What happened to Saltykova under Catherine 2. Saltychikha. The story of a serial killer. There were many Saltychikhs in Russia

Channel "Russia 1" continues showing the series "Bloody Lady" about the first known serial killer in Russia, landowner Daria Saltykova, who brutally killed about a hundred of her peasants. Since only a sentence remained in the documents of the 18th century about this lady (Catherine II ordered to destroy other evidence), the authors of the series were free to think of the image of Saltychikha and her biography. The result is a melodrama with a very metered element of sadism.

But what was the case in reality? We propose to recall the life of the real Saltychikha - "a freak of the human race." Whom the legendary landowner really loved, hated and killed.

As soon as contemporaries and descendants did not call Daria Saltykova, who went down in history under the name of Saltychikha: “black widow” and “black villainess”, “Satan in a skirt”, “noblewoman-sadist”, “serial killer”, “bloody landowner”, “ Trinity cannibal "," Marquis de Sade in a woman's guise "... Her name was pronounced with a shudder for many decades, and Empress Catherine the Great even avoided calling this woman-monster" she "in her sentence to the villainess, which she personally rewrote several times.

The story told by the director Yegor Anashkin in the new series "Bloody Lady" is close to what happened in real life, but in many respects softer than the harsh reality. Because if the director filmed the most terrible atrocities that Saltychikha is said to have perpetrated, the film would most likely simply be banned.

A devout girl from a good family

On March 11, 1730, a girl was born in the family of a pillar nobleman Nikolai Ivanov, who was named Daria. Daria's grandfather, Avtonom Ivanov, was prominent statesman epoch of Peter the Great and left a rich legacy to his descendants.

It is not known for certain how Dasha Saltykova's real childhood went. According to the version shown in the film, it was unhappy. After the death of his wife Anna, Nikolai Ivanov sent his daughter to be raised in a monastery with the wording "possessed by demons."

Francois Hubert Drouet, "Portrait of Countess Daria Chernyshova-Saltykova", 1762. This portrait has long been considered a portrait of Saltychikha

In her youth, a girl from a prominent noble family was known as the first beauty, and in addition, she stood out for her extreme piety. Although the real appearance of Saltychikha is a secret sealed with seven seals. It is not known for certain what she looked like, but those portraits that were considered to be Saltychikha's portraits for many years in fact depict other women.

Most often, the portraits of Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova were taken for numerous portraits of her namesake and relative by husband, Daria Petrovna Saltykova, nee Chernysheva, wife of Field Marshal Ivan Petrovich Saltykov, who was 9 years younger than the landowner.

At the age of 20, Daria married the captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov. The Saltykov family was even more noble than the Ivanov family - the nephew of Gleb Saltykov, Nikolai Saltykov, will become the Most Serene Prince, Field Marshal and will be a prominent courtier in the era of Catherine the Great, Paul I and Alexander I.

Soon Daria gave birth to her wife two sons - Fyodor and Nikolai, who, as it should have been, were enrolled from birth in the Guards regiments.

Fyodor Lavrov as Gleb Saltykov in the TV series "Bloody Lady" (no real images of Saltychikha's husband have survived)

It was a typical marriage for its time - two noble families united to increase wealth. Historians have not come across any special evidence of hatred of her husband, as well as of adultery on the part of a young wife, plausibly shown in the film "The Bloody Lady". In the same way, it remains unknown why the head of the family died after six years of marriage, leaving a 26-year-old widow with two sons in her arms - and a lot of money. Subsequently, versions arose that Saltykova herself got rid of her husband, but they seem to historians to be groundless.

Rich widow

After the death of her husband, Daria Saltykova became fabulously rich. The reason was also that her mother (who, unlike the serial version, was not a killer maniac at all) and grandmother lived in a monastery and abandoned the family fortune.

So at the age of 26, a young mother of two sons became the sole owner of six hundred peasants in estates near Moscow, located on the territory of the present village of Mosrentgen and the capital region Teply Stan... Saltychikha's town house in Moscow was located at the corner of Bolshaya Lubyanka and Kuznetsky Most. The lady also had remote estates in the Vologda and Kostroma provinces.

The widowed Daria Saltykova, of course, has not lost interest in the opposite sex. There is evidence that she played tricks with her husband's relative, Sergei Saltykov. In the TV series "Bloody Lady" his role was played by Pyotr Rykov. I must say that Sergei later really became one of the favorites of Catherine II. In addition, some historians suggest that he was the biological father of Paul I.

Saltychikha's lover Sergei Saltykov / Pyotr Rykov as Sergei Saltykov in the series "Bloody Lady"

The widow led a secular life and at the same time was reputed to be very pious - several times a year she made a pilgrimage to shrines, spared no money for church needs. About the terrible "fun" Saltychikha became known only a few years later. In the meantime, returning home after the service, she sat down in an armchair in the middle of the courtyard to administer a "righteous judgment" over the serfs.

Mysterious passion

According to witnesses, Saltychikha began to show her sadistic inclinations about six months after her husband's death. The film "The Bloody Lady" shows that the first signs of mental illness appeared in the landowner in early childhood - but historians have not found such evidence. However, the director notes that he did not aim to make a historical film, "The Bloody Lady" is, rather, a terrible fairy tale.

Apparently, Daria Saltykova began to "get under way" just after the death of her husband. According to modern psychiatry, she had epileptoid psychopathy - a mental disorder in which a person often has bouts of sadism and unmotivated aggression.

Augustine Christian Ritt, "Portrait of Countess Darya Petrovna Saltykova", 1794, another portrait of supposedly Saltychikha

The first complaints about her atrocities, which were no longer isolated, date back to 1757. Every year Saltychikha became more and more cruel and sophisticated. According to the serfs, she whipped them to death - and if she got tired, handed the whip or the whip to the assistants - haiduk, pulled out the hair on the head of the women or set it on fire, branded the ears of the young with a hot iron, scalded them with boiling water, froze them to death in the cold or in an ice pond in winter, even buried alive.

"Saltychikha", Pchelin V.N.

In particular, Saltychikha loved to torture and torment brides who were preparing for the wedding. She put on whole bloody performances that always ended in death young girls excised with a whip. The coachman, the groom and a couple of henchmen, under the stern gaze of the bloody lady, tried tirelessly. After all, it is well known that one's own skin is more expensive. Fear and horror reigned in the noble house: the short night seemed paradise to the serfs. And each of them waited with bated breath for the morning. And the awakened Saltychikha always gets up on the wrong foot and will definitely find an excuse to pull out a lock of hair from a girl passing by or burn her face with a hot iron or hot tongs.

Alexandra Ursulyak as Saltychikha in the TV series “Ekaterina. Takeoff"

Once, in September 1761, a cannibal, as a "prelude" to the next execution of her subjects, beat the boy Lukyan Mikheev to death with a log. Beautiful girls Saltychikha aroused particular hatred. For example, she strove to beat pregnant women in the stomach, poured boiling water over them and pulled out the ears of her victims with hot tongs. Sometimes this seemed to her not enough: somehow Saltychikha ordered the serf Fyokla to bury her alive in the ground. A small but indicative touch to the portrait of the murderer: all the victims were necessarily buried by the landowner's priest. What he felt during this ceremony is unknown ...

Illustration of Kurdyumov's work for the encyclopedic publication "Great Reform", which depicts Saltychikha's torture "as soft as possible"

Peasants weren't the only ones who suffered from psychopaths

Once a famous nobleman almost fell under the hot hand of a landowner. Land surveyor Nikolai Tyutchev - the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev - was her lover for a long time, but then decided to marry another. For which he paid ...

Vlad Sokolovsky as Nikolai Tyutchev in the series "The Bloody Lady" (no real portraits of the land surveyor have survived)

This story took place at the beginning of 1762. The landowner had an affair with the engineer Nikolai Tyutchev. As a result, the man could not stand Saltychikha's violent temper and decided to leave. He wooed Pelageya Tyutcheva, she agreed. The young people began to think about the wedding, and Saltykov - about the murder.

So, on the night of February 12-13, she bought gunpowder and sulfur and sent the groom, Roman Ivanov, to set fire to the house of her former lover. She only demanded to see that the couple was at home and burned alive. The man did not obey the orders, fearing to kill the nobleman. For this he was severely beaten. The second time the landowner sent two people: Ivanov and a certain Leontiev. However, this time they did not dare, returning to Saltychikha. The men were beaten with batogs, but they did not kill them.

The third time she sent three serfs at once. The Tyutchevs went to the Bryansk district to the bride's estate Ovstug. Their path lay along the Great Kaluga road, where an ambush was set up. The serfs had to first shoot at them, and then finish them off with sticks. But someone warned the young people about the ambush, and in the end they fled at night in a roundabout way.

The case of the lost souls

Complaints fell on the fierce landowner, but Saltychikha belonged to a well-known noble family, whose representatives, moreover, were the governor-general of Moscow. All cases of atrocities were resolved in her favor. Moreover, the opposite often happened - the complainants returned to the estate, where they were beaten with whips and exiled to Siberia.

Only two peasants, Savely Martynov and Ermolai Ilyin, whose wives were brutally killed by Saltychikha, were lucky. In 1762, they managed to convey a complaint to Catherine II, who had just ascended the throne, who decided to use the sadist's case as a show trial. He commemorated new era legality and demonstrated to the entire Moscow nobility the authorities' readiness to fight local abuses.

Catherine II / Severia Janushauskaite as Catherine II in the TV series "Bloody Lady"

The investigation into the Saltychikha case lasted six years. It turned out that she tortured and killed at least 38 people. The remaining cases of missing more than a hundred peasants could not be attributed to the landowner. But this was enough for the empress to personally sign the verdict to Daria Saltykova. The Senate, which was required by law to pass a sentence, refused to do so.

The most terrible rumor that was spread about the landowner Saltykova was that she drank the blood of young girls and was a cannibal. This, they say, explained the fact that the bodies or burials of the majority of souls, who were listed as missing without a trace, were never found during the investigation, which lasted more than five years. The whole thing was based on the stories of the serfs.

Shot from the TV series "Bloody Lady"

There is a version that the high-profile case of Saltychikha was beneficial to Catherine the Great and her supporters - in order to morally weaken the Saltykovs and prevent even a hypothetical opportunity for representatives of the German Welf dynasty to occupy the Russian throne, to which three tragically dead Russian emperors belonged (Peter II, Peter III and Ivan VI ) and which was related to the Saltykovs. Therefore, it is quite possible that the history of the landowner's crimes could have been inflated.

Unrepentant

Numerous influential relatives of Daria Saltykova, including the governor of Moscow and the field marshal, did their best to avoid the death penalty. Nevertheless, the empress's decision was harsh. By her decree, she decided henceforth "to call this monster Muschina."

In September 1768, Catherine II rewrote the sentence several times. Four of her handwritten sketches of the document have survived. In the final version, Saltychikha was stripped of her noble rank and sentenced to life imprisonment in an underground prison without light and human communication.

Saltychikha was taken to the square, on the scaffold they tied her with chains to a pillar of shame and read the tsar's paper. And before that, the executioner mercilessly whipped the priest and two handy Darya Saltykova. After a while, she was put in a black cart and taken to the St. John the Baptist Convent. Here a "penitential" chamber was waiting for her - almost a pit, where even a ray of light did not penetrate. Only in the minutes when food was brought to the prisoner was light allowed - a candle stub was put next to the bowl for the duration of the meal.

Actress Yulia Snigir as Saltychikha in the TV series "Bloody Lady"

After more than a dozen years, Saltychikha was transferred to the stone annex of the cathedral church, where there was a small barred window. It was rumored that Daria Saltykova somehow managed to seduce the soldier who guarded the dungeon, and at the age of 50, give birth to a child from him. And, they say, an accidental lover was publicly flogged and sent to a penal company. Note that not once - neither during the investigation, nor on the scaffold - does Saltychikha admit her guilt and will not repent. And on her face, frightening even experienced jailers, there will be a calm and triumphant smile.

John the Baptist Convent, in which Daria Saltykova was imprisoned

Surprisingly, the gas chamber, which was distinguished by excellent health, lived to be 71 years old. V last years In her life, the prisoner was already behaving like a real crazy - she scolded loudly, spat, tried to poke the onlookers with a stick. Darya Saltykova was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery, next to her relatives.

The noble Russian nobility bashfully closed their eyes to the deeds of Saltychikha's followers. For example, the landowner Vera Sokolova in September 1842 beat the courtyard girl Nastasya to death, and in the Tambov province the peasants were afraid of the wife of the nobleman Koshkarov like fire. This secular lady, who shone at balls, simply loved to whip "rude men" and "stupid women" with a whip on her estate. And a certain Saltykova, the namesake of Saltychikha, kept for three years in a cage near the bed of the yard hairdresser. However, these are just a few documented cases, how many there actually were - it's scary to imagine.

Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova nicknamed Saltychikha(March 11, 1730 - November 27, 1801) - Russian landowner who went down in history as a sophisticated sadist and serial killer of several dozen serfs subject to her. By the decision of the Senate and Empress Catherine II, she was deprived of the dignity of a pillar noblewoman and sentenced to life imprisonment in a monastery prison, where she died.
Daria Nikolaevna was born in the family of a pillar nobleman Nikolai Avtonomovich Ivanov, who was related to the Davydovs, Musin-Pushkins, Stroganovs, Tolstoy and other old Moscow families. Her grandfather, Avtonom Ivanov, was a prominent figure in the times of Tsarevna Sophia and Peter I. She married captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov, uncle of Nikolai Ivanovich Saltykov, the future High Prince. They had two sons, Fedor (1750-1801) and Nikolai, who were enrolled in the Guards regiments.
Marriage
Saltychikha's maiden name is Ivanova. She was the daughter of a pillar nobleman, related to the Davydovs, Musin-Pushkins, Stroganovs and Tolstoys. She married the captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov. They had two sons, who were enrolled in the service in the guards regiments. She was a blooming and, moreover, a very pious woman. Daria herself married the captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Gleb Saltykov, but in 1756 she was widowed. Her mother and grandmother lived in a nunnery, so Daria Nikolaevna became the sole owner of a large fortune. In the arms of a 26-year-old widow, two sons remained, recorded on military service in the capital's guards regiments. Almost every year Daria Saltykova made a pilgrimage trip to some Orthodox shrine. Sometimes she drove quite far, visited, for example, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra; during such trips, Saltykova generously donated "to the Church" and gave alms. Serfdom existed for hundreds of years in Russia, when peasants were a thing. The landowner was their undivided owner. This is from there, from serfdom: “life is worse than a dog's,” “to break the hat,” “the right of the first night,” and so on. Some of the so-called serf owners were so brutal that they went down in history. A striking example of this is Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova, who received the nickname Saltychikha from the courtyard.
The day begins
Daria Nikolaevna woke up again in a bad mood. I called the girl to dress her. Soon morning t the ualet was finished. There was nothing to find fault with. Then the lady, without any reason, dragged the serf by the hair. Then the landowner went from room to room to check if everything was clean. In one of them, she saw a small, yellow, autumn leaf that flew through the window and stuck to the floorboard. In a shrill voice she demanded the one who cleaned the rooms. Agrafena entered, neither alive nor dead.
Saltychikha grabbed a weighty stick and began to mercilessly beat the "guilty" until the girl, bleeding, fell to the floor. A priest was called, but Agrafena could not even utter a word. So she died without repentance. Similar scenes in a Moscow house at the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Lubyanka were repeated almost every morning, and then throughout the day. Those who were stronger endured the beatings. Others suffered the fate of Agrafena.
How Saltykova turned into Saltychikha
Daria Nikolaevna Ivanova was a kind of ignorant and had no wealth. But she was successfully married to the captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Gleb Saltykov. Ivanova entered the circle of aristocrats. The married life did not last long. In 1756, when Daria was 26 years old and she became a widow, while becoming one of the richest landowners in Russia. She had an estate in Moscow, as well as land holdings in the Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces, in which there were more than six hundred serf souls. The wealth and death of her husband had a bad effect on Daria. Moreover, unrequited love was mingled with early widowhood. Saltykova was inflamed with the most tender feelings for the engineer Tyutchev. He did not reciprocate. And Saltykova turns into Saltychikha. In young beautiful girls and women, she sees the main cause of misfortune. She beat her hostages on the head with a rolling pin, a log, a hot iron, burned her hair with a torch, poured boiling water over her, tore her ears with hot tongs and did many more terrible things. When Saltychikha got tired, she ordered her hayduks (lackeys) to finish off the “guilty” with batogs, whip or lash: “ Beat to death! I am in charge myself and I am not afraid of anyone". All over Moscow there was talk of Saltychikha's atrocities. They whispered with horror that she had kidnapped children, roasted and ate them. And she cut out the breasts of young serf girls and ate too. All this, of course, is an exaggeration inherent in "oral folk art." Nevertheless, in a reputable edition - in the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary - Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova, nee Ivanova, is called a cannibal. Truth, this definition the authors still enclosed in quotation marks.
Of course, not all serfs put up with this state of affairs. 21 complaints of peasants against Saltykova are kept in the archives. But in those days the rabble had no right to complain about their masters "like children are against their parents." In addition, Daria Nikolaevna had extensive connections. Often petitions came to her. It came down to the Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna... The empress was in Moscow, where at that time there were celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of the tsarina. The people also took part in the celebration. Carts roamed the streets, on which roasted bulls "reclined", piles of game and bread of various sorts. Barrels of honey and beer were rolled behind the "chariots" with food. Fountains with red and white wine gushed on Red Square. Catherine herself rode around in an open-topped carriage, watching her heralds throw silver coins into the crowd. Suddenly a bearded man with a distraught look jumped out of this mass of people. He quickly threw a crumpled, dirty piece of paper into the carriage window. It was Yermolai Ilyin, serf Darya Saltykova, who beat three of his wives to death one after another. After lying in grief for several days after the murder of his third wife, Yermolai decided at all costs to bring the hated lady to justice. He fled from Saltychikha and was able to get to the Empress's carriage.
Crimes
In seven years, she killed 139 people, most of them women and girls. Most of the murders were carried out in the village of Troitskoye near Moscow. The main reason for punishment was dishonesty in washing floors or doing laundry. The punishment began with the fact that she inflicted blows on the guilty peasant woman with an object that came to hand. The guilty was then flogged by grooms and hayduks, sometimes to death. Saltychikha could pour boiling water over the victim or singe her hair on her head. The victims were starved and tied naked in the cold. In one episode, the nobleman also got from Saltychikha. Land surveyor Nikolai Tyutchev - the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev - had a love relationship with her for a long time, but decided to marry another, for which Saltychikha almost killed him along with his wife.

Complaint to the Empress
The initial complaints of the peasants led only to the punishment of the complainants, since Saltychikha had an influential relationship and she managed to bribe officials with bribes. But nevertheless, two peasants, Savely Martynov and Ermolai Ilyin, whose wives she killed, in 1762 managed to convey a complaint to Catherine II, who had just ascended the throne. At the beginning of the summer of 1762, two fugitive serfs appeared in St. Petersburg - Ermolai Ilyin and Savely Martynov - who set themselves an almost impossible goal: they set out to bring a complaint to the Empress Catherine Alekseevna about their mistress, the large landowner Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova. The runaways had almost no chance of success: firstly, they were in an illegal position and could not verify their identity with passports; secondly, the Empress Empress, in accordance with the rules of the then office work, considered documents submitted only by the ranks of the higher four levels of the Table of Ranks. Until the era of Emperor Paul the First, who fixed on the wall of the Winter Palace a special box for denunciations of "all persons, without distinction of rank", there were still almost four decades; and this meant that an ordinary person could not possibly be heard by the Power, which did not dignify him with audiences and did not accept his petitions. You can put it this way: the Supreme Power simply did not notice its slaves. Ilyin and Martynov had no way back. They could only appeal to the highest Power in the Empire and only move forward in an attempt to realize their plans. The way back meant certain death for both. Surprisingly, both were able to successfully complete an almost hopeless venture. If the fugitives acted according to the law and tried to file a complaint against their mistress at the place of residence, they would surely face the saddest end. Such attempts have already been made by their predecessors, and they all ended for the daredevils in a very sad and even tragic way. Therefore, Ilyin and Martynov preferred a long and seemingly illogical path: at the end of April 1762, they fled from the Moscow house of their mistress, but did not move south, into the free Don steppes, but in the opposite direction, to the capital of the Empire. With all sorts of hardships and twists and turns, passportless serfs made it to St. Petersburg and hid here. The fugitives were looking for approaches to the Winter Palace, more precisely, such a person through whom a complaint could be conveyed to the Empress. It is not known how exactly such a person was found, it is not known who he was at all; most likely, it was not without a large bribe. Be that as it may, in the first half of June, Catherine II received a "written assault" from Ilyin and Martynov.
In it, the serfs reported the following:
- They know for their mistress Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova "deadly and very important creminal affairs";
- Daria Saltykova "from 1756 a soul with a hundred (...) she, the landowner, was ruined";
- The authors asked the Empress of Serfs Saltykova "to protect from mortal destruction and merciless inhuman torture";
- Emphasizing the large number of people tortured by Daria Saltykova, the informers stated that only one of them, Ermolai Ilyin, had a landowner successively killed three wives, each of whom she tortured with her own hand;
- For themselves personally, the authors asked "not to give them to the landowner, informers, and others in her possession."
- Saltychikha - `` murderer ''
Investigation of the case
After returning from the holiday to the Kremlin Chambers, Catherine II decided to get acquainted with the petition. She scanned the petition with her eyes and lost herself in thought. I didn't want to quarrel with the aristocrats. They helped her to ascend the throne. However, the empress was horrified by the facts given in the paper. In addition, just a few days ago, she promised her subjects to be the "mother of the Russian people." A few minutes later the empress made a choice: “ Investigate the landowner Saltykova". The proceedings lasted six years. It was not without Saltykova's connections and bribery of investigators. The latter secretly hoped that the empress would forget about this matter. But the Empress remembered everything. And she didn’t like it when her demands weren’t met. Finally, on January 13, 1765, a definition was issued: since Daria Saltykova, although publicly exposed by many witnesses and victims, does not want to confess, then subject her to torture. But they did not dare to torture the noblewoman. She was only shown how to do it. That is, another criminal was tortured with her. Saltychikha just grinned at the executioner's efforts - she herself did not do that. Learning that the torturer still persists, Catherine II called her "a freak of the human race", after which she ordered a strict one, " general search about the personality of Saltykova ". In 1768, the College of Justice nevertheless proved that Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova “a considerable number of her male and female people are inhuman, she killed painfully, "therefore she is worthy of the death penalty. However, the "enlightened" empress could not go to an extreme measure. The Empress pardoned the criminal by assigning her life imprisonment. Saltychikha was deprived of her nobility, taken to the scaffold installed on Red Square, tied to a pillar of shame and hung on her chest a board with the inscription: "torturer and murderer." Then she was put in a dungeon, which was located under the church of the Ioannovsky nunnery. The room had a very small window that barely let in the light. So it was dark in the prisoner's "dwelling" almost 24 hours a day. The candle was lit here only when she ate. After the "meal" the fire was blown out. Here Daria had a "happy affair" with the jailer, who brought food. They said that she even gave birth to a child from him. In the summer months, ordinary people came to look at the "villainous Saltychikha", for which they unceremoniously pulled back the curtain from the viewing window. In response, the former lady tried to get into the eye of the watcher with a stick and spat, while her cheeks were shaking ugly: over the years spent in the dungeon, Saltychikha had grown great stout. In 1779, she was assigned another place of imprisonment. "The torturer and murderer" was placed in a special dungeon attached to the wall of the monastery, where she died in 1801. This is how this Russian "study in crimson tones" ended.

Court and verdict
The trial lasted over three years. In the end, the judges found the accused "guilty without leniency" in thirty-eight proven murders and torture of courtyard people. However, the senators did not pass a specific verdict, shifting the burden of decision-making to the reigning monarch - Catherine II. During September 1768, Catherine II rewrote the sentence several times. Preserved four handwritten sketches of the judgment of the Empress.
October 2, 1768 Catherine II sent a decree to the Senate, in which she described in great detail both the punishment imposed on Saltykov and the procedure for its administration. On the margins of this decree, by the hand of Catherine, next to the word she is placed he. There is a version that the empress wanted to say that Saltykova was unworthy to be called a woman.
Saltykova Daria Nikolaevna was convicted:
to deprivation of the nobility;
to a lifelong ban on being named by the family of a father or husband;
to serving for an hour a special "disgraceful show", during which the convicted woman was to stand on the scaffold chained to a pillar with the inscription "tormentor and murderer" over her head;
to life imprisonment in an underground prison without light and human communication.
In addition, the empress, by her decree of October 2, 1768, decided to return to her two sons all the property of the mother, which until then was in the custody department. It was also indicated to punish by reference to the hard labor of Darya Saltykova's accomplices.
The punishment of the convicted "Daria Nikolaeva daughter" was executed on October 17, 1768 on Red Square in Moscow. In Moscow Ivanovsky nunnery where the convict arrived after being punished on Red Square, a special cell was prepared for her, called the "penitential". The height of the room dug in the ground did not exceed three arshins, it was completely below the surface of the earth, which excluded any possibility of daylight getting inside. The prisoner was kept in complete darkness, only for the duration of the meal was a candle stub passed to her. Saltychikha was not allowed to walk, she was forbidden to receive and transmit correspondence. On major church holidays she was taken out of prison and taken to a small window in the wall of the church, through which she could listen to the liturgy. The strict regime of detention lasted 11 years, after which it was weakened: the convict was transferred to a stone annex to the temple with a window. Visitors to the temple were allowed to look out the window and even talk to the prisoner. According to the historian, "Saltykov, when the curious gathered at the window behind the iron grating of her dungeon, cursed, spat and thrust a stick through the window that was open in the summer." After the death of the prisoner, her cell was converted into a sacristy. She spent thirty-three years in prison and died on November 27, 1801. She was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery, where all her relatives were buried.
Psychiatry
About character psychiatric illness Saltykova can only be guessed at. On the one hand, she behaved like a believer, on the other, she committed sadistic crimes. One of the possible diagnoses could be "epileptoid psychopathy". People with this deviation commit the most brutal murders. The anticipation of murder is a spiteful and gloomy mood. These psychopaths are cruel to animals. Their sexual activity is relatively low, but they are prone to jealousy. At the same time, they are prudent in money matters. This description is quite consistent with the character of Saltykova.

Scary fun of Daria Saltykova

In 1768, the landowner Daria Saltykova stood near the Execution Ground at the pillar of shame - famous Saltychikha, tortured to death at least 138 of her serfs. While the clerk read from the page the crimes she had committed, Saltychikha stood with her head uncovered, and a plaque with the inscription "The Tormentor and Murderer" hung on her chest. After that, she was sent to eternal imprisonment in the Ivanovo monastery ...

The picturesque, quiet, surrounded by a coniferous forest, the Saltykov estate in Troitsky near Moscow, soon after the sudden death of the owner, turned into some kind of cursed place. "As if a plague settled in those parts",- the neighbors whispered. But the inhabitants of the "enchanted estate" themselves lowered their eyes and pretended that everything was as usual and nothing special was happening.

Meanwhile, the number of serfs was steadily declining, and a new burial mound appeared almost every week in the village cemetery. The reason for the inexplicable pestilence among the Saltykov serfs was not a mass epidemic, but a young widow, mother of two sons - Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova.

To the empress with a complaint

In the spring of 1762, the serfs Savely Martynov and Ermolai Ilyin escaped, aiming to get to Petersburg and convey a complaint about their mistress to the Empress herself. The peasants were not afraid of either police raids or a possible march on a stage to Siberia. Savely had nothing to lose at all. After Saltykova cold-bloodedly killed three of his wives in a row, the peasant lost hope for a calm and happy family life.

Maybe a miraculous miracle happened or heaven heard the prayer of the serfs brought to an extreme degree of despair, but only "Written assault"- that was the name of the letter to Catherine II - nevertheless fell into the hands of the empress. The empress was not embarrassed by either the title of nobility of the accused or her numerous patrons, and a few days after reading the complaint, a criminal case was initiated against Darya Nikolaevna Saltykova, who was accused of numerous murders and abuse with their serfs.

The investigation into the Saltychikha case lasted six years, dozens of volumes were written and hundreds of witnesses were interviewed, and they all said that after the death of her husband, the new owner of the estate seemed to be thrown off the chain. No one would have thought that the once timid and devout 26-year-old woman would not only mock her serfs in the most cruel way, but also brutally deal with anyone who made even the slightest mistake in housekeeping.

For seven years, Saltykova killed at least 138 of her subjects. The reason for the execution could have been the lady's dissatisfaction with the quality of the washing or cleaning. As witnesses in the Saltykova case later told, the landowner was furious because some courtyard girl could not cope with her duties at home. She grabbed whatever came under her arm and began to beat the unfortunate peasant woman. Then she could scald her with boiling water, rip out more than one clump of hair from her head, or simply set them on fire.

And if, after many hours of executions, the landowner was tired, and the victim was still showing signs of life, then she was usually chained to a pillar for the night. In the morning, the savage execution continued, if at least one drop of life still lurked in the sentenced one.

Only a few of those tortured by Daria Saltykova were buried in church and buried in the village cemetery, as required by Christian customs. The bodies of the rest disappeared without a trace. And in the business books it was indicated that "One escaped, three were sent to our Vologda and Kostroma estates, and about a dozen more were sold at 10 rubles per capita"... However, during the investigation it was not possible to find a single person from this list.

Revenge for dislike

This terrible woman was in close relationship with the Davydovs, Musin-Pushkins, Tolstoy, Stroganovs, moved in the highest circles of society, had the most influential connections, but at the same time was absolutely illiterate and could not even write. It is known for certain that the Trinity landowner was very religious. She made several pilgrimages to Christian shrines and never spared donations. But the cruel Saltychikha was the complete opposite of that Daria Nikolaevna, who was received with honor and respect in the best houses of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

All Moscow officials were afraid to take on such a dubious case, in which the serfs went against their mistress, and even so influential and titled. In the end, the folder ended up on the desk of investigator Stepan Volkov. He, a rootless man and not a secular one, was distinguished by impartiality and perseverance, and with the help of Prince Dmitry Tsitsianov, he was able to successfully bring the matter to an end.

No matter how many obstacles Saltykova repaired to the investigation, she did not manage to get out of the water dry. Each new piece of evidence led to a whole chain of crimes. It turned out that long before the serfs handed over their complaint to Catherine II, more than 20 similar complaints written earlier were quietly gathering dust in the archives of the Moscow authorities. But the authorities did not give a go to any of them. And the general searches in the estates of Saltykova and the seized accounting books indicated that the officials of these departments received rich gifts or some kind of financial assistance from Daria Nikolaevna.

Perhaps that is why the landowner herself, throughout the entire investigation, was not only sure of a safe release, but also continued to intimidate her serfs in all sorts of ways. Nevertheless, Catherine II was extremely offended by the behavior of her subject, who created a certain model of “state within a state”, established her own laws, single-handedly decided “who to execute and whom to have mercy,” and thereby elevated herself to the rank of a royal person.

In the course of the investigation, one more fact was revealed, which brought the investigation to a new level. It turned out that in addition to reprisals in her own lands, Saltykova was planning the murder of her neighbor, a nobleman, Nikolai Tyutchev. The famous poet's grandfather was in a love relationship with a young widow, but decided to marry another. Quite possibly precisely because he knew the strange inclinations of an exalted mistress. Daria Nikolaevna went crazy with jealousy and resentment. She decided to take revenge on her unfaithful lover and his new passion.

On her behalf, the trusted servants, who more than once helped her in domestic executions, acquired several kilograms of gunpowder. This would have been enough to smash to the last brick the entire Moscow mansion of Tyutchev, into which he then moved with his fiancée. But Saltykova realized in time that the murder of a nobleman and a serf are completely different things, and abandoned her bloody intentions.

In the second year of the investigation, Saltykova was taken under guard. Only then did the frightened peasants become reluctant to talk about all the horrors they had never witnessed. 38 cases of deaths at the hands of a landowner were fully proven: 36 women, girls and girls, and only two young men became victims.

Estate of the Saltykovs

There were also double murders, when the landowner beat pregnant women until they had a miscarriage, and later dealt with the mother herself. 50 people died from all sorts of diseases and fractures resulting from the beatings. Of course there were still dozens of peasants who disappeared without a trace, whose bodies were not found, and the traces were lost, but the available evidence was enough for the most cruel sentence.

"The torturer and murderer"

In the archives, four drafts-sketches on the Saltykova case, written by the empress with her own hand, have survived. Regularly for six years, she received reports from detailed description all the villainy of the landowner. In the protocols of interrogations of Saltykova herself, investigator Stepan Volkov was forced to write the same thing: "He does not know his guilt and will not stipulate himself."

The Empress realized that the landowner did not take advantage of the chance for repentance, and would not receive concessions for her steadfastness. It was necessary to demonstrate that evil remains evil, no matter who did it, and the law in the state is the same for everyone. The verdict, which Catherine II was personally involved in drawing up, replacing the surname "Saltykov" with epithets "Inhuman widow", "freak of the human race", "completely apostate soul", entered into force on October 2, 1768. Daria Saltykova was deprived of the title of nobility, maternal rights, as well as all land and property. The verdict was not subject to appeal.

The second part of the sentence provided for civil execution. On the eve of the event, posters were posted around the city, and tickets for the execution of their former friend were sent to titled persons. On November 17, 1768, at 11 o'clock in the morning, Saltychikha was taken to the Execution Ground of the Red Square. There she was tied to a post with a sign "torturer and murderer" in front of a large crowd of Muscovites who had gathered on the square long before the convict was brought there. But even the hour-long "disgraceful spectacle" did not make Saltykov repent.

Then she was sent to eternal imprisonment in the prison of the Donskoy Monastery. For the first eleven years, she was literally buried alive in a "penitential pit" dug in the ground two meters deep and laid on top of a grate. Daria saw the light only twice a day, when a nun brought her meager food and a candle stub. In 1779, Saltychikha was transferred to a solitary confinement cell, which was located in the monastery annex.

The new apartment had a small window through which the convict could look at the light. But more often they came to look at her. They say that Saltychikha spat through the bars at the visitors and tried to reach them with a stick. It is also said that she gave birth to a child from a jailer.

After 33 years of imprisonment, Daria Saltykova died within the walls of the Donskoy Monastery and was buried in the monastery cemetery. The grave of the murderer landowner exists to this day, but the name of the villainess was completely erased, and instead of the tombstone, a large stone stake remained.

There were many Saltychikhs in Russia

"Second Saltychikha" was popularly called the wife of the landowner Koshkarov, who lived in the 40s of the 19th century in the Tambov province. She found particular delight in tyranny over defenseless peasants. Koshkarova had a standard for torture, from the limits of which she went only in extreme cases. Men were supposed to be given 100 blows with a whip, women - 80. All these executions were carried out by the landowner personally.

The pretexts for torture were most often various omissions in the household, sometimes very insignificant. So, the cook Karp Orlova Koshkarova whipped with a whip because there was not enough onion in the soup.

Another "Saltychikha" was found in Chuvashia. In September 1842 the landowner Vera Sokolova beat the courtyard girl Nastasya to death, whose father said that the mistress often punished her serfs with "tatting for the hair, and sometimes forced them to flog with rods and whips." And another servant complained that “the lady knocked her nose out with her fist, and the punishment with a whip left a scar on her thigh, and in winter she was locked in a latrine in one shirt, which caused her to freeze her legs” ...

The landowner Saltychikha is a common noun in the history of Russia. A columnar noblewoman, "famous" for her sadism, a sophisticated murderer of several dozen of her serfs, she still terrifies her contemporaries today.

Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova was born in March 1730 in the family of a columnar nobleman Nikolai Avtonomovich Ivanov and Anna Ivanovna Davydova. In her family there were nobles with sonorous surnames - Davydovs, Musin-Pushkins, Stroganovs and Tolstoy.

Young Daria Saltykova lived in luxury: her grandfather, Avtonom Ivanov, at one time served faithfully and amassed a huge inheritance for descendants. Dasha grew up to the delight of her parents as a clever and beautiful woman, standing out among others for her extreme piety.

Personal life

The beauty married a noble groom: the captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov belonged to an even more noble family than the Ivanov family. The life of the young spouses turned out quite well. Soon Daria Saltykova gave her husband two sons - Fedor and Nikolai. As was then customary, the boys were immediately enrolled in the Guards regiment.

The family lived in a huge city house in Moscow, built near the Kuznetsky Most in the Bolshaya Lubyanka area. Later, the apartment building of Torletsky-Zakharyin and other buildings in which today are located federal Service security of Russia. Another huge Krasnoye estate, which the family often visited, was located on the banks of the Pakhra River.

Daria Saltykova was not only a high-born columnar noblewoman, but also a highly respected person in society. She regularly made pilgrimages to shrines, donated a lot of money for the needs of the church and generously gave alms. The woman was distinguished by an agreeable character and prudence.

Grief came to the Saltykov family when Daria was only 26 years old: a woman was widowed. After the death of her beloved husband, she remained incredibly rich, because from Gleb Saltykov she got estates in several provinces. The landowner inherited about 600 serf souls in the Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces.

Later, witnesses in the Saltychikha case told the investigators that the young landowner, although she was strict during her husband's life, was not noticed in the assault. Everything changed dramatically when Daria Saltykova became a widow.

Crimes

As it turned out, in seven years the cruel widow killed more than a hundred serfs. The figure is called 139 people, but it was not possible to establish the exact number of those killed by Saltychikha.

The main reason for punishing serfs for Daria Saltykova was poorly washed floors or dishonest, in the mistress's opinion, washing. Therefore, women and girls most often suffered from the cruelty of the landowner. The enraged Saltychikha at first pounced on the guilty with fists or threw objects at her hand, but soon Saltykova was not enough: the unfortunate women, on the orders of the lady, were flogged, often to death, by hayduks and grooms.

The enraged Saltychikha often took a direct part in torture and torture: she poured boiling water over her victims, tore or set their hair on fire, ordered the unfortunate to be tied naked in the cold, and starved them to death.

Daria Saltykova committed most of the murders on the Troitskoye estate in the Moscow region.

Once the grandfather of the famous poet, the nobleman and land surveyor Nikolai Tyutchev, almost died by the hand of a half-mad lady. As it turned out, Nikolai and Daria had a long romance, but love relationship were not crowned with marriage. For some reason, the young man decided to invite not a rich landowner, but a modest woman down the aisle. The enraged Saltychikha for this almost brought the unfaithful lover out of the world together with his young wife, arranging an attempt on him, which was avoided by accident.

It is noteworthy that, regularly committing murders and bloody atrocities, Daria Saltykova continued to earnestly bow down in monasteries and churches, kiss the holy relics in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, strictly observe fasting, donate money to churches and make pilgrimages.

The first complaints of the injured peasants or relatives of the slain serfs did not yield results: the influential relatives of the half-mad lady invariably stood up for her. Moreover, placating officials with generous bribes, Saltychikha not only avoided punishment, but also learned the names of the complainants, punishing them with incredible cruelty. Therefore, for a long time the crimes of the landowner remained unpunished, and her cruelty became more and more sophisticated.

Two peasants managed to break the chain of atrocities of a high-ranking sadist: Ermolai Ilyin and Savely Martynov in 1762 managed to get through to the young empress, who had just entered the right of succession to the throne. The queen examined the complaint and ordered an honest investigation.

Having learned the true state of affairs, Catherine the Great staged a show trial. Since Saltychikha belonged to a noble family, the case marked a new era of legality. The Moscow Justice College conducted the investigation for six years. The investigation was entrusted to the rootless official Stepan Volkov and his assistant, court adviser Prince Dmitry Tsitsianov. When the investigators studied the landowner's accounting books, they were able to establish the circle of officials whom Saltychikha bribed. After analyzing the records in the books about the movement of serfs, Volkov and Tsitsianov determined which of them were sold and who died.

Investigators were alarmed by records like the one in which it was stated that a twenty-year-old girl who entered the service of a landowner died a few weeks after the start of work. There were many such records. As Ermolai Ilyin established, one of the complainants, the groom, had three wives in a row died. In many cases, Saltychikha stated that she let the girls go home, to stay with their relatives, but these girls were not seen again either at home or in other places.

Some of the murders, the terrible details of which surfaced during the investigation, chilled the blood with their prohibitive cruelty. For example, Saltychikha, famous for her remarkable strength, killed the serf Larionova with her own hands. She tore out all the hair on her head and forced her accomplices to put the coffin with the body of the murdered young woman out in the cold. An infant Larionova was placed on her body, which froze to death.

According to the testimony of the peasants, Daria Saltykova enjoyed the torture and torment of her victims. She amused herself by dragging the unfortunate by the ears with hot hair tongs. Among those killed by the landowner were several young girls who were preparing for the wedding, pregnant women and two 12-year-old girls.

Having thoroughly studied the archives of the offices of the Moscow governor, the police chief and the Search Order, the investigators found more than twenty complaints against the landowner, which had been filed by the serfs. But the bribed officials told the names of all of them to Saltychikha, who made her own judgment over the unfortunate truth-seekers.

Daria Saltykova was taken into custody and interrogated with the use of torture, although no one gave permission for them. But the fierce lady did not confess to anything. The persuasions of priest Dmitry Vasilyev did not have any effect on the "devout" murderer: the accused did not lighten her soul with repentance.

In 1768, Saltychikha was sentenced to death: investigators were able to prove 38 murders. But soon the execution was replaced by deprivation of the nobility and imprisonment for life. In the text of the verdict, it was indicated to call "this monster Muschinoya".

Before being imprisoned in the Ivanovo Maiden Monastery, Saltychikha was chained to a pillory erected on Red Square for one hour. At the same time, a sign was hung on her with the inscription "torturer and murderer."

Modern criminologists and psychiatrists claim that Daria Saltykova was a mentally ill person - she suffered from epileptoid psychopathy. Some historians, referring to the text of the verdict ("call this monster Muschina") and the testimony of peasants interviewed by investigators, argue that Saltychikha was a latent homosexual.

In February 2017, compatriots again remembered the terrible landowner after the release of director Dmitry Iosifov, in which the role of Saltychikha went to.

A year later, in February 2018, the screen was released, in which the actress played the main role.

Death

Daria Saltykova was kept in a solitary dugout cell without windows: she saw the light of a candle only when food was brought to her. Saltychikha spent 33 years in prison, the first 11 years in a cell without light. The rest of the years she was kept in a cell with a tiny window, and people were allowed to see the killer, as a rare and terrible animal. According to some testimonies, in custody, Saltychikha became pregnant from the guard and gave birth to a child.

Daria Saltykova died in December (old style November) 1801. Death came to a serial killer at the age of 71. They buried her in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery, where all the relatives of Saltykova had previously reposed. The tombstone has survived to this day.

The chronicles of the beginning of the reign of Catherine II are rich in descriptions of criminal processes that are associated with mass torture and murder by landowners of their serfs. A special place in these processes is occupied by the "Case of Saltychikha" - a Moscow noblewoman who killed about 140 people. She killed Saltychikha of any motivation, with "special", as they would say now, "cruelty", just like that, out of love for this business, not yielding, and in many ways surpassing the most notorious monsters of the human race.

Daria Nikolaevna Ivanova was born in 1730. She was the third daughter of a simple nobleman, many of whom served the sovereign and the fatherland in the vast Russian expanses. At the age of 20, she married Gleb Alekseevich Saltykov, the captain of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. The married life of the Saltykovs did not differ in any way from the life of other high-born families of those times. Daria gave birth to her husband two sons - Fyodor and Nikolai, who, as was then customary, were immediately enrolled in the Guards regiments from birth.

However, after six years, in 1756, her husband unexpectedly dies. The loss of her husband, who left the young widow a house in the center of Moscow, a dozen estates in the Moscow region and 600 serfs, negatively affected her mental state: the widow began to experience uncontrollable bouts of severe anger, which she poured out, usually on the slaves around her.

Picturesque, quiet, surrounded by coniferous forest the Saltykovs' estate in Troitskoye near Moscow soon turned into some kind of cursed place. “It’s like a plague has settled in those parts,” the neighbors whispered. But the inhabitants of the "creepy estate" themselves lowered their eyes and pretended that everything was as usual and nothing special was happening.

Meanwhile, the number of serfs was inexorably decreasing, and a new grave mound appeared in the village cemetery almost every day. The reason for the inexplicable plague among the Saltykov serfs was not a terrible epidemic, but a young widow, mother of two sons - Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova.

Saltykova again got up in a bad mood. She called the serf to dress her. Soon the morning toilet was finished. There was nothing to find fault with. Then Saltychikha, without any reason, pulled the girl by the hair. Then the lady went to check the rooms to see if everything was clean. In one of them, she saw a small, yellow, autumn leaf flying through the window and sticking to the floorboard. The lady burst out. She ordered in a shrill voice to bring the one who was cleaning the rooms. Agrafena entered, neither alive nor dead.

Daria Nikolaevna grabbed a weighty stick and began to beat the "guilty" mercilessly until the girl, bleeding, fell to the floor. A priest was called, but Agrafena did not even have the strength to utter a word. So she died without repentance. Such scenes in a Moscow house at the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Lubyanka took place almost every morning, and then throughout the day. Those who turned out to be stronger endured the beatings. The rest suffered the fate of Agrafena.

So, for underwear that was not well washed, in her opinion, she could easily, in a state of passion, grab the first thing that came to her hand - whether it was an iron or a stick - and beat the guilty washerwoman with it until she lost consciousness, and then call the servants and order them to beat the bloody sacrifice with sticks to death. Sometimes such murders were committed in her presence, at times - in the courtyard of the house, in front of other serfs. Those close to Saltychikha carried out the orders of their deranged mistress unquestioningly. Or they could easily turn from executioners to victims.

Carts with a suspicious load, barely covered with mat, pulled out from the estate. Those who accompanied not really that and hid from involuntary witnesses - they say, we are taking the corpses to the police office for examination, another girl died, the kingdom of heaven to her, ran away, fool, and on the way she gave God her soul, now everything is needed, as it should be , commit. But inadvertently slipping matting revealed a terrible disfigured corpse with scalded skin, scabs instead of hair, stab and cut wounds.

Made the Countess Bathory the maid to undress, stand in front of her, took a knife and ...

Over time, Saltychikha's cruelty took on an even more pathological character. Simple beatings and the assassinations of serfs that would certainly follow them did not satisfy her, she began to invent more sophisticated tortures: she could set fire to her hair, tore her ears and nostrils with red-hot tongs, cut out the genitals of men and women who had been bound in advance, threw little ones alive into cauldrons of boiling water. girls.

And what about the serfs themselves? Could it be that they, like dumb cattle, during all this time were silent, with slavish obedience went to the slaughter?

On the contrary, dozens of complaints were written to all instances, but ... Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova belonged to the upper class, she had “noble” blood in her veins, so it was not so easy to bring her to justice: all the local nobility could stand up to her defense.

Only in 1762, when Catherine II began to reign, one of the complaints against Daria Saltykova reached its destination and was accepted for consideration. It was submitted by a serf whose name was Yermolai; Saltychikha killed three wives in turn.

Catherine II forwarded the complaint to the Moscow Justice Collegium, and she was forced to open a criminal case. In the course of the investigation, terrible details of the atrocities committed by Daria Saltykova began to surface in her house on Kuznetsky Most. According to the testimony of many witnesses, during the period from 1756 to 1762, the Bloody Lady killed 138 people with her own hands! But in the future, the investigation was able to officially establish and prosecute the facts of only 38 murders (Saltychikha and her henchmen knew how to hide the ends in the water). But even these episodes were enough to make even seasoned judges indescribable horror.

Even at a time when the investigation in the Saltychikha case was in full swing, torture and murder did not stop in Saltykova's house: witnesses for the prosecution who dared to complain about their mistress were destroyed. The whole nightmare of those times was that the serfs, having given evidence against their master or mistress, were forced to return to him at the end of the interrogations.

The system of judicial protection did not apply to slaves.

When the operatives burst into the house, even they, the well-worn ones, could not recover from the horror ...

The aggressiveness of the Bloody Lady was looking for a way out all the time and finally began to splash out not only on the serfs, but also on people of noble origin like her. When her lover, Count Tyutchev, told her that he wanted to marry another, Saltykova was so enraged that she ordered her servants to kill both Tyutchev and his bride, and also to burn down their houses so that nothing else could remind her about the insult inflicted. Fortunately, the henchmen, encouraged by the course of the investigation, ignored the order of Daria Saltykova, and Count Tyutchev survived.

The investigation into the Saltychikha case was conducted for 6 long years. The Bloody Lady in every possible way "greased" the lawyers, giving bribes to the right and to the left, and at social events and balls, where they did not stop inviting her, she repeatedly said that there was nothing to judge her, first of all, since serfs are not people, and secondly, it is impossible, because she is of “blue blood”.

But, despite the many obstacles created by the investigation by Saltychikha and her high-ranking patrons, the case was finished and brought to court. The ending of the bloody drama has come.

Having considered all the circumstances of the case, the Justice Collegium passed a death sentence to Daria Saltykova, admitting that "she inhumanly, torturously killed a large number of her men and women to death."

Secret mechanisms were immediately set in motion, and the Senate in St. Petersburg made another decision - replacing the death penalty with punishment with a whip and hard labor. The patrons of the Bloody Lady were also not satisfied with this sentence, and finally Catherine II herself put an end to the matter. By the personal decree of the Empress, Saltykova was sentenced to one hour of standing in the center of Moscow at the pillar of shame and life imprisonment.

1768, October 7 - Saltychikha was brought in a canvas shroud to Execution Ground, hanging on her chest a board on which it was written: "The torturer and murderer", was given a lighted candle in her hands and tied to a post. According to contemporaries, thousands of people gathered to look at Saltykova, which the people have long been associated with the fabulous Baba Yaga and the ghoul. Red Square was overcrowded with people. Onlookers even climbed onto rooftops and trees. For an hour, while the Bloody Lady stood at the pillar of shame, the executioners beat her with whips, branded with a red-hot iron and cut out the nostrils of those who helped her in her atrocities at her feet. Towards the end of the "performance", the priest was also branded, who, at the behest of Saltychikha, served the funeral service and buried those tortured by her as dead natural deaths.

On the next day, all of Saltychikha's henchmen were sent in convoy to the Siberian city of Nerchinsk for eternal hard labor, and Daria Saltykova herself was sent to the Moscow Ivanovsky nunnery and lowered into a deep dark pit, called by the nuns "penitential dungeon." The fanatic spent eleven long years in that prison on water and bread. During these years, she saw the light only when food was brought to her: together with the food, a lighted candle was lowered into the pit.

1779 - Saltkova's sentence was commuted, and she was transferred to a brick "cage" - an extension to the monastery wall. There was a barred window in the annex. One of his contemporaries told how through this window Saltychikha spat at the curious, cursed at them and tried to hit with a stick thrust through the bars of the grate. The 11-year repentance in the pit did not lead her to repentance, only made her even more embittered.

An amazing fact: somehow Saltychikha managed to seduce the soldier who was guarding her and enter into an intimate relationship with him, as a result of which she became pregnant and gave birth to a child. Then she was already 50 years old! The soldier was severely punished with gauntlets and sent to a penal company for correction, but nothing is known about the fate of the newborn. Most likely, he could have been identified in one of the monasteries, where until the end of his days he atoned for the many sins of his bloodthirsty mother.

Daria Saltykova died on November 27, 1801 at the age of 71. They buried her in the Donskoy Monastery, next to her relatives.