We talked about Pichuga - an influential thief in law who was called the shadow governor of the Komi Republic. However, in his life and close there were no such sharp turns, such ups and downs, as in Heinrich Sechkin, nicknamed Seka. The son of the capital's intellectuals, he was left an orphan and went through the harsh Stalinist camps. He stood at the wall and went on the run. He was a real thief in law - but years later Khrushchev and Brezhnev expressed gratitude to him, and his song "Wait, steam locomotive" from the famous "Operation Y" was sung by the whole country. And this is not all that fits into the life of one person ...

School gateway

Genrikh Sechkin was born on April 10, 1933 in Moscow. He spent his childhood in the courtyards of the Patriarch's Ponds: the family lived in Trekhprudny Lane. The boy's parents (Jews by nationality) belonged to the capital's intelligentsia - Sechkin Sr.was a violinist, and Henry's mother worked in. Against the background of their neighbors, the Sechkins looked like "white crows": quarrels in the family were rare, and there were no noisy feasts. The vodka coupons, so valuable to many, were burned by the Sechkins as unnecessary in a stove. There was no question of selling coupons: the image of hucksters plunged the parents of the future thief into horror.

According to the memoirs of Genrikh Sechkin, he first learned the taste of money at the beginning of the war after his grandmother came to him with his mother (his father volunteered for the front in 1941). The old woman brought with her a modest basket covered with an inconspicuous rag. However, the curious boy nevertheless decided to check the contents of his relative's luggage and came across a lot of money there. Their origin was a mystery: according to one version, the money was saved by a thrifty old woman.

Taking advantage of the inattention of an elderly relative, the student began to steal bills on the sly. Moreover, he spent part of the money on drying, not being greedy and treating his friends and classmates with them, and he gave part of it to his mother. To all the questions of the parent, they say, where he got it, he simply answered - he found it. However, all the secret quickly becomes clear: Henry was caught stealing, severely punished and denied access to the cherished basket. Sechkin's classmates, who were accustomed to the bounties of the student, did not believe in his unexpected impoverishment, which greatly offended the boy.

The basket brought by the grandmother helped the family for some time, but, unfortunately, it soon became empty. Hungry times came, which my mother did not survive: in 1945, a woman died of hunger. The father never returned from the front, the grandmother also died, and at the age of 13, Heinrich was left an orphan. After the war, Moscow streets were flooded with homeless children, including Sechkin. At that time, the help of underage street dwellers was shamelessly used by hardened criminals: posing as wise patrons, they sent children to steal for a percentage of the stolen money and things. Heinrich was caught on one of these walkers in 1947. A 14-year-old teenager was tried and sent to a "youngster".

Shot for fun

Pleased with the young convict in a specialized colony, where Komsomol activists were engaged in the re-education of juvenile criminals. However, Henry did not want to join the ranks of ideological communists. When the jailers asked about his identity, the boy invariably answered - a thief. For which he received in full: the intractable prisoner was put in a wooden bedside table, tightly closed and pushed down the stairs.

Already at a young age, Sechkin had a chance to fight with bitches - prisoners who did not recognize the thieves' code and collaborated with the prison administration. He more than once recalled the tactics of the jailers to destroy the recalcitrant: they were put in a bough cell, and later carried out from there with their feet. Heinrich also visited such cells. He could always stand up for himself, but in one of the runs he was beaten so hard that his arm was broken. But Seka, and this time did not remain in debt and bit off one of the attackers part of the nose. After that, even experienced bitches began to shun him.

Frame: the film "Burnt by the Korean Sun"

By the way, Henry had to show his fortitude more than once. Once he ended up in a colony, where they deliberately broke the most intractable and conflicting crime bosses. Sechkin recalled how, upon arriving at this mournful place, he drew attention to one hardened thief, whom he had previously known. There was nothing left of the impudent and aggressive criminal who, when attempting a mass escape, threw himself at the machine gunners with a knife: a morally broken and frightened man stood in front of Sechkin. Why such a metamorphosis happened to his acquaintance, Henry quickly understood - he also had to go through the merciless pressure of the guards and the convicts under their control.

One of the tests that fell to Sechkin's lot was a staged execution. The thief in law and other prisoners were put up against the wall. The last thing Heinrich saw, before he was blindfolded, was a line of submachine gunners twisting the breeches. The authority said goodbye to life, but the bullets whizzed over the heads of the "condemned". Despite the horror he experienced, Sechkin survived here and did not lose his fortitude.

On bunks for a loaf of sausage

After his first term, Henry left the prison dungeons in 1950, without betraying his convictions: no matter how hard the Komsomol members tried, the guy never joined their ranks. But at large, he was expected to be exiled 101 kilometers away. Finding himself far from Moscow, Sechkin tried to find a job, but in vain - from the documents he had only a certificate of release, looking at which the employers as one answered with a refusal.

The hungry and frozen young man, in a fit of despair, went to the railway tracks and, resting his head on the rail, began to wait for the train. However, at the moment when the rails were already trembling from the clatter of the wheels, Sechkin stepped aside: as Genrikh later recalled, he was forced to do this by the suddenly arisen image of his mother.

After recovering from shock, he went to the nearest station, where he noticed a woman with a stick of raw smoked sausage sticking out of her bag. Without giving an account of his actions, the hungry Heinrich grabbed the sausage and immediately began to eat. The citizen, outraged by such impudence, raised a cry, and the guardians of the order arrived in time to tackle the thief.

Soon the trial took place and Heinrich again went to the stage. Once in one of the camps located in the Komi Republic, he became friends with the thief in law Yuri Bizenkov, nicknamed Bizon. A new friend and another thief (Vitya), who had heard about Sechkin's adherence to principles in the bitch war, with the knowledge of Moscow thieves, crowned the newcomer and gave him the nickname Seka.

Eaten fugitive

Soon after their coronation, Seka and Bison conspired to escape. In March 1952, while working in felling, they managed, unnoticed by the supervisors, to cut out niches in the thick trunks of felled spruce, where they hid. After that, the accomplices carefully covered the niches with bark and loaded the trunks onto the timber truck.

In their hiding places, Seka and Bizon reached the river, along which it was supposed to raft the trunks, and as soon as the car stopped, they got out and disappeared into the forest. We walked at random and quickly got lost. But the worst was ahead: waking up one morning, Sechkin discovered that only a leg remained of Bison - everything else was eaten by the wolves that attacked the man. Why the animals did not touch Henry himself, remained a mystery to him.

There was another version of Bizenkov's death - Genrikh Sechkin himself described it in his book "On the Edge of Despair": allegedly after three weeks of wandering through the forest, he and Bizon realized that the two of them would not survive and decided to cast lots. Fortune smiled at Henry: Yuri, according to the agreement, thrust a knife into his neck so that his friend would eat it and survive. However, it is still unknown whether this is true or fictional fiction to give the work a special edge.

Be that as it may, and after the death of a friend, the fugitive wandered around more often for several more days until the moment when he was finally overtaken by the pursuit. But in the case of Henry, who was already on the verge of insanity, it was a real stroke of luck: otherwise he would surely have died of hunger and cold. They threw him several more years for escaping.

Let go in peace

Released in 1956, 23-year-old Sechkin arrived in Moscow. By this time, he realized that he was fed up with thug romance. The soul of the young man lay in music. However, Seke's dream of a music school was hampered by a lack of education - there were only five school classes behind him. Having got a job as a locksmith, Sechkin went to receive a certificate of maturity in an evening school, during which he mastered playing the guitar.

By this time, he settled in one of the capital's hostels and tormented his neighbors at night: he locked himself in the toilet or in the bathroom, where he tirelessly, sometimes all night long, learned the chords. Such perseverance bore fruit: soon Sechkin went to work at the Moscow Drama Theater and became a laureate of several music competitions, gaining fame in the capital's guitarists' community. He began teaching and soon, together with his students, created an ensemble.

In connection with such changes in his life, Henry decided to quit his career as a thief. Surprisingly, at a meeting where he announced his desire to part with the title of thief in law, the authorities granted his request without any sanctions. Sechkin himself explained this simply: in those days, the rules of the thieves 'world were more humane and did not imply any punishment for those who decided to leave the thieves' family for non-compromising reasons.

Anyone who expressed such a desire was released in peace, except that he had all the thieves' privileges, with the exception of the right to participate in gatherings. When entering the zone, the former thief became a man - an ordinary prisoner. Nowadays, the refusal of authority from the title of thieves is punishable by death.

Shlyager for Nikulin

Carried away by music, Sechkin began to write poetry, and he himself put them to music. His most famous work was the song "Wait, a steam locomotive", which sounded in the cult comedy "Operation" Y "performed by Yuri Nikulin.

Frame: the film "Operation" Y "and other adventures of Shurik"

However, for the authorship of this song, Sechkin had to fight in absentia with another former thief in law - the no less charismatic Nikolai Ivanovsky. Surprisingly, Ivanovsky at one time, just like Sechkin, managed to disown the caste of thieves and chose a peaceful life.

Ivanovsky, like Sechkin, started out dashingly: a native of Leningrad during the war years was evacuated to the Kirov region, where at the age of 14 he ended up in the zone for stealing pigeons. Having barely freed himself in 1943, Nikolai again went on trial - this time - for hooliganism. But he did not make it to the colony, having escaped from the train at the stage with his accomplices. This was his first of five escapes, one of which Ivanovsky, being already a hardened recidivist, managed to make from the famous St. Petersburg prison "Kresty".

Ivanovsky returned from the last trip in 1953. Once free, Nikolai decided to give up crime forever - and in some incredible way, despite his rich criminal past, got a job as the head of the lighting engineering workshop. In between work, Ivanovsky performed songs of his own composition, one of which, according to him, was "Wait, steam locomotive." However, most researchers still attribute the authorship of the hit to Sechkin.

By the way, there is another version of the origin of the hit: it was allegedly written in pre-revolutionary times, when there was officially such a position - brake conductor (the song contains the phrase: Conductor, press the brakes). It was abolished long before Sechkin and Ivanovsky began to write poetry. Therefore, it was assumed that the song was written by someone who caught the work of "nerdy". However, this version did not receive wide distribution.

From princes to dirt

Sechkin's musical career developed rapidly: he visited many Russian cities on tour, repeatedly tried to go abroad, but the authorities did not allow him to do this - after all, he had three convictions behind him - you never know. Sechkin's only trip abroad was a voyage to the United States - after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Henry went overseas as an ordinary tourist.

However, even without world tours, Sechkin was in demand at home: he often performed on the radio and even in the Kremlin Palace. He was twice awarded a high honor for those times - after performing at a concert dedicated to the 16th Komsomol Congress, Secretary Nikita Khrushchev himself expressed gratitude to Henry, and several years later personally presented the former thief in law with an award for winning the next music competition.

And at that moment, Sechkin's life unexpectedly took a new sharp turn: in 1982, after a denunciation, he was detained and accused of possessing and distributing pornography. During a search in Heinrich's house, the militiamen did indeed find several videotapes. But no matter how hard the lawyers of the former thief tried to prove that the 10-second episode with the demonstration of a naked female body in a feature film did not in any way attract a forbidden genre, it was all in vain. The judge sent Sechkin to the prison for six years with confiscation of property.

At the same time, all the guitarist's performances were removed from rotation on the radio, and the television crew was also banned from broadcasting his performances. Of course, all these decisions were very biased: Sechkin, who fell out of favor, was reminded of his criminal past.

During the time while Heinrich was serving time, his wife Tatyana left him, with whom they had been married for 20 years. Sechkin's 14-year-old son was raised by his stepfather for some time: soon after the divorce, Tatiana remarried, but, as it turned out, extremely unsuccessful. The new spouse drank a lot, used drugs and beat the woman. After the spouse chased Tatyana with an ax, she left him, but it was too late: the scoundrel managed to add drugs to his stepson, and he ended up in prison.

Soon after Sechkin's 29-year-old son was released, he was killed. Until the end of his days, Henry was sure that the secret services were involved in the death of his son, with whom the young man, who did not introduce himself as an informer, categorically refused to cooperate. Sechkin himself, who almost died in the zone - a cellmate tried to poison him - was released in 1986.

He could no longer play the guitar: in the colony, the convoy handcuffed the prisoner's right hand with handcuffs - three fingers have not functioned since then. However, Sechkin did not succumb to despondency: loyal friends helped with the money for the first time, they also gave him an old "Kopeyka". Heinrich first worked as a taxi driver, but then the creative nature still made itself felt - the former thief became a writer and journalist in various media.

From under the pen of Sechkin came out stories, including the biographical "On the brink of despair" and "Behind the barbed wire." Based on one of the works, a script was written (it was later highly appreciated by the writer) for the film "Love in the Zone". Unfortunately, Sechkin never managed to find money to start filming. But after several years of hard work, the writer completely paid off his debts and acquired his own housing.

The vicissitudes of fate

However, as soon as Sechkin's life got better, fate again played a cruel joke with him. In the late 1980s, Genrikh bought tires for his Moskvich from his hands - by the way, in addition to music and writing, he was fond of car racing. Ironically, the tires were stolen. At first, Heinrich went on the case as a witness, but he himself did not notice how he turned into a suspect.

And this happened almost immediately after the investigator found out that in front of him there was a person who had been convicted four times. At first, Sechkin was accused of buying tires, knowing that they were stolen. And then he was completely "caught" in incitement to theft. As a result, Sechkin sat down for the fifth time - he received two years of imprisonment in a strict regime colony.

Heinrich was sitting in the Chelyabinsk region. The former thief in law had no problems with convicts. On the contrary, Sechkin was highly respected among the prisoners. Having found out that Heinrich is a fan of the work of Vladimir Vysotsky, some of the inmates, risking being shot on the spot, secretly made their way into the neighboring barracks, where their comrades in misfortune dictated to them the works of the bard they knew.

This is how the manuscript of the book of songs and poems of Vysotsky was compiled from 218 works. Then the prisoners for two months climbed the drainpipe into the office of the camp commander and filled in a text on a typewriter - so they said behind bars. The collection, created in such an incredible way, was presented to Sechkin for his birthday.

Genrikh Sechkin passed away on May 5, 2009. He managed to remarry a girl who was 42 years younger than him. In this marriage, he had a son - his father at the time of the birth of the child was 65 years old. Until his last days, Sechkin tried to achieve justice and rehabilitate himself for the last two convictions. The former thief reasoned as follows: in the first three trips he was guilty - there are no complaints here, and those, through whose fault he was forced to “trample the zone,” being innocent, must answer for two trumped-up terms.

About the most terrible organized criminal groups of the dashing 90s and about the past and present of thieves in the law of the USSR and Russia. You can ask questions to the author by e-mail [email protected] The most interesting of them, together with the answers, will be published.

SECHKIN Henry Solomonovich (04/10/1933 - 05/05/2009) - guitarist, music teacher, publicist, writer. Member of the Union of Journalists of Russia. Twice, in 1965 and 1966, he was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the Laureate of the International Festival of Music of the Peoples of Latin America. He worked at Mosconcert, on radio and television. Arranged musical pieces for guitar. He was a music reviewer for the newspaper "Soviet Culture", the author of numerous musical reviews in magazines and in the newspaper "Soviet Culture". In 1970 he was elected chairman of the Creative Association of Moscow guitarists. References to the activities of G.S. Sechkin are in the books "Guitar in Russia" (Muzgiz, Leningrad, 1961), "Guitar and Guitarists" (Music, Leningrad, 1968), "Classical Guitar in Russia and the USSR" (Russian Encyclopedia, 1992), as well as in magazines " Musical Life "(1969) and" Gita-rist "(1999). Sechkin's creative biography was published in musical reference books published in Poland and Germany - "Leksykon Gitary" (Krakow, 1979), "Gitarren-Lexikon" (Berlin, 1979). In Boris Volman's book "Guitar in Russia" (an essay on the history of guitar art), Sechkin's name was named among the most talented and promising guitarists: "Among the new generation of Soviet guitarists-Muscovites, there are many people with great performing abilities: E D. Larichev, G. S. Sechkin, D. M. Berezovsky, S. A. Orekhov and others. " In 1986, due to muscle spasms in his right arm, Sechkin stopped his musical activity. Then, from 1991 to 2004, he worked as a correspondent for Yuridicheskaya Gazeta, published in Moskovsky Komsomolets, Arguments and Facts, Ogonyok, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Molodezhny Courier (Cheboksary) and others, as well as in the magazine Kaleido Osprey (USA). He published autobiographical books "Behind the Barbed Wire" and "On the Edge of Despair", which, in his own words, "about the enormous moral potential inherent in the human soul, which helps to get out of the most hopeless quagmire", and also published a number of novellas, essays and stories. Based on his story, a film script "Love in the Zone" was written, which received high reviews from writers Arkady Vayner and Viktor Dotsenko, as well as the leading masters of the domestic cinematographer, film directors Georgy Danelia, Georgy Natanson, composer Eugene Doga, actors Yuri Solomin, Natalia Varley , Mikhail Kokshenov and others. The fate of G.S. Sechkina did not develop easily, she is full of drama and severe life trials. He was born in an intelligent Moscow Jewish family and at first nothing foreshadowed the events through which he was destined to go. But in 1941 the war began and my father volunteered for the front, and my mother died of hunger in 1945, after which Henry remained on the street and became a homeless child, and then a thief. Subsequently - five times convicted "thief in law" (the last two times undeservedly convicted on trumped-up charges). Only thanks to a great desire, willpower and perseverance did he manage to break with the past, turn the course of his life and, with a five-grade education, first become a recognized musician, and then a respected and honored guitar teacher, writer and journalist. In 1956, at the age of 23, with already three convictions behind him, G. Sechkin, miraculously freed from prison, came to Moscow and got a job at the Moscow Automobile Plant named after Stalin (now named after Likhachev). He worked as a locksmith, driller, assembler, handyman. Realizing his old dream, he began to study at the evening music school in the guitar class with the teacher Lyudmila Vasilievna Akishina. I had to replace the seven-string guitar with a six-string guitar, the possibilities of which turned out to be immeasurably wider, and also to forget the wrong self-taught skills acquired in prison and start learning from scratch. He persistently mastered not only practice, but also the theory of music and comprehended musical science. Persistent daily long-term practical lessons on the instrument bore fruit, and within a few months Genrikh Sechkin was invited to work as a guitarist at the Moscow Drama Theater. Already at this time, taking part in numerous amateur concerts, he included in his repertoire works by Bach, Paganini, Mozart that were unexpected for amateur guitarists of that time. After leaving the factory, G.S. Sechkin devoted himself entirely to music. Passed certification at the Ministry of Culture, and received a certificate of the artist of the first category. He began to actively engage in professional concert activities: he worked as a musician in the Neapolitan Orchestra of the All-Union Radio. Along with touring trips, he dubbed radio broadcasts, appeared on television programs, and made arrangements for musical compositions for guitar. Since 1958 he taught guitar at the State School of Circus and Variety Art and in the All-Russian Creative Workshop of Variety Art. With his participation, the first pop program of this workshop, "Once in a Life Is Eighteen Years," was released, which was successfully performed on the stage of the Variety Theater. At the same time, G. Sechkin taught a guitar class at the Moscow House of Culture. Chkalov, later creating a self-made ensemble from his guitarist students. In 1959, the first concert of this group took place, and after some time the ensemble of guitarists of the Chkalov House of Culture, created and directed by him, received the title of laureate of the All-Union Andreev Competition. In 1965 and 1966, the ensemble and its leader twice in a row became laureates of the International Festival of Music of the Peoples of Latin America. In the book by B. Volman "Guitar and Guitarists", published in 1968 by the publishing house "Muzyka", the talent of Genrikh Sechkin as an energetic leader of a guitar ensemble is especially noted. Over time, the collective began to be invited to the most important, all-Union scale, concerts. His performances take place in the Kremlin Theater, in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. In 1961, at the Luzhniki Sports Palace at the final concert dedicated to the Fifth World Congress of Trade Unions, G. Sechkin personally congratulated N.S. Khrushchev, and after a concert dedicated to the XVI Congress of the Komsomol - L.I. Brezhnev. As a member and then chairman of the Creative Association of Moscow Guitarists, and realizing that with any theoretical basis, Soviet guitarists are stewed in their own juice, Genrikh Sechkin was directly involved in negotiations with the Ministry of Culture on organizing tours of the best foreign musicians in the Soviet Union. At the same time, he carried on creative correspondence with many prominent guitarists in Argentina, England, Spain, Germany and other countries. Thus, thanks in no small part to his personal efforts, such musicians as Maria Luisa Anido, John Williams, Nicholas Alfonso, Siegfried Berend and others began to come to us with concerts. Genrikh Sechkin reviewed the performances of each of them in the newspaper "Soviet Culture", with each of the musicians he organized a meeting for the guitarists of Moscow. At that time, a guitarist could only get an education in the scope of a music school. The only guitar class in Moscow at the Conservatory School was overcrowded. Many leaders of amateur guitar clubs had no idea about musical notation and taught students directly "from their hands". Therefore, Genrikh Sechkin, together with his colleagues, organized two-year advanced training courses for teachers-guitarists of Moscow clubs at the Moscow City House of Folk Art, inviting the most famous music theorists in the country as teachers. After a while, also not without his participation, after a long break, the guitar class resumed work at the Music School named after the October Revolution. The heyday of the guitar in the USSR is called this period in foreign music publications. Heinrich Sechkin was repeatedly invited on tours to foreign countries, but none of them took place, since the Ministry of Culture did not dare to let the four-time convicted person go abroad. Already after the collapse of the USSR, G.S. Sechkin visited the United States of America and three times in Israel, but not as a musician, but as a writer and tourist.

OPTION 2

SECHKIN Genrikh Solomonovich (born 1933) - guitarist, music teacher, publicist, writer. Member of the Union of Journalists of Russia. Twice, in 1965 and 1966, he was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the Laureate of the International Festival of Music of the Peoples of Latin America. He worked at Mosconcert, on radio and television. Arranged musical pieces for guitar. He was a music reviewer for the newspaper "Soviet Culture", the author of numerous musical reviews in magazines and in the newspaper "Soviet Culture". In 1970 he was elected chairman of the Creative Association of Moscow guitarists.

References to the activities of G.S. Sechkin are in the books "Guitar in Russia" (Muzgiz, Leningrad, 1961), "Guitar and Guitarists" (Music, Leningrad, 1968), "Classical Guitar in Russia and the USSR" (Russian Encyclopedia, 1992), as well as in magazines " Musical Life "(1969) and" Gita-rist "(1999). Sechkin's creative biography was published in musical reference books published in Poland and Germany - "Leksykon Gitary" (Krakow, 1979), "Gitarren-Lexikon" (Berlin, 1979). In Boris Volman's book "Guitar in Russia" (an essay on the history of guitar art), Sechkin's name was named among the most talented and promising guitarists: "Among the new generation of Soviet guitarists-Muscovites, there are many people with great performing abilities: E D. Larichev, G. S. Sechkin, D. M. Berezovsky, S. A. Orekhov and others. "

In 1986, due to muscle spasms in his right arm, Sechkin stopped his musical activity. Then, from 1991 to 2004, he worked as a correspondent for Yuridicheskaya Gazeta, published in Moskovsky Komsomolets, Arguments and Facts, Ogonyok, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Molodezhny Courier (Cheboksary) and others, as well as in the magazine Kaleido Osprey (USA). He published autobiographical books "Behind the Barbed Wire" and "On the Edge of Despair", which, in his own words, "about the enormous moral potential inherent in the human soul, which helps to get out of the most hopeless quagmire", and also published a number of novellas, essays and stories. Based on his story, a film script "Love in the Zone" was written, which received high reviews from writers Arkady Vayner and Viktor Dotsenko, as well as the leading masters of the domestic cinematographer, film directors Georgy Danelia, Georgy Natanson, composer Eugene Doga, actors Yuri Solomin, Natalia Varley , Mikhail Kokshenov, etc.

The fate of G.S. Sechkina did not develop easily, she is full of drama and severe life trials. He was born in an intelligent Moscow Jewish family and at first nothing foreshadowed the events through which he was destined to go. But in 1941 the war began and my father volunteered for the front, and my mother died of hunger in 1945, after which Henry remained on the street and became a homeless child, and then a thief. Subsequently - five times convicted "thief in law" (the last two times undeservedly convicted on trumped-up charges). Only thanks to a great desire, willpower and perseverance did he manage to break with the past, turn the course of his life and, with a five-grade education, first become a recognized musician, and then a respected and honored guitar teacher, writer and journalist.

In 1956, at the age of 23, with already three convictions behind him, G. Sechkin, miraculously freed from prison, came to Moscow and got a job at the Moscow Automobile Plant named after Stalin (now named after Likhachev). He worked as a locksmith, driller, assembler, handyman. Realizing his old dream, he began to study at the evening music school in the guitar class with the teacher Lyudmila Vasilievna Akishina. I had to replace the seven-string guitar with a six-string guitar, the possibilities of which turned out to be immeasurably wider, and also to forget the wrong self-taught skills acquired in prison and start learning from scratch. He persistently mastered not only practice, but also the theory of music and comprehended musical science. Persistent daily long-term practical lessons on the instrument bore fruit, and within a few months Genrikh Sechkin was invited to work as a guitarist at the Moscow Drama Theater. Already at this time, taking part in numerous amateur concerts, he included in his repertoire works by Bach, Paganini, Mozart that were unexpected for amateur guitarists of that time.

After leaving the factory, G.S. Sechkin devoted himself entirely to music. Passed certification at the Ministry of Culture, and received a certificate of the artist of the first category. He began to actively engage in professional concert activities: he worked as a musician in the Neapolitan Orchestra of the All-Union Radio. Along with touring trips, he dubbed radio broadcasts, appeared on television programs, and made arrangements for musical compositions for guitar. Since 1958 he taught guitar at the State School of Circus and Variety Art and in the All-Russian Creative Workshop of Variety Art. With his participation, the first pop program of this workshop, "Once in a Life Is Eighteen Years," was released, which was successfully performed on the stage of the Variety Theater.

At the same time, G. Sechkin taught a guitar class at the Moscow House of Culture. Chkalov, later creating a self-made ensemble from his guitarist students. In 1959, the first concert of this group took place, and after some time the ensemble of guitarists of the Chkalov House of Culture, created and directed by him, received the title of laureate of the All-Union Andreev Competition. In 1965 and 1966, the ensemble and its leader twice in a row became laureates of the International Festival of Music of the Peoples of Latin America. In the book by B. Volman "Guitar and Guitarists", published in 1968 by the publishing house "Muzyka", the talent of Genrikh Sechkin as an energetic leader of a guitar ensemble is especially noted. Over time, the collective began to be invited to the most important, all-Union scale, concerts. His performances take place in the Kremlin Theater, in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. In 1961, at the Luzhniki Sports Palace at the final concert dedicated to the Fifth World Congress of Trade Unions, G. Sechkin personally congratulated N.S. Khrushchev, and after a concert dedicated to the XVI Congress of the Komsomol - L.I. Brezhnev.

As a member and then chairman of the Creative Association of Moscow Guitarists, and realizing that with any theoretical basis, Soviet guitarists are stewed in their own juice, Genrikh Sechkin was directly involved in negotiations with the Ministry of Culture on organizing tours of the best foreign musicians in the Soviet Union. At the same time, he carried on creative correspondence with many prominent guitarists in Argentina, England, Spain, Germany and other countries. Thus, thanks in no small part to his personal efforts, such musicians as Maria Luisa Anido, John Williams, Nicholas Alfonso, Siegfried Berend and others began to come to us with concerts. Genrikh Sechkin reviewed the performances of each of them in the newspaper "Soviet Culture", with each of the musicians he organized a meeting for the guitarists of Moscow.

At that time, a guitarist could only get an education in the scope of a music school. The only guitar class in Moscow at the Conservatory School was overcrowded. Many leaders of amateur guitar clubs had no idea about musical notation and taught students directly "from their hands". Therefore, Genrikh Sechkin, together with his colleagues, organized two-year advanced training courses for teachers-guitarists of Moscow clubs at the Moscow City House of Folk Art, inviting the most famous music theorists in the country as teachers. After a while, also not without his participation, after a long break, the guitar class resumed work at the Music School named after the October Revolution. The heyday of the guitar in the USSR is called this period in foreign music publications.

Heinrich Sechkin was repeatedly invited on tours to foreign countries, but none of them took place, since the Ministry of Culture did not dare to let the four-time convicted person go abroad. Already after the collapse of the USSR, G.S. Sechkin visited the United States of America and three times in Israel, but not as a musician, but as a writer and tourist.

I know Henry Solomonovich Sechkin firsthand. He first appeared in my office at the end of the eighties, a couple of months after his release from prison. This was his last - fifth - term. A short, stout, well-dressed man, not in the least like a person who has ever had a problem with the law. Perhaps he looked more like the artistic director of a theater or an artist playing characteristic roles. That is, the appearance of G.S. Sechkin betrayed a creative nature, carried away. And I would not be at all surprised if the visitor began to read his own poetry to me. But he took out two thick folders from his branded leather briefcase and laid them on the table:
- Help me get rehabilitation. I was tried more than once. When they tried for the case, I was not offended by anyone. Got caught - that means you have to answer according to the law, but since I am not a masochist, I, of course, never felt joy about this. But when they lie as if they were dead, when they roughly cook up a criminal case, when an innocent person is kept behind bars and a few years of free life are taken away, I cannot forgive this. I need rehabilitation.
Catching a slight smile on my face, G.S. Sechkin himself smiled broadly. His speech was literate, flowed freely, the visitor did not experience difficulties with vocabulary.
I understand your reaction. You may have recalled that prisoners love to complain about erroneous sentences. Not without it. Every second person in the zone claims to be innocent; But I don’t need to make you feel sorry for me to kill myself a couple of years. I have already rewound those years for which I was sentenced. I am free and I only want justice. I know that I will not receive any compensation for this; I know that those who put me behind bars for nothing, will not be punished. I have no self-interest other than the desire to achieve justice.
The folders contained documents about his two last convictions: indictments, copies of sentences, certificates, correspondence with lawyers, with the courts, with the USSR Prosecutor General's Office, transcripts of recordings of GS Sechkin's conversations with experts and witnesses.
We talked with G.S. Sechkin for several hours instead of the thirty minutes I had allotted for a conversation. This is not surprising, because Genrikh Solomonovich turned out to be an outstanding person. More than fifteen years spent in prisons and camps did not affect his intelligence in the least. Five convictions. He was always far from politics and served time for criminal offenses. And we like to represent former prisoners-criminals people, narrow-minded. Although from life experience I know that in Russia a prisoner can be a wise person, and another minister or general can be a limited upstart. It also happens the other way around. ”I remember my dear friend Igor Ivanovich Karpets, his bright memory. General of Militia, Counselor of Justice, Professor, Doctor of Law, Director of the Institute of the Prosecutor's Office. But the main thing is that she is an extraordinary clever and a warm-hearted person. They joked about such people in Stalin's times: so smart and still at large ?! That is, we often forget the unequivocal simple truth: the position does not imply that, along with a high salary, the applicant automatically increases his intelligence.
Returning to G.S. Sechkin, I will say that, having learned the history of his life, I became acquainted with the ordeal of an ordinary Soviet man, many times guilty, but also innocent; slandered and aggressive; in his time, who offended many people, brought them evil and in his own skin felt the good and evil of his rejected world and our judiciary. After going through five circles of hell, this charming man, oddly enough, remained alive and did not even lose his heightened sense of faith in justice.
I amuse myself with the thought that I know the law enforcement system of the USSR, I am familiar with many prosecutors and judges. I respect them and am confident in their worthy, immaculate past. But, despite such support, such advisers, I could not bring the case of G.S. Sechkin to a successful conclusion.
GS Sechkin is an ambiguous personality. The good and evil of our time is concentrated in it. In his affairs, much remained behind the scenes. The attitude to G.S. Sechkin as a person in which everyone could find what attracted him more: vice or kindness - often dictated bias. Officials often behaved unfairly towards him. They saw in G.S. Sechkin a repeat offender who needed to be hidden away. According to a number of officials, if a person was imprisoned, especially three times, then the fourth time he can be imprisoned without going into details. They do not care about the presumption of innocence, they do not believe that a person can become different and rethink his past. But, pursuing their subjective line, officials did not like to leave traces discrediting them in documents.
Fifty-fifty, that a person who once served time in places of imprisonment in our country is doomed to take a place in the ranks of outcasts. It is possible to understand the cruelty of officials, they were not always cruel. Starting to work, they tried to believe in a person, to show humanity. They were deceived, created problems for them. Over time, they realized that most of the people who broke the law are capable of committing new crimes. And they hardened.
Reading newspaper reports about the arrest of an "authority" or "thief in law" in large cities of Russia, we learn that the reason for the arrest was a bag of poppy straw or several cartridges found in his pockets. This is a sufficient reason for detention, especially if this person really needs to be detained or really wants to. Fiction convinces that in the United States or in Western Europe, the police deliberately plant such material evidence so that there is a reason for arrest. With us, of course, everything is different. Everything is fair with us! Nobody ever throws anything to anyone. This repeat offenders are shallow. Come across at the dose.
But seriously, law enforcement agencies do not have operative compromising material on a rare known criminal. But the prosecutor's office or the court will not be able to take into account all the reports of agents - there are restrictions in the law on this matter. So the creative thought of the operatives rushes about how to detain this or that authority, without revealing the reasons for the detention and without substituting the people who shared the information. Hence the detentions with a bag of straws or with a rusty, unstable revolver. It is very difficult to collect operational, and even more so, investigative material on a major criminal. He himself rarely rob, kill or extort. To do this, he has subordinates to whom he gives instructions one-on-one, without leaving traces on paper. Hence the conclusion: the legislators are underperforming, who, in turn, are under pressure from the principles of democracy.
The fate of any former prisoner who is at large cannot be called a happy one. He is an eyesore to the district policeman, arouses all sorts of suspicions, and he does not know where to shake him off. In the regional police department he is kept on the operational register. Broken personnel officers do not take him for a decent job: the education of a person released from prison is usually below average, there is no work qualification, and a surprise can be expected at any moment. Nobody gives money until the first salary, which will not be known when. So the outcast is floundering until he is thundered into jail again. They will be jailed for the cause, or in accordance with the saying: if there were a man, but there would be an article.
And Genrikh Sechkin is better? For Misery, all people are the same, do not fall under the hot hand. All the more so with the track record of G. Sechkin. Honestly, I understand those who, having read all the court verdicts of G.S. Sechkin, treated him with distrust.
A child of wartime, Genrikh Sechkin at first was no different from his hungry and angry peers. They dreamed of meeting their fathers and older brothers as soon as possible, who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Their future well-being was connected with their return. A good life for that generation is a victory in the war, these are relatives who returned from the front safe and sound, it means living warm, being well fed and walking in non-patched clothes. Dreams did not interfere with studying at school, earning money at the railway freight yard, stealing and hooliganism along the way. The latter - from poverty, from an excess of youth and lack of life experience.
Every third of the generation born in the thirties and forties went through a prison, a camp or was under investigation. And not for opened safes and stolen millions, but sometimes for a stolen box of canned food or a bag of grain. These are the bitter statistics of the post-war power. In terms of imprisonment, Russia is a country incomparable with any other state. At I. V. Stalin's camps were overcrowded, it seemed like there was nowhere to go. But then came the democratic restructuring of the nineties, and in the camps of Russia there were much more prisoners than there were in recent years in the entire Soviet Union - one million one hundred thousand people. So much for the Democrats-ushkuynichki! Think about it! In those years when, in a fog, these human rights defenders seized power in the country, in Russia alone, one million hundred thousand people were in pre-trial detention centers, prisons and camps each year.
That is, having seized power, the democratic regime turned out to be much more bloodthirsty than the Soviet regime. He pushed a huge number of people behind bars. In those same years, the democratic perestroika of the first wave, large and small (they also have godfathers and sixes), gathered in television studios and sang convicts' songs with a tearful sentiment. This was the highest manifestation of democratic unity with the people. In the evenings, they sang folk songs from television screens with feeling, and in the afternoon in their offices the authorities undressed these people worse than the seasoned robbers. In the entire history of the Soviet Union and Russia, all the criminals of the country taken together did not steal even a hundredth of what the Democratic bugbears managed to steal, who wrapped the burglary weapons in regulatory documents that they themselves drew up. And how many of this criminal group have you seen on the court bench?
Yes, this alone is the basis for a general amnesty for all robbers, thieves and bandits. Therefore, I believe that the State Duma should annually adopt a resolution on amnesty. And to do this until the number of those imprisoned in Russia proportionally equals the number of prisoners in Europe. And until the human conditions for serving the sentence are created in Russia: sanitary and hygienic conditions for detention, normal nutrition, treatment, work. And the current hard labor in a Russian prison should be counted as two years.
Only during the reign of President V.V. Putin, in the fall of 2001, the number of prisoners in Russia allegedly dropped to eight hundred thousand people.
It turned out that the former Chekist and professional intelligence officer V.V. Putin has more love for his people and an understanding of its age-old tragedy than all the chattering democrats combined. Yes, and that's true, the former oligarch B. Berezovsky, dozens of former secretaries of the regional Communist Party committees, governors, their deputies and other nomenklatura with millions of dollars stolen are living their lives abroad, and the mother of three children for stealing a skinny goose is tossing and turning on state bunks. With a soul turns back from such a democratic game of justice and the significance of the Law.
The fate of Heinrich Sechkin is quite worthy of our unpredictable country. He was convicted by a youngster. According to the decree of 1947, well known to his contemporaries: two or two. Robbery. Remember the words of the folk song of the forties:

They go to the North, the terms are huge,
Whoever you ask, everyone has a decree.
Look, look into my harsh eyes,
Take a look, maybe for the last time.

G. Sechkin got to the camp, and there life is in color. In "men" it is easier for those who are older in age to sit out. Do not protrude from the crowd, sit quietly, then, perhaps, trouble will bypass. Some are drawn to the "thieves", some to the "muzhiks", and some have been let down. It is much more difficult for a boy in this situation than for an adult. Where should the young prisoner go?
So that the youngster does not fall into the number of "offended", that is, homosexuals, do not hide his eyes, do not eat from a leaky aluminum bowl with a twisted spoon, there is another way. To become an asset to the administration, that is, to become a bitch. But "bitches" in the zone do not favor, at the first opportunity they either "put down" or beaten.
Another way is to become a small animal, to be closer to thieves. For youngsters, this path is more romantic. But on this road it is much easier to break your whole future life, to deprive it of the prospect of a law-abiding person: a normal family, career, education, choice of profession.
In those days, there was no person next to G.S. Sechkin who would convincingly explain to him what is good and what is bad. The very same for the right choice did not have the proper life experience, young Heinrich voluntarily chose the life of a thief. By this, he doomed himself to many years in the camps, to trials and arrests.
The turbulent years that G.S. Sschkin describes in his book lasted longer than it was determined by his first court. For the crimes committed already in the camp itself, he was again tried, and the sentence increased significantly. And it serves him right, though sorry for the foolish beast. But why should I retell what the writer has told in his story colorfully, figuratively and with all the artistic details.
He served his time once, then got into the zone again. Oh, how quickly youth leaves us. The third call was already heard ... As Heinrich hoped, it was the call of the last term. Despite the fact that he was already a mature man, rosy dreams of the future, as in his youth, overwhelmed him. Heinrich was released mature and lonely. He did not know women well, but already enjoyed success with them. It's only the beginning! He was handsome, charming and extremely eloquent. But in the first half of life, fate devoted little time to women. It's a pity, because communication with the fair sex can ennoble men and make them more purposeful.
For many years he could not make any of his dreams come true. G. Sechkin keenly felt how life was galloping free and how slowly, tiringly it dragged on in the zone. How he lived, he tells in a story that is autobiographical and quite truthful. True from the point of view of G. Sechkin. Ask the head of his colony - that one has a different truth. The guard has a third. People who were robbed by a young thief have a fourth.
But later, at large, he was lucky, for some dreams came true. This was probably due to such a character trait as perseverance. In the evening school he received his secondary education. I read a lot and enthusiastically. And soon those around him discovered talent in Heinrich - he played the guitar perfectly. Everyone saw the final result, listened to the honed musical pieces. Everyone found in his work what he was looking for. The old lady is a virtuoso performance of the classics. The teacher - sentimental romances, and the lessons, as in those days tough guys with short hair "boxing" were called, could enjoy the choice of either "Taganka, where the nights are full of fire ..." , according to the previous passages.
Only the neighbors in the communal apartment showed dissatisfaction. At night, they quarreled with Heinrich, breaking into the toilet or the bathroom, where Heinrich sat for hours with a guitar, learning chords and honing his playing practice.
Then, already in the studio, under the guidance of experienced teachers, he studied not only practice, but also the theory of music.
It was a glorious time, days in which Genrikh Sechkin knew the delight of creativity and glory. At several Moscow prestigious music competitions, he won prizes, gained fame in the circles of guitarists, and his victories were recorded in music reference books.
And now he is already a musician of the All-Union Radio Orchestra. Tours, interesting meetings, endless concerts. He teaches at the State School of Circus and Variety Arts. Arranges musical pieces for guitar. He publishes numerous musical reviews in magazines and in the newspaper "Soviet Culture". This is already a confession. Bright, stormy creative biography; which one would envy.
Life G. Sechkina is notable for the fact that she looks like a contrast shower: the water is icy, and a second later it is hot, icy - hot ... Today he is one of the best guitarists in Moscow, and tomorrow he is wandering through the stage on a long business trip.
Today he is an experienced race car driver, invited to the Crimea to shoot a feature film, and tomorrow he was sentenced to several years for propaganda and distribution of video films.
Today he has a love as passionate as Romeo. And the couple in love does not notice the age difference of several decades. And tomorrow the young frivolous Juliet, who managed to give birth to his son, leaves him.
Today he is elected chairman of the Creative Association of Moscow guitarists. And tomorrow he is almost hopeless, in a state of clinical death - treacherously poisoned by a former cellmate.
In the eighties, G. Sechkin was sentenced to six years in prison for keeping and promoting video films. The court, having studied them with interest and repeatedly (evil tongues claim that not only in the court premises, but also at home), saw pornography in them. By the way, later some of these videos received international awards in Europe as examples of high art. Now, if this sanctimonious article of the Criminal Code still existed, it could have driven half of Russia over Mozhai.
What can you do if in the Soviet Union the naked female body for many years seemed to the officials as pornography. Probably, these officials should have chosen wives with more beautiful figures. Remember the anecdote. The secretary of the party committee comes home and says to his wife:
- Today, after dinner, you will do a striptease, like in Europe.
- What is it like?
- Let's turn on the music. I will sit on the couch, and you will slowly undress in front of me. Understood?
We had supper, my wife washed her hands. She blew her nose. She took off her apron, turned on the music and, muttering something quietly, began to slowly undress.
- How disgusting, - the husband was indignant, having watched the striptease to the end. - How can you watch that! You need to feel sorry for the guys who go to striptease on business trips abroad, and we give them reprimands.
But in fairness, let me remind you that the first, really black porn into Russia was imported not by ordinary people, who for the most part were not allowed to travel abroad, but by the workers of the Central Committee of the CPSU and diplomats who revel in this strawberry at narrow get-togethers for their own people. Naturally, none of them answered for this before the law.
A year ago, G. Sechkin spoke in a bookstore at a reading conference. A man in years approached him:
- You do not remember me? I was a video expert when you were tried. G. Sechkin looked at him in bewilderment, not knowing what to say. And the man continued:
- I see you published a book. The fee is probably a thousand. Here is compensation for your torment. No, I don't need an autograph. I want you not to take offense at me. Times were different when you were judged. I was invited as an expert from the public prosecutor, and this, you know, is trust. I could not have refused then, the official bodies would not have understood me. I'm not a hero ...
There was one more memorable criminal record. G. Sechkin bought tires for his Moskvich. The tires were stolen. The investigator invited him as a witness. The charges were brought against members of a criminal group that specialized in stealing tires from a factory.
When the investigator figured out that G. Sechkin, who had bought tires from them, had been repeatedly tried before, he began to treat him with undisguised prejudice. But the investigation failed to accuse G. Sechkin of organizing a criminal group. It would look too absurd.
At the trial, ten people testified who bought tires from thieves. Nine of them, as expected, went home after the verdict was announced. G. Sechkin turned out to be tenth. The woman judge (I will not name the names, I feel sorry for her grandchildren) managed to arrange the court session in such a way that G. Sechkin turned from a witness into an accused. A rare skill to turn things upside down. Without any good reason, she accused the hundred of buying up what he knew to be stolen. Here's a judge for you: as I want, I turn it over.
Please note: out of ten witnesses, only G. Sechkin was charged. Here it is, a consequence of previous convictions. Under Article 228 of the then Criminal Code, he was sentenced to six months in prison. But the judge didn’t even think that was enough. Again, without bothering with evidence, the court charged him with incitement to theft. Say, if G. Sechkin hadn't bought stolen car tires, the thieves wouldn't have stolen them. Theoretically, for a non-existent sinless society, it may be true. But no such charge was brought against the other nine witnesses.
In aggregate, G. Sechkin was sentenced to two years. It was flagrantly unfair and illegal. The audience in the hall was outraged. But what a public outrage for a biased judge. Here, in the hall, G. Sechkin was taken into custody. So believe in justice after that!
There is no point in talking further about the zigzags in the biography of Genrikh Sechkin. He perfectly learned to describe his past and he himself figuratively, interestingly and consistently will tell about who he saw, what he heard and where he visited. In his story, there is some romanticization of events, in fact, far from reality. Everything was more painful, and more prosaic, and harder. Life behind barbed wire is not like an adventure novel. Everything is real there - blood, beatings, violence, humiliation. But G. Sechkin writes about his youth, and who is not inclined to embellish his youth, to show it from the best side! Although, tell me honestly, can there be a better side in captivity?
For the last decades, as it should have been, G. Sechkin has been living in harmony with the Law. In my opinion, he was not genetically predisposed to committing crimes. Mr. Chance played a fundamental role in his career as a criminal. Or, as the people say, the devil beguiled. The evil one does not sleep, standing behind the back of every person. GS Sechkin has long been law-abiding. In the early nineties, he had the opportunity to become a millionaire. In those years, racketeering and mafia "roof" were both profitable. And they are not very dangerous. Many groups needed his services. There was no end to the walkers. All to no avail. G. Sechkin resisted, did not want to master a new popular business. Longtime friends simply did not understand him. But G.S. Sechkin has other interests.
He is trying to do what he did not have enough time for earlier. He willingly communicates with people. Among his current comrades are writers, actors, composers, car mechanics. He is sociable, witty and surprisingly efficient. It turns out that G. Sechkin can write good stories and articles. He is a member of the Union of Journalists. For many years she has been cooperating with Yuridicheskaya Gazeta. But his articles can be found in many other metropolitan publications.
For several months, at the invitation of friends, he lived in the United States of America. And when they started talking about the fact that he, they say, decided to stay in New York forever, he appeared in Moscow. “What New York, what America! I'm bored there, - laughed in response to questions. "I can't do it without Russia." And he gave birth to an interesting cycle of essays, which was published by "Yuridicheskaya Gazeta". Now they are combined in the book by G. Sechkin "American Syndrome".
In the zone, he injured his hand, and the guitar had to be hung on the wall. But the craving for music remained. Occasionally gives friends guitar lessons. Composes music, plays a musical synthesizer.
GS Sechkin is in a hurry to catch up. He lives according to his schedule, not expecting gatherings and not waking up from the metal knocking of keys on the bars ... You probably often meet him in the subway, on the streets, in the theater.
Hello Heinrich, what new have you written? What did you remember, what did you see?

FROM V. PANIN'S BOOK "THE ROAD TO CINEMA"

My soul asks to write a few lines about my old and faithful friend with a capital letter - Heinrich Sechkin. Among the many friends and comrades around me, he was the most loyal and decisive. In difficult times for me, he gave up all his business in order to instantly rush to the rescue and support a friend. And he himself suffered a lot of adversity in his youth. But at the same time, from his youthful years he was selflessly carried away by the guitar and devoted his whole life to it.
Since 1956, working as a mechanic at ZIL, he studied at an evening music school. At the same time he worked as a guitarist at the Moscow Drama Theater. Then, after leaving the factory, he worked as a musician in the Neapolitan Orchestra of the All-Union Radio. Since 1958 he taught guitar at the State School of Circus and Variety Art and in the All-Russian Creative Workshop of Variety Art. At the same time, he taught a guitar class at the Moscow House of Culture. Chkalov.
Twice, in 1965 and 1966, he was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the Laureate of the International Festival of Music of the Peoples of Latin America. He worked at Mosconcert, on radio and television. Arranged musical pieces for guitar. He was a music reviewer for the newspaper "Soviet Culture". In 1970 he was elected chairman of the Creative Association of Moscow guitarists.
His activities are mentioned in the historical books "Guitar in Russia" (Muzgiz, Leningrad, 1961), "Guitar and Guitarists" (Publishing House "Muzyka", Leningrad, 1968), "Classical Guitar in Russia and the USSR" (published by "Russian Encyclopedia", 1992). Sechkin's creative biography, along with the biographies of outstanding musicians - Paganini, Schubert, Berlioz, Weber - was published in music directories of various countries.
In 1986, due to muscle spasms in his right arm, Sechkin stopped his musical activity. Then he worked as a correspondent for "Yuridicheskaya Gazeta". Published in "Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Arguments and Facts", "Ogonyok" and others, as well as in the magazine "Kaleidoscope" - USA. Wrote the book Behind the Barbed Wire.
GS Sechkin is a member of the Union of Journalists of Russia. The film script "Love in the Zone" was written based on his story. Together with the authors, he is in search of investors and sponsors for the film adaptation of an undeniably original and interesting literary script, which received high reviews from writers Arkady Vayner and Viktor Dotsenko, as well as leading masters of domestic cinema, film directors Georgy Danelia, Georgy Natanson, composer Evgeny Doga, actors Yuri Solomin, Natalia Varley, Mikhail Kokshenov and others.
V. PANIN,
film director,
honored art worker of Russia.

“We don't remember our past very well,” said Bulat Okudzhava in 1997.

Genrikh Sechkin's story "On the Edge of Despair", which tells about our past, is interesting and read in one gulp. This is provided by several aspects, the main of which, in my opinion, is the theme of the hero, his victory over evil, hellish force.

Problems, plot, theme, characters, ideological and artistic concept are thoroughly embedded in the story. The author turned to a very harsh, sometimes even cruel topic, which in recent years of our life has become very topical and extremely necessary. He found extremely capacious and laconic plot structures, distinguished by the compactness of dramatic characteristics. The story includes the course of a deeply observed harsh and complex life of people in an unusual habitat, the multiplicity of its manifestations, reliability and richness of details.

The story clearly outlines a very timely highlighted theme of the era and, above all, the theme of moral duty, guilt and retribution for one's life, one's miscalculations and deeds. Inhuman suffering and unforeseen bursts of success are presented in the book so truthfully and vividly that the author's thought becomes quite obvious: man is the blacksmith of his own happiness. As the former French President General De Gaulle put it: "There are no desperate situations, but there are desperate people." True, not everyone is capable of finding tiny grains of joy in an atmosphere of constant humiliation, bullying, physical torture and inflating them to the infinite size of the universe.

Despite the fact that the events of camp life are too far from our days, the situations described are striking in their reliability.

The story "On the Verge of Despair" is not only a highly artistic work, but also a useful teaching aid for people who are in a tough situation, discouraged, desperate. This is not a hymn to thug romance, this is the harsh truth of life. Using the example of his life experience, Genrikh Sechkin proves that a person stuck in a deadly quagmire, having shown a certain fortitude, always has a chance, contrary to established ideas, to get out. But it is better not to fall into this quagmire!

I am not exaggerating at all when I say that this book is an extraordinary literary event, and I am quite sure that it, like the three previously published editions of the story, was published under the title Behind Barbed Wire, will find a huge number of admirers among the readers.

Anatoly BELKIN

Doctor of Law,

full member of the Russian

Academy of Natural Sciences,

Secretary of the Writers' Union

Russian Federation

Under the echoing blows of the hammers of the cemetery workers, the nails resiliently climbed into the lid of the coffin, tightly soldering it to the base in which my motionless body rested. All efforts to move or open my eyes were futile. The ropes creaked, and, swaying from side to side, touching the edges of the grave, the coffin began to slowly sink to the bottom. A cold sweat appeared on his forehead. Before my eyes, as in high-speed shooting, my whole unlucky life ran through. The last time, swinging, the coffin froze on the uneven bottom of the grave, tilting slightly to the left. It became uncomfortable to lie down.

“Here are scum! - I cursed the workers inwardly. “You were too lazy, you bastards, to level the bottom,” and was immediately horrified at his thoughts.

Several clods of earth plopped onto the lid of the coffin. The body began to fill with blood. With a tremendous effort of will, I managed to open my eyes. Complete darkness. I would shout! But the dry tongue stuck tightly to the palate. The ground fell from above with a waterfall. Clumps of clay pounded on the lid of the coffin and resembled cannon fire.

Having been at the funerals of my loved ones more than once, I could not even imagine that the slight noise made by the falling earth outside turns into a deafening rumble inside. But the noise was getting quieter and softer. Finally, there was silence. Something completely unusual. There is silence in the mind, and in the ears - a piercing moan frozen on one note.

The cold perspiration turned into streaming hot sweat. I try to wiggle my toes. It turns out! The feet and hands are not working yet, but the blood is already rushing to them.

I recalled that I had read somewhere about how the graveyard marauders dug the grave of a well-to-do citizen in order to remove his golden crowns, and fled in horror when they saw the dead man upside down, with eyes crawling out of their sockets, a blue tongue falling out and fingers torn to the bone. Wish I had gold teeth. And will I wait for the night? I'm afraid not. Even now, there is a lack of oxygen. Strange, but I am already beginning to feel almost all of my body. I try to move my hands. It turns out. Feet too. And the groan began to disappear. True, from a long stay in one position, the whole body became like a stranger ...

Sharply, like the unbearable light of electric welding, the thought pierced: what a terrible end! How to manage to die at once! Maybe try to squeeze the carotid artery around your neck? As boys, we were fond of such dubious games. The one who agreed to participate in the experiment took full lungs of air, held his breath and held this position as much as he could. One of his friends either pinched his carotid artery, or, clasping the back of his chest with his hands, lifting it, squeezed it with all his might until air came out of the unfortunate's chest with a slight groan. The limp body was placed on the back steps of the entrance, where this kind of executions usually took place, and, having enjoyed a good enough experience, they began to beat the subject on the cheeks in order to bring him to his senses. Having regained consciousness, he enthusiastically talked about his amazing impressions. But can I bend my arms? Is the height of the coffin enough?

Hooray! Happened. The brushes got in the way, but squeezed through. I felt the pulsating points with my thumbs. Now the others need to clasp their throats. But here is the difficulty. It doesn't work from that angle. For more emphasis, you need to raise your elbows, but the lid does not. I must try to roll over onto my stomach.

Succeeded! Now everything is all right. But there is still air. Maybe wait a little? Yes, there is air, but there is no hope. And why pull? So here we go. Time stopped. Glowing green circles floated before my eyes. It should work! Definitely a must! Now everything will be gone. True, you can only realize this when you come to your senses, which, of course, was not destined for me. The green circles have decreased and accelerated the movement. Something takes a very long time!

There is!!! But just why did I feel it? Damn it! All clear. At the moment of loss of consciousness, my fingers unclenched mechanically. No. I can't do it alone. We'll have to wait for natural death. It's good that there is total darkness around. It is not visible that you are lying in a coffin, and even deep underground. Although graves are now being dug small. One can imagine that on a clear night, lying in a clearing, watching the stars ... No, just not the stars. The sky is covered with dense clouds, and therefore it is dark. True, the air is getting worse. How happy people should be who can easily throw themselves under a train, jump from a roof, or just turn on the gas. I would give everything now for such an opportunity. What, in fact, can I give?

It became difficult to breathe. It turns out that it is very disgusting to breathe in a quarter of the lungs. And it's also hot. And the temperature keeps rising. I breathed. Obviously, submariners on a sunken submarine feel this way. No, they can move, they are not alone, they can cherish the hope of salvation.