Kirill Privalov: "I know how Pyotr I, Napoleon, Stalin and his double were poisoned"

For the first time about this in his new book “Poisons. The complete story: from arsenic to "Novichok" was told by the writer and publicist Kirill Privalov.

Gennady Charodeyev

How Stalin was killed

According to the author of the book, on February 28, 1953, after watching a movie in the Kremlin, Stalin and his closest associates went to dinner at his Blizhnyaya dacha. Everything on the table was familiar - Georgian snacks, barbecue, kinzmarauli, vodka ... They said, as expected, a toast to "Generalissimo Stalin", drank and ate. And it was Kaganovich, who was supported by Voroshilov and Molotov, to start a conversation about the need to revise the "case of doctors", six of whom were Jews, and about the abolition of the expulsion of Jews to Siberia planned by Stalin. The leader's face turned red, he clenched his fists and, looking at everyone sitting at the table, screamed; “You are all Jews! Feed at Golda Meir!" The enraged leader poked Kaganovich in the chest with his fist: "Shoot you all, you bastards!"

Stalin reached for the security call button, but Molotov and Mikoyan intercepted his hand. They pushed him away - and Stalin fell on his back, hitting the back of his head on the floor. This became a signal: everyone piled on the hated "leader of the peoples" who was floundering on the floor.

Bulganin opened Kobe's jaw. Kaganovich took a bottle of "medicine" out of his trousers pocket and handed it to Molotov, who, with a trembling hand, poured the contents of the bottle into Stalin's smoky mouth. “Hold him like that, let him not move”, - Kaganovich ordered his accomplices.

It was ordinary dicumarin, the most effective blood thinner prescribed by doctors to Stalin. The increased dose is fatal: full visibility of a stroke with profuse internal bleeding. True, not immediately, but after a few hours.

“I didn't know, Lazar, that you were such a doctor”, - Beria said to Kaganovich, sitting on Stalin's feet.

Meanwhile, the "great leader" no longer moved...

“Let's leave him here. Let's go! " - put an end to Lavrenty Beria. And then it was as if Voroshilov woke up, squeaking in a thin voice: "Maybe I should call the guards?" Beria grabbed him by the chest: “I'm out of my mind, Klim! Not a word to anyone. Tomorrow we will all come here to officially record the untimely death of the “father of nations”.

Later, officers from the Lubyanka, by order of Beria, took the body of Joseph Stalin to Moscow. And the dead body of the leader's double was brought to the Blizhnyaya dacha...

Stalin's murder confirmed by Kaganovich and Beria's son

As it turns out, this is not a script for a new film or a figment of the writer's imagination. This is a story that Kirill Privalov heard in parallel from two different people whom he had no right not to trust. From Lazar Kaganovich himself and from Sergei Gegechkori, he is also Sergo Beria.

Here is what the writer Privalov told "NI":

- Stalin's closest ally Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich, who lived a great life and died in 1991 five months before the collapse of the USSR, was my neighbor in our house in Khamovniki. I remember very well the abundant stories of this powerful old man who loved to spend time in the courtyard pavilion playing chess and dominoes. In addition, Sergo Beria, the son of Lavrenty Pavlovich, was a friend of my father Boris Privalov in his youth. Previously, they lived side by side on Nikitskaya and for some time even studied at the same school. Sometimes I attended their truly fraternal meetings with rich memories. In general, proposed in my new book "Poisons. The full story "I heard the version of the" two Stalins "with slight variations from these two people.

The story of the simultaneous poisoning of both the "leader of the peoples" and one of his many counterparts is also confirmed by official reports. More precisely - incredible contradictions in documents and memoirs about the death of Joseph Stalin.

In numerous memoirs, Stalin died for three days or more. Whereas the commandant of Blizhnyaya dacha Orlov initially stated that "Stalin was immediately found dead." Even the disease and the cause of death are interpreted differently by different sources. The predominant medical version was stroke with cerebral hemorrhage. And in one of the case histories - there are as many as three of them in the archives of the President of the Russian Federation - it is reported that a large amount of liquid of unknown origin was found in the stomach, intestines and digestive organs, and that it swelled up, coming out from under the ribs by two centimeters (!), liver.

Excuse me, the reader will object, it is known that stroke has other symptoms, and this most of all looks like poisoning! And it’s true!

Moreover, the conclusion of the council is much more eloquent: "In the study of blood, an increase in the number of white blood cells up to 17,000 (instead of 7000-8000 in the norm) with toxic granularity in leukocytes was noted."

It was also reported that from March 1 to 5, Stalin had frequent urge to vomit, but the vomit was never sent for analysis. Moreover, it is known that the suggestions about the condition of the stomach were deleted from the medical report submitted for publication in Pravda.

What omnipotent person could do that? Why? Could it be in order to hide the true cause of the leader's death - poisoning?

The medical report of Professor Pavel Lukomsky said: "Sharp cyanosis of the face and limbs." Cyanosis is a blue discoloration and blackening of the skin and mucous membranes when poisoned with poisons such as aniline, nitrobenzene, berthollet's salt. In other words, the hemoglobin of the blood is converted into methemoglobin, which stops the flow of oxygen from the lungs to the tissues. This is a guaranteed slow death. And here, tell me, a stroke?

Have toxicological analyzes been carried out? Probably carried out. But to study them, no one is still allowed into either the presidential archives or the FSB archives. However, why not exhume the body of Stalin, peacefully sleeping on Red Square? An empty occupation! If only because the Bolshevik "fighters of the invisible front" after the Second World War used poisons that do not leave traces.

And then, in her book "Twenty Letters to a Friend" Svetlana Alliluyeva admitted that she did not recognize her father on her deathbed in Kuntsevo: he had changed beyond recognition.

And Vasily Stalin , when he came to say goodbye to his father, immediately shouted: "He was poisoned!"

Why it was not possible to close the eyes of the dead Stalin

And here's another interesting detail. In 1998, the magazine "Health" published an interview with the famous surgeon Galina Chesnokova. She recalled that on March 2, 1953, the Chekists took her straight from the operating room in the city hospital, put her in a car and drove her in an unknown direction. It turned out that she was "kidnapped" to revive Stalin. When she made sure that everything was in vain and Stalin was really dead, Svetlana Alliluyeva approached Chesnokova and asked the doctor to cover her father's eyes. She herself could not do it. Stalin was already dead, but his eyes remained looking reproachfully at the surviving fellow citizens. Chesnokova complied with the request and approached the body. She tried to lower Stalin's eyelids, but they did not obey her hands. I tried again - again failure! Only on the third attempt, when the doctor pressed Stalin's eyelids with her fingers for a long time, he deigned to finally fall asleep in eternal sleep.

You do not need to be a professional doctor to understand: a similar phenomenon usually occurs in the case of poisoning. From the poisons, the muscles harden exactly in the position in which they were caught by the poisoning.

Some of the doctors who participated in the autopsy of Stalin's body died suddenly under unclear circumstances. Others were removed from high positions and sent to "command" camp medical posts in "sunny" Magadan. There were also those whom the suspicious and vindictive Nikita Khrushchev suspected in connection with the case of the "spy Beria" and simply imprisoned without trial or investigation.

- Kirill Borisovich, when did you get the idea to write a "history of poisoning"?

- It so happened that my father Boris Privalov died from poison. After his death, an anonymous person called me and said that he had been poisoned. I could not believe it. Since then, he became interested in this topic, digging, collecting materials. And then my friend from Moskovsky Komsomolets and Komsomolskaya Pravda Yura Shchekochikhin was poisoned...

With my essays on poisons and poisoning, of which there are more than sixty in the book, I urge my readers to think. Poisons are too complex a matter to talk about them primitively, without delving into the essence of the problem, as some publications often do today. Suffice it to recall the controversial publications and discussions about the so-called "Skripals case" or about the operation called "Navalny's poisoning".

In addition, poison, even if its action is pointwise, individual, is still, from my point of view, a weapon of mass destruction. Defeat by fear: from time immemorial, the very word "poison" inspires people with an unaccountable, animal horror. The poison kills one person, and the disgusting sensation of the fact of "villainy" covers many thousands of people who learn about the crime. It is on this that the calculation of the poisoners is based today, in the digital era of universal and accessible information.

- In your essays there are a lot of interesting details about the poisoning of the commander Hannibal, Emperor Napoleon, Maxim Gorky. If it's not a secret, what sources did you use?

- I have always talked with professionals - historians, military men, lawyers, doctors. Sometimes he worked in archives in different countries. In my book, many historical figures are associated with France, where I worked for many years. I know this, I love it, this is my world.

- You claim that Peter I was poisoned. But we know from school that he died of a cold...

- The circumstances of the death of Peter the Great are more than mysterious. Historians and physicians to this day cannot come to a consensus about which disease most of all tormented Peter I. Some call prostate cancer, others - urolithiasis or cystitis, that is, inflammation of the bladder, others convict the king of chronic gonorrhea.

You are right, according to the official version of the tsar, the consequences of a cold, which he allegedly earned when he was saving a grounded boat with soldiers, standing waist-deep in icy water, was dumped. Say, the chronic cystitis, which accompanied the Russian emperor in the last years of his life, sharply exacerbated and brought him to the grave. But, if you check the sources, the tsar on this supposedly fatal day was not at all in the Okhta region, where the bot crashed.

However, in the first half of the last January for him, Peter was not at all going to die. It was just that on January 16, 1725, he suddenly, for no apparent reason, became very ill. The tsar fell into prostration, delirious, he began to have a strong fever, accompanied by chills. And on the eve of Peter Alekseevich was treated to unusually delicious sweets - the emperor was a terrible sweet tooth. After tasting, he started vomiting and a burning sensation in his stomach. Hands were numb, nails turned blue. Are these not the classic symptoms of mercury or arsenic poisoning?

However, the body of Peter Alekseevich, albeit undermined, was still powerful. By January 24, he recovered - the pain subsided, the fever subsided. Two days later, the king finally cheered up and, feeling that he was on the mend, decided to refresh himself. He was served boiled sturgeon with buckwheat porridge, boiled in water and seasoned with goose lard.

And then Peter suddenly had a convulsive attack. Yes, what! For more than two hours, he lost consciousness. And when he came to, he was unable to speak. In addition, his right arm and leg stopped moving.

It was certainly not cystitis. Fever, delirium, paralysis. Was the king finished off with a new portion of poison? The main thing is that this happened at the right time - Pyotr Alekseyevich was just about to leave a will, but he only had enough strength to write two words: "Give everything..." And to whom? We will never know - on the morning of January 28, 1725, Emperor Peter I died.

- Who do you think was most interested in the death of Peter the Great?

- In addition to Catherine and Menshikov, there were plenty of people interested in the early departure of the tsar - both his personal enemies, whom Peter I had dealt with in recent years, and agents of foreign powers.

England? Why not? Peter was just about to fight in the Caucasus, he was planning a campaign to Persia, which, if successful, could lead Russia to the Indian Ocean. For the time being, the protected area of influence of the British. In addition, the emperor showed interest in America. He was captured by the idea of laying an overland route to those parts - and "renal colic" immediately began.

In December 1724, Peter instructed Vitus Bering to open the way to India across the Arctic Ocean, and on January 28, 1725, Peter suddenly dies. Strange coincidence, isn't it?

Sweden? It's also possible. Moreover, the Russian emperor was preparing to marry his daughter Anna to the Duke of Holstein Karl-Friedrich, who owned Kiel, an ice-free Baltic port. It could be used as a base for the Russian fleet that controls the entire Baltic. Not to mention, Karl-Friedrich was a possible contender for the Swedish throne.

And what if Peter the Great had concluded a union of growing Russia, which was gaining strength by leaps and bounds, and depopulated Sweden, exhausted by long-term wars? All northern seas of Europe would, in this situation, turn into a "large Russian lake".

France? In the book, I wanted to talk especially about her in the role of a potential poisoner. Painfully many questions arise in connection with the amazing activity in the last months of the life of Peter the Great Chevalier de Campredon, who received from Louis XV the status of plenipotentiary minister and envoy to Russia. It was on this day, January 28, 1725, that he sent a letter to the king, in which he described in detail what diplomatic relations between Russia and the West should become after the death of Peter.

- You mentioned the famous journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin, who died, according to the doctors, from some rare allergy. However, many believe that he was poisoned...

- For many years Shchekochikhin and I once worked side by side - alternately in two different newspapers. They have never been particularly close to each other, but have always remained unobtrusive friends. While I was working in France, Yura became first a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and then of the Russian State Duma. At that last our meeting in Paris, Shchekochikhin presented me with his book with a dedication: "Comrade in arms ..." I knew that he was constantly at war - against corruption, with the mafia, with the nomenklatura, which corrupted the country from within. But I did not expect that revenge for this principled struggle would come so soon and be so cruel.

He died on July 3, 2003. It was a terrible death. In two weeks, a man who was only in his fifties turned into a very old man. All of Schekoch's internal organs in turn refused - that was the name of his friends. The skin came off in clumps, the hair fell out, the whole body burned as if burned, and it was impossible to breathe, as if molten metal had been poured into the lungs.

Doctors hastened to declare the natural nature of death: they say, "a mysterious disease." A very rare form of allergy is Lyell's syndrome. However, it was not possible to hide the Punchinelle's secret. There was one intelligence officer who said that our friend had been poisoned with a binary drug. This is when one ingredient, absolutely harmless, is first introduced into the body, and then another, which, when combined with the first, causes a landslide reaction. This poison entered the special forces stationed in the North Caucasus to destroy the leaders of the bandit formations. Part of the portions of the government poison was "lost" in the early 2000s. Hence - and the "mysterious disease" Shchekocha...

- One of the last essays in your book is dedicated to the notorious "Novichok". Do you, now as a specialist, believe that it was with this poison that the Skripals and Navalny were poisoned?

- They say a lot of nonsense about "Novichok". But in fact, it is a weapon of one hundred percent lethality. If he hits, then - for sure. For fatal poisoning, it is enough to touch a barely noticeable drop of this substance. Moreover, everything is accompanied by specific external signs of poisoning and molecular traces in the blood, determined by modern equipment. This means that the handwriting of “Novichok” may not be easy, but nevertheless, it can be clearly recognized by specialists. And what kind of criminal wants to be exposed quickly and accurately?

Did the Novichok attack anyone at all, which, along with all the stocks of chemical agents in the USSR - as the Russian authorities claim - was destroyed many years ago?

There is a "newcomer" in many countries - in England, and in Israel, and in America, and in Russia, of course. I have spoken with people involved in the production of such substances. We were sitting in a cafe on Novy Arbat. Using an example, they pointed to the knob on the door of the restaurant across the street. According to them, if even a little bit of “Novichok” smeared on it, the whole block would be dead!

When the English detectives, investigating the Skripal poisoning, talked about the door handle, about the discarded bottle of poison - it was more than frivolous. Interestingly, in what space suit did the person do all this so as not to die immediately?

- Can we say that the use of poisons against their enemies is a characteristic feature of one or several peoples?

- It is not right! Nevertheless, the regions stand out, which at certain periods of history became a kind of symbol of "poisonous practices".