and based on memories and rumors), accompanied by a relative (Zhenya Vinnitsky), fled abroad. Later they said that she married him.
At first, Tsilya was sheltered by hot India. IN family archive There are photographs of her from Bombay in Indian attire, which she herself sent to her little daughter. Then news reached Odessa relatives that Tsilya was living in France. She is well off, owns a small factory and several houses. Probably, she was helped in this by funds and valuables in Western banks left by her late husband and natural business acumen.
An attempt to return Ada
The only pain for Tsilya now was separation from her daughter Ada. Mother-in-law Dora (or Doba) did not give her to her mother, leaving her in Odessa. Until 1927 (until the border was closed), she actively tried to return her daughter. Tsilya sent dummy people who tried in every possible way to persuade the mother-in-law to give the girl to her mother, even to steal or ransom her. But Yaponchik’s mother was adamant. And all further attempts to return the child were unsuccessful.
As a child, Adele kept in touch with her maternal aunt, Sophia Overman, and her daughter. This is evidenced by family photos. During wartime, he and his grandmother had to be evacuated to But even after this, the whereabouts of the child were not lost to the desperate mother. Tsilya wrote letters until the 60-70s, helped with money transfers and parcels, but never saw her daughter again.
What prevented this from happening when Adele grew up is unknown. Why didn’t Tsilya Overman return to her native Odessa in her free time from persecution - her wife is silent about this. Perhaps the long persecution of Yaponchik's relatives, wartime, a psychological barrier or other reasons - this has remained a mystery to historians. But according to the recollections of her relatives, Adele never forgave her grandmother Dora and all her Odessa relatives for the separation from her mother. After the war, she never returned to her native Odessa, receiving her relatives in Baku.
Grandchildren
For a long time, the descendants of Mishka Yaponchik were not known. Only recently it became clear that Tsili and the legendary Odessa raider have grandchildren - Rada, Lilya and Igor. They live in Israel. Successors of the famous Jewish family know about the history of their grandparents. Since that time, their parents have gone through a difficult journey, enduring many hardships. Light has also been shed on the fate of Adele, the daughter of Tsili and Yaponchik. As it turned out, she was in prison for profiteering. During the hungry war time, a young girl was left alone with her son Mikhail (named after his grandfather) in her arms; she had to survive by selling oil at the bazaar in Ganja.
Memories
According to the recollections of Odessa relatives, Overman Tsilya was tall, very polite and well-mannered. She had good taste in clothes. Before her marriage, despite the economic difficulties of the time, she looked elegant and reserved. This was conveyed not only in the clear selection of style and elements of clothing, but also in her aristocratic manners, straight posture and slightly arrogant look. She spoke little, accurately and in the famous Odessa dialect.
Tsilya moved around the city exclusively by cab, thereby demonstrating her high status. Such a proud and unapproachable young lady simply could not help but make the king of thieves fall in love with herself. As Odessa relatives recall, Tsilya had a positive influence on Mishka Yaponchik, tried to tame his hooligan prowess, rationalize him and turn him into a quiet, family life. But, apparently, the tense political situation in Russia and previous habits prevented this.
Tsilya Overman, the wife of Mishka Yaponchik, is positively remembered by the heirs. And she was never condemned for her separation from Adele; on the contrary, they considered it a necessary measure.
Family traditions
The memory of the legendary great-grandfather is passed on from generation to generation. Jap's descendants keep family photos and some of his things. His fame has not yet cooled down in Odessa. The famous house on Moldavanka, where the legendary “king” was once born and grew up, still stands in the city and preserves the memory of his the previous owner. Already the third family generation has visited it.
The Vinnitsky family line has a tradition through the generation of naming boys in honor of the legendary great-grandfather, and girls in honor of his daughter - the name Adele. Surprisingly, not a single heir of the family has yet been named Tsilya.
Was Tsilya really there?
There is a version that the person Overman Tsilya is fictitious. This is indicated primarily by the paucity of biographical data, many blank spots, questions and inaccuracies. This idea appears in the documentary film “In Search of Truth. Teddy Bear Jap. Death of the King." It was filmed in 2008 and was based on documentary data and evidence collected about the life of Odessa Robin Hood. So, the name Tsili Overman was not mentioned there. Moreover, some researchers believe that her image is exclusively literary, it was created to give the type of Odessa raider an aura of romance. Mishka Yaponchik was once a regular at Odessa brothels, and the result was a venereal disease. And this is an established fact. But light girl behavior cannot be attributed to a charismatic hooligan. A legendary hero needs an equally legendary companion. Therefore, according to skeptics, the aristocrat Overman Tsilya was invented - his wife and only love. However, Jap's descendants still insist on the official version. And where and whose truth is now unlikely to become known.
In art
The image and activities of Mishka Yaponchik and his love story with Tsilya Overman became a source of inspiration for the creation of many literary and cinematic works. Thus, in 2011, the Russian crime series “The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik”, based on “Odessa Stories” by Isaac Babel, was released. The writer was a contemporary and acquaintance of the raider, so he was aware of the main ups and downs of the hero’s life. The film is full of bright, eccentric images, characteristic Odessa dialect, jokes and speech patterns. Many of them, for example, “chic look”, “shut your mouth” and others, entered the everyday life of contemporaries.
The television series mainly tells about the touching and romantic love story of a bandit and a beautiful aristocrat. The authors did not pursue an exact match real events, their task was to convey the characters of the main characters. Still, critics point to a number of factual inaccuracies. For example, Tsili Overman's father was never associated with commerce. But the television series shows the opposite situation. Although, again, it is impossible to say for sure about this due to the lack of documentary evidence.
The main role - Mishka Yaponchik - was played by Evgeniy Tkachuk. appeared as the charming Tsilya Overman. The actress, according to critics, created a magnificent psychological character of Jap's wife. Although the heroine Tsilya in the series is more correctly defined as a collective image that reflects the mentality of representatives of the intelligentsia of that era.
P.S.
Today, the personality of Tsili Overman is one of the most mysterious. After the 1970s, contact with her was finally severed. Perhaps this meant the end of her life. Was it literary fiction or real person, will forever remain a Vinnitsky family secret. However, the evidence in favor of its real existence is much stronger and more convincing than contradictions and doubts. One thing is clear: behind the shoulders of the legendary Odessa “Robin Hood” stood a certain Tsilya Overman. Photos with her image and personal signature are still kept in the family archive, protecting the fond memory of Mishka Yaponchik. She is the mother of his only daughter and the heirs of a famous Odessa family. And although the name Tsili is shrouded in more questions and secrets, she is forever inscribed in history as a wise and enterprising woman - the first and only wife of the king of thieves.
Moishe-Yakov Volfovich Vinnitsky, who later was born in 1891 in the Kherson province, and only at the age of four his parents moved him to Odessa. Why he began to be called Yaponchik is still unknown, but there are two versions. According to the first of them - thanks to his special “love” for the Japanese mafia, which established the rules of thieves, and the second version is more prosaic - he had a characteristic Japanese eye shape.
Mishka "Jap" Gang
The biography of Mishka Yaponchik, like all more or less active people at that time, and he, of course, was distinguished among many by his irrepressible character, was very diverse and, by modern standards, not entirely understandable. Moishe-Yakov did not immediately become one of the most famous Odessa raiders. Before that, he managed to be in the ranks of the anarchist-communists, killed the police chief and was sentenced to death penalty, later replaced by hard labor.
At hard labor he met another raider, Grigory Kotovsky, with whom he became friends for life. Only in 1917, when he was amnestied by the revolutionary government, did he return to Odessa and organize one of the largest gangs of raiders. At the same time, Moishe-Yakov Vinnitsky turned into Jap Teddy Bear and organized the Jewish Revolutionary Self-Defense Squad, which committed daring robberies in the city: as a rule, they robbed the same rich Jews.
In addition to robberies, in 1918, Yaponchik’s gang attacked the prison and released all the prisoners, burned the files on 16 thousand criminals, took an active part in joint actions to “expropriate stolen property” together with the Bolsheviks, however, without forgetting most to keep what was stolen and not to give it to the needs of the revolutionary struggle. In 1919, with the permission of his accomplice Kotovsky, a revolutionary regiment began to form: was eager to make a world revolution in the hope that he could plunder the whole world together with the Bolsheviks.
His “army” numbered more than 2 thousand bandits, who drank for four days before being sent to the “revolutionary front”, and only a little more than 700 slightly sobered bandits managed to board the carriages. A few days later, with a hundred of his closest friends, Mishka already changed his mind about fighting and fled back to Odessa; on the way, the “criminologist” was caught by security officers and shot as a deserter. This is how the bandit’s life ended ingloriously. Mishka Yaponchik became a cult among the bandits of those times.
