How to catch a maniac

This unique exhibition, which currently contains more than 4,000 exhibits, has existed and been replenished for 35 years thanks to the efforts of its founder and permanent director, Lyubov OSINSKAYA.

- The first police officers appeared on the streets of Petropavlovsk 185 years ago, in 1840. They were assigned from the Tobolsk provincial police. And only in 1868, when the Petropavlovsk district was formed, the city created its own police, - says the keeper of history.

After the October Revolution, the first detachment of the Soviet militia was assembled in Petropavlovsk. It was headed by a simple worker, Fyodor TARASOV. At that time, groups of volunteers were recruited from demobilized soldiers, they were given rifles, red armbands were put on their hands, and at night they went out to maintain order. They did not have their own uniform - the militiamen wore soldiers' tunics and Budenovkas.

There were only 40 policemen in the entire county, including one chief, his assistant and secretary. They took those who had sabres. In addition, they were given a whistle and a whip.

- On the red armband that was worn on the left arm, in 1918, the inscription “PNM” was made, which meant “Petropavlovsk People’s Militia”. This is the prototype of the modern police chevron, - says the head of the museum.

In 1921, the first mounted police unit was created in Petropavlovsk. It consisted of 17 people armed with sabres. They were sent to fight bandits armed with machine guns. And the task was not to destroy them, but to detain them. And they succeeded.

A special place in the museum is occupied by a book on forensics published in 1912. Lyubov Osinskaya bought it from an employee of one of the local TV channels for 5,000 tenge. The book is called “Criminal Tactics.” It was first published in Germany, and then translated in Tsarist Russia. It served as a guide for solving crimes. It describes in detail how to properly inspect the scene of a crime and fill out a report. Even now, forensic scientists are surprised by such a professional descriptive part and say that the century-old “Criminal Tactics” is in places much more interesting than modern manuals.

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Among the many exhibits, the weapons attract attention. They are in almost every display case, not counting the separate weapons room. The oldest in this collection is a Berdanka from 1878.

- We were the first in the republic to open a weapons room in 2015. It was my dream. By the way, all our weapons and awards are genuine. The awards were given to us by the owners themselves during their lifetime, - says Lyubov Osinskaya proudly.

From the 19th century to the present day, factory-made and homemade, official and bandit, donated, found and confiscated. Pistols, machine guns, machine guns, sabres, daggers, sharpenings, nunchucks. The guide knows the history of each exhibit by heart.

- For example, one of the first Soviet serial self-loading Korovin pistols, which began to be produced at the Tula Arms Plant in the 1920s, was found in our time during sand mining on the Ishim River. These were issued to the NKVD leadership and the Red Army commanders. They also found a barrel from a Czech machine gun there, - explains the keeper of history.

There are weapons whose existence even the owners did not know. For example, in the village of Nalobino, a 1908 sabre lay buried under a house for over a hundred years. Many people made such caches after the revolution and the Great Patriotic War. They buried them not only under houses, but also in vegetable gardens, bathhouses and sheds. The main thing is that they were not found or confiscated. Apparently, some hid them so well that their descendants or new owners could not find them for over a century.

- Many people take their finds to the police. There they are registered, put in order - cleaned, lubricated, converted from combat to exhibit, - explains Osinskaya.

But the Caucasian dagger from the 1920s was donated by police colonel Gennady SELISHCHEV. He got it from his grandfather. The veteran of the internal affairs agencies did not spare the memorable and very valuable weapon for the museum.

There are exhibits in the display cases that contain the blood of murdered police officers... Eight North Kazakhstanis died in peacetime while performing their duty to protect public order.

- In 1935, Pavel ZYKIN, an operative of the Leninsky District Police Department, detained a group of horse thieves. He was supposed to deliver them from Zagradovka to Yavlenka. But the bandits outwitted him and brutally killed him with homemade knives. They fled the scene of the crime, - says Lyubov Andreyevna.

This case remains unsolved. The criminals left the knives on the spot. They were kept as evidence in the district police department, and many years later they were transferred to the museum. In the 1930s, the fight against banditry was ending. The gangs had many sawed-off shotguns in their arsenal, they were also called kulak. Several exhibits also ended up on the shelves of the North Kazakhstan police museum.

- At that time, a purge of the police ranks began. They stopped accepting people into the police at will, because many unreliable people were getting in. They decided to accept only those who were referred by work collectives, - the guide continues.

Among the large exhibits is the Izh-49 motorcycle. It was manufactured in 1951. The black two-wheeled horse did not run much - a little more than 16 thousand kilometers. According to the tour guide, it was inconvenient to transport detainees on these motorcycles, so they did not serve the police for long. They were replaced by "Urals" with a sidecar.

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From the Soviet era we find ourselves in the hall of modern Kazakhstan. Here visitors always linger near the stands dedicated to the disclosure of high-profile crimes. Lyubov Osinskaya calls these documents and material evidence shock content.

- In 2007, two thugs killed five people with this sawed-off shotgun: two men, two women, and a five-year-old girl. They burned them all in an old Moskvich. Forensic experts found two barely visible fingerprints of the suspects on the bumper. Thanks to this, they were identified, detained, and brought to trial, - the museum director recalls.

Two of the killers were given life sentences, the third accomplice was a minor. He was sentenced to 12 years. In addition to the weapons, photographs from the murder scene and a fragment of the bumper of the car burned with the bodies of five people speak of the terrible crime.

On another stand are clippings from a local newspaper and excerpts from a court verdict. The first contract killing in the North Kazakhstan region thundered across the country in 2013. The killer shot the deputy head of the regional financial police, Zhandos AKHMETOV, in the entrance of his apartment building in front of his 10-year-old son.

The weapon used to kill the major is also here. It is a factory-made traumatic pistol, which was turned into a firearm. The three defendants received 24, 22 and five years in prison.

Petropavlovsk had its own maniac, who terrorized the entire city in the 1990s. Valery KRICHINEVSKY left his house with an axe, which he carried in a canvas bag. He lay in wait for women on the outskirts, hit them on the head with the butt from behind, then raped and robbed them. But he did not kill. This was his style. He made forays during the day or early in the morning. After his raids, he brought gifts to his wife - jewelry that he took from women.

The maniac did not stop at 10 women - he killed a first-grader. He cracked the girl's skull, stabbed her 13 times, took off her fur coat, which he took home. Krichinevsky sewed slippers from the coat. These slippers and gold jewelry taken from the women became irrefutable evidence that allowed the investigation to prove his guilt. He served 25 years for the crime and was released in January of last year.

Each exhibit in the museum keeps its own story, no matter how monstrous it may be. Among the black-and-white photographs behind glass, one stands out as a bright spot. It shows four-year-old Tanya GRIGORYEVA. In the summer of 2005, 26-year-old Andrei VASILIEV brutally beat her in the dormitory toilet, brutally raped her and threw her out of the fourth-floor window. He was given 23 years in prison. Next to Tanya's photograph is a doll and a toy teapot, as well as a terrifying photo of the murdered girl and a clipping from a local newspaper that tells of the chilling crime...

Svetlana DROZDETSKAYA, photo by the author, Petropavlovsk