Comrade Stalin's secret pipe. Joseph Stalin smoking pipes

The cleaners who put things in order in the chief's office were checked up to the seventh generation. Or maybe even before Adam and Eve, in whom, due to membership in the party, they did not believe.

And the tall, unsmiling captain, who stood at the door every time, and watched the cleaning, was also checked by all state bodies.

But he was directly subordinate to the head of personal protection Vlasik. And there was no way for someone else to put pressure on him, or to order - or at least ask! - there was no way.

Of course, the captain could have simply been arrested. There were many such cases - the enemies did not doze off and desperately tried to find a loophole in order to get as close as possible to Himself. But after all, another captain, even more vigilant, even more proven, immediately took his place - the bench of reserve captains was truly endless.

The office of the leader of the world's first socialist state consisted of three rooms. Meetings were held at the largest table at a huge table. The smaller one contained a library, a desk with a desk lamp, and a telephone. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin squinted kindly from the wall. Even the cleaner was not allowed into the third room, where Comrade Stalin was resting. Another level of clearance.

When Stalin worked, his secretary, Comrade Poskrebyshev, usually sat in the waiting room. If the meeting - the invitees did not crowd in anticipation of the start, but sat quietly on high chairs placed along the wall, and carefully formulated their answers to possible questions. Accompanying invited assistants, advisers and orderlies were not allowed even here, and crowded in the corridor, waiting for their superiors.

And deep after midnight, when the Boss nevertheless left, security officers silently entered the reception room, let the cleaning lady into the office and, without blinking, followed her every gesture. Especially the captain. Because to trim the furniture along an invisible line, straighten the curtains, wipe the floors - this is not trusted by everyone. And nobody is trusted to touch objects that for some reason have not been removed from the table. Especially the captain.

The captain's cherished dream was to get one of Stalin's pipes. Unattainable, I must say, a dream. There they are, lying on the table - black and brown. The leader used them in turn, following either whims or traditions. He broke the cigarette "Herzegovina Flor", poured fragrant tobacco into the mouth of the pipe and used it.

The captain, unblinking, stood at the door, watched the cleaner and greedily inhaled the faint smell of tobacco leaves decayed by a slow fire. Actually, cigarettes could be freely bought in the Kremlin buffet. And pipes in Moscow were sold even now - on the "flea" market, the aged former intellectuals, dried up from malnutrition, were ready to part with real rarities from the times of damned tsarism.

The captain looked at the cherished pipes and soberly thought that the dream would remain a dream. In fact, you can’t turn to the Boss: “Comrade Stalin, give me a pipe! I’ve been dreaming all my life!”. They twist their own.

And you can't steal, because communists don't steal. Especially Comrade Stalin. They won’t twist it here - they’ll immediately slap it. And all the same cleaning lady will wash it without objection blood stain, so that the beloved leader will not notice anything.

The cleaning lady wiped the dust, which had never been here before, on the large table and went to the small one - with pipes. The captain tensed involuntarily. What if she takes it with her rag now, and brushes one on the floor! And the captain will rush across the entire office, lie down on the parquet with his chest, and save ... at least once in his hands he will hold ...

There were soft, shuffling footsteps in the waiting room. The captain looked around in displeasure and froze. Comrade Stalin! And then - marshals, generals, colonels ...

You don’t need to clean up yet,” Stalin said quietly, entering the office. “Take a break, okay? We'll have a little discussion here. Then continue.

The captain grabbed a bucket with his left hand, a cleaner with his right, and carefully walked out of the office between the oncoming Zhukov and Shaposhnikov. Excuse me, not to subordination, when he himself ordered ...

As if from the shadows, Poskrebyshev wove and sat down in his usual place. He buried himself in papers, as if he had not gone anywhere since yesterday.

Behind the doors in the corridor, adjutants and orderlies of military leaders were barely audible talking. Something's wrong, the captain thought, dragging a cleaning lady behind him, who was stubbornly trying to wipe invisible dust from the panels.

He walked wide along the corridor towards the back rooms, feeling the contemptuous glances of captains like him on his back.

And the adjutants and orderlies whispered again. And the captain lost his stride, hearing out of the corner of his ear:

So mine said that he himself was talking with a pipe again yesterday ...

Well, yes. And then he ordered to remove two divisions from ...

The cleaner rushed to the side, noticing some speck. The bucket clanged, the end of the sentence dissolved into noise.

But even without that, the captain understood - treason. Submit immediately!

No, first - complete the task. Cleaning the office, control over this former Komsomol member, who is sure to report on him to both Beria and Abakumov. Leave now - and by morning in the very best case you will find yourself at the most distant Komsomol construction site, and it’s not a fact that with outside barbed wire.

In addition, he was unable to identify the speakers. This means that you will have to strain your ears again in order to surely identify traitors who doubted mental health comrade Stalin. It remains to get rid of the cleaning lady.

The captain pushed the woman into the back room, where several other cleaners were already there, waiting for this sudden midnight meeting to end. Two co-workers smoked here.

Broom forgot - frightened muttered "his" cleaning lady.

Stay here. I'll go myself, - the captain answered and went back into the corridor.

This is the Kremlin for the uninitiated - grand staircases, wide corridors and spacious meeting rooms. The captain opened an inconspicuous door and glided across the shining parquet of the passage rooms, dissolving in the dusk of the emergency lighting. If anything, he checked whether the windows in the rooms were closed. Yes, it is logical and will not cause unnecessary questions.

To catch a saboteur, you need to be able to do everything that a saboteur can do, only better. The captain believed that he could catch any saboteur. In practical classes, instructors often set him as an example.

With a barely perceptible shadow, he moved through a suite of empty halls in such a way that any saboteur would die of envy.

The required door was not locked. He didn't open it, just put his ear to the keyhole and listened.

Adjutants and orderlies continued to talk quietly. First one voice stood out from the general rumble, then another. They talked about the situation on the western border, about some Kozlov taking too much upon himself, about yesterday's dinner at the Metropol, about Sevastopol and Leningrad. And nothing about the Boss.

A couple of times Poskrebyshev came out and called the name of one of the generals. Then a short-lived confusion arose among the adjutants, the necessary papers were taken out of the briefcases, transferred and returned if the need for them passed.

The captain realized with disappointment that he had got excited. Well, he will hear a voice, so what? He still doesn't recognize his face.

Time flew by, then froze in place. The meeting is over. First, colonels and generals stomped on thick carpets. Then the marshals slowly left. And then…

When he picks up this tube, I stop breathing, - someone suddenly said right outside the door.

Have you noticed how accurate his information is? The intelligence department does not always get such things. I specifically checked - everything converges.

Well, sometimes the forecast does come true with amazing accuracy, I agree. Day by day, minute by minute.

How does it work with cards? The coordinate error depends only on the thickness of the pencil lead.

It's good that she showed up. At least listen to our words. After all, you and I, during the Finnish campaign, tried to prove in two voices that frontal attacks would not solve the matter. We will only freeze people. And he trusted Tymoshenko, they say, a dashing cavalry attack will solve the conflict in no time. Do you remember - "Do the Finns know how to fight?" If only he had that pipe back then...

Yes, the tube convinced me in one minute. Where are you now?

To the airfield. I'm flying to Leningrad, to Zhdanov. So you are left here alone.

Intelligence has already reported a dozen times ...

I know. Oh, this ten is not good at all. What is he? I, he says, am not a charlatan, I am not going to look into the future. I believe in the pact. How would you persuade him to receive information at least a day in advance?

All hope for the pipe ...

The captain slowly straightened his back, numb from an uncomfortable posture. He recognized the interlocutors. Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Shaposhnikov. It is foolish to suspect these of treason. This means that Comrade Stalin is really talking to the receiver. I wonder which of the two? Black? Brown? Does he smoke it while talking?

Calm down, the captain said to himself. Why do you need to know this? Maybe it's a terrible state secret? Since no one knows. Only the supreme command. And still I now. Here's a fool! Forget, throw out of memory! What have you been trusted with? Maintain order in the office. Broom! I followed the broom, actually ...

He cautiously opened the door and looked out. There was no one in the corridor. The door to the Master's waiting room was ajar.

The captain took a breath and resolutely entered the waiting room. Poskrebyshev, who was sitting in his usual place, raised an expressionless look at him. Two officers from the leader's bodyguard also looked in his direction, but did not even try to get up from the sofa. Although, why, in fact, be surprised? From one division, after all, how much sweat was shed together in the classroom ... their own.

Broom, - the captain said muffledly, himself amazed at how stupid it sounded. And entered the office.

A gray curtain hung in the air, smelling of "Herzegovina". Chairs were pushed back around a long table, breaking the symmetry. On a separate table in the corner was a malachite ashtray full of fresh ashes. Nearby lay two pipes, black and brown. And some other rectangular contraption, absolutely unlike anything - an unusual scarlet color, oddly shaped, With huge amount small white buttons inside. The size of a cigarette case. Half of the side was occupied by glass with a clock painted on it. And an inscription in a foreign language.

The captain knew almost perfect German, so letters he was not bothered at all. But the word flatly refused to be translated.

And a second later he gasped in amazement: a painted second hand was moving on a painted clock! And the time was exactly the same as the big wall clock showed.

The captain blinked in confusion, looked around in unfeigned fear. No, of course, he had heard about numerous secret laboratories in which scientists worked on technical innovations. But to see with your own eyes the result of this work ...

The instinct of self-preservation ordered to immediately leave the office. What is there - ordered. He begged, fell to his knees, fervently voted! But curiosity was stronger.

The captain slowly approached the table and bent over the unknown device. For the first time, the cherished coveted smoking pipes did not arouse the slightest interest, although here they are - reach out and touch any.

He even got on his knees. The device was at the same level with the eyes. A quarter of a matchbox thick. Two holes - round and oblong. No associations. But the white buttons with numbers and letters vaguely seemed familiar. He took a closer look - exactly! Full alphabets, Russian and Latin, only for some reason a few letters per button. And number series from one to zero. And yet - several separate buttons, and on one symbol, understandable to anyone modern man: The handset is green.

The guess came like a revelation: so this is the pipe the Boss is talking to! But where is her wire? How does it work? What is it connected to? And with whom does Comrade Stalin speak on it?

Curiosity went beyond the edge of self-preservation, and the captain held out his hand. The secret tube easily fit into a sweat-drenched palm.

Top-bottom determined by the clock. The number "twelve" was where it should be, on top. Black drawn, it would seem, the arrows really moved. The captain noticed the movement not only of the second, but also of the minute. Yes, our scientists know how ... or not ours?

When the device in his hand buzzed and began to vibrate, he threw it aside in fright. The pipe clattered to the top of the table, ran over it, and slid to the floor.

The captain felt that the heart under the tunic was about to break chest and jump out.

He also heard a sofa creak in the back room.

He looked around hauntedly. Cleaning lady's broom! Near the door - he came for him!

Grabbing his cleaning equipment, the captain barely evened his breath, opened the door and almost marched through the reception room. Comrade Poskrebyshev followed him with his eyes and again plunged into the papers.

I didn’t see anything,” he repeated to himself. “He took a broom and went out. Why not right away? I was looking for a broom. Found - and immediately left. Came out right away. Like this…

Comrade Stalin thought for a long time, but nevertheless decided to go to the dacha in Kuntsevo. It's been a very busy day. One might even say endless. All citizens of the Soviet Union have a day off. And only he, who is responsible for all these citizens, does not have days off in principle. No time to rest, comrades. The international situation is very alarming. And the military unanimously repeat - it's not good on our western border. What will the pipe say?

Iosif Vissarionovich got up from the sofa and went into a large room. Strangely, there was no pipe on the table. Maybe he took her with him to the rest room? And she's not there. Very strange…

An unusual handset appeared about a year ago. A strange box with it and a charger was found on a closed Sukhumi beach by one of the guards. At first they thought that this was such a sophisticated way to harm Comrade Stalin. They even wanted to destroy it. Then, after a thorough study in the secret laboratory of the NKVD, they nevertheless showed the one whose last name was written in block letters on the instructions enclosed in the box: "Comrade Stalin, with the help of this device you will be able to receive the most accurate and truthful information about the events that await the country in the future. We look forward to hearing from you. Pioneers from the future."

Comrade Stalin did not believe much in the possibility of predicting the future. But I called out of curiosity.

The result exceeded all expectations. A child's voice, confused in cases and military ranks, very accurately told about the harvest of spring crops, about the annexation of the Baltic states and about many other events that were rich in 1940. And many things haven't happened yet. For example, the promised war with Germany...

Stalin took a step, another. There was a loud crack under the sole of the right shoe.

The leader removed his leg, looked, cursed. Here's the problem...

He picked up the phone and looked at the screen. The clock turned into a shapeless black blot. It is not clear, the handset has completely deteriorated, or is it still possible to call? Okay, Stalin decided, I'll try tomorrow.

He put the crippled pipe on the table and walked towards the exit.

The black spot almost completely covered the screen of the phone. Only at the very bottom there were numbers that duplicated the time. They continued to count down: two hours, seventeen minutes, forty seconds, the twenty-second of June, one thousand nine hundred and forty-one.

Ulya Nova

Stalin pipes

I rode the minibus for so long past the endless five-story buildings that I almost dozed off. Pushed: "Girl, you go out." I got lost in the yards, trying to decipher the hastily sketched address on a piece of diary. She ran up the winding stairs to the third floor. His eyes darkened. Everything floated. She stood for a couple of minutes with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. She was barked at by a Pekingese from a neighboring apartment. She rang the doorbell for a long time, pressed the bell persistently and tactlessly, beginning to doubt whether she had mixed up the entrance. Finally opened. The hallway is twilight, and it is low. broad-shouldered. Bearded. Buryat. Grey-haired, with hair tied in a ponytail.

“You were ten minutes late,” he snapped. His voice is a quiet bass bell. On the fly, he switched to “you” in order to immediately get closer and knock down all obstacles.

- Take off your coat. Come into the room. And there - take off your clothes - he commands imperiously, but gently. Can.

Arisha takes off her coat. He slowly takes off his shoes, deliberately lingering in the hallway, littered with boots, sandals, all sorts of wrinkled boots that are scattered indiscriminately on the dull parquet.

- Far door! he shouts from somewhere deep in the spacious apartment.

Arisha walks down the corridor. Spacious square room. Brand new wallpaper in the style of Turkish three-star hotels. In the middle, an immense matrimonial bed spread out to its full extent. Double, oak, solid. “They know how, respect and sleep in a big way in this house,” flashes through her head with a grin. From excitement in the temple, a tiny vein begins to pulsate, which is always naughty in such cases. However, curiosity is stronger. Arisha looks around meticulously. There is no cover on the bed, touching family blankets are neatly folded. The duvet covers are old, in some kind of blurry flower, but soft to the touch.

She sits on the edge, begins to slowly undress.

“You can keep the underwear,” he calls from afar, perhaps from the kitchen. From there, muffled chuckles of two men and a female cloying talk are heard. Workers? Guests?

“All right,” Arisha whispers enchantedly in response, “as you say. She takes off her jeans, takes off her blouse. Carefully rolls up black nylon tights. A white, long-legged bird in a blue lace bra freezes on the edge of the bed, hesitantly thinking, listening and waiting.

“Lie down,” he shouts, “rest.

Then she obediently and slowly lies down on the wide bed. He sinks his head into someone else's cool pillow. To distract himself, he examines in the closet along the wall almost picturesque rows of books in cloth bindings, some untouched, unread, present on the shelves for beauty, and some, on the contrary, disheveled, broken, worn, reminding Arisha of her own life by this hour. To distract herself from comparisons, she peers into a sideboard stuffed to overflowing with smoking pipes. Right now, more than anything in the world, she would like to sneak up, open the glass door and take a good look at these tubes, one by one, as long as she can. There are two hundred of them, or even more. They are different color, from different woods, differently curved. But Arisha is holding back. Wondering which side of the bed he sleeps on. Meanwhile, he purposefully appears in the room. Cheered, reeking of coffee and tobacco. He has some kind of rattle in his hand, he taps it lightly: knock-knock. So it is, on ring finger right hand him wedding ring. Thin, yellow gold, no fuss - like everyone else before.

"You're fine," he says casually through clenched teeth.

“Thank you,” Arisha whispers, pouting her lips a little, knowing from experience that it always works.

“Only too white-skinned, northern beauty, just an albino,” he growls instructively, “it wouldn’t hurt you to show up in the solarium sometimes.

“Okay,” she whispers even more quietly, smoothing her hair, twisting it with a bundle at the back of her head so that it immediately falls over her shoulders, “I’ll go to the solarium, since you advise.”

- And immediately spit on everything, - he indifferently and measuredly basses, - relax. And for that I'll tell you about the collection of pipes. She is the rarest in Moscow and, probably, in the whole world. There are Stalin's pipes here too. With his hands on his hips, his stomach slightly sticking out, he surveys the contents of the sideboard with self-satisfied pride. - At one time, pipes were sent to Stalin from everywhere, from all over our vast, as they say. Sometimes they gave new pipes. Sometimes they sent pipes decorated with ivory, in the form of a fist or the head of Napoleon. And sometimes the father of nations received stoned pipes as a gift. These are highly valued. They've already been smoked by some person, they're familiar with tobacco, you know. Rumor has it that sometimes pipes for Stalin were smoked by convicts. And also the sailors of the Baltic fleet. I have two stoned Stalin pipes here, hidden among the others. Only I can find them if necessary. And any other - will not find and will not distinguish. Well, pipe. Well, not the best heather. I bought them in the mid 90s. Now each of them has risen in price twenty times, if not fifty, - he boasts.

- And let me smoke Stalin's pipe? – Arisha asks, trying to straighten her back and seem mockingly brisk.

"And we'll look at your behavior," he mutters without a smile. He scowls at her from head to toe. Arisha tries to appear calm. Then he comes.

In general, he is slow. It's like she's doing gentle Wushu exercises all the time. And imperturbable, like a Buddha. Sits on the edge of the bed. Long and intently looks Arisha in the eyes. What he thinks, what he tries to catch in her eyes, is not clear. Arisha also looks into his eyes and waits for what will happen next. From tension, the muscle between the shoulder and the neck begins to pinch, as if a tightly stretched string is whining there. This happens to her now all the time - with a sharp shout, with an unexpected phone call. It is as if she is all tugged at hundreds of silk threads that have gathered her insides into a fold, preventing her from breathing freely, taking away her lightness. Meanwhile, two fingers of his right hand suddenly touch her skin. big and index fingers his right hands touch her skin in the middle of her forearm. And they cling tightly, tightly, forever.

“Don’t be afraid,” he commands, “look into the sideboard, at the pipes.” Better yet, look into my eyes. I'm grey-eyed, by the way. Now gray-haired, but before there was a burning brunette. Before you would have looked at me quite differently, girl.

“I obey and obey,” she whispers, trying to smile.

- Here, this is the case! I love you like that - he winks in response, - rather give a damn about everything, then it will be fine.

But Arisha does not spit, she even forgets to stick out her lips, tenses up with her whole body, feeling the rattling of alert muscle-strings in her legs, arms, and back. She is waiting. Worried. And he gets angry because he really doesn’t like waiting, obedience and uncertainty.

His left hand. It has a rattle in it. What it looks like, what it is made of, Arisha cannot see. If you show this in slow motion filming, you get something like this. Magician's sleight of hand. The lid of the rattle twists sharply. The rattle moves rapidly up and down. A silvery thin needle emerges from it in thickish short fingers. In a second, this flexible needle digs into Arisha's skin in the middle of her forearm. And it moves deeper: into the contracted muscle, into the very nerve, into the very point of tension and pain. In a word, straight to her soul. And Arisha shouts: to the whole apartment, to the whole of Moscow, to the whole world.

“Spit,” he grumbles, “otherwise it will hurt a thousand times.” Spit, sweet girl, and rest.

His left hand, with the dexterity of a magician, shakes more and more needles from a tin rattle, one after another. And pierces her soul. Into her very flesh. In a minute in all pain points her fate, in all points of contention Arisha's past, in all the reduced nerves of the body, long thin needles stick out. And they sway gently, you just have to move a little. And when they sway, it becomes a hundred times more painful. Arisha is crying. And he smiles. Laughs. He strokes her leg, very slowly and gently, from knee to ankle. So that Arisha's body becomes electrified and all her fluffs stand on end. And he mutters: "And you're nothing." Commands: "Spit on everything." And he promises at the end of the course to give Stalin a pipe to smoke, provided that they take turns, alone, in his car.

End of introductory segment.

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MOSCOW, September 20 - RIA Novosti, Igor Gashkov. In the State Archive Russian Federation An exhibition dedicated to the Munich Agreement, a deal between the Western powers and Nazi Germany, which decided the fate of Czechoslovakia, opened. Soviet authorities objected to the revision of borders in Europe, but they were not heeded. The exposition includes intelligence reports, telegrams from residents, documents marked "secret", as well as one of Stalin's famous smoking pipes.

agent girl talking

The summit of Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy took place in Munich on 29 and 30 September 1938. meeting at highest level between Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini was preceded by a diplomatic preparation that affected all the major capitals of the world. Moscow knew that Reich emissaries were traveling around Europe and negotiating. They were followed by Soviet informers of the most different levels. The collected information was sent to the Kremlin.

The exhibition at the GARF presents special reports from the intelligence department of the Red Army, reports from embassies, encrypted secret agents, and notes by Soviet correspondents abroad. Documents that had passed through many hands were laid on Stalin's table. Sources of information in especially secret cases were not disclosed even to the leader.

So, from memorandum number 8480 it follows that the Soviet leadership had a high-ranking agent in the German government with the call sign Girl. "Girl reports: Chamberlain arrived in Germany with the following proposal for Hitler: immediate demobilization of Germany, convening a four-power conference, recall Czechoslovak troops from the Sudetenland and the establishment of an international police there. " According to the same source, the Nazis refused the offer. "Hitler did not let Chamberlain finish and in a four-hour speech demanded the return of all the old colonies of Germany, non-interference in Germany's "assistance to the Sudeten Germans," The girl reported.

A greedy look at Czechoslovakia

The main direction of Soviet efforts in 1938 was attempts to rapprochement with Western countries in opposition to Hitler. As is known, these attempts were unsuccessful. The documents testify to the disappointment of Soviet diplomats with the unwillingness of France to believe that the USSR was ready to provide effective help Czechoslovakia in the event of a Nazi attack.

In a cipher telegram from Switzerland addressed to People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov, a Soviet informant reports: "From what has become known about conversations with the French, it is clear that they continue to fool around, pretending not to understand our answer, and reducing it only to a proposal to act through the League of Nations. Meanwhile, it follows from other documents that Moscow considered the possibility of transferring troops through Romania and enlisted the tacit support of Bucharest. However, neither Paris nor London heeded the Kremlin's arguments.

A forgotten page in the history of the Munich Agreement is the participation of anti-Soviet Poland in the division of Czechoslovakia. There are many messages from Warsaw in the exposition. Soviet informants noted the increased "resentment" of the Poles because of their secondary position in Europe. Poland hoped to rectify the situation by expanding its borders. "My colleagues in the diplomatic corps from Great Britain and Sweden say that Warsaw will oppose the Czechs, even if the Germans did not want it," Colonel Rybalko, military attaché in Poland, wrote to Moscow. Other documents inform about the cooperation of the Germans with the Poles.

Stalin's pipe and other items

A separate stand presents Stalin's personal belongings: a magnifying glass, a fountain pen (made by personal order of the leader) with engraved initials "I.V.S." and one of the smoking pipes against the backdrop of a map of the continent. In the multimedia room there is a screen with an interactive map of Europe before and after the Munich deal.

The map clearly shows that the policy of appeasing the Nazis, which was chosen by France and Great Britain in 1938, did not bring results. Hitler did not limit himself to the Sudetenland and abolished the entire Czechoslovak state. Soon the same fate befell Poland.

In 1938, Moscow failed to join forces against a common enemy - the Nazis. However, the Kremlin's efforts have not gone unnoticed. In one of the secret reports presented at the exhibition, it is reported that the informant met with the resigned Czechoslovak President Beneš. The humiliated and betrayed politician said that "in the east, Czechoslovakia has a friend who is faithful to his obligations to the end."

“Stalin made the greatest impression on us. He possessed deep, devoid of any panic, logically meaningful wisdom. He was an invincible master of finding ways out of the most hopeless situation in difficult moments ... He was an unusually complex personality ”
W. Churchill

Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill , Laureate Nobel Prize in Literature (1953).

Churchill did not share the general opinion that Stalin made a mistake and "missed" Hitler's attack. Meetings and correspondence with Stalin increasingly convinced Churchill that Stalin somehow foresaw the future. Stalin's personality for Churchill = "Enemy No. 1", but mysterious and attractive.

On the instructions of Prime Minister Churchill, British intelligence established that Stalin (Dzhugashvili) graduated from a theological seminary in his youth, but after a trip to Iran and meeting with some Syrians there, he left the church and took up revolutionary activities. More on this topic, British intelligence could not find out anything new, except for the well-known facts of Stalin's biography.
Churchill, determined to "unravel" the main enemy of his life, decided to rely on his intuition.
He was given photographs of Stalin. Dozens of photos.
Spreading them out in front of him, Winston began to peer into the details. What do they have in common?
Churchill took out a cigar, but his hand hovered over the photographs.
Of course - a smoking pipe!

Churchill sent the Generalissimo a collection of pipes. Will Stalin throw out his "old woman"?
Stalin still did not part with his old pipe, often without even lighting it.
This convinced Churchill even more of the sacredness of the Stalin pipe, and the intelligence officers received a new task, which this time they coped with very successfully.

Historically, pipe smoking was brought to Russia by Tsar Peter I. Like Stalin, Peter did not part with the pipe, but - from what moment?
During the years of the first unsuccessful military campaigns, the Russian Tsar did not yet have a pipe. But then she appeared and brilliant victories began!

Stalin has the pipe of Tsar Peter I?

Churchill decides to deprive his enemy of the astral amulet at any cost. But how to do that?
Steal? It's impossible.
Change.
Experts are studying hundreds of photographs in which a pipe appears in Stalin's hands or on his desktop. Finally, an exact duplicate is made.
The pipe should have been smoked, and with the same tobacco that Stalin preferred.
By that time, everyone knew Stalin's manner of breaking Herzegovina Flor cigarettes and stuffing his pipe with this tobacco.

Elite cigarettes "Herzegovina Flor" were produced exclusively at a tobacco factory in the city of Morshansk, Tambov Region, they did not go on free sale, as the state security officers vigilantly monitored the entire process, protecting the leader. In addition, the Morshansk tobacco factory performed other tasks: in addition to several varieties of cigarettes, the factory replenished the strategic stock of shag, which in the Soviet Union could provide a 5 million army for 7 years of war.
Despite these incredible difficulties, several packs of Herzegovina Flor cigarettes were nevertheless delivered to Churchill.
Winston did not part with a cigar, but he smoked without inhaling. Maybe that's why he lived his 90 years almost without getting sick?
He lit a cigarette, appreciated the pleasant smell.

The pipe must be smoked. Anyone who owns this topic knows that smoking a pipe is not an easy task. In the villages, smoking a new pipe was entrusted only to an old smoker, who was well versed in the secret methods of this procedure ...
Smoking a pipe for Stalin was entrusted to the oldest laboratory of the Admiralty. There was a "sea wolf", an old pipe smoker. He did a strange job.

The task of substitution was complicated by rumors that Stalin had quit smoking. No one could say for certain. The leader still carried his pipe with him, sometimes he took it out, sucked, without lighting it in the presence of others, but it is not known whether he smoked as before, being in solitude.

Churchill's request to purchase Stalin's pipe was passed on to Lavrenty Beria. Not only did Beria have his own far-reaching plans, he sympathized with Churchill and agreed to fulfill the request of the English prime minister.

On March 1, 1953, Beria changed the pipe.
On March 2, Stalin had a stroke.
On March 5, Stalin died.

After the arrest, among the charges brought against Beria, there was one that caused bewilderment among many - “an English spy”!
Probably, Beria's connection with the English prime minister was somehow revealed.
Perhaps the Stalinist pipe played a fatal role in the fate of Beria?

Reviews

"Defamation (from Latin diffamo - "defaming") - the dissemination of untrue defamatory information" (Wikipedia)
"Euro-tales" (?) what does Europe have to do with it?

"Sense of humor - psychological feature human, which consists in noticing contradictions in the world around and evaluating them from a comic point of view.
Sense of humor - Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org›Sense of humor"

In fact, explaining a joke to a person devoid of a sense of humor, even "known in narrow circles" is a thankless task.

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A smoking pipe is an item that is not quite ordinary and does not lend itself to standard classification. In addition to purely practical tasks that it successfully performs, there is something mystical, elusive in the pipe ... It is not without reason that many legends and superstitions are associated with this object. If we consider the domestic legislators of this method of smoking, then, undoubtedly, the odious personality of the “father of all peoples” - Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich, is immediately recalled.

Stalin is credited with a whole collection of the most interesting copies of smoking pipes, donated to him on his seventieth birthday in 1949 and to this day stored in the State Central Museum of Contemporary Art. In fact, Iosif Vissarionovich did not see all these valuable gifts. He had his favorite pipes made by the English company Dunhill and cut by Alexei Fedorov, a Soviet connoisseur of the smoking ritual, especially for the leader.

It is interesting that Stalin did not fill his pipe with special pipe tobacco, but with Herzegovina Flor cigarette tobacco. These cigarettes were produced only at one factory in the Tambov region and it was impossible to buy them freely - the elite Herzegovina Flor was intended exclusively for Stalin. gutting cigarettes, Soviet leader stuffed his favorite pipe with this tobacco and enjoyed the process.

Until now, the reasons why the ruler preferred to smoke a pipe rather than traditional cigarettes have not been unraveled - this image with a pipe in his mouth does not fit into the usual, outwardly ascetic appearance of the ruler. Severity in clothes, lack of outrageous details, a simple way of life - and suddenly an obvious object from another world, more noble, screaming about the prosperity and elegance of its owner.

Therefore, it is no coincidence that Stalin's smoking pipe is credited with a special, magical meaning - supposedly it gave him strength and served as a magnet that attracts success and good luck. It is said that Winston Churchill, the great statesman and politician of England, had the same opinion. Considering the mystical amulet to be the object of Peter I himself, the British Prime Minister decides to take possession of the valuable item. Deciding to substitute, Churchill orders exactly the same copy of a smoking pipe, trusts him to smoke it faithful person and commits forgery with the help of Lavrenty Beria. According to the legend, in the first days of March 1953, Beria threw a skillful fake to Stalin, and already on March 5 Soviet ruler dies.

Exhibits of the exhibition of smoking pipes by I. V. Stalin

A pipe made from the corncob of the American corporation Champ

The cob is preliminarily dried for two years and then processed special composition. These pipes are distinguished by a special, delicate taste, extraordinary lightness and cheapness, but they have one serious drawback - they burn out rather quickly.

Pipe "Stalin and Roosevelt play chess"

In the year when Soviet troops won a resounding victory over Nazi Germany, a radio chess tournament was held between the United States and the Soviet Union. Domestic chess players won with a huge gap: 15:5. Deciding to "sweeten the pill", the USSR invited the American team to visit our country. Returning from a memorable trip, the Americans made a gift to Stalin in the form of a smoking pipe, on which the heads of two states playing chess were carved. Moreover, Joseph Vissarionovich was depicted here with his favorite pipe.

Smoking pipe "Female head"

This item is a family heirloom of a French peasant family. Since the 19th century, the pipe has been handed down from generation to generation. Made from the traditional pipe material, heather, or briar, it is reminiscent of female beauty. The mouthpiece is made of ebonite, a vulcanized rubber containing a large number of sulfur.

Silver pipe

This precious specimen late XIX century was presented by Georgia as a tribute to the great ruler. The silver tube is very durable and is not afraid of falls and mechanical stress. Due to the plasticity of the metal, you can create products of the most bizarre shape. The Georgian pipe is equipped with a long wooden mouthpiece.

porcelain tube

Clay is the most early product for the production of smoking pipes. AT this case the gift presented to Stalin by defeated Germany is symbolic - the ancient Indian tribes had a special ritual "lighting the pipe of peace." A simple clay pipe passed from hand to hand between the warring parties until they came to an agreement. So in this case, the Germans hoped for forgiveness and reconciliation with a great power.

You can attribute many mystical properties to the legendary pipes of Joseph Stalin, but one thing is certain: men with pipes have a huge psychological superiority over their opponents. Having lost the thought, they can simply pretend that they are smoking their pet, and this will not look indecent and annoying from the outside. Taking a break, the owner of the pipe will calm down and accept the right decision. The surrounding people will see in this deep wisdom and noble thoughtfulness ...