The whole truth about the Bloody lady: the story of Daria Saltykova, a murderous noblewoman. Saltychikha. The story of a serial killer Terrible fun Daria Saltykova

Ivanova is the maiden name of Saltychikha. Her father, Nikolai Avtonomovich Ivanov, was a pillar nobleman, and her grandfather once held a high post under Peter I. Darya Saltykova's husband, Gleb Alekseevich, served as a captain of the Life Guards Horse Regiment. The Saltykovs had two sons, Fedor and Nikolai.

It is noteworthy that Saltychikha, whom Empress Catherine II eventually imprisoned in a monastery dungeon for life for her atrocities, eventually outlived all members of her family - both her husband and both sons.

Many historians believe that, most likely, it was after the funeral of her husband that the 26-year-old widow "went crazy", and she began to beat the servants to death.

Where and what did she do?

Saltychikha had a house in Moscow on the corner of Bolshaya Lubyanka and Kuznetsky Most, ironically, now there are buildings under the jurisdiction of the FSB. Plus, after the death of her husband, the landowner inherited estates in a number of Russian provinces, Saltychikha owned a total of almost six hundred serfs.

On the site of the estate, where the sadist most often tormented her victims, Trinity Park is now located, this is not far from the Moscow Ring Road, the area of ​​\u200b\u200bTeply Stan.

Before the gentleman Gleb Alekseevich died, Daria Saltykova controlled herself and was not noticed in a particular propensity for assault. Moreover, Saltychikha was distinguished by piety.

According to the testimony of the serfs, Saltychikha’s “phase shift” occurred about six months after her husband’s funeral - she began to beat, most often with a log, her peasants (mostly women and young girls) for the slightest infractions, finding fault with every little thing. Then, on the orders of the sadistic mistress, the offender was flogged, often to death. Gradually, Saltychikha's torture became more and more sophisticated - possessing remarkable strength, she tore out her victims' hair, burned their ears with hair tongs, poured boiling water over them ...

I wanted to kill the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev

The grandfather of the famous Russian poet surveyor Nikolai Tyutchev was the lover of this shrew. And then he decided to get rid of her and marry the girl he liked. Saltychikha ordered her serfs to set fire to the girl's house, but they did not do it out of fear. Then the sadist sent peasant "killers" to kill the young Tyutchev couple. But instead of taking a sin on the soul, the serfs warned Tyutchev himself about the intentions of his former mistress.

Biography

Daughter of the real Privy Councilor Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Dolgorukov and Princess Ekaterina Fedorovna Baryatinsky. She was born in St. Petersburg in her parents' house on the street. Bolshoy Morskoy, where her first years of life passed. In 1799, the Dolgorukovs were disgraced by Emperor Paul I, and in the spring of 1800 they went abroad with their three children.

Marriage

In St. Petersburg, the Dolgorukovs settled in the rented house of Count N. I. Saltykov on Palace Embankment, once presented to Field Marshal by Empress Catherine II. Due to a long absence, the Dolgorukov family was again presented to the court. On July 22, 1808, Ekaterina Vasilyevna was granted the maid of honor.

Soon she married Count Sergei Nikolaevich Saltykov (1777-1828), the youngest son of N. I. Saltykov. The marriage was unsuccessful, Emperor Alexander I offered Ekaterina Vasilievna to divorce her from her husband and arrange a new party. But distinguished by religiosity and piety, she rejected the proposal of the emperor. L. N. Tolstoy's mother, Princess Volkonskaya, wrote in 1810 about Saltykova:

On August 30, 1814, the Saltykovs were elevated to the princely dignity of the Russian Empire with the title of lordship. In 1828, Ekaterina Vasilievna was widowed, she had no children. After the death of Prince Saltykov, K. Ya. Bulgakov informed his brother in Moscow by letter, not only about the death of the prince, but also about the absence of that will:

Left without a home, the princess acquired from the daughter of the Minister of Finance Count D. A. Guryev - M. D. Guryev (wife of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Count K. V. Nesselrode), a house on the Neva embankment, located very close to the palace, where Princess Saltykova continued your service. According to a contemporary, “Princess Katish Saltykova became very prettier after she was widowed” .

At court

Ekaterina Vasilievna served all her life at court, being one of the closest people to the royal family. On June 30, 1835, she was granted the title of lady of state. From 1840 to 1855 she was chamberlain at the court of Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich. With the accession to the throne of Alexander II, Princess Saltykova was the chamberlain of the empress. On August 28, 1856, she was awarded the Order of St. Catherine the Great Cross.

She enjoyed great influence and power at court. The favorite of the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, M. A. Patkul, nee Marquise de Traversay, more than once mentioned in her notes the name of the stern Most Serene Princess, who unfavorably looked at any deviation from etiquette. The maid of honor A. F. Tyutcheva called Princess Saltykova "Mother Goose". Having met her in 1853, she wrote in her diary:

Charity

In 1846, the pious Princess Saltykova bought a dacha on the Okhta River, owned by A. M. Sukhareva (nee Poltoratskaya), where she founded an almshouse for poor women. For this almshouse, Academician V.P. Lvov in 1847 developed a project approved on November 29, 1847 for a single-domed stone church with a portico measuring 8.5 by 5.5 sazhens. The temple with a small wooden bell tower, also being built at the expense of Saltykova, was ready in a little over two years and was consecrated on September 6, 1850 in honor of the heavenly patroness of the princess - St. Catherine. From her prayer room, 37 large and small images (including ancient ones) were transferred to the temple, which were placed in a special icon case. The icons in the iconostasis were painted by V. M. Peshekhonov. Among the revered images were the "Kazan Mother of God" and "St. Ekaterina" in vestments with precious stones. Since 1853, in the neighborhood, on the fifth week after the Trinity, a procession was made.

In the 1900s, 14 women lived in full charity in the almshouse. In 1918, the clergy sought to open a cemetery at the almshouse. The almshouse ceased to exist in the early 1920s, the temple was closed in 1935, and its remains were dismantled in the 1960s. Warehouses were built on the site of the estate.

Daria Nikolaeva Saltykova, nicknamed Saltychikha (1730-1801), was a Russian landowner who went down in history as the most sophisticated sadist and murderer of more than a hundred serfs subject to her. She was born in March 1730 into a family that belonged to the pillar Moscow nobility; relatives of Darya Nikolaevna's parents were the Davydovs, Musins-Pushkins, Stroganovs, Tolstoys and other eminent nobles. Aunt Saltykova was married to Lieutenant General Ivan Bibikov, and her older sister was married to Lieutenant General Afanasy Zhukov.

About the Russian Empire today, as a rule, they prefer to remember only the front side of "Russia, which we have lost."

“Balls, beauties, lackeys, junkers…” waltzes and the notorious crunch of French rolls undoubtedly took place. But this bread crunch, pleasant to the ear, was accompanied by another one - the crunch of the bones of Russian serfs, who provided this whole idyll with their labor.

And it's not just about back-breaking work - the serfs, who were in the complete power of the landowners, very often became victims of tyranny, bullying, and violence.

The rape by gentlemen of courtyard girls, of course, was not considered a crime. The master wanted it - the master took it, that's the whole story.

Of course, there have been murders. Well, the master got excited in anger, beat the negligent servant, and he take it, give up his breath - who pays attention to this.

However, even against the backdrop of the realities of the 18th century, the story of the landowner Daria Saltykova, better known as Saltychikha, looked monstrous. So monstrous that it came to trial and sentence.

At twenty-six, Saltychikha became a widow and received into her full possession about six hundred peasants on estates located in the Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces. In seven years, she killed more than a quarter of her wards - 139 people, most of them women and girls! Most of the murders were carried out in the village of Troitskoye near Moscow.

In her youth, a girl from a prominent noble family was known as the first beauty, and besides this, she stood out for her extreme piety.

Daria married the captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov. The Saltykov family was even more noble than the Ivanov family - Gleb Saltykov's nephew Nikolai Saltykov would become the Most Serene Prince, Field Marshal and would be a prominent courtier in the era of Catherine the Great, Paul I and Alexander I.

Left a widow, the landowner has changed a lot.

Surprisingly, she was still a flourishing and, moreover, a very pious woman. Daria herself married Gleb Saltykov, captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, but in 1756 she was widowed. Her mother and grandmother lived in a nunnery, so Darya Nikolaevna became the sole owner of a large fortune. The 26-year-old widow was left with two sons, enrolled in military service in the capital's guards regiments. Almost every year, Daria Saltykova took a trip on a pilgrimage to some Orthodox shrine. Sometimes she drove quite far, visited, for example, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra; during such trips, Saltykova generously donated "to the Church" and distributed alms.

As a rule, it all started with claims to the servants - Daria did not like how the floor was washed or the clothes were washed. The angry hostess began to beat the negligent maid, and her favorite weapon was a log. In the absence of such, an iron was used, a rolling pin - everything that was at hand. The offender was then flogged by grooms and haiduks, sometimes to death. Saltychikha could douse the victim with boiling water or singe her hair on her head. Victims were starved and tied naked in the cold.

At first, the serfs of Darya Saltykova were not particularly alarmed by this - this kind of thing happened everywhere. The first murders did not scare either - it happens that the lady got excited.

But since 1757, the killings have become systematic. Moreover, they began to wear especially cruel, sadistic. The lady clearly began to enjoy what was happening.

In one episode, Saltychikha also got a nobleman. The land surveyor Nikolai Tyutchev, the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev, was in a love relationship with her for a long time, but decided to marry another, for which Saltychikha almost killed him along with his wife. Tyutchev officially notified the authorities of a possible attack and received 12 soldiers as guards during the journey to Tambov. Saltykova, having learned about the captain's protection, canceled the attack at the last moment.

At the beginning of the summer of 1762, two fugitive serfs appeared in St. Petersburg - Yermolai Ilyin and Savely Martynov - who set themselves an almost impossible goal: they set out to bring a complaint to the Empress Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna against their mistress, a large landowner Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova. The fugitives had almost no chance of success. Before the era of Emperor Paul the First, who mounted a special box on the wall of the Winter Palace for denunciations of "all persons, without distinction of rank", there were still almost four decades. And this meant that an ordinary person could not be heard by the Power, which did not honor him with audiences and did not accept his petitions. You can say this: the Higher Power simply did not notice their slaves.

Surprisingly, both were able to successfully complete an almost hopeless enterprise.

The peasants had nothing to lose - their wives died at the hands of Saltychikha. The story of Yermolai Ilyin is completely terrible: the landowner killed three of his wives in turn. In 1759, the first wife, Katerina Semyonova, was beaten with batogs. In the spring of 1761, her second wife, Fedosya Artamonova, repeated her fate. In February 1762, Saltychikha beat Yermolai's third wife, the quiet and meek Aksinya Yakovleva, with logs.

The fugitives were looking for approaches to the Winter Palace, more precisely, for such a person through whom they could convey a complaint to the Empress. It is not known exactly how such a person was found, it is not known at all who he was. Be that as it may, in the first half of June, Catherine II received a "written assault" (as statements were called in those days) of Ilyin and Martynov.

In it, the serfs reported the following:

- They are known for their mistress Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova "deadly and not unimportant criminal cases"(sic in the original);

- Daria Saltykova "from 1756, the soul with a hundred (...) she, the landowner, was destroyed";

- Emphasizing the large number of people tortured by Darya Saltykova, the informers stated that only one of them, Yermolai Ilyin, had the landowner successively killed three wives, each of whom she tortured with her own hands;

The empress did not feel much desire to quarrel with the nobility because of the mob. However, the scale and cruelty of the crimes of Daria Saltykova made Catherine II horrified. The Empress did not brush aside the paper, it was too painful for a large number of victims to be discussed there. Although Saltychikha belonged to a noble family, Catherine II used her case as a show trial that marked a new era of legality.

The investigation was very difficult. High-ranking relatives of Saltychikha hoped that the empress's interest in the case would disappear and he could be hushed up. The investigators were offered bribes and interfered in every possible way in collecting evidence.

Daria Saltykova herself did not admit her guilt and did not repent, even when she was threatened with torture. True, they did not apply them to a well-born noblewoman.

But in order not to reduce the degree of psychological pressure on the suspect, the investigator Stepan Volkov decided on a rather cruel hoax: on March 4, 1764, Daria Saltykova, under strict military guard, was taken to the mansion of the Moscow police chief, where the executioner and officials of the search unit were also brought. The suspect was told that she was "delivered to be tortured."

However, that day it was not her who was tortured, but a certain robber, whose guilt was not in doubt. Saltykova was present during the torture from beginning to end. The cruelty of the execution was supposed to frighten Saltykova and break her stubbornness.

But the suffering of others did not make a special impression on Darya Nikolaevna, and after the end of the "interrogation with passion", which she witnessed, the suspect, smiling, repeated in Volkov's face that "she does not know her guilt and will not slander herself." Thus, the hopes of the investigator to intimidate Saltykova and thereby achieve a confession of guilt were not crowned with success.

Nevertheless, the investigation found that in the period 1757 to 1762, 138 serfs died under suspicious circumstances at the landowner Darya Saltykova, of which 50 were officially considered “dead from illnesses”, 72 people went missing, 16 were considered “left to her husband” or “ gone on the run."

Investigators managed to collect evidence that allowed Daria Saltykova to be accused of killing 75 people.

The Moscow Justice College considered that in 11 cases the serfs slandered Daria Saltykova. Of the remaining 64 murders, 26 cases were labeled “keep suspect”—that is, the evidence was deemed insufficient.

Nevertheless, 38 brutal murders committed by Daria Saltykova were fully proven.

The case of the landowner was transferred to the Senate, which ruled on the guilt of Saltychikha. However, the senators did not make a decision on punishment, leaving it to Catherine II.

The archive of the empress contains eight drafts of the verdict - Catherine painfully thought about how to punish a non-human in a woman's guise, who is also a well-born noblewoman. Finally, on October 2, 1768, Empress Catherine II sent a decree to the Governing Senate, in which she described in detail both the punishment imposed on Saltykov and the procedure for its administration.

The punishment of the condemned landowner was carried out on October 17, 1768, on Red Square in Moscow. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, already a few days before this date, the ancient capital of Russia began to seethe in anticipation of reprisals. Both the public announcement of the upcoming event (in the form of publications in leaflets read out by officers in all crowded squares and intersections of Moscow) and the distribution of special "tickets" that all Moscow nobles received contributed to the general excitement. On the day of the massacre, Red Square was completely filled, people crowded into the windows of the buildings overlooking the square and occupied all the roofs.

At 11 o'clock in the morning, Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova was taken to the square under the guard of mounted hussars; in a black wagon next to the former landowner were grenadiers with drawn swords. Saltykova was forced to climb a high scaffold, where the decree of Empress Catherine II dated October 2, 1768 was read out. After an hour, Saltykova was brought down from the scaffold and put into a black wagon, which, under a military guard, went to the Ivanovo Convent (on Kulishki).

On the same scaffold on the same day, priest Petrov and two servants of the landowner convicted in the Saltykova case were subjected to flogging and branding. All three were sent to hard labor in Siberia.

Daria Saltykova's "repentance chamber" was an underground room a little more than two meters high, which did not receive any light at all. The only thing that was allowed was to light a candle while eating. The prisoner was not allowed to walk, she was taken out of the dungeon only on major church holidays to the small window of the temple, so that she could hear the bell ringing and watch the service from afar.

Visitors to the monastery were allowed to look through this window and even talk to the prisoner. The memoirs of contemporaries have been preserved that many residents of Moscow and visitors came to the Ivanovo Monastery themselves and brought their children with them specifically to look at the famous "Saltychikha".

To annoy her, the children allegedly even came up with a song:

Saltychikha-boltychikha, and high deacon!

Vlasyevna Dmitrovna Savivsha, old lady!...

Saltychikha died on November 27, 1801 at the age of 71, having spent more than 30 years in prison. There is not a single evidence that Daria Saltykova repented of her deed.

Modern criminologists and historians suggest that Saltychikha suffered from a mental disorder - epileptoid psychopathy. Some even believe that she was a latent homosexual.

It is not possible to establish this reliably today. The story of Saltychikha became unique because the case of the atrocities of this landowner ended with the punishment of the criminal. The names of some of the victims of Daria Saltykova are known to us, in contrast to the names of millions of people tortured by Russian landlords during the existence of the serfdom in Russia.

BY THE WAY:

Saltychikha is not a unique phenomenon in world history. We know the names of no less terrible criminals. For example, Gilles de Re - "Bluebeard" - killed more than 600 children in the 15th century, and for example, a hundred years before Saltychikha, there lived a "bloody countess" in Hungary ...

Elizabeth Bathory of Eched (1560 - 1614), also called the Chakhtitskaya Pani or the Bloody Countess - a Hungarian countess from the famous Bathory family, infamous for the serial murders of young girls. The exact number of her victims is unknown. The Countess and four of her servants were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls between 1585 and 1610. The largest number of victims named during the trial of Bathory, 650 people.

"Second Saltychikha" the people called the wife of the landowner Koshkarov, who lived in the 40s of the 19th century in the Tambov province. She found particular pleasure in tyranny over defenseless peasants. Koshkarova had a standard for torture, from the limits of which she went only in extreme cases. Men were supposed to give 100 blows with a whip, women - 80 each. All these executions were carried out by the landowner personally.

The pretexts for torture were most often various omissions in the household, sometimes very insignificant. So, the cook Karp Orlov Koshkarova was whipped with a whip for the fact that there were few onions in the soup.

Another "Saltychikha" found in Chuvashia. In September 1842, the landowner Vera Sokolova beat to death the courtyard girl Nastasya, whose father said that the mistress often punished her serfs "by flaying their hair, and sometimes forced them to flog with rods and whips." And another maid complained that “the mistress broke her nose with her fist, and from punishment with a whip on her thigh there was a scar, and in winter she was locked in a latrine in one shirt, because of which she froze her legs” ...

I cannot but add that the portrait of this beautiful and stately lady is often passed off as "Saltychikha". In fact, this is Daria PETROVNA Chernysheva-Saltykova (1739-1802). Lady of State, Cavalier Lady of the Order of St. Catherine, 1st Class, sister of Princess N. P. Golitsyna, wife of Field Marshal Count I. P. Saltykov. The eldest daughter of the diplomat Count Pyotr Grigoryevich Chernyshev, the godson of Peter the Great, who was considered by many to be his son. Her mother, Countess Ekaterina Andreevna, was the daughter of the well-known head of the secret office under Biron, Count Andrei Ivanovich Ushakov.

While the husband of Darya Saltykova was alive, her insane, bestial cruelty did not manifest itself. Neighbors even considered her a pious woman. But at the age of 25, she remained a widow, and it was as if a demon had inhabited her soul. It usually started like this: Daria saw that the serf girl did not wash the floors well, grabbed a log and began to beat her with all her dope. It was usually the girls who got it, although both men and children.

Over time, Saltychikha's sadism only progressed, and the torture became more sophisticated.

She could seize red-hot tongs and burn the serf's ear with them. I could splash boiling water in my face. She pulled her hair and beat her head against the wall - some of the peasants whom Daria killed did not have hair on their heads.

She was a young and rich widow, but none of the neighbors were in a hurry to woo her - rumors about the atrocities of the "bloody lady" were spread throughout Russia. But still she met a man whom she fell in love with. True, the love of the landowner was as sick and ugly as her soul.

Meeting on the hunt

Daria was hunting on her property when she heard gunshots. Someone was hunting in her forest! From indignation, the landowner was speechless. She was used to being feared or at least shunned.

— Catch and bring back! Saltychikha ordered her peasants.

The hunter turned out to be her young neighbor, engineer Nikolai Tyutchev. He was not rich, and did not succeed in his career - the young nobleman was engaged in land surveying, topographic surveying. But he was educated, funny, knew how to please people. Nikolai was sure that he would smile at the young neighbor, apologize that he had driven into her lands in a hunting fervor, they would exchange pleasantries and go home.

When they grabbed him, tied him up and dragged him to Saltychikha's home, he could not believe that this was really happening.

For several days, Tyutchev was kept in the cellar of Saltychikha, without giving him food. Then they brought me to the lady's chambers.

Daria attacked him with abuse, attacked him with beatings. Tyutchev gave her a reciprocal slap in the face. Daria suddenly calmed down. Thus began this crazy romance.

The escape

Tyutchev often came to a neighbor, and she was always waiting for him. At this time, she was not as fierce over her serfs as before. Saltychikha dreamed that she and Tyutchev would get married. She, a very rich landowner, would be happy to share her fortune with a poor nobleman. But he was told from all sides about her atrocities. It was scary to see such a person next to me, hugging, whispering tender words. Tyutchev wanted to end this relationship, but realizing that Saltychikha would not let him go so easily, he decided to slowly move away from her sick passion.

Saltychikha found out about his plans. My heart hurt from humiliation and resentment.

Saltychikha ordered her peasants to seize Tyutev and imprison him in the basement. He spent several days there without food or water. Then a compassionate peasant woman released him furtively. Saltychikha raged, took out her anger on the serfs, but she could no longer do anything.

A few months later, Tyutchev got married to another neighbor, Pelageya Panyutina. She was not rich, but soft, reasonable and very kind. Next to her, Nikolai gradually came to his senses and forgot the "bloody lady." When Saltychikha found out that her beloved had married another, it seemed to her that the sky had fallen to the ground. Some kind of fire blazed inside her, irrepressible, burning, not allowing her to sleep, eat, live ...

This gray mouse with some twenty serfs was preferred to her, a rich and omnipotent landowner! But he himself is as naked as a falcon!

Only blood could soothe this inner fire. Saltychikha sent her groom to blow up her rival's house. She gave him an improvised explosive device, told him to put it under the fence and set it on fire. Don't you need my love? Die with your bride!

The groom could not take sin, not a soul, did not begin to destroy innocent people. Saltychikha punished him with all cruelty, but she could not stop. She knew: Nikolai and his bride should pass by her lands, and sent peasants with guns and clubs into an ambush. Fortunately, Tyutchev was warned about the ambush. Just in case, he and his fiancée went away from Moscow.

Torturer and slayer

Saltychikha was furious. She beat the serfs, starved them, threw them into icy water. The peasants tried to escape, wrote complaints, but Saltychikha's money helped her to hush up any noise: she paid huge bribes to officials, and the serfs were returned to her. But once the peasants were able to hand over the petition personally to Empress Catherine, who decided to arrange a show trial as a warning to all landowners. In 1762, a long trial began, which went on for several years. The investigation found that 139 peasants died at the hands of the bloody lady. Saltychikha was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. The Empress deprived her of her fortune, all titles and privileges, including the main one: the right to be called a woman.

According to the royal decree, now it was necessary to call "this monster a man."

After the civil execution, when Saltychikha was tied to a pillory with the inscription "tormentor and murderer", she was taken to the dungeon of the Ivanovsky Monastery.

Nikolai Tyutchev married his fiancee. The marriage was successful. For 25 years, enterprising spouses have increased their fortune by 15 times. They bought neighboring lands, including those that belonged to Saltychikha, built a beautiful house, laid out a beautiful park, and made beautiful ponds.

And Saltychikha spent 33 years in prison until her death. And she never saw the sunlight.