Weekly magazine “Arguments and Facts” No. 03. Either a bus, or a vision. When will the modernization of public transport reach cities and towns? 19/01/2022
“The crooks who stole millions during the construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome are judged very mildly. For such crimes during the construction of BAM, they were punished more harshly, the federal judge is convinced of the resignation Alla Tertyshnaya.
She is the only one of the women in the judicial community of the Amur region who has passed death sentences. He considers the abolition of the death penalty a big mistake. He says that this decision was made by those who have not seen photos of torn children’s bodies.
At the largest construction site of the USSR, they stole in especially large sizes in the Soviet sense – from 10 thousand rubles.
Photo provided by the newspaper “Amurskaya Pravda”, Valeria Khristoforova.
According to the grandfather’s testament
– How many death sentences have you passed?I am asking Alla Tertyshnaya, a retired judge of the Amur Regional Court.
– This is a blasphemous question! I didn’t count, Alla Semyonovna answers without a pause.
She paid for her first execution verdict with a heart attack. In 1983, on the Olympus of Soviet power stood Yuri Andropov, the time was tough and often uncompromising. At the stationYerofey Pavlovich with a special purpose, a person was killed.Alla Tertyshnaya was born in 1940 in a non-existent settlement for special settlers in the north of the Amur region. She worked as a librarian, methodologist, secretary of the Komsomol district committee. She was a judge for 30 years. She says that during all this time she has never been pressured “from above”.
I still remember the victim’s last nameHedgehogs. He was a very good man. At night, he accidentally met with a pres-shy, who was carrying on his shoulders a bundle of stolen things from the warehouse. The killer simply shredded him with a knife, inflicted more than 40 wounds.
The trial took place in the village club at the re-sale. «The judge has never imposed a higher penalty, so it will do this time», – the lawyer reassured the relatives of the murderer.
Having studied all the details and circumstances of the criminal case, the people’s assessors and I came to a consensus: the highest penalty, recalls Alla Semyonovna.
When she announced the verdict, the killer’s lawyer attacked her first, then a crowd of his angry relatives surrounded her. They started throwing stones. There were three women: a judge, a secretary and a prosecutor. By a miracle, they jumped into the train alive. In the carriage, Alla Semenovna had a heart attack. She was pumped out for a long time by doctors at the Skovorodino junction station.
– Today I have a full heart of stents, it’s all thanks to my work, – the judge remarks in retirement. And, after a pause, adds: «If everything could be rewound, I would make the same decision again».
She has an acute sense of social justice since her earliest childhood. The “place of birth” column contains the terrible: “special settlement”. Her young parents were exiled from Belarus to the Far East as Kulak elements. Half of the family died while still in the veal wagons of the freight train on the road to exile. No one buried the corpses. Shedding tears, they were simply dumped at the stations in the hope that someone would bury them.
We lived in a remote taiga, 100 km from the Sivaki station, under the supervision of the commandant. The scurvy was terrible, but they did not starve. My father secretly plowed a field in the taiga and risked his life to grow wheat and potatoes. Thanks to this, they survived, – recalls Alla Semyonovna.
One day her grandfather said in a way: they say, “Voroshilov not the commander…» was immediately denounced, and «the troika» condemned him to 9 years of camps. He served 8. When he came home, sick and powerless, he cried: “Okay, I’m fine, but there were such smart people sitting there. Professors and academics!”That same evening, her grandfather told her: “When you grow up, be sure to become a prosecutor and do everything so that there is as little evil and injustice in the world as possible.”
She’s grown up. She grew up to be the second secretary of the Komsomol district committee. And at 23 she entered the law faculty of the Far Eastern University.
The criminal underside of BAM
The first place of work of the young judge was the remote Selemdzhinsky district.
– My predecessor was killed. There lived many freed traitors of the Motherland and accomplices of the fascists, who, after serving their terms, were afraid to go to their native places. Therefore, the situation in the area was difficult, recalls Alla Semenovna.
She judged honestly and according to the strictness of Soviet law. They called her and growled hollowly into the phone: “It will be the same with you as with your predecessor.”
– It worked out!She answers my dumb question in monosyllables.
For 30 years, Alla Tertyshnaya worked as a judge of the Amur Regional Court. The area of her professional responsibility included the areas of construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. She remembers the criminal underside of that big construction site to this day.
– At first there was a lot of terry criminality – murders, robberies, rapes. Then the embezzlement began on a particularly large scale. They were judged strictly, in the Soviet Criminal Code, the responsibility for embezzlement on a particularly large scale began with 7 years of imprisonment, says Alla Tertyshnaya.
A particularly large size in the socialist sense of – from 10 thousand rubles.
– While cosmodrom «East» was built, an abyss of money was stolen. I think that the penalties for these crimes were given too soft. Incommensurable with the scale of public evil, she notes.
«What kind of bribes?! God forbid!»
Once Alla Semyonovna fought for the fate of two teenagers who were convicted for 4 years for a boy fight.
– The boys were good! Well, youth, the boys waved their hands, there were no injuries. It was painful for me to look at their parents. I advised the father of one of them to go to a personal reception at the Supreme Court of the USSR. What do you think, you requested the case in Moscow and the unfair decision was canceled, says Alla Semyonovna.
A grateful parent decided to be grateful.
– Came to my office, takes out two sticks of smoked sausage from the diplomat: «Take it, you’ve never tried such a…» I kicked him out of the office! What kind of bribes?! God forbid! I’ve always been afraid of provocations on this occasion, she waves her hand.
Today, many of us have forgotten the word “speculation”. And under the Soviet regime, it was easy to end up in prison for resale. Tertyshnaya recalls how she fought off a disabled person from captivity, a person with a severe form of tuberculosis. He dared to resell scarce vodka. Then it was sold in stores on coupons and was synonymous with hard currency.
A man was selling vodka in a public toilet in Blagoveshchensk, he lived by it. His pension was scanty. And they wanted to plant him!Alla Semyonovna sighs vexedly.
She has been in honorable retirement for 15 years, and there are still legends about her incorruptibility in the Amur region.
– This is all the moral hardening of my special settlement! I saw too much injustice as a child and still can’t stand it on the spirit. I made a lot of enemies because of this, including in the professional community. But I can’t do it any other way, – she remarks.
Alla Semyonovna still remembers the number of the car that miraculously did not hit her late in the evening when she left the courthouse. On that day, Tertyshnaya sent the son of one of the police chiefs of the Amur region to places not so remote.
– He was a real criminal. Arrogant, cynical, used to getting away with everything, she recalls.
The car then missed by only a few centimeters
In Soviet times, field court sessions were practiced. A lot of people came to them, as to the performances.
– Judged in tight «red corners ». There were no cages for criminals. The escorts were little soldier boys, to whom the accused were handcuffed. That’s it!
She cannot forget the process when from the details of the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl, a soldier-escort fainted.
– There the brains of the child on the wall flowed – these photos still stand before my eyes. I read out the details in the verdict, and I look, and the escort went along the wall. White as death…
She fervently convinces: the death penalty must be returned!
– It was canceled by those who did not see the bodies of the torn children… Today, at least 10 people kill, the criminal will still save his life. He will be fed, treated and kept in human conditions. And he will most likely believe in God and will still write complaints with quotes from the Bible, Alla Semenovna wisely notes.
Despite the harsh profession and the burden of responsibility that she carried for decades, Judge Tertyshnaya did not lose her positive attitude and optimism. She says with a slightly restrained smile: “The happiness of life is in life itself.”
