In 1952, the reception office of Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, who at that time held the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, received a letter. Someone Efremenko, who lived in the city of Lvov and worked as a civilian worker at one of the construction sites of the Office of Military Construction No. 1, complained about the dishonesty of his superiors. The worker reported that the heads of the Military Construction Directorate collected money from civilian workers and employees to purchase government loan bonds, but the workers who handed over the money received the bonds for a much smaller amount. The complaint was quite common, but that it came to Kliment Voroshilov - Marshal of the Soviet Union, one of the most popular military leaders, who occupied in 1934-1940. the post of People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, was also not surprising. Many front-line soldiers, servicemen and people, one way or another connected with the army, wrote to Voroshilov. Did the simple civilian Efremenko know that his letter would help expose one of the most grandiose scams not only in Soviet, but also in world history?
Voroshilov's assistants forwarded the letter from Lviv to the "competent authorities", namely, to the military prosecutor's office of the Carpathian military district. Investigators determined that bond fraud did take place. They also found out that the Department of Military Construction No. 1 is headed by Colonel-Engineer Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, an order bearer. However, having studied the activities of UVS No. 1 more closely, the investigators were very surprised - there was no such military unit or institution in the troops of the Carpathian Military District.
Deciding that the department was directly subordinate to Moscow, the investigators passed the information on to their colleagues at the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office. Its employees sent a request to the USSR Ministry of Defense, trying to find out information about the subordination and deployment of the Military Construction Directorate No. 1.
Soon a reply came to the Main Military Prosecutor's Office from the USSR Ministry of Defense: there is no military unit in the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union with the name "Directorate of Military Development No. 1". Since the times were difficult and even the Ministry of Defense might not know all the details about the military facilities under construction, the military investigators were not particularly surprised this time, deciding that a secret facility was being built in the Carpathian Military District, supervised by the Ministry of State Security. But the Ministry of State Security of the USSR also replied that they had no idea what the "Directorate of Military Development No. 1" is. Alarmed investigators from the Main Military Prosecutor's Office sent a request to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The answer received was overwhelming: citizen Pavlenko is on the all-Union wanted list on suspicion of embezzling 339,326 rubles from the Plandorstroy artel's cash register.
Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko, who was listed as the head of the "Directorate of military construction No. 1" was born in 1912 in the village of Novye Sokoly, Kiev province. His father was a "strong master", as they would say now, and a "fist," as they said in Stalin's time. Maxim Pavlenko owned two mills, a wife and six children. In 1926, fourteen-year-old Kolya escaped from his father's house and made it to Minsk. So he managed to avoid the troubles that happened to his father - in the same year, Pavlenko Sr. was arrested as a "kulak". But this arrest had nothing to do with his son - young Nikolai Pavlenko began the life of a simple road worker in Minsk. He entered the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Belarusian State Polytechnic Institute, deciding to link his future fate with the construction of roads. But Nikolai managed to study at the university for only two years. When the institute became interested in his personality - and Nikolai not only attributed to himself an extra four years, calling his date of birth 1908, but also concealed his origin from the family of a repressed kulak - student Pavlenko chose to flee Minsk.
In 1935, Pavlenko was in the city of Efremov, Tula region. Here he got a job as a foreman of a road-building organization, but soon got caught in machinations. Pavlenko stole and sold building materials “to the left”. However, the criminal epic of the young brigadier in the harsh Stalinist time could not continue for a long time. Nikolai was arrested, but he literally immediately managed to extricate himself from an unpleasant story and achieve release from prison. Everything was very simple - Pavlenko agreed to cooperate with the NKVD and testified against the engineers Afanasyev and Volkov, who were arrested and convicted under a political article. Becoming an informant to the NKVD, Pavlenko received not only a reliable "roof" - he was given a "green start" to his career as a road builder. The young man was transferred to a prestigious job at Glavvoenstroy, where Pavlenko quickly grew from a foreman to the head of a construction site.
On June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began. By this time, Nikolai Pavlenko was working as the head of a section in Glavvoenstroy. He, like other young men, was drafted into military service on June 27, 1941. The construction specialist was appointed assistant chief of the engineering service of the 2nd Rifle Corps of the Western Special Military District - a good start for a military engineering career. However, already on July 24, 1941, the corps units, which had been badly damaged during the battles near Minsk, were taken to the Gzhatsk area. Nikolai Pavlenko in the spring of 1942 was transferred as an engineer to the airfield construction department of the headquarters of the 1st Air Army of the Western Front. But after leaving the old place of service, the officer never arrived at the location of the new unit. The truck with the driver Sergeant Shchegolev also disappeared.
Pavlenko and Shchegolev reached Kalinin (now Tver), where the relatives of the failed airfield builder lived. Here it was necessary to temporarily "go to the bottom" - desertion from the active army could entail the most dire consequences. However, after a short time, a wild and daring plan matured in Pavlenko's head. He decided to create his own military construction organization, fortunately, a very necessary accomplice was found - woodcarver Ludwig Rudnichenko, who had an artistic talent and was able to carve stamps with the inscriptions "Directorate of military construction" and "Site of military construction works." In the local printing house Pavlenko was able to illegally order several thousand forms, at the flea market to acquire a military uniform. The accomplices even found an empty building to house the Military Construction Directorate.
Such a scam seems fantastic even now. But during the war, when the country was militarized to the limit, there were many military units and institutions of the defense department, Pavlenko and his accomplices managed to remain undisclosed at the initial stage of the existence of "UVS No. 1". Then everything went smoothly. Pavlenko took the first construction contract from hospital No. 425 FEP-165 (front-line evacuation point). Contacts were also established with the Kalinin military registration and enlistment office. With the military commissar Pavlenko, he easily agreed that he would send soldiers and sergeants who were recognized as fit for non-combatant service to the Directorate of Military Development. So the "personnel" of the Directorate began to be replenished with real military personnel, who did not even suspect that instead of a military unit they ended up in the swindlers' project.
When the Kalinin Front ceased to exist, Nikolai Pavlenko quickly subordinated his organization to the 12th Air Base (RAB) of the 3rd Air Army. The Office of Military Development, created by an enterprising deserter, took up the construction of field airfields. What is most interesting, the work was really carried out, the airfields were built, and most of the money from this activity settled in the pockets of Pavlenko himself and several of his close associates.
The fictitious structure moved westward following the active army, earning money and constantly expanding its fleet of equipment. By the end of the war, the Military Construction Directorate numbered about 300 people, had its own firearms, motor vehicles and special construction equipment. The Pavlenkovites followed the formations of the belligerent army to East Prussia. Nikolai Pavlenko diligently maintained the appearance of real service in a real military organization - he presented his subordinates to orders and medals, and assigned them and himself regular military ranks. On February 28, 1945, the Military Council of the 4th Air Army awarded "Major" Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko with the Order of the Red Star. He was presented to this high award by an accomplice - a certain Tsyplakov, who led the FAS of the 12th RAB.
It is interesting that having earned more than a million Soviet rubles during the advancement to East Prussia, engaging in serious machinations, Pavlenko and his people did not disdain trivial criminality, first of all, looting on the territory of Germany occupied by Soviet troops. The investigation was able to establish that Pavlenko's people took away from the German civilian population 20 tractors and trailers, 20 cars, 50 cattle, 80 horses, as well as many household items, radios, sewing machines, carpets, not to mention clothing and food …
Pavlenko himself, however, in order to divert suspicions of managing looters from himself, even staged a demonstration execution, executing three of his henchmen. However, as it turned out later, it was Pavlenko who gave orders to rob the civilian population. After the victory, he ordered to take the plundered things, called trophies, and the property of his organization back to the Soviet Union. The swindlers needed 30 railway cars to fit all the "trophies" collected in Germany.
Returning to Kalinin, Pavlenko "retired" - bought a house, got married and even returned to work in the artel "Plandorstroy", where the "respected front-line soldier" was immediately elected chairman. But criminal romance and a thirst for money did not allow him to live in peace - having stolen 339,326 rubles from the cashier of the artel, Pavlenko disappeared. He went to the west of the USSR, to Chisinau, where he recreated his "Directorate of Military Construction No. 1" and continued to engage in construction, concluding contracts in the name of his fictitious organization. In 1951 Pavlenko conferred on himself the next military rank of colonel. If it were not for the "puncture" with bonds, it is not known how much more an enterprising swindler would lead the Soviet state by the nose.
Having questioned civilian workers of the UVS-1 construction site from Lvov, the investigators managed to establish that the headquarters of the strange military unit was located in Chisinau. On November 14, 1952, operatives went to the capital of the Moldavian SSR. During the search at the UVS, 0 submachine guns, 21 carbines, 3 light machine guns, 19 pistols and revolvers, 5 grenades, 3,000 rounds of ammunition were seized, as well as false passports, stamps, IDs, letterheads and other documents. The state security authorities arrested more than 300 people, among whom 50 people presented themselves as military personnel - officers, sergeants, and privates. On November 23, 1952, Nikolai Maksimovich Pavlenko himself was detained. During a search in the "colonel's" office, they found new shoulder straps of the major general - it is obvious that the head of UVS-1 was planning to assign himself a general's rank in the near future.
Investigators were shocked - in just four years UVS-1 signed 64 fictitious contracts for construction work for a total of 38 million rubles. Pavlenko managed to acquire contacts at the very top of the Moldavian SSR. It took the investigation two years to collect all the evidence, to study all the episodes of the activities of Pavlenko and his accomplices. On November 10, 1954, the trial began against 17 members of the Pavlenko gang, who were accused of undermining state industry, participating in a counter-revolutionary organization and sabotage. On April 4, 1955, Nikolai Pavlenko was sentenced to death and soon shot. His accomplices received various terms of imprisonment - from 5 to 20 years, lost orders, medals and titles.
Many modern historians believe that without the patronage of the state security bodies, Pavlenko could not have been able to run a fictitious organization for ten years, from 1942 to 1952, that carried out real activities and managed hundreds of employees and workers. It is possible that the connections of the enterprising false colonel extended much higher than those several Moldovan deputy ministers and heads of departments who were fired after UVS-1 was exposed.
