The biggest bank robbery in the USSR Bashny.Net

For a long time it was believed that the Soviet Union can not rob a bank. No, small savings bank robbed, of course, but to the State Bank! It's still 36 years ago, August 5, 1977 (it was a Friday night and two days left), from a closed repository of the State Bank of the Armenian SSR thieves do not kidnapped one million five hundred twenty-five thousand rubles - the incredible sum in those days.

6 photos and text





Part of the stolen then hundred-ruble notes a series of "AI", which will play in this story fateful role
In the beginning was the word. Rather gunner named Zaven. It was he who told cousins ​​Kalachyanami - Nikolai and Felix, that the State Bank of the Armenian SSR store money is not in the basement and on the first floor. Its walls and doors armored, but the ceiling is common, concrete slab. And above it, on the third floor, there is dayroom.
Internal security in the bank is not - that she is there to do when everything is closed and is under the alarm? Two walls of the State Bank faces the street, and as a courtyard, protects "Ghost Patrol" militia. But the fourth wall adjacent house, and if contrive, you can jump across the street from the roof of the house through the window of the third floor of the bank.

Bank windows on the third floor without grating to him from the roof of a residential building in the distance meter



Here is a list of things in which it was committed kidnapping: backpack, flashlight, gloves, rope, drill, drill with a half-dozen tips pobeditovymi folding crowbar, chisel, hammer, hacksaw with several canvases, three bottles of water, and a children's umbrella. What water and children's umbrella, you may ask. And that's what.

Umbrella was tied to the leg, to chunks of concrete fell silent.
Only safe in the store was not - the money was simply folded into the slot



On the matter went one Kalachyan Felix, who had extraordinary strength and flexibility. Make a dangerous acrobatic leap from the roof of the house next door to the window, Felix was on the third floor of the bank. There he drilled, prodolbil and propylene concrete reinforcement diameter hole 30 centimeters, which managed to get through, and then climb back with a backpack of money.
And the water was needed thief to drill ostuzhivat that when working with concrete quickly escalated. And hot in Yerevan in August, even at night.

The painting, which found the bank's employees, came on Monday 7 August 1977 to work



All the stolen money was in large denominations, of which one hundred and ten packs of brand new hundred-ruble notes a series of "AI". Brothers Kalachyan well aware that across the country declared wanted these bills, and decided to exchange them for parts of three percent of the loan bonds. For this Kalachyan first went to Tashkent, and then to Moscow.
In Moscow, cute and cash Nikolai quickly met a girl Ludmila and her brother Vladimir Kuznetsov. As Vladimir was a "person of Slavic origin," Nicholas said that he won at cards large sum of money and asked the brother of his mistress exchange it in small pieces on the bonds.

Plan theft developed the most intelligent of the brothers - Nicholas Kalachyan.
It was he who gives testimony before a police television camera



Vladimir Kuznetsov quickly tired of running around the savings banks with small sums, and he decided to trade six thousand rubles at a time. At the cashier's savings bank, where he addressed was the bond of all three thousand, cashier handed them to the client, and asked to wait until it will bring out the main cash the remaining amount.
There she paused to swing with my girlfriend. And Vladimir "panicked" and fled, leaving in a savings bank and three thousand rubles. The cashier told about the incident to the police (although quietly could keep the money), and it quickly established that these hundred-ruble note series "AI" stolen from the State Bank of the Armenian SSR. Unfortunately for the brothers Kalachyan, the cashier was a great physiognomist, and her words forensic artist has written a good portrait of "fugitive money».
Vladimir had a criminal past, and he was in the circle of suspects. Police quickly found out that his sister's lover Armenian from Yerevan, and the rest was a matter of technique - in the night of 6 to 7 June 1978, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Nikolai and Felix Kalachyan were arrested.

Cousin Nikolai and Felix Kalachyan was 27 years old when they were in 1979 sentenced to death. In the Soviet Union, where the shot for stealing ten thousand rubles in respect of those who stole half a million, it is not surprising. But Armenia was "difficult" Republic, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR Babken Sarkisov wrote to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR letter asking for pardon criminals. In it he rested on the young brothers, and the fact that their fathers are no other sons, and therefore born in Armenia Kalachyan interrupted.
In this Babken Sarkisov was both deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR could not resist one of their leaders. But when came to Yerevan decree pardoning Kalachyanov death sentence brothers already was executed.
The document was late by only twenty-four hours ...

Steals the strongest and most agile of the brothers - Felix Kalachyan.
On investigative experiment he repeated exactly their way into the bank vault



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