KOSHKO

Arkady Frantsevich

Fedor Koshka is the last of the five sons of Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla. The Moscow boyar Andrei Ivanovich served under Tsar Simeon Proud - the son of Ivan Kolita. The first time it is mentioned in the annals of 1347. According to one version, the ancestor of the boyar was Ratsha (Ratislav - from the word army) who came to Rus' from the Germans; according to another, he was a descendant of a native of Western Russian lands - Ivan Divinovich. And finally, according to the third version, as Murad Aji says, until the middle of the 14th century, this clan had a Turkic surname - Kobyl, which means "dandy" or "dandy".

During the campaign of Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo field, Fedor Koshka was appointed military commandant of the city of Moscow. The eldest son of Fedor (Ivan Fedorovich) also served Dmitry Donskoy and Vasily the First. The grandson of Ivan Fedorovich (Yuri Zakharyevich), a Moscow boyar, was the father of that same Roman Yuryevich, who was born in 1493, from whom the royal family of the Romanovs descended.

The daughter of Roman Yurievich (Anastasia Romanovna) was the first and, it seems, the only beloved wife of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. She bore him six children. They say that it was under Ivan the Terrible that part of the family of Fedor Koshka moved to Poland. There they became known as Koshko. When the family returned to Russia, the surname remained - Koshko.

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Franz Koshko and Constance Buczynska had five children. Arkady Frantsevich Koshko (1867-1928) was born in the Minsk province. After graduating from the Kazan Infantry School, he served in a regiment in Simbirsk. In 1894 he resigned, and in March of the same year he was admitted to the Riga police as an ordinary inspector. Already in 1900 he became the chief there. Five years later, in 1905, during times of unrest, I had to think about the safety of my family, and therefore, after a while, Arkady began to serve as deputy police chief in Tsarskoye Selo. Some time later, he transferred to the capital to the post of deputy head of the St. Petersburg detective police. In order, as they said, to raise the work in Moscow to the proper level, on May 3, 1908, the Tsar's decree was signed on the direction of A.F. Koshko to serve in the Moscow police.

In 1913, the International Congress of Criminalists was held in Switzerland. The Moscow detective police took first place in terms of solving crimes and was recognized as the best in the world. In the domestic and foreign press, the head of the Moscow detective police, General Arkady Koshko, began to be called the Russian Sherlock Holmes. In the same period, Arkady Frantsevich founded his own system based on a special classification of fingerprint and anthropometric data. Scotland Yard later adopted this system and used it almost until the Second World War. After some time, Arkady Frantsevich Koshko returns to St. Petersburg "the most important detective in Russia." From now on, he is in charge of the entire criminal investigation department of the Russian Empire.

The October Revolution interrupted a brilliant career. An endlessly dark streak of life began. Kyiv, Odessa, Crimea. In 1921, Arkady was forced to flee to Turkey, and later from Turkey. The British offered him to work for them, for which it was necessary to take English citizenship, which the Russian general refused. In 1923, in France, Arkady Koshko was granted political asylum: first in Lyon, then the family moved to Paris. Here, in France, A. Koshko worked on a book that was published in Paris in 1926. The book is called "Essays on the Criminal World of Tsarist Russia". In the preface he writes:

“Torn off from my homeland, after long ordeals and wanderings, I found myself in Paris ...” and further continues: “I dream of Russia, I hear the Lenten chime of Moscow bells and, under the veil of the years that have passed in exile, the past seems to me gratifying, bright sleep."

The general was waiting for the return home and hoped that this would happen.

Dmitry B. Koshko.

Paris, 2008

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The history of the criminal world has preserved the names of brilliant detectives who dedicated their lives to the triumph of the law. In France, Francois Vidocq was such a fighter against crime, he glorified the USA. But in Russia, at the hearing of the inhabitants in the late XIX - early XX centuries were the names of the legendary domestic sshshkov - Ivan Putilin
and Arkady Koshko.

Arkady Koshko was born in 1867 in the village of Brozhka, Minsk province. His father was a rich and noble nobleman, so all three sons were able to get a good education.

But if the middle one - Ivan - preferred a bureaucratic career and even rose to the post of governor-general, then Arkady decided to become a military man, enrolling in the Kazan cadet infantry school.

After his graduation, the place of service for the young officer was determined by Simbirsk. The end of the 19th century turned out to be extremely calm for Russia - not a hint of any military action. Therefore, the lieutenant became homesick and remembered his childhood passion - reading books by Emile Gaborio about the adventures of the detective Lecoq.

And Arkady Koshko, to the horror of his relatives, having submitted his resignation and received it, departs for Riga, where he enters the police service. The young inspector turned out to be a talented detective, under the guise of a criminal element, penetrating into taverns with a dubious reputation and brothels, where it was possible not only to collect the necessary information, but also to recruit an informant.

Arkady Koshko is a genius of Russian detective

We will return to the “Riga cases” of Koshko, but already six years later, when the crime rate in Riga, not without the participation of a young detective, dropped sharply, Arkady Frantsevich Koshko was transferred to the detective department of St. Petersburg as deputy to the then legendary Vladimir Filippov.

In 1908, Koshko was appointed head of the detective police of the Mother See. And here, Arkady Frantsevich Koshko not only deals with the current affairs of the department entrusted to him, but also develops a new personal identification system based on anthropology and fingerprinting, which was later adopted by the British Scotland Yard.

The successful leadership of not only the Moscow detective was noted in 1913 at the International Congress of Criminalists in Switzerland: the Russian police was recognized as the best in the world in terms of crime detection.

And then the revolution broke out. The provisional government abolished the police. Arkady Koshko resigned and settled with his family on an estate near Borovichi. Alas, in the summer of 1918 it was destroyed and the family had to return to Moscow, as their savings were rapidly dwindling. With great difficulty, Arkady Koshko managed to get a job as a traveling salesman in a private pharmacy, but he did not manage to work at this place for a long time. Clouds began to gather over the retired general, because one way or another he had to deal with the affairs of the revolutionaries.

Detective Arkady Koshko

Oddly enough, he was helped to avoid arrest and leave Moscow with his son by criminals who, despite their understandable hostility, respected the “main garbage” (from the abbreviation MCC - Moscow Criminal Investigation). They corrected the relevant documents, and the "actor" with the "decorator" as part of a touring troupe ended up in Kyiv. There, a little later, on false passports, they managed to smuggle other members of the family.

However, as the Red Army advanced, Koshko was forced to flee first to Odessa, and then to Sevastopol. According to some reports, during this period, Arkady Frantsevich worked as an official of the mayor's office through the police line. When the last stronghold of the White Guards, Crimea, fell in 1920, Koshko emigrated to Turkey. After a while, the savings came to an end, and in order to improve the financial situation, Koshko opens a detective agency. Of course, the scale of the search was not the same - surveillance of unfaithful husbands and wives, search for stolen jewelry, consultations. Things were going well until that very moment, until a rumor got around: the Turkish authorities were going to return all the emigrants back to Russia.

Koshko managed to obtain the so-called Nansen passports, and in 1923 the family ended up in Paris. However, despite the colossal experience in detective work, Arkady Frantsevich failed to get a job in the police - French citizenship was required. And the retired general thought that soon the power in Russia would change and he would again be in demand at home. For the same reason, Koshko refused to take the post of department head at Scotland Yard.

Arkady Koshko had to be content with a modest position as a manager in a fur store. In the last years of his life, he began to write memoirs and stories in the detective genre, the first of which were published in 1926 and received favorable responses in the ranks of the Russian emigration. The first volume of memoirs entitled “Essays on the Criminal World of Tsarist Russia. Memoirs of the former head of the Moscow detective police and head of the entire criminal investigation department of the Empire "was published during the author's lifetime. Two others were published after his death, which followed on December 24, 1928.

An outstanding Russian criminologist was buried in one of the cemeteries of Paris, and in the USSR for a long time the name of Arkady Koshko was forgotten. And only in post-Soviet times, a monument was erected to Arkady Frantsevich and his brother Ivan in Bobruisk. And five years before that, in 2007, at the initiative of the Russian association of veterans of operational services "Honor", a public award was established - the Order named after A.F. Koshko, which has already been awarded to more than a hundred veterans of the detective work and current employees.

The memoirs published in Russia did not attract much attention of readers, except that viewers could appreciate the series “Kings of the Russian Investigation” with Armen Dzhigarkhanyan in the title role and Kira Muratova’s film “The Adjuster” based on the stories of Arkady Koshko.

Koshko Arkady Frantsevich

The most interesting investigations in which Koshko took part relate to the “Riga period”. In 1895, a wave of violent crimes swept across Riga. It began with the fact that the corpse of 17-year-old high school student Deters was discovered in the wasteland behind the cathedral. Apparently, he was killed, robbed, and his body and face were mutilated. Since the young man was the son of a famous merchant, the case received a wide public response, and the investigation was entrusted to Arkady Koshko. After some time, three more people became victims of cruel bandits - a janitor, a cab driver and a recidivist thief Hans Ulpe, from the mouth of whose corpse a note "To a dog - a dog's death!"

After some time, a cigarette case of a murdered high school student appeared in one of the pawnshops, which was handed over by a certain Natalia Shpurman, a buyer of stolen goods and a friend of the murdered Ulpe. The detective managed to talk to the owner of the "raspberry": she said that her roommate was a member of a gang and at a meeting for "rat-mongering" the thieves sentenced him to death. And since she now also fears for her life, she is ready to name the leader of the gang. It turned out to be someone Karlis Ozoliņš, a resident of a town in the county.

And then, going under the guise of a buyer of wool, Arkady Koshko set up covert surveillance of the bandit's house. Late at night he saw a woman come out of the gate
with a basket and headed towards the forest. There, stopping near a huge oak tree, she left her luggage at the roots and set off on her return journey. Despite the fact that no one approached the oak, the basket, most likely with provisions, disappeared. From this, the detective concluded that the ringleader was hiding in a tree. The next day, the oak was surrounded by a detachment of officers and after a short skirmish, the bandit, who had made a lair in the branches, was forced to surrender.

In another case, Arkady Koshko used ingenuity. Then a diamond was stolen from the icon's frame from the cathedral. Suspicion fell on the watchman, but he, even while behind bars, denied his involvement in the theft, just like his wife. And then the detective again called the woman for questioning. During her absence, one of the detective's assistants entered the house of the suspects and hid under the bed in the bedroom. Koshko figured out that after a two-week "sexual starvation", the watchman, who had been released, would decide to make love. And in the heat of passion, criminals may give themselves away. And so it turned out. The couple was released, and at eight o'clock in the evening Koshko, together with the constables, raided their house. Crawling out from under the bed, covered in dust, the assistant reported: the diamond was hidden in one of the logs. The servicemen had to take up the ax, but after an hour of work, the diamond was still found.

Arkady Koshko is a famous Moscow detective, detective, head of the Moscow detective police. Born in 1867 in a wealthy noble family. Arkady Koshko from childhood was fond of detective stories, was interested in everything connected with a private investigation. He received a higher military education. In 1894, Arkady Koshko entered the position of inspector in the service of the Riga police. Koshko's department showed outstanding results in solving the most complex and high-profile cases of those times. In 1908, Arkady Koshko, for excellent professional results, was appointed head of the Moscow police, then head of the entire criminal investigation department of the Russian Empire. His own destiny is a detective novel, and his life is the story of a Russian detective. Riga, Petersburg, Moscow, Crimea, Constantinople - the places of his service. And everywhere his name inspires fear in criminals. He called himself "the chief detective of the Russian Empire", and in England he was called "the Russian Sherlock Holmes". At the International Congress of Criminalists, held in Switzerland in 1913, the Russian detective police was recognized as the best in the world in terms of solving crimes. And no wonder: the detective was headed by Arkady Koshko. Arkady Koshko is the author and developer of a new personal identification system, as well as the creator of a photographic, anthropometric and fingerprint file of criminals. This system was adopted by Scotland Yard. During the years of the revolution, Arkady Koshko emigrated to Kyiv, then to Odessa, Turkey, and eventually Koshko and his family received political asylum in France. Repeatedly, Arkady Koshko was invited to the post of head of the Scotland Yard detective, but the Russian detective refused such offers. Arkady Koshko died in Paris in 1928, where he was also buried. The film also tells how Koshko managed to overcome corruption in the police and organize an investigation in a huge city in such a way that during the first three years of managerial activity in Moscow, he almost single-handedly cracked down on all organized crime...

Moscow Sherlock Holmes

At the beginning of the century, swindlers and robbers of all stripes, at the mere mention of his name, devoutly baptized: "Bring me, Lord." He was the first to put into practice the latest methods of forensic science, including fingerprinting and anthropometry. And here is the result: in 1913, during the International Congress of Criminalists in Switzerland, the Moscow detective police took first place in terms of solving crimes. It was headed by Arkady Frantsevich Koshko.

All-Russian fame was brought to him by the investigation of a sensational criminal case, in which the royal family also showed interest. In the spring of 1910, early in the morning, Koshko received a call from the Office of the Detective Police, which was then located in Maly Gnezdnikovsky Lane. The duty officer, in a voice breaking with excitement, reported that in the Kremlin, in the Assumption Cathedral, an unheard-of robbery had been committed. An unknown person somehow got into the temple and tried to take out of it, apparently, jewelry. When the sun was rising, a soldier guarding the cathedral saw a man with a bundle trying to get out of the narrow window of the loophole. He called out to him, he did not answer, and then the soldier fired a shot. The man fled into the loophole. The gates of the cathedral have been locked since the evening, there are no strangers on the territory of the Kremlin ...

By that time, Koshko had been heading the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department for two years. On his account there were hundreds of solved murders, gang raids, and not only in the capital, but also in other cities of the country. He solved the cases of swindlers and swindlers of the highest category, accumulated rich forensic experience, traveled abroad to exchange it with colleagues. But who could dare to climb into the old guarded cathedral of the fifteenth century, erected by Italian masters, in which relics close to the heart of every Russian were exhibited? He couldn't imagine this.

The whole complexity of the problem that fell on him lay in the fact that attention to this matter, of course, would be shown not only by the Moscow clergy, but also by the imperial family. So they start rushing. And so it happened. On the same morning, having learned about what had happened in the Kremlin, Nicholas II ordered to catch the perpetrators in the near future and report back. Will the Moscow policeman be able to uncover the robbery of the Assumption Cathedral in a few days?

Barely Koshko arrived at the Kremlin, as he immediately ordered to close all the gates. At the expense of his agents, he strengthened the patrol in the surrounding territories. But he could not enter the cathedral and search it there - there were no keys. Time passed. He was waiting for the clergy and was nervous. External examination showed nothing. There were no footprints on the ground. The sentry swore under oath that he did not leave his post, more soldiers ran to his aid to the shot, so that the criminal could not leave the temple.

When the alarmed clergy headed by Metropolitan Vladimir appeared, the gates to the cathedral were finally opened. The ubiquitous newspapermen were already running around. Several armed police officers cautiously examined the inside of the temple. No one was found in it. We visited all the utility rooms, looked into the library, went down to the basement, then climbed to the very top, to the bell tower. Not a single soul, not counting the peacefully cooing doves. The man fell through the ground. What did he steal? And then the priests noticed that the largest and most expensive stones had disappeared from the main shrine of the temple, from the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God: a diamond and an emerald. A robber who understood the values ​​​​worked, and he did everything at night, since there were people in the cathedral until late in the evening.

People gathered on the square in front of the Kremlin demanded the extradition of the criminal. Upon learning of the loss, they swore to guard day and night and were ready to tear the villain apart. Koshko I had to go to them more than once to calm them down. He promised to find the defiler in the near future and asked everyone to disperse.

Then Koshko went to management. He invited famous thieves, keepers of raspberries for a talk. All of them, as one, denied their participation in the robbery of the Assumption Cathedral. The same disappointing news came from the Kremlin by telephone. Everything converged to the fact that the criminal remained in the temple. But where was he hiding? He's not a bird, he couldn't fly through the air? Most likely, he was hiding behind a giant iconostasis that occupied the entire wall from the stone floor to the very top. True, it was not clear how he could get there? The distance between the wall and the icons was only a few centimeters. The metropolitan categorically forbade taking pictures of icons. The detectives had to probe all the free space with long hooks brought. No results.

Koshko he begged the metropolitan to leave his armed men in the church for the night. The Metropolitan again reluctantly agreed - in the morning it was necessary to hold a service, he forbade all noise and screams, especially open fire.

Night Koshko spent without sleep. Waiting for a phone call. And early in the morning, unable to bear it, he went to the Kremlin. The detectives reported that the night passed quietly, no one showed up. And again Koshko I had to beg the Metropolitan not to start the service. He feared that it was this very moment that the man hiding in the cathedral was waiting for, waiting for the crowd to dissolve into the mass. He already had the impression that the criminal should be short and frail. Very frail, almost a child. Only such a weightless one could get behind the iconostasis.

The siege continued for three days. And in the end it paid off. At night, the detectives heard some rustling sounds, a bundle suddenly flopped onto the floor, and then a thin, dirty figure crawled out from behind the iconostasis and immediately fainted. It was a thin boy of about fourteen. He fainted from exhaustion and thirst.

Koshko, who arrived at the call, secretly took out the young robber, as he rightly feared the revenge of the crowd. He took pity on the boy, who raised the entire Moscow police to their feet, agitated the Sovereign. At his office, he first of all gave him a drink, fed him, and he, not without pressure from the detective, frankly told him the whole story of his misadventures.

The robber turned out to be Sergei Semin, a jeweler's apprentice. It was he who planned to carry out the theft of jewelry and hid in the temple. Then, together with a bundle of stones, he tried to climb out through the window. But a bullet stopped him. And in fear, he hid behind the iconostasis for three days, waited for the siege to be lifted and the divine service to begin, and, like a monkey, he climbed from one niche to another, eating dry prosphora, which he found behind the icons.

This frank confession, however, did not save Semin from severe punishment. The jury sentenced him to eight years hard labor...

To the credit of Koshko , it should be added that it was during the same period that he happened to solve another crime, much more terrible - a murder in Ipatiev lane, where detectives found nine corpses at once in one non-residential building. All three rooms were covered in blood, the opened chests testified that the motive for the massacre of the victims was the usual greed. It soon became clear that the family of a young peasant who had come from the village to Moscow with his wife and children to work had been killed. The killer turned out to be the same friend who gave them shelter. He came to visit and knew that the chests contained money from the sale of a residential building.

It was the simultaneous disclosure of these two high-profile cases that added fame to the famous Moscow find out . And he also received the greatest praise - the emperor expressed his satisfaction with the successfully completed disclosure of the theft in the Assumption Cathedral. The well-known journalist Amfiteatrov even dedicated a laudatory article to him, in which he highly appreciated his detective talent. According to him, if such leaders of the criminal police were planted in every province, then in Russia all thieves and crooks would be quickly caught, and then shameful prisons should simply be closed. The naive Amfiteatrov did not even imagine that thieves and crooks in Russia could not be caught, and therefore prisons by the year 2000 would remain filled to capacity.

... But back to Koshko . He became a professional detective not by chance. Born in 1867 in the Minsk province, from childhood he loved outdoor games, went in for sports, dreamed of heroic adventures. And read crime novels. Books Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Poe, William Collins and Anne Radcliffe were desktop. Later they were replaced by the French writer Emile Gaborio who created a clever and courageous detective Lecoq , who, long before the appearance of Sherlock Holmes, applied a new method - he often put on makeup and changed clothes, put himself in the place of a criminal and, with his conclusions, brought the investigation to its logical conclusion. So literary hero Lecoq , a man of a strong sports warehouse and a penetrating mind, for many years served the young Koshko role model.

Actually, books, sports, a thirst for romance and adventure led him to the decision to enlist in the military. Without the consent of his parents, he went to the Kazan Infantry Cadet School. And after graduation, he was assigned to an infantry regiment stationed in Simbirsk.

True, the monotonous service: getting up, exercising, having breakfast, marching on the parade ground, then dreary and monotonous classes in the classes did not really suit the young officer. Army life had nothing to do with youthful dreams, with which he did not want to part at all. And in 1894 he submitted his resignation.

His wish came true in Riga, where he moved from Simbirsk, where the police needed a criminal inspector. And the former military man decided to try himself in a "criminal" case. He got acquainted with great interest with the method of solving criminal cases in "hot pursuit", expanded the network of agents, skillfully interrogated witnesses, and created his own file cabinet. His ability to unravel the seemingly most hopeless case strengthened not only his authority and official position. Moreover, he used the techniques of his beloved Lecoq - dressed in rags, put on makeup, wandered around the brothels. And made friends. The method of "lowering" into the lower social environment allowed him to identify many criminals and replenish his file cabinet. Already six years later, when the crime curve crept down, he was offered to take the post of chief of the Riga police, and five years later his fame reached St. Petersburg, and he was summoned to the northern capital and, with the highest permission, was offered the position of deputy chief of police in Tsarskoe Selo.

But, nevertheless, his period of work and life in Moscow turned out to be the most significant and fruitful, when he was appointed not only the head of the Moscow detective police, but also the head of the criminal investigation department of the entire empire. He loved his job and was completely devoted to it, could not imagine himself without the police. And, despite his high rank and an extensive staff of employees and agents, as in Riga and St. Petersburg, he did not hesitate to take on the unraveling of a complex crime himself. That's when the practice of dressing up and make-up came in handy for him. So, with his direct participation in Moscow, a gang of swindlers was uncovered, trading in counterfeit millions of bills. The leader of the raiders who plundered expensive estates in the Moscow region, the famous and elusive Vaska Belous, was captured. And it is quite possible that it would be possible to put an end to the great crime in Moscow soon, but, alas, the October Revolution broke out.

After 1917, the fate of Koshko , who by that time had become a general, turned the other way. The second half of his life was not so successful. He did not accept the Bolsheviks and the dictatorship of the proletariat and in 1918 was forced to leave for Kyiv, then from Kyiv to Odessa. And already from there, under the pressure of the Reds on the steamer, he barely made it to Turkey.

Life abroad was hard. The small savings that they managed to take out quickly ended, and the former policeman had a hard time - the family needed to be fed, dressed, and put on shoes. He set up his own private detective bureau in Constantinople. That's where his experience and knowledge came in handy. Started with tips and tricks. People went to him, orders appeared. He himself hunted down unfaithful husbands and wives, found the loot, gave valuable advice to the rich on how to protect their property from thieves. And gradually the business began to bring good income. He even made a sign "Private Detective Bureau ...". However, fate intervened here. A heavy rumor suddenly spread among the Russian settlers, they said that Kemal Pasha is going to send all emigrants from Russia back to the Bolsheviks. All to one. The agreement is being prepared for signing. The only way to escape is by running. And again, urgent fees and a trip by steamer from Constantinople, now to France.

In Paris, where the family settled Koshko , he could not find a job for a long time, they did not take him to the police - the years were not the same, money was needed to create a detective bureau. With difficulty, he managed to get a job as a manager in a fur trade store. The hard time has come. He still hoped that the system in Russia would change, he expected that the power of the Bolsheviks would not last long, there would be smart people, he would be asked to return to his homeland ...

True, he received offers from the British, who knew him well and were ready to give him a responsible post in Scotland Yard, they offered to move to London, but he refused, he believed that changes were coming in Russia and he would be needed in Moscow, he would be there help fight crime. Not wait. He began to write memoirs, which again (oh, leprosy of fate) were praised by the same Amfiteatrov, who ended up in exile with him ... The general died Koshko in Paris on December 24, 1928, where he was buried.

In fact, speaking about his existence as the head of the Moscow detective police, head of the entire criminal investigation department of the empire, the founder of Russian criminology, this Moscow Sherlock Holmes, who won recognition from specialists in Europe, we would not have known anything for a long time if it were not for the very memoirs that first came out in 1926 in France and only in the early nineties were they able to appear here in Russia. It was in them that he described in detail his most high-profile investigations. With the appearance of this book, the spirit of the exiled from his land, the spirit of the famous detective Koshko.

Arkady Koshko. The genius of the Russian detective

Arkady Koshko: Among murderers and robbers

We invite you to recall the name and accomplishments of Arkady Frantsevich Koshko, an outstanding figure in the law enforcement system, forgotten during the years of Soviet power, but recently again arousing interest due to the literary, scientific and practical heritage left by him.

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The Boy Who Loved Detectives

Arkady Frantsevich Koshko was born in 1867 in the Minsk province in a family estate near the village of Brozhka. He was a representative of a wealthy and noble family of the Evangelical Lutheran faith with Polish-Lithuanian roots. His father served in the chamber of the civil court of the city of Mogilev (in our opinion, in the regional court of appeal). Arkady had three sisters and an older brother, Ivan, who later held high positions in the Penza and Perm governors and wrote memoirs about it.

According to tradition, the offspring of a noble family was supposed to receive a military education. Arkady's older brother did this in St. Petersburg, eventually graduating from the General Staff Academy, and he himself went to Kazan, graduating from the local infantry cadet school. After that, Koshko Jr. entered the military service and was enrolled in a regiment stationed in Simbirsk. However, army life in peacetime seemed too boring to him, and he soon decided to change his profession. The choice was obvious, because since childhood, Arkady had been reading detective novels, the favorite character of which for him was the detective Lecoq, invented by the French writer Emile Gaboriau. Now Koshko has a chance to try to follow in the footsteps of his literary idol.

True, the family of Arkady Frantsevich was not happy with his decision. The prestige of the profession of a policeman for a nobleman was low, and the officer rank of a law enforcement officer was not recognized in society as “real”. However, Koshko showed firmness and, having quarreled with his relatives, went to Riga, where he entered the service of an ordinary police inspector at the age of 27.

Baltic star

Having enthusiastically set to work, Arkady Frantsevich quickly began to show outstanding results. Like his idol Lecoq (and later Sherlock Holmes), Koshko actively used make-up and dressing up. Having changed beyond recognition, he visited all kinds of gangster dens and haunts, where he obtained information and recruited agents. A systematic approach allowed him to reach the highest level of crime detection. So, in 1897, he solved 8 murders - an indicator that is almost a record by the standards of any European police.

Among the high-profile cases that he brought to a successful conclusion, one can single out the capture of the daring robber and murderer Karlis Ozoliņš (having established his identity, Koshko, under the guise of a buyer of sheep's wool, went to the country house of the criminal's parents and found out that he was hiding ... in the crown of a huge tree nearby, after which he called a detachment for detention), as well as exposing a gang of card cheats. In the second case, the detective had to learn how to cheat at cards, organize his own underground gambling house in a rented apartment, and personally infiltrate the group. Then, during one of the gatherings, he staked 10 thousand rubles - huge money for those times - and invited the leader of the group to play on them. The duel was scheduled for the evening, and all the "cream" of the criminal society gathered for it. It was there that Koshko organized their detention.

Thanks to the activities of Arkady Frantsevich, the crime situation in Riga began to improve rapidly, and in 1900, six years after starting a new career, he was offered to head the city police. Koshko himself wrote that he agreed “not without timidity.” He spoke about the specifics of his place of work as follows: “Riga was then a large center with a very diverse population, Latvians and Germans especially predominated, and, therefore, in the fight against crime, one had to take into account their psychology, which was very peculiar and little similar to Russian ... " .

In his new post, Koshko began to actively introduce the latest achievements of forensic science, including fingerprinting and anthropometry. Thanks to his leadership, order was restored in Riga. However, in 1905, when a revolution began in the country, local bandits decided to eliminate the police chief they hated, placing a solid reward on his head. After Arkady Frantsevich miraculously survived thanks to the operational data received at the last moment, it was decided to take him out of the city. On a train under cover, Koshko went east to Tsarskoye Selo.

Capital Affairs

In the city that served as the country residence of the Russian emperors, Koshko, of course, headed the local detective. And the very next year he was transferred directly to the capital, where he became deputy chief of the local police, Vladimir Gavrilovich Filippov.

In St. Petersburg, Arkady Frantsevich continued his extremely productive activities. He still tried to manage everything on his own, preferring direct communication with agents to reading reports. This made it possible not to reduce the efficiency in solving cases.

So, in 1906, a serious problem arose in the capital with counterfeit paper money. Their main flow came from Riga, already native to Koshko, and they even got the name “Latvian rubles”. Having received information about the arrival of a new large shipment, Arkady Frantsevich organized an operation in which his agent played the role of a seller of a large collection of stolen diamonds. On this bait, a certain Pole was caught, who turned out to be a carrier of counterfeit banknotes, and through him the detectives covered a whole network of counterfeiters, leaving with their ends as far as Sweden.

Koshko was noticed at the very top of the imperial leadership. He became the favorite of the Prime Minister of the country, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, who in 1907 awarded the detective the rank of general. Emperor Nicholas II also knew about his successes.

In 1908, the “Law on the Investigative Unit” was adopted, which played a huge role in organizing police affairs in Russia. In large cities of the country, 89 detective departments were created (instead of just a few that existed before). It was necessary to solve the problem of crime that had grown during the years of the First Russian Revolution. As part of this campaign, Koshko was appointed to lead the investigation in the most problematic place in the country - Moscow.

King of the "first throne"

In the historical capital of Russia, the situation with crime was simply terrible. This was facilitated by the monstrous corruption that spread in the power apparatus during the tenure of General Anatoly Reinboth as mayor. In 1907, together with the head of the local police, D.P. Moiseenko, he was removed from his post and sent under investigation. In place of the latter, Koshko arrived.

The Moscow period became a high point in the career of Arkady Frantsevich. He immediately took the business to the next level, applying developments that had brought him success in the past and inventing new ones. The main know-how of his authorship was a complex system of personal identification. The most detailed data about the persons who got into the department were entered into the police file, including anthropometric indicators (height, chest circumference, ear size, etc.), as well as the addresses of all persons associated with them, up to mistresses. In addition, fingerprints were taken from each detainee without fail, and to work with them, Koshko developed his own system for comparing them with existing samples, highlighting the main parameters of the pattern on the finger (the similarity should have been at least 65%). Subsequently, this method was borrowed in the English Scotland Yard.

An extensive network of agents was also created. Surveillance was actively practiced, and not only for the suspects, but also for the control - for the detectives themselves. At the detective department, a dressing room and dressing room were equipped, in which Koshko carefully trained his employees in the art of reincarnation. A personal example also came into play: Arkady Frantsevich continued to practice street work, changing beyond recognition. The secrecy of the operations organized by Koshko was strictly observed: until the last moment, the participating policemen themselves did not know about them. At the same time, the number of operatives could exceed a thousand people, and at the right time everything worked like clockwork.

After a year of being at the head of the Moscow police, Koshko created a special “flying detachment” - a kind of law enforcement “guard”. It included about 40 first-class investigators and at the same time agents who specialized in various criminal branches.

Great importance in the new Moscow police was given to openness to citizens. In Maly Gnezdnikovsky Lane, a reception room was opened where people could come with complaints about any offenses. Soon all of Moscow knew about it, and any cab driver knew where to take a person in trouble. Moreover, accessibility extended to the chief of police himself. On the door of his office hung a sign with the inscription: "On urgent matters, I accept around the clock."

Gradually, Arkady Frantsevich became one of the main people in the city. He personally knew all the celebrities and cream of society. So, Koshko immediately investigated three thefts from the great Russian singer Fyodor Chaliapin. In each case significant valuables were stolen. Two cases were completely solved, and in the third case, it was possible to return part of the stolen goods sold by criminals abroad.

Arkady Frantsevich was also popular with criminals. One day, a bank robber showed up in Moscow, after each successful case, he personally called Koshko on the phone and boasted of his achievement. One of these calls became fatal for the self-confident bandit: the police chief managed to chat him up, at the same time sending a squad to the crime scene, where he was caught red-handed. And another criminal, in his last word at the trial, described the role of Arkady Frantsevich as follows: “I can say one thing, gentlemen of justice, that if it weren’t for Mr. Koshkin, then you wouldn’t see diamonds!” .

Koshko also maintained international contacts: he actively corresponded with colleagues from London and Paris, published his works on anthropometry in Denmark, and sent Russian experts to study in Europe. In 1913, at the International Congress of Criminalists in Geneva, the Russian detective police was recognized as the most effective in the world. The crime detection rate in Moscow and St. Petersburg was an incredible figure - almost 80%. And Koshko himself received the first ever medal of the International Union of Criminalists with his own profile engraved on it.

End of an empire

In 1914, Arkady Frantsevich, in parallel with the post of chief of the Moscow police, began to lead the investigation of the entire Russian Empire. The main direction of its activity was the prevention and prevention of crimes.

With the outbreak of World War I, crime skyrocketed. Koshko's office dealt with high-profile cases of stealing funds from the Union of Zemstvos and Cities, which supplies the front, as well as from some services of the Red Cross. However, things got really bad after the fall of the monarchy during the February Revolution. In March-August 1917, compared to the same period last year, the number of murders in Moscow increased 10 times, and robberies - 14 times. This was greatly facilitated by the general criminal amnesty announced by the Kerensky government on March 2, when many of those imprisoned by the efforts of Koshko were released.

As for the police, from the first days of the revolution it was crushed. True, the first time after the overthrow of power, Arkady Frantsevich and his family could still live in Russia. Of course, he was immediately forced to resign, but for some time they did not touch him, allowing him to live on an estate in the Novgorod province. The situation became critical after the Bolsheviks came to power. The estate was ruined, and for some time Koshko went to Moscow. There, however, he became aware of the imminent arrest, and he was able to avoid it only thanks to his honed skills in makeup and disguise, fleeing to Kyiv. Soon, using forged documents, the former chief detective of the Empire moved his entire family there. At that time, it consisted of his wife Zinaida and the youngest son Nikolai (the eldest son, Dmitry, died during the First World War, and the middle one, Ivan, was captured, survived and later met with his family already in France).

The reason why Koshko could not have come to an agreement with the Bolsheviks was simple: over the years, the department of Arkady Frantsevich had accumulated a lot of compromising materials on the leaders of the new state. In particular, the former head of the imperial detective arrested the second person in the party - Lev Trotsky.

The advancing “Reds” seemed to be moving after Koshko and his family. At the beginning of 1919 they entered Kyiv. Arkady Frantsevich twice tried to leave the city before they arrived, but was not released. Under the Bolsheviks, Koshko's prospects became quite sad, but then he was suddenly helped. This was done by acquaintances met literally on the street from a past life - Warsaw criminals (!), whom he once arrested, but with whom he maintained respectful relations, considering them the smartest criminals of tsarist Russia. With their help, Arkady Frantsevich moved to Odessa, and then to the Crimea, where he became the head of the criminal police under Wrangel.

After the capture of the peninsula by the Red Army in 1920, Koshko and his family fled to Istanbul, where he opened a private detective agency with the remaining savings. The first thing the legendary detective did was to search for... the lost cat of a rich woman, which he successfully "revealed" by contracting local boys. From this low step, the reputation of the Koshko agency began to grow, and the flow of clients began to increase. However, everything was again interrupted by politics. Among the Russian emigration in Istanbul, a rumor spread that the Turkish authorities were ready to negotiate with Soviet Russia on the expulsion of the fugitives back to their homeland. Together with many others, Koshko was forced to move to France.

In Europe, the detective was known much better. In French Avignon, he was approached by representatives of the English Scotland Yard with an offer to work in this organization. There was only one condition: entry into British citizenship. Koshko refused because he hoped to return to Russia.

The detective and his family spent the first six months in Lyon - in a shelter for immigrants - and only then moved to Paris. In 1923, the French granted him political asylum. There was no work, and Arkady Frantsevich with great difficulty managed to get a job in a fur shop. Such a life did not bring him any pleasure, and he greatly yearned for the past. At this point, the family gave him the idea to write about past accomplishments. Koshko began to do this in the form of detective stories based on real cases he had uncovered. Soon the works began to be published in Parisian newspapers. These stories were especially popular among Russian emigrants, since behind the changed names of the heroes they easily guessed themselves and their acquaintances from a past life. Soon, Koshko's stories were published in the form of books.

All the years in Paris, the family of Arkady Frantsevich deliberately did not grow into local life, intending to one day go home. However, this was never destined to happen. In 1928, the great Russian detective died after an illness at the age of 61. A year earlier, in the same place, in France, his brother Ivan died.

In 2012, in Belarusian Bobruisk, near which the brothers were born, a monument was erected in their honor next to the city police department. Gradually forgotten glory returns to Arkady Frantsevich in Russia. In one of the veteran public organizations of former employees of the operational services, since 2007, an order has been awarded in his name. Koshko's books were first published in his homeland in 1990, and then repeatedly reprinted.

Arkady Frantsevich Koshko is a famous Russian detective. His own destiny is a detective novel, and his life is the story of a Russian detective. Riga, Petersburg, Moscow, Crimea, Constantinople - the places of his service. And everywhere his name inspires fear in criminals. He called himself "the chief detective of the Russian Empire", and in England he was called "the Russian Sherlock Holmes". At the International Congress of Criminalists, held in Switzerland in 1913, the Russian detective police was recognized as the best in the world in terms of solving crimes. And no wonder: the detective was headed by Arkady Koshko. Even London's Scotland Yard borrowed General Koshko's system, and the best intelligence services in the world offered him a job. Arkady Koshko is the founder of modern criminology. It was he who, for the first time in world practice, began the widespread use of fingerprinting and anthropometric systematization in detective work. Many of the techniques of Arkady Koshko are still used today in the criminal investigation department. And his main invention - the fingerprint analysis system - was borrowed by the leading powers of the world.

Arkady Frantsevich Koshko, head of the detective department of the entire Russian Empire, at the beginning of the 20th century became famous as an outstanding investigator. Thanks to his analytical mind, ingenuity, proper organization of the detective work and the use of the latest means of search, such as fingerprinting, for example, he became a truly legendary person. The October Revolution did not give him the opportunity to develop his talent, completely crossed out his legacy.

In fact, speaking about his existence as the head of the Moscow detective police, head of the entire criminal investigation department of the empire, the founder of Russian criminology, this Moscow Sherlock Holmes, who won recognition from specialists in Europe, we would not have known anything for a long time if it were not for his memoirs, which were published first in 1926 in France and only in the early nineties could they appear in Russia. It was in them that he described in detail his most high-profile investigations. With the appearance of this book, the spirit of the exiled from his land, the spirit of the famous detective Koshko, returned to Moscow.

Arkady Koshko was born in 1867 in the Minsk province into a rich and noble noble family. Having chosen a military career, he graduated from the Kazan Infantry Cadet School and was assigned to a regiment stationed in Simbirsk. Arkady Frantsevich himself wrote about these years that they passed calmly and carefree, but monotonously.

The young officer began to think about another profession, which would be more in line with his character and which, according to him, could be useful in peacetime. From childhood, he read detective novels and realized that his true vocation was forensic science. Books, sports, a thirst for romance and adventure led him to decide to enlist in the military. Without the consent of his parents, he went to the Kazan Infantry Cadet School and after graduation he was assigned to an infantry regiment stationed in Simbirsk. True, the monotonous service - getting up, exercising, having breakfast, marching on the parade ground, then dreary and monotonous classes in the classroom - did not really suit the young officer. Army life had nothing to do with youthful dreams, with which he did not want to part at all, and in 1894 he submitted his resignation.

His wish came true in Riga, where he moved from Simbirsk, where the police needed a criminal inspector. And the former military man decided to try himself in a "criminal" case. He got acquainted with great interest with the method of solving criminal cases in "hot pursuit", expanded the network of agents, skillfully interrogated witnesses, and created his own file cabinet. His ability to unravel the seemingly most hopeless case strengthened not only his authority, but also his official position. Moreover, he used the techniques of his beloved Lecoq - dressed in rags, put on makeup, wandered around the brothels. And made friends. The method of "lowering" into the lower social environment allowed him to identify many criminals and replenish his file cabinet. Already six years later, when the crime curve crept down, he was offered to take the post of chief of the Riga police, and five years later his fame reached St. Petersburg, and he was summoned to the northern capital and, with the highest permission, was offered the position of deputy chief of police in Tsarskoe Selo.

At the beginning of the 20th century, swindlers and robbers of all stripes, at the mere mention of his name, devoutly baptized: "Bring me, Lord." He was the first to put into practice the latest methods of forensic science, including fingerprinting and anthropometry. And here is the result: in 1913, during the International Congress of Criminalists in Switzerland, the Moscow detective police took first place in terms of solving crimes. It was headed by Arkady Frantsevich Koshko.

All-Russian fame was brought to him by the investigation of a sensational criminal case, in which the royal family also showed interest. In the spring of 1910, an unheard of audacity robbery was committed in the Kremlin in the Assumption Cathedral. An unknown person somehow climbed into the temple and tried to take out, apparently, jewelry, but the soldier guarding the cathedral saw a man with a bundle trying to get out of the narrow window of the loophole. He called out to him, he did not answer, and then the soldier fired a shot. The man fled into the loophole. The gates of the cathedral have been locked since the evening, there are no strangers on the territory of the Kremlin ...

On the same morning, having learned about what had happened in the Kremlin, Nicholas II ordered to catch the perpetrators in the near future and report back. From the main shrine of the temple, from the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, the largest and most expensive stones disappeared: a diamond and an emerald. A robber who understood the values ​​​​worked, and he did everything at night, since there were people in the cathedral until late in the evening. Everything converged to the fact that the criminal is hiding in the temple. The siege continued for three days, and in the end it bore fruit. At night, the detectives heard some rustling sounds, a bundle suddenly flopped onto the floor, and then a thin, dirty figure crawled out from behind the iconostasis and immediately fainted. He was a thin boy of about fourteen, he fainted from exhaustion and thirst. The robber turned out to be Sergei Semin, a jeweler's apprentice. It was he who planned to carry out the theft of jewelry and hid in the temple. Then, together with a bundle of stones, he tried to climb out through the window, but a bullet stopped him. In fear, he hid behind the iconostasis for three days, waited for the siege to be lifted and the service to begin, and, like a monkey, he climbed from one niche to another, eating dry prosphora, which he found behind the icons. The jury sentenced Semin to eight years hard labor ...

To Koshko's credit, it should be added that it was during this same period that he happened to solve another crime, much more terrible - a murder in Ipatiev Lane, where detectives found nine corpses at once in one non-residential building. All three rooms were covered in blood, the opened chests testified that the motive for the massacre of the victims was the usual greed. It soon became clear that the family of a young peasant who had come from the village to Moscow with his wife and children to work had been killed. The killer turned out to be the same friend who gave them shelter. He came to visit and knew that the chests contained money from the sale of a residential building. It was the simultaneous disclosure of these two high-profile cases that added fame to the famous Moscow detective. And he also received the greatest praise - the emperor expressed his satisfaction with the successfully completed disclosure of the theft in the Assumption Cathedral.

But still, the most significant and fruitful was his period of work and life in Moscow, when he was appointed not only head of the Moscow detective police, but also head of the criminal investigation department of the entire empire. He loved his job and was completely devoted to it, could not imagine himself without the police. And, despite his high rank and an extensive staff of employees and agents, as in Riga and St. Petersburg, he did not hesitate to take on the unraveling of a complex crime himself. That's when the practice of dressing up and make-up came in handy for him. So, with his direct participation in Moscow, a gang of swindlers was uncovered, trading in counterfeit millions of bills. The leader of the raiders who plundered expensive estates in the Moscow region, the famous and elusive Vaska Belous, was captured. And it is quite possible that it would be possible to put an end to the great crime in Moscow soon, but, alas, the October Revolution broke out.

After 1917, the fate of Koshko, who by that time had become a general, turned the other way. The second half of his life was not so successful. He did not accept the Bolsheviks and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and in 1918 he was forced to leave for Kiev, then from Kiev to Odessa, and from there, under pressure from the Reds, he barely reached Turkey on a steamer.

Life abroad was hard. The small savings that they managed to take out quickly ended, and the former policeman had a hard time - the family needed to be fed, dressed, and put on shoes. He set up his own private detective bureau in Constantinople. That's where his experience and knowledge came in handy. Started with tips and tricks. People went to him, orders appeared. He himself hunted down unfaithful husbands and wives, found the loot, gave valuable advice to the rich on how to protect their property from thieves. And gradually the business began to bring good income. He even made a sign "Private Detective Bureau ...". However, fate intervened here. A heavy rumor suddenly spread among the Russian settlers, they said that Kemal Pasha was going to send all the emigrants from Russia back to the Bolsheviks, the agreement was being prepared for signing. The only way to escape is by running. And again, urgent fees and a trip by steamer from Constantinople, now to France.

In 1923 A.F. Koshko, with his wife Zinaida and son Nikolai, first moves to Lyon, where he stays in a shelter for emigrants, and six months later he moves to Paris. There he meets his older brother Ivan, who miraculously managed to escape from Bolshevik Russia. Although the family is reunited, this period of life is probably the most difficult for Arkady Frantsevich. In Paris, where the Koshko family settled, he could not find a job for a long time, they did not take him to the police - the years were not the same, money was needed to create a detective bureau. With difficulty, he managed to get a job as a manager in a fur trade store. The hard time has come. He still hoped that the system in Russia would change, he expected that the power of the Bolsheviks would not last long, there would be smart people, he would be asked to return to his homeland ...

True, he received offers from the British, who knew him well and were ready to give him a responsible post in Scotland Yard, they offered to move to London, but he refused, he believed that changes were coming in Russia and he would be needed in Moscow, he would be there help fight crime. Not wait. He began to write memoirs about his work in the Russian detective police. In 1926, the first volume of his memoirs "Essays on the criminal world of Tsarist Russia. Memoirs of the former head of the Moscow detective police and head of the entire criminal investigation department of the empire" was published in Paris, which included 20 stories. All other stories were published after the death of the author.

The essays are not systematized chronologically or regionally; they also deal with crimes solved in Riga, Moscow and St. Petersburg. The author admits that he selected them in order to illustrate to the reader both the ingenuity of the underworld and the variety of methods of detective work. We will find here essays on the disclosure of the murder of Rasputin, the theft of radioactive materials from a German professor, the fraud of an artist posing as Fyodor Chaliapin. The uniqueness and wit of the planned A.F. Koshko operational combination.

They widely used methods such as surveillance, the introduction of agents into the criminal environment, and even wiretapping and the use of search dogs. The first volume is supplied with a preface, reading which you understand the feelings of the author, cut off from his homeland and feeling his lack of demand in Russia. However, he rightly realizes that his experience, if Bolshevik Russia does not need it, can be useful to mankind in the fight against crime.

Only 70 years later, the memoirs again attracted the attention of a domestic publisher. In the 90s, they were republished in the Russian Federation, and in 2009 - in Ukraine, where the Research Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine recommends them to law enforcement specialists in a number of memoirs of other detective masters.

In film " Arkady Koshko - Genius of the Russian detective"

tells how Koshko managed to overcome corruption in the police and organize an investigation in a huge city in such a way that during the first three years of managerial activity in Moscow, he almost single-handedly dealt with all organized crime.The film is based on real criminal cases described by the author himself, as well as on the story of the achievements of the great Russian detective.

- public award

The public award reflects the recognition of society, its gratitude, to an individual person for a specific and invaluable contribution to the order, virtue and well-being of the citizens of their great country. ROOVOS "HONOR", at the December meeting of board members (minutes of December 13, 2006), approved a public award - the Order named after Arkady Frantsovich Koshko.

The Order is awarded for merit in the field of criminal investigation. Statute of the order: the order of A.F. Koshko is a multi-beam eight-pointed golden star. The star is a characteristic basis for awards in international faleristics, and the multi-beam 8-pointed star is the historically traditional form of many of the highest awards in Russia. In the center, framed by a golden laurel wreath, a symbol of glory, honor and merit, there is a silver relief portrait of A.F. Koshko. In the lower part, on a blue enamel ribbon, there is an inscription: "A.F. KOSHKO". In the upper part of the star there is a silver image of the coat of arms of Russia, the period of the late XIX-XX centuries. On the reverse side of the order there is a collet clip for attaching it to clothes and a number.

The minutes of the meeting of the ROO VOS "HONOR" dated April 25, 2007 approved the list of police officers awarded the order "A.F. Koshko" on the proposal of the leadership of the Department of Internal Affairs.

Order number one was awarded to Lieutenant General of Militia Pankin Vyacheslav Kirillovich, who went from an investigator in 1957 to the Deputy Governor of the Kursk region from 97-99. He has been awarded the Order of Glory and Friendship of the Peoples of the DRA, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Personal Courage, the Red Star, and numerous medals. Awarded with awards from foreign countries - Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia. Twice awarded with nominal weapons. Honored Worker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Corresponding member of the Academy of Economic Security of the Russian Federation. Honorary member of the sports society "Dynamo". Honorary citizen of the Kursk region. Cavalier of silver and gold badges of honor. Peter the Great, Order of E.V. Andropov, honorary title and badge "Knight of Science and Art". Honorary worker of state authorities and local self-government of the Kursk region.