Photo: RIA Novosti
How I found out
This work is the result of a completely unplanned study that I did for a year and a half. It all started in my native village of Zhitnoe, where I often come to see my relatives and where I usually spend my summer holidays. So in the summer of 2015 I was there.
The nature in those parts is amazing: picturesque steppes and fields stretch for many kilometers, and my friends and I often go on bicycles around the areas adjacent to the village in search of new interesting places.
During one of these sorties, we drove past the Kazakh cemetery, located on a large hillock, and then for the first time I noticed that there, a little further from the Muslim graves, there is one with an Orthodox cross. Of course, I wondered: where did the Russian Orthodox cross come from in this cemetery and what kind of person was buried there?
When I asked my friends about this, they told me a story about a Soviet pilot whose plane allegedly crashed during the war years somewhere not far from the hillock on which the cemetery now stands. According to them, they buried him there, at the site of the plane crash. All this did not sound very plausible: the Germans, of course, reached the Astrakhan region, but, in fact, there were no hostilities here, which means that the probability of a plane crash is still quite small.
A little later, it occurred to me to turn to my grandmother. Her name is Valentina Yakovlevna Semiglasova, she was born in the village of Zhitnoe in 1946 and spent her whole life there. Here is what she told me: “The conversation at that time in the village was such that Yakov Afanasyevich Nyunichkin, that was his name, during the war allegedly carried out some kind of subversive activity against the authorities, in support of Nazi Germany, either a Vlasovite, or … Well, in general, when all this was revealed, a trial was held against him in his native village of Chulpan. He ended up in the Starovolzhsky camp, where war criminals and traitors to the motherland were then kept. The story is strange, of course …
Some time after he was imprisoned, he died. The body was not handed over to the relatives, and the family stole it through acquaintances.
Of course, the body was missed and not found, and the family buried it where no one would look for a Russian, at the Kazakh cemetery in the village of Zhitnoe.”
What I heard from my grandmother sounded, as it seemed to me then, more believable than the story about the pilot. In addition, the information was very valuable: so, first of all, it became clear that, no matter what events were taking place then, all this had nothing to do with Zhitnoye at all, but with the village of Chulpan. This was the starting point of my work.
Most of all, I was then occupied not so much with the circumstances of the death of a certain Nyunichkin, but with his very personality. Is it true that he was a traitor that he went over to the side of the enemy? Was he justly convicted?
First of all, I decided to return to the Kazakh cemetery and find his grave. She looked very neat, as if someone was courting her. On the monument was written:
“Nyunichkin Yakov Afanasyevich
1.10.1908–19.01.1950”
After some time, I went to the archive, because if Nyunichkin was convicted, there should have been a case. Such documents are stored in the Archive of the latest documentation of the Astrakhan region. There they suggested to me which fund I should apply to, and warned that the issuance of documents could be refused in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data.
I found the case in a fund called the Regional Committee of the CPSU of the Ikryaninsky District of the Astrakhan Region, and they really refused to extradite me: allegedly, the documents contained personal information, access to which was allowed only to relatives. I wrote a statement addressed to the director of the archive, but this did not help either. But I was advised to contact Nyunichkin's relatives and ask them for a power of attorney. And then I started looking for them.
I again turned to my grandmother for help, and she said that my friend Natasha, who lives in Zhitnoye, turns out to be the great-granddaughter of that same Nyunichkin. Natasha confirmed this, but she herself did not know anything about the relative and suggested that I talk to her mother, Olga Alexandrovna. As it turned out, it was she who looked after the grave of Nyunichkin. To meet with Natasha's mother, I had to go to Zhitnoe, but then I did not have such an opportunity, and the meeting had to be postponed. After a while, my grandmother called me. She said that Olga Alexandrovna had died of a stroke. What to do next, I did not know. Time passed, and I still had no access to the documents. Moreover, there was no person who could help me and clarify this confusing story.
Later it turned out that Olga Alexandrovna's father, Alexander Yakovlevich Nyunichkin, the son of Yakov Afanasyevich, was alive, and you can find him in the village of Chulpan. I even found out his address, but, unfortunately, I again postponed the trip, not imagining how it would turn out later. In the information desk, they gave me the number of Alexander Yakovlevich, and when I called, a woman approached the phone, who introduced herself as his wife. She was not in the mood for a conversation, she only said that he was seriously ill and unable to answer my questions. I learned from Natasha that Alexander Yakovlevich had suffered a stroke a few days before my call and was now paralyzed.
The situation seemed hopeless.
In the hope of finding at least something, I went to the State Archives of the Astrakhan Region. There, as it turned out, the elevator was broken, and the workers did not issue documents. By the way, these documents were stored just a floor above,
and why the elevator was needed at all, it is not clear. I was advised to return in a year, when, according to them, the elevator would already be in good working order.
At that moment, I even decided that there was nowhere to look, and there was nothing. However, soon everything was resolved in the most unexpected way: one day, quite by accident, I again heard the name Nyunichkin. And I heard, oddly enough, from my aunt, Tatyana Anatolyevna Semiglasova. She lives in Staro-Volzhsky and works in the local psycho-neurological boarding school, the territory of which half a century ago was the zone where Nyunichkin died. However, she was not talking about Yakov, but about Mikhail. As it turned out, Nyunichkin had more than one son, and Mikhail was his grandson. Contacting Michael was easy. I called him and we agreed to meet. Almost at the same time, my next requests in both archives were answered with consent, and I received the documents.
Subsequently, I met Mikhail twice, and once with his father, Ivan Yakovlevich. Both of them turned out to be very affable, friendly, willingly told everything they knew about the relative. Jacob is remembered in the family, they talk about him with pride, but far from everything has survived to this day: neither the grandson nor the son of Nyunichkin could answer many questions.
What I learned
Afanasy Petrovich Nyunichkin and his wife Agafya Grigoryevna were peasants. They lived in the middle lane, in the village of Znamenka, Tambov province. At the beginning of the 20th century, the family was forced to flee south. Many then fled to escape hunger, find work and a roof over their heads.
In the Astrakhan province, one could always find work: due to the proximity to the Caspian Sea, the fishing industry was developed, a factory for the production of canned fish was functioning, and basically the entire population worked in this industry in one way or another. However, at the beginning of the century and there people were in poverty.
The Nyunichkins settled in the village of Chulpan, Ikryaninsky volost, Astrakhan district, Astrakhan province. There they had a small plot of land and a personal subsidiary plot. Not to say that things were going well, but there was enough food, there was where to live and raise children. At that time, everyone tried to survive as best they could, worked tirelessly to feed themselves and their families; so the Nyunichkins survived.
The youngest son, Yakov Afanasyevich Nyunichkin, was born in 1908. Like all children in the village, he went to the parochial school at the Ilyinsky Church, where he was taught to read and write, count and write. From a young age (according to documents — from 1922) until the start of collectivization, he worked on his father's farm.
Even then, in the villages of the Astrakhan district, the formation of a new government was taking place. It was a hectic, painful, sometimes tragic process.
The archives contain many documents describing the process of collectivization in the Astrakhan region. They contain instructions for employees of district executive committees (RECs), as well as statistical summaries and progress reports. In the information summaries we read the following:
“In s. Zhitnoye, Sedlistoe poor have a negative attitude towards the eviction of the kulaks. There were cases of disruption of the meeting of the poor on the issues of dispossession. Some poor people said: “Enough talking about kulaks. Give me bread.»
“The poor peasants and laborers of the Kharabalinsky and Ikryaninsky districts show the least activity in the work of dispossession.”
“In the village of Zhitnoye, 200 collective farmers left the general meeting with exclamations: “There is nothing to fool your head, since they don’t give an increased norm of bread.”
As of March 10, 1930, 553 farms were dispossessed in the Ikryaninsky district. The horrors of collectivization bypassed the Nyunichkin family: all family members remained alive, they still had a house and some of the acquired property. However, life has changed once and for all.
In 1930, Yakov was forced to join the collective farm: now he worked not for his family, but for the state. Quiet life in the village and measured work in the private household were replaced by workdays and rigid schedules. Until 1934, he was listed as a fishing leader at the Krasny Chulpanovets collective farm, then he worked in the Rybpotrebsoyuz, and in 1935 he was appointed fishing foreman. Already in 1938, Yakov, then still non-party, became chairman of the Chulpan village council. It is difficult to judge his attitude to the collective farm system — was he his champion or just trying to survive in these conditions?
At the same time, in the late 1930s, there was a story that Yakov's relatives do not like to talk about. During the interview, when this was discussed, the voice recorder was asked to be turned off. Nyunichkin at that time was already the chairman of the village council, and an order came from above — to destroy the Ilyinsky church, the only one in the village. For the inhabitants of the village, this was a shock: not only would the church be wiped off the face of the earth, but the Sunday parish school would finally stop working.
Yakov could not decide on this for a long time, but he had no choice. One can imagine what his refusal to carry out the order of his superiors could have turned out to be. As a result, the church was demolished.
Later, on the initiative of Yakov Nyunichkin, on the site of this church, a boarding house with a school was built from the materials left from it, where children from neighboring villages also studied. It would seem that Nyunichkin atoned for his guilt, but this story has not been forgotten in the village to this day and is often remembered by his descendants.
In 1941, the war began, and Yakov was called to the front in Sevastopol, where he served as a platoon commander. In 1943, he was wounded and returned to Chulpan — he returned as a hero, with military awards, and took his former position as chairman of the village council. According to the recollections of relatives, the attitude of local residents towards Yakov was generally good: a family man, a father of four children, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, he was, among other things, a very sympathetic person.
Occupying the position of chairman of the village council, he repeatedly came to the aid of needy villagers, families of front-line soldiers, widows and children. They say that this is what killed him.
The tragic events that turned the life of Yakov Nyunichkin and his family upside down took place two years later, in 1946.
It all started in the village of Koklyui, Chulpansky village council. There lived a woman whose husband died, leaving her with small children without a livelihood. Yakov could not close his eyes to her grief — he gave her an extra piece of land, quite small, about a square meter. Then it could save the whole family. According to various sources, there were several other similar cases. But how and why the good deed of Jacob turned into a sentence for him, no one knows for sure. Rumor has it that someone found out about Nyunichkin's «generosity» and began not to ask, but to demand extra land, and not particularly in need of it. And when he was refused, he went and wrote a denunciation. And they brought a case against Jacob. From the post of chairman of the village council was removed immediately, and after him almost the entire staff was fired.
The first court session took place on December 6 and 7, 1946. Together with Nyunichkin, Mikhail Pavlovich Reztsov, born in 1915, was involved in the case. This Reztsov was a distant relative of Nyunichkin and worked as the chairman of the Krasny Chulpanovets collective farm. According to the stories, the men were on friendly terms. But this friendship played a cruel joke with Jacob.
Mikhail Reztsov was accused of abuse of his official position (Article 109 of the Criminal Code): “… the defendant Mikhail Pavlovich Reztsov, working in the “Red Chulpanovets” k/z as chairman of the k/za, during his work abused his official position, namely, he committed violations of the charter of the agricultural artel in the k/ze, which concluded in the squandering of land in the k/ze, as a result of which 32 farms had land above the norm <…> Assuming a surplus of livestock kept by collective farmers on 39 farms, 119 head of livestock, <…> violated financial discipline on the collective farm, withheld accountable amounts of money from 2,500 to 6,726 rubles. He made production expenses for the purchase of materials, grain and other materials, as a result of which he overspent 37,930 rubles in excess of estimates.
Nyunichkin, who was charged under the same article, was accused of «working as chairman of the Chulpansky village council during his work, he abused his official position, namely, he did not take measures to violate the charter of the fishing artel in the case of unauthorized cutting by collective farmers, as well as to increase the livestock cattle … «
It turns out that both were accused of abuse of power, but in this case, Nyunichkin was responsible for Reztsov's actions: he did not follow his subordinate.
The very same “crimes” of the latter, or rather, their details, indicated in the text of the verdict, raise doubts. So, for example, it says that 32 farms of the Chulpansky village council had a total of a little more than 19 kilometers of excess land, which is comparable to the area of the village council itself, if not exceeding it. But the most striking thing is the amount of money that Reztsov allegedly operated on. The overspending amounted to an unthinkable 37 thousand 930 rubles. Maybe this is not someone's malicious intent, which is quite possible, but just a gross mistake, but is it possible to make such mistakes when it comes to the fate of a person?
If Reztsov's accusation was limited to one article, Nyunichkin was also brought under Art. 117 of the Criminal Code (receiving by an official personally or through intermediaries in any form of a bribe for the performance or non-performance in the interests of the giver of any action that the official could or should have performed solely due to his official position — imprisonment for up to two years).
According to the results of the first hearing, Reztsov was sentenced to imprisonment for 3 years, Nyunichkin — for 5 years with confiscation of his property. The verdict was appealed, and the next court session took place on December 28, 1946.
The court ruling indicates the charge of Reztsov under Art. 109 of the Criminal Code, which has remained unchanged since the first meeting, and the absolutely identical charge of Nyunichkin, with the only difference that now the prosecution of Yakov under Art. 117 of the Criminal Code was overgrown with some details: “through extortion, I received a bribe from the Valley of 1000 rubles for the issued certificate for the sale of a cow and Litvinov Frol 100 rubles for hiding a goat from registration.”
Where such money could come from in the post-war years from the starving villagers who tried to sell a cow or hide the presence of one goat on the farm is a big question. As a result of this hearing, the term of Nyunichkin's imprisonment was reduced from 5 to 3 years in accordance with the amnesty act of July 7, 1945 (“On amnesty in connection with the victory over Nazi Germany”).
Yakov was expelled from the party; all family property, including the house, was confiscated. Even military awards were taken away. And Nyunichkin himself was taken away. They were taken away without warning, without giving them time to say goodbye to their relatives. They say that he only had time to kiss the youngest daughter, and then they took him away.
Yakov Nyunichkin ended up in the zone where he was to spend three long years. Natalya Mikhailovna, Yakov's wife, was left with four children, the youngest daughter was then only two years old. They literally lost everything. First of all, of course, the husband and father, the breadwinner of the family. They had nowhere to live, but, they say, they were helped by relatives and acquaintances. Natalya got a job working at a school, she received 21 rubles a month, the children also had to work. All they had left was the hope that Yakov would soon return. No one knew that he was no longer destined to leave the camp site alive.
The camp in which Yakov Nyunichkin found himself was located in the village of Staro-Volzhsky. Actually, the village itself was formed around the camp, initially only its workers were residents.
Needless to say, how difficult were the living conditions in the camp? Mikhail, Yakov's grandson, relates the following: “The living conditions in the camp were terrible. <…> They slept on boards, fed them every other time. It was terribly cold in winter, people sometimes froze to death, and in summer the Astrakhan heat up to 40 degrees killed, especially when you work under the hot sun.
People died from excessive workload, working day and night in any weather, living on meager rations, which they received well if every day.
They slept on rotten boards, and sometimes on the bare floor. That's why they got sick a lot, and the diseases finished off the prisoners completely.
It was not easy for Yakov Nyunichkin either. It would seem that the house was nearby, the distance between the village of Chulpan and Staro-Volzhsky was about 3 kilometers. But they were not allowed to see their relatives. Occasionally, once every six months, it was possible to agree on a short date.
Weeks and months, endless for Yakov, dragged on, not far from his family, but without his family. And so almost three years passed. The term of imprisonment was coming to an end. Winter has begun. A cold, harsh winter that Yakov could not survive. From constant hypothermia, he developed pneumonia, from which he allegedly died on the night of January 19, 1950.
What happened next? How was Yakov Nyunichkin buried at the Zhitninsky cemetery? Nobody knows for sure. It was forbidden to give the bodies of deceased prisoners to relatives. And of course, the stories about how Jacob's wife stole his body and secretly buried him in a place where no one could find him are fiction. There are two more plausible versions, one of them was told to me by Yakov's son, and the second, oddly enough, by his grandson. The first version is that although the body was not given to the wife, they were allowed to bury it. Under strict supervision, under escort, but the wife was able to worthily say goodbye to her husband. The second version says that Jacob's wife found out through acquaintances where and when the prisoners were buried. She came there at the appointed time and followed from afar. She remembered the place where her husband was buried, and later installed a cross and a tombstone there.
Why was all this at the Kazakh cemetery? Because then there was no cemetery at all. There was only a mass grave there.
What everyone knew
Already knowing the story of Yakov Nyunichkin, having talked with his relatives and getting acquainted with the case materials, I thought: what if there is some third point of view? Not what is written in official documents, and not what relatives remember. And then I went to the library.
In the archives of the Regional Scientific Library. Krupskaya, I found something that I did not expect to see: in the local periodical (“North-Kaspiyskaya Pravda”), which, by the way, exists to this day, the events that took place in Chulpan were covered throughout 1946. Including the name of Yakov Nyunichkin was repeatedly mentioned. I also found the texts of articles and notes that are directly related to the events that took place in the village of Chulpan.
In one of the editions of the local Pravda that I have, I found a summary of the fulfillment of the plan for the first quarter by the collective farms of the district on April 1, 1946. It follows from it that the collective farm «Krasny Chulpanovets» is in second place in the region in terms of the implementation of the plan. Similar indicators of «achievement» can be found in almost every issue of the newspaper, and everywhere the collective farm in the village of Chulpan shows itself well. In the report for April 1, the fulfillment of the plan by the collective farm is 193.3%. For that time, this is a very high result, and it took considerable effort to achieve it. According to the stories of my grandfather, who in the 60s worked as deputy chairman of the Krasnaya Zvezda collective farm in the neighboring village of Zhitnoye, it was almost impossible to achieve such indicators in the post-war period.
In the following issues of the newspaper, dated March 8 and April 11, two more articles appeared about the successful work of the catchers of the Krasny Chulpanovets collective farm. One man alone, Sh. Utyushev, caught 74 centners of fish. The result is impressive. Another link produced 86 centners of fish in 10 days. This is almost half of the quarterly plan. In general, it can be seen that all the articles about the collective farm were of a laudatory nature. We first see a change in their tone in the June 6 issue of Severo-Kaspiyskaya Pravda.
In one of the articles, Nyunichkin is criticized by a health worker in the village of Chulpan. He is dissatisfied with the work of the chairman of the village council, who accommodated the midwife L.V. Kabanov with his family in the outpatient clinic. They were promised a room, but months passed, and the family lived in the dispensary. The medical worker, the author of the article, accuses Nyunichkin of turning the outpatient clinic into a hostel due to his negligence.
Of course, we cannot say for sure whether this is true or not. Moreover, we do not know the circumstances under which this situation has developed. One can, of course, believe in the reality of the events described, but this does not at all coincide with the image of Yakov Nyunichkin that I have already formed. responded? But further — more.
The issue of the newspaper is dated October 3 — probably the most important issue I have, because almost half of it is devoted to violations of the kolkhoz charter. And this is no accident. They write about serious violations of the charter, and we are immediately told by whom exactly — the collective farmers from the «Red Chulpanovets».
A stream of harsh criticism, baseless accusations and caustic remarks falls upon the violators at once, and at the end of the article they are “called to order” by all available means.
This article was published under the heading «Supporters». Now we see that the tone of the newspaper has changed dramatically to the opposite: those who were called the foremost workers, who at times exceeded the plan, are now called hangers-on.
Both the chairman of the village council, Nyunichkin, and the chairman of the collective farm, Reztsov, did not cope with their duties and «did not care at all about strengthening the collective farm.» It was assumed that a certain Kuzychenko and Vorobyov «became impudent» and seized more than 1 thousand meters of collective farm land (moreover, the latter and his wife planted potatoes in the neighbors' garden). Again, as in the case of Nyunichkin, striking figures appear.
But all this is hard to believe. How did it happen that «Red Chulpanovets», practically a leader of labor, suddenly took it and «forgot about the charter of the collective farm»? Why do these people need extra land and extra livestock, because, as it was written before, things on the collective farm were going well, which means that there should have been enough land for everyone, and food. Only, apparently, there was not enough, and those who alone caught 74 centners of fish, that is, 7.4 tons, did not bring home a single kilogram. If people were hiding something, it was not some kind of wealth, but, for example, a goat or butter. And it is unlikely that this could testify to their evil intentions.
The last mention of the Krasny Chulpanovets collective farm was in the October 10 issue. They write that the board of the collective farm does not comply with zootechnical rules, which disrupts the schedule. Nothing more was written about Chulpan in 1946.
It was at that time that the chairman of the Chulpan village council was under investigation.
It is very curious to observe how such information reports are invariably accompanied by open political propaganda.
This creates a striking contrast: notes about collective farmers, where the same people are praised three times during the year, scolded twice, and then forever forgotten about them, interspersed with portraits of Joseph Stalin and communist slogans.
What I think about it
A year and a half ago, when I first started this research, I had two goals. The first is to find out the true story of the grave of Yakov Nyunichkin. The second is to answer the question for yourself: was Jacob a good person or a bad one? Now, after the lapse of time, I want to note that I did not succeed in doing either.
As it turned out, even his closest relatives do not know the history of Yakov's grave. But the question that I asked myself back in the summer of 2015 (villain Nyunichkin or hero?), now seems completely irrelevant to me.
I learned a lot of conflicting information about this man: more than once he got into ambiguous situations, at the same time absolutely opposite things were said and written about him. But the most important thing seemed to me not his accusation and imprisonment, not what was written about him in the newspapers, not the memories of his relatives, but the story of the church that Yakov demolished. This is really a clear example of how people lived. How they, unwittingly, under the influence of the authorities or simply difficult circumstances, found themselves at a crossroads. They faced a choice that a person could not make in principle. Family or civic duty? Christian morality or collective farm regulations?
But in general, I believe that in his entire life Yakov Nyunichkin did no harm to anyone. On the contrary, he tried to help people, perhaps even realizing that sooner or later he would have to pay dearly for his noble deeds and good deeds.
And so, after conducting this research, although I did not answer the question I posed at the very beginning, I found out that such a person lived in the world — Yakov Afanasyevich Nyunichkin. And I want others to know.
Danil Simonov