Viktor Baranov could have become a famous inventor, but no one needed his ideas. Then he began to help the Soviet country make money.
April 12, 1977. Cherkessk. Kolkhoz market. The Adyghe salesman had just told the police how a few minutes ago a buyer had approached him with a request to exchange twenty-five-ruble notes. Traders were asked to pay attention if someone offered quarter or fifty dollars on the market? So he converted. Yes, of course, he will show the buyer. This is the one with the briefcase.
The documents of the suspicious buyer turned out to be in order: Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, a resident of Stavropol. But the police couldn’t even dream of how he ended up with cash in order. Viktor Ivanovich had 1,925 rubles in quarter notes in his briefcase. These 77 banknotes became for Baranov what 33 irons were for Professor Pleischner - a sign of failure.
So who are you? - the investigator asked him when the police brought the owner of the suspicious money to the police station.
“I am a counterfeiter,” answered the king of counterfeiters.
“When they brought me to the investigator, I immediately examined everything - I wanted to jump out of the window. But it was low, second floor. If only there was a fourth..."
We are sitting with Viktor Ivanovich Baranov in a Stavropol teahouse. Here he usually makes appointments with people, since the small apartment in the hostel, where, in addition to 64-year-old Baranov, his 32-year-old wife and two-and-a-half-year-old heir live, is not suitable for meeting with journalists.
In front of Viktor Ivanovich, strange objects are laid out on the table: a brick, a sliver of wood glued to glass, a bottle with the inscription “Vostorg glue paste.” These are Baranov's latest inventions. But first we ask you to tell main story- about how he became the most famous counterfeiter THE USSR.
Too good fakes
From point of view law enforcement, this story began in the mid-70s. By 1977, in 76 regions of the USSR, from Vilnius to Tashkent, 46 counterfeit banknotes of the fifty-ruble denomination and 415 of the twenty-five-ruble denomination were identified, which, according to experts, had a single source of origin. Exclusively high quality counterintelligence made counterintelligence suspect the CIA, which, of course, could easily print rubles in a factory way in the USA and then distribute them through agents to the USSR. Along with the spy version, the traditional version was also checked - it was assumed that the counterfeiters received technology directly from Goznak.
More than five hundred employees of the enterprise were under round-the-clock surveillance by the KGB for almost a year, until a repeated examination established that Goznak had nothing to do with it, just someone in the country was too well versed in the process of printing money.
Counterintelligence regretfully abandoned the idea of finding American sowers scattering banknotes in the USSR, and the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs focused on searching for a group of counterfeiters within the country. Gradually, it was possible to determine that in the south of Russia, high-quality counterfeits appear more often than in other regions. Then the circle of searches narrowed to the Stavropol region, where in three months of 1977 86 counterfeit twenty-five-ruble bills were immediately identified. And finally, thanks to the vigilance of the Adyghe salesman, the first, as the security forces believed, member of the criminal group was captured.
Proof of guilt
“I decided for myself a long time ago,” says Baranov, “if they catch me, I won’t twist and turn. I never lied to the police." The police did not know about this then, however, and considered Viktor Ivanovich a courier for counterfeiters, who decided to take all the blame on himself in order to shield his accomplices. Because one person cannot produce counterfeit money of such impeccable quality!
“I was taken to Stavropol as a general,” recalls Baranov. “There were two traffic police cars with flashing lights ahead.” There he immediately led the police to his barn, where a search revealed a compact printing press, stacks of printed money and five notebooks describing many years of research. On the same day, a report was placed on the desk of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, and the very next morning a group of Moscow experts flew to Stavropol.
During the investigative experiment, Viktor Ivanovich, in front of distinguished guests, created watermarks on paper, rolled letterpress and intaglio seals, cut the sheet and applied the treasury number with a numberer. By the end of the performance, there were no longer any skeptics left in the room. Everyone believed in a miracle and that the wizard needed to serve a decent amount of time.
After which, by decision of the Chief investigation department The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR added a hundred more similar cases to criminal case No. 193 regarding the discovery of counterfeit banknotes of twenty-five rubles in denomination, where it all began. In the USSR people were also sentenced to death for lesser crimes.
Anyone can offend an artist
From the point of view of Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, this story began in childhood, when for the first time he looked at the banknotes of Tsarist Russia with admiration.
“After all, the blood of an artist flows in me,” explains Viktor Ivanovich. - My uncle, who burned in a tank at the front, was an artist. And before the army I painted pictures - “Alyonushka”, “Three Hunters”, went out into the open air, painted from life.”
But Baranov’s artistic talent was not as terrible for Goznak as his talent for invention. Before taking up the money, he had already tried to offer the Committee on Inventions under the Council of Ministers of the USSR an elegant solution to the problem of sorting potatoes. He was refused on the pretext of filling out the form incorrectly. Then he tried to introduce folding boxes for transporting glass containers at the winery, but the chief engineer directly told the inventor: “I don’t need this. And you don’t have to.”
Then Baranov came up with a one-wheeled car, the construction of which, according to his calculations, required 30,000 rubles. According to his other calculations, it turned out that he would have to collect this amount until old age. Unless, of course, you start printing them yourself. “I was sure that I wouldn’t succeed. But still I decided to try.” That's how it all started. We asked Baranov whether he would make money if the state immediately appreciated his inventions. “If they had supported me right away, perhaps I wouldn’t have done it,” he answered without much confidence.
Still from the movie “Money” One for all
Viktor Ivanovich began his path to the high rank of the king of Soviet counterfeiters by dipping a nickel in ink and applying it to paper. This was in 1965. After thinking about the resulting print, he went to the regional library named after. M. Yu. Lermontov, thinking to find books on printing that interested him there. Neither there, nor in used bookstores, nor in conversations with employees of the printing house of the Stavropolskaya Pravda newspaper, did Baranov, alas, acquire secret knowledge of the mint. And then Viktor Ivanovich took a vacation and flew to Moscow.
In those days, the Library named after. Lenina hospitably opened her doors to anyone Soviet citizen, who strived for knowledge, and very soon Baranov was already taking notes on books on printing. There were a lot of books, little time, so the guest of the capital stole several rare publications.
“I couldn’t resist, sinner,” Viktor Ivanovich explains his immoral act. “It was the only theft in my life.”
Then he went to second-hand bookstores and enriched himself with the books of the German author Ginaks “Fundamentals of Modern Zincography”, Goznakizdat employee Krylov’s “Making Clichés” from 1921 and “Fundamentals of Reproductive Technology” by Schultz. With these precious finds, Baranov returned home.
After studying the literature, Baranov realized that he would have to thoroughly master almost 20 specialties. In fact, the task was impossible: he had to repeat alone what an entire production had created, which had at its disposal classified technologies, hard-to-find materials and unique human resources. But for some reason Baranov did not attach any importance to this, locked himself in the barn and began experimenting.
Baranov mechanism It took him four years to learn how to make watermarks and paper of the required quality, two and a half to make intaglio ink, and a year for letterpress ink. He ordered parts for the equipment piece by piece from craftsmen at various Stavropol factories. I bought chemicals secondhand at a transformer plant. Over the years of experiments in the barn, he studied etching and photography, mastered copying on albumen, gelatin, PVA and PVA, and learned how to make wooden and rubber clichés. This was done by Baranov the technician. Baranov the artist was engaged in reproducing the protective mesh on banknotes - fancy ornaments superimposed on each other (the result of the ingenious work of artists, engravers and guilloche masters of Goznak). To an outside eye they looked like faded stains, but Baranov “dismantled” the protective mesh layer by layer, with surprise discovering images of lion faces and mythical animals. “Several of my shirts simply rotted during these 12 years of searching,” says the king of counterfeiters. “I could sit in the barn for a day or two.” He quit his job as a driver for the regional committee and went to work as a fireman, so that he could be on duty for three days.
Baranov had no friends, because friends like to visit without knocking. For suspicious neighbors, he regularly organized a “day open doors" Curious old women who looked into the workshop had a view of the metalworking machine, enlarger and developing tanks. Baranov hid all the most interesting things in disassembled form under the shelves. Only a suspicious neighbor-hunter continued to believe that Baranov was pouring shot in the barn at night.
Finally, in 1976, having printed another sample of a fifty-ruble note, he could not find any differences in it from a real fifty-ruble note. Only Lenin on the watermark gave away the fake. “I made him fifteen years younger, explains Baranov. “I didn’t like the old one.” You could start getting rich.
But, oddly enough, Baranov did not rush to print suitcases of money. Even the police admit that Baranov used his money machine very modestly. The only serious acquisition in all these years was a car. And then, according to Viktor Ivanovich, the entire amount was paid to him from honest labor savings.
“I didn’t go to restaurants, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t drink, I didn’t have girls. And there was no TV, there was only a small refrigerator. I didn’t need to, I was doing work.”
All the money was spent on the production of new equipment. He did not give counterfeit bills to his family. “My wife once asked where the money came from,” Baranov recalls. - I said that I offer my inventions to factories. I didn’t give my wife a lot of money: 25, 30, 50 rubles.”
In parallel with his study of coinage, Baranov observed the behavior of sellers in the markets in order to understand how money “moves.” For example, fishmongers always take banknotes with wet hands, and meatmongers often have blood on their hands. Caucasians willingly accept new crisp banknotes. As a result, Baranov added 70 fifty dollars, after which he decided to give up on them. Tired of candy wrappers.
The king of counterfeiters decided to take a swing at the quarter note - the most secure and, according to Baranov, the most beautiful treasury note of the USSR.
Baranov mechanism “If the ruble were the most secure, I would make a ruble,” says Viktor Ivanovich, and we believe him. It was not greed that destroyed the king of counterfeiters, but pride.
Using already familiar technology, he skillfully recreated the bill and, having printed a sufficient amount of money (according to the police, about 5,000 rubles), he went to sell it in Crimea. And then an incident happened. Having bought tomatoes on the street from some grandmother in Simferopol, he went to a telephone booth to call, forgetting his briefcase with money. Having already moved a decent distance away, he realized what had happened and rushed back. But neither the grandmother, nor even the briefcase was there. Thus, selling tomatoes that day brought the nimble resident of Simferopol 5,000 rubles of pure profit. And heartbroken Baranov went back to Stavropol to start the machine again.
It was during the creation new party The quarter maestro made a fatal mistake. While securing the cliche to create a protective net, Baranov did not pay attention to the fact that the cliche was upside down. As a result, after printing the money, he discovered that in the place where the wave should have risen, there was a descent. Considering that no one would notice this, he decided not to reject the batch. However, in one of the banks where such a bill eventually ended up, an eagle-eyed cashier noticed the difference and raised the alarm. From that moment on, as they say in thrillers, Baranov had only a few months left to live in freedom.
Still from the movie “Money” “By the time of my arrest, all my equipment had been dismantled,” he says. - I was going to drive through ponds and lakes and scatter it there in parts. I didn’t throw it away only because it’s April and it’s muddy and you can’t get through it. And thank God. Otherwise, divers would have to look for these parts at the bottom of reservoirs.”
From the Stavropol pre-trial detention center, Baranov was transported to Moscow, to Butyrka. Every day he was visited by specialists, to whom, over the course of twelve investigative experiments, he demonstrated the victory of the human mind over Goznak.
The Goznak technologist wrote in his conclusion: “The counterfeit banknotes of 25 and 50 rubles produced by V. I. Baranov are externally close to genuine banknotes and are difficult to identify in circulation. That is why this counterfeit was very dangerous and could cause mistrust of the population in genuine banknotes.”
Viktor Ivanovich willingly shared his work. For twelve years he hid, and finally people appeared who were able to appreciate his talent and titanic work. The king of counterfeiters happily gave out the recipe for his solution, which etched copper several times faster than it was done in Goznak (under the name “Baranovsky solvent” it was used in production for the next 15 years).
For the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, Baranov outlined recommendations on ten pages for improving the protection of rubles from counterfeiting... Probably, Viktor Ivanovich told the competent authorities a lot of other useful things, considering that the execution sentence was replaced with a colony, and he was given three years less than the maximum sentence. “I printed little money,” Baranov offers his explanation of the court’s humanity. - Otherwise they would have shot you. But you know what I’ll tell you: it would be better if they shot him. I wouldn’t suffer for eleven years, with my hands shaking from hunger, snow, wet feet and ten cars with concrete that need to be shoveled. Every day". In fact, Baranov published a lot. about 30,000 rubles, but he put only a small fraction of this money into circulation; most of it remained in the barn.
Baranov served his term in a special regime colony in Dimitrovgrad Ulyanovsk region. Like a true passionary, he showed his talents there too: “I wrote for the newspaper. Once won a competition best article for all ITKs. Then they sent me a bonus - 10 rubles. He was also a director - he headed amateur performances. We had more than three hundred people in the choir, and took first place for seven years in a row.” Baranov also made the scenery for his productions, be it the Maxim machine gun or the coat of arms of the USSR, blinking lights in time with the recited poems.
Inventor of the wheel and glue
Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Photo: Katya Moskvina Returning to Stavropol after imprisonment in 1990, Baranov again began to invent. “The meaning of a person’s life is creative work,” he believes, having been a Kyle for eleven years. “What was given to me, I realized, even if I had to endure a lot of suffering and serve time.”
He still had no friends, his first wife divorced him in the ninth year of imprisonment, all that was left was to invent. At the Analog plant, where he soon got a job, Baranov offered new method extension of nickel mesh in batteries.
“They told me then: “Who are you? Experts from Germany came here, but they didn’t come up with anything new!” And I promised them that they would supply me with more cognac. And so it happened.”
Then Baranov opened the Franza company to produce perfumes. I made six barrels of perfume, 200 liters each. But a few years later the company closed, unable to withstand the competition with the wave of cheap foreign perfumes. “Their boxes were beautiful, but inside was bullshit.”
This was followed by a series of new inventions: ceramic car paint, resistant to acids and alkalis, furniture made of paper waste, water-based furniture varnish, adhesive paste, light brick, healing balm. Some of the inventions were successfully implemented, some received royalties... This is how Viktor Ivanovich lives today - in a hostel with his young wife and child. Modestly, but with the hope of recognition.
Wait, we say. - Where is the legendary one-wheeled car? Show me what it looks like. “It’s a secret,” Baranov answers. - Tai-na! There is one wheel, taller than a person, and two or four people can sit there. The fuel is ordinary. And there is one more special device. It was not possible to find out the details.
This is what I wanted to talk to you about. - Viktor Ivanovich looks at us seriously. “Perhaps I could involve you in my latest invention?” In department stores they take out things and food. Stores are suffering huge losses. There are systems with magnets that make a jingling sound, but they can be easily fooled. They won't be able to handle anything with my system. To get started, you need 300,000 rubles. You give money - we patent the system and sign documents.
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Victor Ivanovich Baranov. Born in 1941 in the Stavropol Territory. Famous Soviet counterfeiter, also an inventor and artist.
In the USSR, Viktor Baranov was called “Counterfeiter No. 1.” In 1978, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for making counterfeit money.
Until now, law enforcement officers consider him consummate master for the production of counterfeit banknotes. In the 70s, Baranov’s criminal talent and his art of counterfeiting money shocked Goznak specialists and party and police chiefs of the Soviet Union.
By the end of the 1970s, 46 counterfeit fifty-ruble banknotes and 415 twenty-five-ruble notes were identified in 76 regions of the USSR, which, as experts established, had a single source of origin.
The quality was so high that Soviet counterintelligence suspected the CIA of carrying out financial sabotage against the USSR. In addition to the spy version, another version was also verified - that the technology came to the counterfeiters from Goznak. More than five hundred employees of the enterprise were under 24-hour KGB surveillance for almost a year. But a repeated examination established that Goznak was not involved in counterfeit money...
Victor Baranov - counterfeiter
As a child, Victor was fond of collecting antiques. banknotes. Colored pictures depicting royalty fascinated him. He had heard a lot about the fact that there were people who could make the same, but he did not imagine that one day he would be able to do something like this.
In Stavropol, where Victor studied at a regular school, he was always in good standing with the teachers. Until the fifth grade, I was an excellent student and always had exemplary behavior. One of his favorite school subjects was drawing. He went to art school, while the best copies he made were from famous paintings- “Alyonushka” by Vasnetsov, “Morning in pine forest» Shishkin and others.
After the seventh grade, he went to Rostov-on-Don to study at a construction school.
More than once he offered his inventions to enterprises, but for the most part they remained unclaimed. Then Baranov, “for self-affirmation,” as well as to finance his own inventions, takes up making money.
He worked on banknotes for 12 years. During this time, he thoroughly studied more than ten printing specialties - from engraver to printer. It took him three years to invent the watermark himself, and two spent on intaglio printing ink.
I studied textbooks for printing students, even went to Moscow - to Leninka.
He visited second-hand bookstores, but could not find all the books he needed there. He found the necessary literature in the Lenin Library, where he read, took notes and studied books on printing and zincography. He even stole a few, which he recalled with regret: “I don’t like cheating people.”
The forgery genius is especially proud of the solution he invented for removing copper oxides during etching. On this task for a long time all the printers of the world fought. He made a reagent of four components - two poison copper, two remove its oxides. Goznak subsequently worked for 14 years on this etching machine, which received the secret name “Baranovsky”.
The first banknote that Baranov made was a fifty-ruble note.
“When I started making money, I was one hundred percent sure that nothing would work out. But it was interesting to test my capabilities,” he said.
At one time he worked as a journalist.
Shortly before his arrest, Baranov worked as a driver in the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU. More than once he had to transport important people, including the first secretary of the local regional committee.
Next to the inventor’s house there was a barn in which he equipped his “research laboratory.” Captivated by new ideas, Viktor Ivanovich did not leave there for days.
On April 12, 1977, he was detained at the collective farm market in the city of Cherkessk while selling another batch of counterfeits. During a personal search of Baranov, 77 counterfeit banknotes in denominations of 25 rubles were discovered.
“I decided for myself a long time ago that if I get caught, I won’t twist and turn. I never lied to the police. I was taken to Stavropol as a general. Two traffic police cars with flashing lights were driving ahead,” he said.
As it turned out, the driver quit in August 1976 and did not work anywhere, but detectives learned that he did not need money: having lost his salary, he bought a Niva car, bought gold jewelry for his wife, and made expensive gifts to relatives. When police officers began to question Baranov about his accomplices, he stated that he did everything alone.
Experts initially did not believe this, but investigative measures confirmed the fact that Baranov produced counterfeit banknotes totaling 33,454 rubles, while at the time of his arrest Baranov was selling banknotes in the amount of 23,525 rubles.
After his arrest, he immediately led the police to his barn, where a search revealed a compact printing press, stacks of printed money and five notebooks describing many years of research. On the same day, a report was placed on the desk of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, and the very next morning a group of Moscow experts flew to Stavropol.
During the investigative experiment, Viktor Ivanovich, in front of distinguished guests, created watermarks on paper, rolled letterpress and intaglio seals, cut the sheet and applied the treasury number with a numberer.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
He served his sentence in a special regime colony in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region. He showed his talents there too: “I wrote for the newspaper. I once won a competition for the best article on all ITK. Then they sent me a bonus - 10 rubles. And I was a director - I headed amateur performances. We had more than three hundred people in the choir, and they took first place for seven years in a row,” he recalled.
Released in 1990. After his release he lives in Stavropol. His latest hobby is making perfumes.
Returning to Stavropol after imprisonment in 1990, Baranov again began to invent.
“The meaning of human life is creative work. What was given to me, I realized, even if I had to endure a lot of suffering and serve time,” he said.
His first wife divorced him in his ninth year of imprisonment. After his release, he married again and the couple had a son.
He continued to invent. So, at the Analog plant, where he soon got a job, Baranov proposed a new method for growing nickel mesh in batteries. “They told me then: “Who are you? Experts from Germany came here, but they didn’t come up with anything new!” And I promised them that they would supply me with more cognac. And so it happened,” he said, not without pride.
Then he opened the Franza company to produce perfumes. I made six barrels of perfume, 200 liters each. But a few years later the company closed, unable to withstand the competition with the wave of cheap foreign perfumes.
He invented a method for cleaning potatoes from soil, stones and other inclusions. The solution is simple and ingenious: pour everything into a container filled with salt water. The potatoes will float, the rest will sink to the bottom.
Then followed a series of new inventions: ceramic car paint, resistant to acids and alkalis, furniture made from paper waste, water-based furniture varnish, adhesive paste, lightweight brick, healing balm. He managed to introduce some of his inventions and receive royalties for others.
At the request of a Moscow company, Viktor Ivanovich developed his own trade protection system, which is much more effective than barcodes.
The series was released in 2016 "Money"- a detective story about counterfeiters and the KGB's hunt for them.
The prototype of the main character of the film, Alexei Barannikov, was Viktor Baranov.
Images from the series "Money"
Counterfeiting is one of the oldest criminal professions - as soon as money appeared, people immediately appeared who began to counterfeit it. Every year in Russia the number of detected fakes grows by 20-30%.
This man is still rightly considered an unrivaled master of making counterfeit banknotes. At one time, his criminal talent literally shocked Goznak specialists, party and police chiefs of the USSR. Today Viktor Baranov huddles in a room in an ordinary dorm with his wife and little son. And he continues to bring his unexpected inventions into reality, but now exclusively law-abiding ones.
April 12, 1977. Cherkessk. Kolkhoz market. The Adyghe salesman had just told the police how a few minutes ago a buyer had approached him with a request to exchange twenty-five-ruble notes. Traders were asked to pay attention if someone offered quarter or fifty dollars on the market? So he converted. Yes, of course, he will show the buyer. This is the one with the briefcase.
The documents of the suspicious buyer turned out to be in order: Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, a resident of Stavropol. But the police couldn’t even dream of how he ended up with cash in order. Viktor Ivanovich had 1,925 rubles in quarter notes in his briefcase. These 77 banknotes became for Baranov what 33 irons were for Professor Pleischner - a sign of failure.
- So who are you? — the investigator asked him when the police brought the owner of the suspicious money to the police station.
“I am a counterfeiter,” answered the king of counterfeiters.
From the point of view of law enforcement agencies, this story began in the mid-70s. By 1977 in 76 regions
USSR, from Vilnius to Tashkent, 46 counterfeit banknotes of fifty rubles and 415 of twenty-five rubles were identified, which, according to experts, had a single source of origin. The exceptionally high quality of the counterfeits made counterintelligence suspect the CIA, which, of course, could easily print rubles in a factory way in the USA and then distribute them through agents to the USSR. Along with the spy version, the traditional version was also checked - it was assumed that the counterfeiters received technology directly from Goznak. More than five hundred employees of the enterprise were under round-the-clock surveillance by the KGB for almost a year, until a repeated examination established that Goznak had nothing to do with it - just someone in the country was too well versed in the process of printing money.
Counterintelligence regretfully abandoned the idea of finding American sowers scattering banknotes in the USSR, and the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs focused on searching for a group of counterfeiters within the country.
Gradually, it was possible to determine that in the south of Russia, high-quality counterfeits appear more often than in other regions. Then the circle of searches narrowed to the Stavropol region, where in three months of 1977 86 counterfeit twenty-five-ruble bills were immediately identified. And finally, thanks to the vigilance of the Adyghe seller, the first, as the security forces believed, member of the criminal group was captured.
It must be said that at the time of his arrest Baranov was... a freelance employee of the Stavropol OBKhSS. As a driver, Viktor Ivanovich took two security officers - senior lieutenant Alexander Nikolchenko and major Yuri Baranov (namesake) - on raids to all sorts of “grain places”. And it had to happen that at the time of the arrest the senior leader was in Pyatigorsk, where he was just catching the notorious elusive counterfeiter! I found out that he was caught in Cherkessk, and received an order to deliver the captured man to Stavropol. Imagine the opera’s amazement when he saw his partner in front of him!.. “I knew that Yura and Sasha were looking for me, but I never asked them a question... I would never use our friendly relations to my advantage,” admits Baranov.
“I decided for myself a long time ago,” says Baranov, “if they catch me, I won’t twist and turn. I never lied to the police." The police did not know about this then, however, and considered Viktor Ivanovich a courier for counterfeiters, who decided to take all the blame on himself in order to shield his accomplices. Because one person cannot produce counterfeit money of such impeccable quality!
“I was taken to Stavropol as a general,” recalls Baranov. “There were two traffic police cars with flashing lights ahead.”
There he immediately led the police to his barn, where a search revealed a compact printing press, stacks of printed money and five notebooks describing many years of research. On the same day, a report was placed on the desk of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, and the very next morning a group of Moscow experts flew to Stavropol.
During the investigative experiment, Viktor Ivanovich, in front of distinguished guests, created watermarks on paper, rolled letterpress and intaglio seals, cut the sheet and applied the treasury number with a numberer. By the end of the performance, there were no longer any skeptics left in the room. Everyone believed in a miracle and that the wizard needed to serve a decent amount of time.
After which, by decision of the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, a hundred more similar cases were added to criminal case No. 193 on the discovery of counterfeit banknotes of twenty-five rubles in denomination, where it all began. In the USSR people were also sentenced to death for lesser crimes.
Vitya Baranov developed an interest in money as a child, when he began collecting a collection of old banknotes. But he came to the conclusion that he could make money himself much later... In Stavropol, where the future criminal genius studied at a regular school, he was always in good standing with the teachers. Until the fifth grade, Vitya Baranov was an excellent student, and his behavior was always exemplary. Among his favorite school subjects was drawing... The guy went to art school, painted beautiful sunsets... And the best thing he made were copies of famous paintings - “Alyonushka” by Vasnetsov, “Morning in a Pine Forest” by Shishkin and others.
After seventh grade, Vitya Baranov went to Rostov-on-Don to study at a construction school. Within a year, he mastered the specialty of a parquet carpenter. He also really wanted to become a pilot. Collected with a friend at the flying club large group I started working with the same guys parachuting. Victor made several jumps. At the draft board he was told that he needed to commit two more, and he would be drafted. landing troops. But, heeding his mother’s lamentations, Baranov completed a driver’s course at DOSAAF and went to serve in a motor battalion. And he was a secretary Komsomol organization your part.
After the army, Victor worked at one time as a freight forwarder in the Stavropol regional party committee. And twice he even drove Mikhail Gorbachev, at that time the third secretary of the Komsomol Committee, home from work at night.
When I started making money, I was one hundred percent sure that nothing would work out. But it was interesting to test my capabilities,” recalls Stavropol “Kulibin”.
He worked on the banknotes for 12 years. During this time, I thoroughly studied as many as 12 printing specialties - from engraver to printer. For three years he “invented” the watermark himself, and for two years he “invented” intaglio printing ink. I studied textbooks for printing students, even went to Moscow, studied at Leninka rare books“in his specialty”... He had to do a lot by trial and error.
The inventor locked himself in his barn on Zheleznodorozhnaya Street in Stavropol and worked literally day and night. The fruits of this work can be seen today in the Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The whole room is occupied by Baranov’s “exhibition”, which was transported to Moscow in no less than two KamAZ trucks!
The forgery genius is especially proud of the solution he invented for removing copper oxides during etching. All printers in the world have been struggling with this problem for a long time. Terribly labor-intensive and painstaking work! And Baranov built a reagent from four components - two poison copper, two remove its oxides. Everything takes a minute or two... Goznak worked for 14 years on this etching agent, which received an unspoken name - “Baranovsky”.
The first banknote that Baranov made was a fifty-ruble note. One to one with the original in the smallest details. The only thing, out of respect for Lenin, the counterfeiter made the leader twenty years younger. And this was not noticed in any bank!
He produced only a few fifty kopecks - 70 pieces. Caucasians in the markets grabbed them with their hands and asked for more. But the Stavropol resident decided to make the “quarter” - the most secure of Soviet banknotes. “If the ruble were the most difficult thing, I would do it... I wasn’t interested in money as such,” laughs Viktor Ivanovich.
Even the police admit that Baranov used his money machine very modestly. The only serious acquisition in all these years was a car. And then, according to Viktor Ivanovich, the entire amount was paid to him from honest labor savings. “I didn’t go to restaurants, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t drink, I didn’t have girls. And there was no TV, there was only a small refrigerator. I didn’t need to - I was doing work.” All the money was spent on the production of new equipment. He did not give counterfeit bills to his family. “My wife once asked where the money came from,” Baranov recalls. — I said that I offer my inventions to factories. I didn’t give my wife a lot of money - 25, 30, 50 rubles.”
In parallel with his study of coinage, Baranov observed the behavior of sellers in the markets in order to understand how money “moves.” For example, fishmongers always take banknotes with wet hands, and meatmongers often have blood on their hands. Caucasians willingly accept new crisp banknotes. As a result, Baranov added 70 fifty dollars, after which he decided to give up on them. Tired of candy wrappers.
However, Baranov immediately lost interest in the money he made. He was not interested in wealth - he simply needed funds to implement other bold projects. He calculated that this would require about 30 thousand rubles. No sooner said than done!
But the trouble was when Baranov took him to Crimea to change his money, bought two kilograms of tomatoes from an old woman, walked away and only a few minutes later realized that he didn’t have a suitcase with him. He returned, and the old woman was like that, taking with her money for a good house...
The bungling inventor had to turn on the printing press again, which he was about to disassemble and scatter in parts into different ponds.
Baranov did not even think about counterfeiting the currency. But during one of his trips to the capital, he bought a dollar from a dealer - for his collection. Having looked at it more closely, I was convinced how easy it is to make money...
Baranov had no friends, because friends like to visit without knocking. He regularly organized “open days” for suspicious neighbors. Curious old women who looked into the workshop had a view of the metalworking machine, the enlarger and the developing tanks - Baranov hid all the most interesting things in disassembled form under the shelves. Only a suspicious neighbor-hunter continued to believe that Baranov was pouring shot in the barn at night.
It was when creating a new batch of quarter notes that the maestro made a fatal mistake. While securing the cliche to create a protective net, Baranov did not pay attention to the fact that the cliche was upside down. As a result, after printing the money, he discovered that in the place where the wave should have risen, there was a descent. Considering that no one would notice this, he decided not to reject the batch. However, in one of the banks where such a bill eventually ended up, an eagle-eyed cashier noticed the difference and raised the alarm. From that moment on, as they say in thrillers, Baranov had only a few months left to live in freedom.
“By the time of my arrest, all my equipment had been dismantled,” he says. “I was going to drive through ponds and lakes and scatter it there in parts.” I didn’t throw it away only because it’s April and it’s muddy and you can’t get through it. And thank God. Otherwise, divers would have to look for these parts at the bottom of reservoirs.”
From the Stavropol pre-trial detention center, Baranov was transported to Moscow, to Butyrka. Every day he was visited by specialists, to whom, over the course of twelve investigative experiments, he demonstrated the victory of the human mind over Goznak.
The Goznak technologist wrote in his conclusion: “The counterfeit banknotes of 25 and 50 rubles produced by V. I. Baranov are externally close to genuine banknotes and are difficult to identify in circulation. That is why this counterfeit was very dangerous and could cause mistrust of the population in genuine banknotes.”
Viktor Ivanovich willingly shared his work. For twelve years he hid, and finally people appeared who were able to appreciate his talent and titanic work. The king of counterfeiters happily gave out the recipe for his solution, which etched copper several times faster than it was done in Goznak (under the name “Baranovsky solvent” it was used in production for the next 15 years). For the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, Baranov outlined recommendations on ten pages for improving the protection of rubles from counterfeiting... Probably, Viktor Ivanovich told the competent authorities a lot of other useful things, considering that the execution sentence was replaced with a colony, and he was given three years less than the maximum sentence. “I printed little money,” Baranov offers his explanation of the court’s humanity. - Otherwise they would have shot you. But you know what I’ll tell you: it would be better if they shot him. I wouldn’t suffer for eleven years, with my hands shaking from hunger, snow, wet feet and ten cars with concrete that need to be shoveled. Every day". In fact, Baranov printed a lot - about 30,000 rubles, but he put only a small fraction of this money into circulation, most of it remained in the barn.
Baranov served his sentence in a special regime colony in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region. Like a true passionary, he showed his talents there too: “I wrote for the newspaper. I once won a competition for the best article on all ITK. Then they sent me a bonus - 10 rubles. And I was a director - I headed amateur performances. We had more than three hundred people in the choir, and took first place for seven years in a row.” Baranov also made the scenery for his productions, be it the Maxim machine gun or the coat of arms of the USSR, blinking lights in time with the recited poems.
Returning to Stavropol after imprisonment in 1990, Baranov again began to invent. “The meaning of a person’s life is creative work,” he believes, waving off 11 years of age. “What was given to me, I realized, even if I had to endure a lot of suffering and serve time.”
He still had no friends, his first wife divorced him in the ninth year of imprisonment, all that was left was to invent. At the Analogue plant, where he soon got a job, Baranov proposed a new method for growing nickel mesh in batteries. “They told me then: “Who are you? Experts from Germany came here, but they didn’t come up with anything new!” And I promised them that they would supply me with more cognac. And so it happened.”
Then Baranov opened the Franza company to produce perfumes. I made six barrels of perfume, 200 liters each. But a few years later the company closed, unable to withstand the competition with the wave of cheap foreign perfumes. “Their boxes were beautiful, but the inside was crap.”
Baranov invented a method for cleaning potatoes from soil, stones and other inclusions. The ingenious solution is to pour everything into a container filled with salt water. The potatoes will float, the rest will sink to the bottom. I wanted to patent my invention, but was refused because I filled out the form incorrectly...
Then followed a series of new inventions: ceramic car paint, resistant to acids and alkalis, furniture made from paper waste, water-based furniture varnish, adhesive paste, lightweight brick, healing balm. Some of the inventions were successfully implemented, some received royalties... This is how Viktor Ivanovich lives today - in a hostel with his young wife and child. Modestly, but with the hope of recognition.
And at the request of a Moscow company, Viktor Ivanovich developed his own trade protection system, which is much more effective than barcodes.
Baranov lives with his wife and little son in a room in a simple Stavropol dorm. This is where he stores all his equipment.
Baranov never had any thoughts about going abroad. So what if they value brains more highly? He doesn't particularly value money. He needs them only to invent something new. And he also says that he will never give away the technology for making “Baranovsky” banknotes to anyone.
Viktor Baranov is a criminal legend of the USSR. He can safely be called the king of counterfeiters of all times. No one had ever been able to achieve such quality in counterfeit banknotes before. In 1977, only an accident led the police to the counterfeiter. The meticulous cashier noticed a shift in the wave - the cliché was placed backwards. The state machine shook. An attempt was made on the holy of holies of any power - money!
The future counterfeiter drove Mikhail Gorbachev
Victor's parents were officials in Moscow. When he turned 16, the family moved to Stavropol. Here he attended art school and began to paint professionally. In those years, he did not have any thoughts about counterfeiting money. In the army he was secretary of the Komsomol organization, after demobilization he worked as a driver in the Stavropol regional party committee. I even gave Mikhail Gorbachev a lift a couple of times.
A few years later, Baranov changed jobs - he moved to a winery. They paid more there. At the enterprise, he offered management one of his first inventions - a folding box. Using such boxes, it was possible to increase the machine load 10 times. However, the chief engineer, patting the inventor on the shoulder, said: “Ivanovich, why the hell do you and I need this?..”
Baranov has been preparing the release of the first banknote for 6 years
Ideas were constantly swarming in Viktor Ivanovich’s head, but his brilliant mind demanded real action. And since Baranov read a lot, he knew that Soviet money was one of the highest in terms of security levels and it was impossible to counterfeit it... But not Baranov. An application for talent has been found!
To issue his first banknote, Baranov mastered 18 specialties. Having 10 years of education, he studied the entire world experience of printing, paint and paper production. According to the master, for nine years (!) he traveled to Moscow, where he did not leave scientific libraries. There Victor studied books on chemistry and printing. It took Baranov three and a half years to develop his paper and technology for making watermarks. He devoted another two and a half years to developing paints and cliches. As a result, Baranov managed to create his own composition for etching copper, with the help of which a matrix was made - the basis for the imprint of the future banknote. Moreover, instead of five hours as at Goznak, Baranovsky etching lasted two minutes!
Viktor Ivanovich ordered all the parts for numerous machines and machines according to his drawings at various factories. He told everyone that they were needed for production. jewelry. He collected all the machines in his barn on Zheleznodorozhnaya Street (now visitors to the Central Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow look at these rarities).
First batch
The master took the first batch of his masterpieces - seventy fifty-ruble bills - to Krasnodar, exchanged them and did not make them again. They were too simple to make. The most difficult note to execute was the 25 ruble banknote. She became the pinnacle of Baranov’s creation...
At this very time, hundreds of artists, chemists, printers and photographers were working in the fifteen-story building of the Goznak Research Institute. And then, out of the blue, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB fell on printing specialists - counterfeit “quarters” began to circulate around the country.
Experts who conducted a scientific examination of the fakes stated that creating such technology using a homemade method is impossible. The Ministry of Internal Affairs investigators had two options: either financial sabotage was carried out by some foreign power, or the matrices and technologies were stolen from the Goznak plant.
For a whole year, there were inquiries about how and who managed to take possession of the matrices. The result is zero. Only a year later, experts erased the top layer of paint and discovered a small inappropriate stroke underneath it, on the banknote. The factory breathed a sigh of relief - the matrices are not ours! The version of the organs was collapsing before our eyes. Then the EMVA officers took on the regions.
He was detained with a suitcase of money
Gradually, counterintelligence officers and the police reached Stavropol region- it was here that counterfeit, and at the same time practically real, banknotes had the greatest circulation. Special squads checked all people, without exception, exchanging twenty-five ruble bills. All sellers of markets and shops were warned: if suspicion arises, contact the police.
On his fateful day, April 12, 1977, Viktor Ivanovich arrived in the city of Cherkessk with a whole suitcase of money. At the market, he offered an elderly Adyghe man to exchange two twenty-five ruble bills. The elder turned out to be vigilant and reported Baranov’s request to the police.
The protocol stated that the detained Viktor Baranov, a resident of the city of Stavropol, had with him a large amount of money in 25 ruble bills... It is noteworthy that Baranov drove the outfit to the Circassian police department in his car.
At the police station, the detainee himself admitted to the pale investigator: “I am the one you are looking for!” Soon, an escort of five cars with sirens and flashing lights turned on was rushing towards Stavropol. And on the desks of Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev and Minister of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, reports were laid that the counterfeiter had been caught.
At first, no one could believe that some self-taught artisan in a barn could make real money. The highest officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs flocked to Stavropol for the investigative experiment. And only when the machine produced a twenty-five-ruble bill printed on plain paper did they finally believe it was him.
« A socially dangerous genius was jailed for 12 years
In the Butyrka prison, the “Stavropol printer” was in great demand. A general from the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to him and took consultations. He brought a whole bunch of counterfeit banknotes and asked how they were made and how to get on the trail of the counterfeiters. However, these crude fakes could not be compared with Baranov’s works.
The chief technologist of Goznak communicated most with the master. It was to him that Baranov revealed the secret of copper etching and his “handicraft technology.”
Baranov answered questions honestly and even offered the technologist his development of a pencil, the stroke of which would identify a fake. He was told that there was a special machine and the state would somehow manage without his ideas (exactly three months later, the Americans released their own similar identification pencil. - V.V.).
Conversations with the chief technologist ended with the resolution: “... very smart and very dangerous for society.” Science officials did not need a person who could replace an entire institute. The verdict was delivered: Viktor Ivanovich was given 12 years in prison.
In the zone, the king of counterfeits was almost killed
Once in the Pyatigorsk distribution center, Baranov almost said goodbye to his life. Here he ruled wolf law. For several days the masters beat me just like that, because there was nothing to do.
But Viktor Ivanovich remembers with pride the seven years spent in the ITK of the city of Dimitrovgrad, in the Ulyanovsk region. He pulled all the artistic activities on himself. The management of the ITK was delighted with Baranov’s presentation. At a performance, a giant painted barge could float onto the stage, pulled by ropes by prison barge haulers, and behind the stage the choir would say, “Oh, little club, let’s whoop!”
After serving most term, Baranov was sent to settle in the Ural village of Kolva, not far from Solikamsk. Here, too, he never ceased to amaze people. The maestro painted a huge portrait of Lenin assembled from fragments. Each shield, and there were 18 of them, barely fit in his wretched little room. Residents of the village did not believe that when they collected the “pieces of the leader”, the mosaic would match. However, Ilyich coincided to within a millimeter! Soon a portrait measuring four by nine meters towered over Kolva and was visible from several kilometers away.
Housework
Upon returning to Stavropol, Viktor Ivanovich organized his own company. Began to produce women's perfumes and linen fragrances from natural oils. However, when the market was filled with Chinese consumer goods, the work withered. Then he showed the world fire-resistant car paint, which retained its color even in acid, but again no one was interested in Baranov’s ingenious inventions...
Knowing about Baranov’s past, he is occasionally approached with a request to forge a seal or ID. However, Baranov gave up crime. To my question, which modern banknotes are the most secure, he answered this way:
All banknotes are ours and state ones - aerobatics! But everything that is created by a person can be repeated by another person.
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