The era of "black offices" in Russia is usually associated with the period of the 17th-19th centuries, when a whole staff of employees worked for secret state needs. Moreover, they were highly qualified professionals in their field. They had to not only quietly open and read the contents of the envelopes, but also fight specific tricks. So, in the postal correspondence of those years, they practiced traditional wax and wax seals, sewing the contours of writing with threads, as well as more sophisticated techniques - inserting a special inconspicuous artifact, for example, a thin hair. An inexperienced percussionist might not have noticed that when the envelope was opened, the hair fell out, but the recipient was thus notified of the discrediting of the message. It was not uncommon to find a double package of correspondence, when inside one large envelope there was another one, in which especially valuable information was hidden. And this is not to mention the possibility of thorough encryption of correspondence, especially international correspondence.
All this forced to put the most educated and talented people of their time at the head of such "intelligence" departments. One of these was the Russian academician, a native of Germany Franz Ulrich Theodosius Epinus, who managed to distinguish himself with serious research in physics, mathematics, chemistry and astronomy. In addition, Epinus taught physics and mathematics to Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, and also taught physics, astronomy and anatomy to Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich until the student's 25th birthday. At the same time, the scientist was appointed to the College of Foreign Affairs as the head of the encryption service, in which he worked from 1765 to 1797.
It is noteworthy that most researchers of the history of encryption agree that there are no genuine portraits of Epinus - the existing versions depict false Epinus. The main motives in choosing a scientist to be the head of such a serious department were remarkable mathematical abilities in deciphering, personal devotion to the empress, and also the status of a bachelor. The latter was especially important - the spouse often became a channel for leakage of classified information. Epinus had a lot of work in a new field - all incoming and outgoing foreign correspondence was subject to decryption. In some periods, the department worked in several shifts around the clock.
The difficulties encountered by the decoders of the "black offices" is clearly demonstrated by Epinus's letter to Catherine, who was dissatisfied with the delays in decryption:
“This work requires: A) Inspiration to solve. It follows from this that not all days and hours are such, but only those when, as they say, you are in tune and inspired. If you want to achieve something in the absence of such a mood (and how often it is absent!) To achieve something by force, but you work unsuccessfully, you lose confidence in yourself and acquire a disgust for business. And then any hope of achieving anything at all turns out to be in vain. B) Very hard work of thought. And if you fruitfully, depending on the circumstances, used two, three, maximum four hours out of twenty-four, the rest of the day is lost. The powers of the mind are exhausted, its acuity has dulled, and a person is not capable of either this or any other work."
It was aerobatics of the work of "black offices", but there was enough work at the lower levels as well. The staff was obliged to have a cryptographer-decryptor, a specialist in opening packages, an agent for intercepting mail, a translator, an engraver, a seal counterfeiter, a "printer" and a simulator of handwriting, as well as a chemist. The latter was responsible for deciphering steganographic texts, that is, written in invisible ink. Historical chronicles left us with the correspondence of the first head of the perlustration service, Alexei Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin, with the St. Petersburg post-director Friedrich Asch at the beginning of 1744. They discussed the problem of creating an analogue of the seal of the Austrian ambassador Baron Neuhaus, on which a certain carver named Buy was working. In the correspondence, Ash justifies the delay in the production of the seal with the printer's illness, and in response he receives an order "the carver to cut these seals with the best diligence, for the current Neigauz is not very good skill." In general, seal carvers were a kind of elite of the perlustration service. And the empress paid special attention to attracting exclusively immigrants from Russia to such filigree work. Elizabeth bluntly said that the carver's office must be isolated, provided with security and seals with tools after the "change". Over time, even the engravers of the Academy of Sciences were involved in such an important work.
It was not always possible to open and read foreign mail in the "black offices" without evidence. The embassies knew very well about the work of the Russian special services and created many obstacles to their work. So, following the results of processing dispatches to Berlin, Friedrich Asch again had to make excuses to Bestuzhev-Ryumin:
“… on the letters, the thread was thus confirmed that the glue from the steam of boiling water, over which I held the letter for several hours, could not dissolve in any way and could not lag behind. And the glue that was under the seals (which I skillfully removed), however, did not dissolve. Consequently, to my great condolences, I did not find any way to print these letters without completely tearing the covers. And so I sealed these packs and was forced to send the staff on its way …"
Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin - the father of "black offices"
One-time actions to intercept the correspondence of foreign ambassadors and ciphers were quite common in the Russian Empire. The story of the French Major General Duc de Fallari, who was sent on a secret mission in 1739, became famous. They seized him in Riga and during a search they found the keys to the codes, as well as a lot of strategically important information for the Russian throne. However, it was far from systematic work in this area; a lot of important information passed by the state.
The management of the new service for intercepting mail, decrypting and reading was entrusted to the Russian figure, count and diplomat Alexei Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin. There is no exact date for the organization of the new office, but it was roughly at the beginning of 1742, when the count received the post of chief director of the Russian Post Office. The fate of the first chief of the "black offices" was close in intensity to the best adventure stories. He was sentenced to death only twice, but each time he replaced the capital punishment with exile. Alexey Petrovich began his career with training in Germany and England, and then worked in the diplomatic consulates of Copenhagen and Hamburg. 1744-1758 became the real peak of Bestuzhev-Ryumin's career - he became the head of government, or chancellor, under Elizaveta Petrovna. Bestuzhev-Ryumin did not have any specific skills in cryptography or perlustration - he was a typical effective manager in the best sense of the word. In fact, from the first months of the work of the "black offices", especially important translations of correspondence between foreign diplomatic departments went to the table of Empress Elizabeth. Until now, the archives have preserved thick folders with neatly filed documents bearing the note "Her Imperial Majesty has deigned to listen." And the empress listened to the correspondence of "the English minister Veitch in St. Petersburg to Milord Carterst in Hanover and the Duke of Newcastle" or "the Holstein minister Pekhlin in Sweden to the Holstein chief marshal Brimmer in St. Petersburg."
But in the first years of the work of the "black offices", Russian perlustrators did not have the very important skill of deciphering foreign letters. They could open them, they could translate them, they could copy and forge them, but with breaking the codes it was bad business. This is how they directly wrote in the translations: "Then five pages were written in ciphers …" The times when Peter the Great wrote ciphers almost with his own hand and broke enemy codes are over. In the middle of the 18th century, this glaring flaw of the Russian special services needed to be eliminated as soon as possible - after all, it was in such encrypted paragraphs that the main meaning of the correspondence was hidden. They needed a person capable of organizing a cryptographic service and raising a galaxy of followers. For this role, according to Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Christian Goldbach, a scientist invited from Europe, was perfectly suited. He was an unremarkable mathematician who was interested in number theory and actively corresponded with great researchers. But one of his letters went down in history forever. In it, he presented the "Goldbach problem" to the court of Leonardo Euler:
"Any whole number greater than or equal to six can be represented as the sum of three primes."
Until now, no one has been able to provide an adequate proof of this conjecture, and many mathematicians believe that it is generally unprovable. "Goldbach's problem" dates back to 1742, it was in this year that Elizaveta Petrovna's decree was signed on the appointment of a mathematician to a "special position." Since then, the whole life of Christian Goldbach was devoted to cryptanalysts for the benefit of the Russian Empire. The first cipher that was broken was the code of Baron Neuhaus, the Austrian ambassador in St. Petersburg. The seal was forged a little later in 1744, and in 1743 they learned to read the Austrian cipher. The most resonant was the autopsy a year later of the correspondence of the Ambassador Extraordinary Louis XIII, the Marquis de la Chetardie, information from which was of strategic importance for the country. All the work of the Frenchman, as it turned out, was aimed at preventing the rapprochement of Russia with the European allies Austria and England. It is noteworthy that Bestuzhev-Ryumin, an ardent supporter of an alliance with these countries, was to fall one of the first in this matter. And de la Chetardie did a lot. He wove skillful intrigues and was even able to discredit Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin's brother in the eyes of the empress. Only Christian Goldbach's cryptographic talent could save the day. The mathematician worked a lot and literally in the first couple of years was able to break the codes of foreign ambassadors Dalion, Wachmeister and Kastelian. To assess the importance of Goldbach for the Russian crown, you can use the following example: in 1760, the scientist received the status of a privy councilor with an incredible annual salary of 4.5 thousand rubles. But the much more talented Leonard Euler, who entered the world history of science at the Russian court, was never awarded such a high title. And, by the way, reliable images of Christian Goldbach, like Franz Ulrich Theodosius Epinus, were also not found.
