In 1978, the USSR was shocked by the news - counterfeiter Viktor Baranov was caught. For those times it was a real sensation. The counterfeiting of banknotes of the greatest state turned to a craftsman for 12 years in a maximum security colony.
Inventor-nugget from the Stavropol Territory Viktor Baranov became a cult personality in the criminal environment of the USSR. He was the first and only person who was caught in the production of fake banknotes, which was literally put on stream in the Soviet country, but he lived quite modestly. Who is he and where from? How did you come to the fact that he began to fake tickets of the State Sign - one of the most classified manufacturing enterprises in the country?
Biography of counterfeiter Viktor Baranov
Victor Ivanovich native Muscovite. He was born at the end of April 1941. Who his parents were is unknown. In 1957, he and his family moved to a permanent place of residence in the Stavropol Territory.
The boy was fascinated by money from early childhood, but he was not interested in material significance, but in artistic value, the level of quality of their manufacture. Viktor spent all his life collecting paper bills, he knew each of the "pieces of paper" of his collection by heart - the details of the drawings, the type of letters, the nature of the coloring and other nuances, individual features. He could spend hours sitting on what he managed to collect.
Outwardly, he was an unremarkable boy. He studied well at school, constantly invented something, often and drew a lot, loved to stay alone with his ideas. After school, like many young people from poor families, he received a working profession in an ordinary construction school - a carpenter-SUV.
In parallel with his studies at the school, Victor visited a local flying club, even made several parachute jumps. So he prepared for his dream - service in the Airborne Forces, but she was not destined to come true. The conscript Baranov was sent from the military registration and enlistment office to one of the automobile battalions, as he had a driver’s license.
Self-education and inventions of Victor Baranov
Viktor Ivanovich’s “piggy bank” had many original and useful inventions, and, coming from the army, he decided to implement them at the factories of his native city. But no one was interested in inventions. In those days, the “apparatchiks” were less interested in innovation and modernization of production processes than state plans for the five-year period.
Of course, this attitude very upset the inventor, and in the end he decided to do what he was always fascinated with - paper money. Viktor Ivanovich did not intend to put their production on the stream, he only dreamed of making a bill that would be impossible to distinguish from a real one issued by the State Sign.
Viktor Baranov spent long 12 years finding information on what technologies are used in the production of paper notes. Ironically, the judge passed the same term for his activities in court.
The second side of life of the humble driver Viktor Baranov
What Victor did in the shed in the backyard of his house, did not even know his wife. The man did not drink alcohol, did not walk "in the neighbors", he worked. The woman did not see anything strange and terrible in the fact that he was passionate about his inventions in his spare time from work. And, as it turned out, in vain.
No one suspected that the staff driver of the garage of the CPSU District Committee of the Stavropol Territory in the backyard has both a laboratory and a production hall for the production of tickets of the Soviet State Sign. It is also interesting and surprising that the first bills created by him exceeded the originals in quality. Viktor Ivanovich even had to artificially reduce this quality so that the money became more realistic and less different from real money.
Even if someone accidentally entered Baranov’s shed, he would not have thought that the counterfeiter’s laboratory was located there. Bill making machines were hidden from prying eyes. In front of him stood a bench machine and equipment for developing, printing photos - another hobby of the craftsman.
Soon after the "release" of the first batch of notes, Baranov realized that this was not enough for him. I wanted recognition, evaluation of its activities, as they say, from the outside. And he found a way to satisfy - he began to exchange fake money in the nearest market. "Into the family" the man did not bring any income obtained in this way. He gave his wife only a salary, and sometimes random “kalyms”. The income from his hobby Viktor Ivanovich spent on the purchase of paints, machines and consumables. The militiamen who searched his house after his arrest got a sad picture - Baranov lived more than modestly, his family did not even have a TV.
Viktor Baranov was not annoyed with his arrest, but even pleased. He directly said to the police who detained him - "I am a counterfeiter!" The court sentenced 12 years in prison. In places of detention, Baranov became an authority, he was even favored by "thieves in law." The technologies that he used in his shed were introduced into production processes at the State Signature. Moreover, his recommendations were used to enhance the protection of banknotes. But after the liberation of recognition he did not receive, he lives again in solitude and modesty.
