Queen of the St. Petersburg Crime Scene: Sonia Golden Hand

A gorgeous thief who was perhaps too talented for her own criming good, Sonia Golden Hand stole hearts and goods all over Europe. She ran cons and palmed gems like no other, which gained her fame. Pro tip: fame and recognition aren't particularly helpful for those looking to fly under the radar. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Saren.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey, Elizabeth, now are you friend? I've been better, but
I'm good. I'm fine. I think I'm doing well. I'm
above boards and above earth and you know, still sitting
upright and taking nurse.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
There it is above ground and getting paid?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Is there you go? Yeah, on the right side of
the grass.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Do you know it's ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh my god? Yes. So it was just recently the
Easter season, right, and I was thinking about it because,
like like you, I was raised Catholic and I used
to love to tell my mom inappropriate Jesus jokes around
the holidays. So you're not going to yeah, I'm doing
a Jesus joke, Elizabeth. So what was ridiculous is I
found one that I was like, oh man, this guy's great.

(00:40):
I got to send it to better realize my mother
doesn't do memes, but I thought i'd just share it
with you. Okay, let me see how well this plays
as you just say it out louds. I'm gonna tell
it your on the phone. Ready, here's the joke. This
is from a guy named Bennett who is imagine a
guy on Twitter. So here's the joke. You're ready, Yeah,
guy who only knows Jesus professionally, Honey, did.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
You hear they crucified our carpenter. No, I love that
they crucified our carpenter. I don't love hilarious the guy
who only knows Jesus professionally.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'm not gonna explain it to you. It's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's ridiculous. I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
It's ridiculous. How excited I am to tell my mother
that you you.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Really went out there on this one.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
That it's an easter thing between my mother and I.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Okay and the Lord. You and the Lord.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
He forgives me. He forgives me. It's so easy. I
just asked. He's like, you're forgiven. And by the way,
Killer Saint Peter and I were still chuckling. I'm getting
in on. They're gonna grease the rails for me to
get into having Elizabeth. They're just gonna they got.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
It all like a skid road, easy peasy. Do you
want to know what else is ridiculous?

Speaker 5 (01:47):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:47):
I'd love to being such a good con artist that
you get recognized on the street. This is Ridiculous Crime.

(02:15):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, you don't heard that.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Shape shifting cons are fascinating to me.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
It shape shifting You are the ones.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Who like become whoever they need to be in the
moment to pull one over on the mark.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Ah okay, yes, like not.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Literal shape shifters.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
No, I didn't think that's what people. I didn't think
that's a lizard david people. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
No, these are the people who make themselves so intriguing
and so irresistible that people will get swept up and
do whatever the con wants. Ah. Yes, the influencer cons,
they just want people just want to be near them,
or to be liked or loved by them, to be
part of their orbit.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, just warm their hands by their fire.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yes, I have one of those for you today. So yeah.
Her name was Sophia Ivanovna.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is it now?

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, bustein the whole thing, bless me. Uh okay, her
name was Sophia Ivanovna Blustein.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
If you say so, bless me, bless you.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
But everyone called her Sonya gold Hand.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
That is an amazing name.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
She was the queen. My god, that's good, Queen of
the thieves in Imperial Russia.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
Oh and she was a theem fatal Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
She lived this incredible life from start to finish.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
How is she not more famous? I've never heard of that.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
I'm working on it.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, build the foundation.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Let's go back to the start. Let's let's start at
the beginning.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
She was born, small black child.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
She's born in a district of.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Warsaw, poor black child, Loisa.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Back so back when she was born in eighteen forty six. Sure,
her area of Warsaw was just like a little village
of eight buildings next to a Russian army base.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
That's not a village, No, it's like a bunch of
washer people get together housing.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
But it's like in this like outskirt area of Warsaw,
and that part of Poland was part of Russia. Okay, Yeah,
So her early life story is a little hazy, in
part because she told a lot of tall tales, and
so there are nuggets of truth in there, but much
of what we know is likely fabrication.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Also, a great thing about the nineteenth century is like
somebody would come and take over your whole country, and
your country disappear and you're like, I used to be
a count, but the country's gone. Then all send your
country's back. You're like, oh, I'm fighting to get back
by so, like everybody always so was so fluid. It's
totally because of all the Empire stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
And I'm fine with those fabrications, like We're just going
to rocket like it's it's the truth because Zaren, it's
her truth.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
It is. Let's let it being in her truth.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
So she she came from an eccentric and bohemian Jewish family,
and bohemian in the sense of artistic and nonconforming, not geographic.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah no.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
She liked to tell people that she was born into
a family of smugglers, like you love this, and it
could have been true, but there's also evidence that her
dad was a simple barber. But you know what, why
not both?

Speaker 2 (05:25):
I ask if Bob Dylan gets the backstory he wants,
so does she exactly?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
And what does it matter anyway?

Speaker 2 (05:31):
A good story?

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, so, Sonia's house was usually full of shady foreign
characters growing up. People people came and went, stayed for
a while, helped out or got help, and then moved on.
So if this was indeed a smuggler's house. She met
a lot of criminals from all over with various specialties.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I like to say, interesting fellows, interesting travelers, yes, fellow travelers.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Because of this international parade through her home, she learned
to speak five languages. Yeah, and this would come in
very handy later because she would use the language skills
to pose as like different nationality.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Of course nice.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
And she was also just this incredible mimic and observer.
So she would watch and she became really acquainted with
the etiquette of nobility, memorized it.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Did she have like an opportunity to study them, Like
did she work in like, you know, a house or something.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
So, but she started her criminal career when she was thirteen.
She would steal stuff from third class train cars.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Okay, so they should class. It's such a crazy distinction.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Right, she get noticed in the first class?

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Can here in second class? You got just enough money
to be in a class exactly? Like that is such
a bizarre thing.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Well, she'd stick out in first class, so you know,
she she it was a different story in third class.
And she brought her sister with her and apparently, like
her sister wasn't that great a theft but Sonia and I, yeah, exactly,
Sonya is amazing, And I say Sonya right, because there's

(07:05):
it's weird translations where she's born so fast she gets
called Sonya Russia an different things.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
You got a chart out, Yeah, she goes.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
At this point, she's so no, okay, people start calling
her Golden Hand because she's so adept at pickpocketing and
palming goods.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Wonder Goldhand's super smooth with that.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
She's the greatest picture beautiful. So that adds to the
mystique in the legend of this, like golden criming goddess.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
How close you can get to her victims.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, that's exactly. That totally is what helps. So when
she's fifteen, she leaves home, she marries this tradesman, but
it doesn't last long because like even though they're married,
she got around like she's say, yeah, so shed on
her husband just over and over again, until finally he
was like, I've had enough.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
You're embarrassing me. I can't even go to get a
haircut without people laughing.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Right, so you know, he takes off. Her second husband
was a professional card sharper, and so he knew how
to make money and he expanded her repertoire from pickpocketing
to just straight up fraud.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Oh yeah, that's a professional criminal, that's all he knows.
She has no marketable.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Skills, none, none, so she but she soaked up all
of those marketable skills, the knowledge, the advices. Pretty soon
the student became the master. Yeah, she started working alone.
She's like you hold, she could charm any man, like cops, detectives, soldiers, nobility,

(08:31):
anybody would just it was bizarre, like she just had
instant charm over them, and she was convincing in her seductions,
like these guys really honestly believed that she was in
love with them and that she was just as gripped
by passion as they were. And like these dudes would
risk it all for her, and they lost it all families, jobs, fortunes,

(08:53):
Oh yeah, they'd throw it all away from her, and
for the most part, she would then slip away and
move on to the next. So she got married a lot, Okay.
Newspaper reports on both sides of the Atlantic put the
count at sixteen marriages.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
WHOA, yeah, you said a lot. I was thinking seven,
And I.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Think I think there's there's a lot of exaggeration back
then in the papers, so we'll guess it's a little
south of there.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
But still this is like the yellow journalism era papers details,
what do they matter?

Speaker 3 (09:21):
So the marriages, they're part of the can of course,
the bulk of her scams they worked like this. She'd
pass herself off as this upper class woman, and she'd
slip into stranger's hotel rooms early in the morning and
steal things. And if she got caught, like she'd see
like it was a man's hotel room. If she got caught,
she'd say she was confused as to what room she

(09:42):
was in. She'd apologize, she'd leave, but she's so well
dressed and so well Maddy, and oh, I'm so you know,
I'm so embarrassed.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
And they want to be gracious and gentlemanly about it.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Right. She called this act the guten Morgan.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
She's like an ocean's eleven yesh i pull a guten Morgan.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
So a variation of it is that if the resident
of the hotel room was a gentleman who was like
pleasantly startled to see her standing there look at all gorgeous,
she'd still act like she was confused and embarrassed for
having gone to the wrong room, all apologies, but then
she'd play it like she was so captivated by this
guy she couldn't help but look at him with this
look of lust and desire. On her way out the door,

(10:23):
she's like, oh, this is so embarrassed, and she'd blush
and then go to leave, and most of the time
the guy'd be like, no, no, no, stay. And so for
he too, I do am gripped with desire and lust.
So now like she's got her clause in him right,
So then like they'd hook up. They would they'd make
promises to each other, and he'd offer her diamonds and
jewels and money to come run away with him, because

(10:45):
he's got this countess, you know, all of a sudden
in the room, and she'd rebuff him, and then she'd
finally relent and he'd hand over these gifts and then
suddenly she's gone, yeah. So she ran the largest gang
of thieves in Saint Petersburg, just saying something, it's like
a sort of forty elephants group. So she directed the

(11:07):
group to steal various stuff like shoplifting types of crime,
and then like had certain fences for the goods. Some
of them had to be accomplices or like play characters
in her schemes made all that kind of stuff. Everyone
respected her and obeyed her, and so when she there,

(11:28):
she is pulling off these larger scams, seducing men, taking
them for all their worth, and they're just doing like
the street level stuff constantly. So one of her most
famous small time heights happened in an upscale hat boutique,
because luxury place. She was disguised as a foreign countess
when she went in. So she rolls up into the
shop just before it closes, and she said she wanted

(11:50):
quote something suitable for the Vienna Opera season.

Speaker 7 (11:53):
Of course, I.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Love this, Yes, we've got a perfect hate.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Sales girl is like, oh my god, I've got like
this countess here, and she wants help, and she's all flustered,
and she lays out the absolute most expensive hats in
the joints, and Sonya, she tries on hat after hat,
and she's asking for mirrors and she's adjusting the feather
those hats right yeah, And she's like, oh, can I
get a different veil on this one? And she's got

(12:17):
the clerk running from room to room and but she's
fun with it. And so the clerk is like excited.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, they're hunting for the perfect hat.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
And thinking like I'm about to make these huge sales
right before we close for the day. Yeah, they're getting together. Yeah,
so you know, Sony's trying them all and then she
like gas goes through her handbag. It's like, oh my god,
I forgot my wallet. This is horrible. So she's like, look,
I'm gonna go back to my hotel. I'll be back
in twenty minutes. I'm just gonna go get my purse.

(12:46):
And so the clerk is like, okay, you know, Sonya
breezes out. Clerk goes to kind of gather up the
hats that are all over the shop now and realizes
that two of the most expensive ones are gone, and
that Sonia had come in wearing this like really gorgeous
velvet cloak and she tucked the hats under the cloak

(13:06):
when she swept out after her performance. Yes, so she
had mentioned to the clerk that she was staying at
the Grand Hotel, and the clerk sent someone to go
get the countess and the money, like, oh, she took
two hats. So they get to the suite at the
hotel and there's a maid there who said the quote
Countess had just left for the port, that she was
headed on the steamship to Constantinople. That's what the accomplice

(13:29):
maid said to like intercept. So sorry, too late. She
didn't limit herself to Saint Petersburg. She worked all over Russia.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
I'm assuming that was a faint by the way, Like
she did not really go take the steamers. She was
over there in the hideout.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Exactly exactly, So she was all over Russia. She went beyond.
In Moscow, she once went to this really high end
jewelry boutique and said that she was buying an engagement
present for her niece. I need a stunning bracelet, she said,
So bring me a tray of them. Let me see everything.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
You have rocks on front of me.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
And the owner's like okay, and like brings out this
absolutely dazzling array of pricey pieces, and she's portraying herself
as this filthy rich woman. This could be a huge sale.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh yeah. So he's putting all the icy as on
the glass.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
So she's like pointing all these pieces and she's like
feigning indecision, and she's slipping the bracelets on and off
her wrist and telling the jeweler that, like everything's just
too beautiful. I can't decide, like, maybe I should get
one for myself too, you know, a little self care, right,
treat yourself, so you know, and it's just this fun whirlwind, right.
So then just then a member of her crew, this

(14:37):
boy posing as this really loud and insistent delivery boy,
comes bursting in and the jeweler is apologizing profusely to Sonya,
and he's like, let me step away for a second
and deal with this crazy delivery boy who's yelling at
me now. And that's when Sonia struck. So she palmed
a bracelet and then replaced it with a nearly identical

(14:57):
fake that she'd brought with her.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Oh so they really came the job.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Oh yeah, and she came prepared. So what she stole
was worth nearly ten thousand roubles and that's like, at
the time, the equivalent of a few years wages for
people one bracelet. And so you know, this, this this
accomplice of hers, the delivery boy, he makes this huge
fit and it turns out no, it's supposed to be
next door whatever.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
It takes like a whack on the head and leave, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Exactly, and then she's like, you know what, let me
think about it. I'll come back. So it wasn't until
a couple days later that the jeweler.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Noticed, of course, yeah, because it's so identical.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
And it was too late because like by that point
she's totally long gone. In Odessa, she hit up this
fashionable tailor's shop once again. She's a countess and she
wants to commission a new bespoke travel coat, and so
she made the show off. She's like examining the fabrics,
trying on all these samples. She asked the tailor to
step into the back room to get her a better

(15:53):
fabric swatch, like you have this in a thicker fabric.
So while he's gone, she quickly rolls up three embroidered
coats into her travel bag, leaves a handwritten note thanking him,
and then heads out the door. By the time he
gets back, she's gone, and then it's like thousands of
rubles worth of herch she was.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
One thing I'm noticing is that these shops are understaffed.
One I can go to the back and another person
should be there. I think they need to do for
at least another.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Person but you know what's thin margins.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Maybe family business. Maybe get a kid in there who
can just like watch.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
The door exactly, that's what you need. So one another
one she did was she went to this high end
accessories boutique that specialized in gloves and fans. It'll make
stores like that.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
I'm just gonna say, sound like somewhere you would know
a good one.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Well, I could. I usually carry a fan in my bag,
especially in the warmer months, but you never know when
you're going to be overtaken by the heat. True, you
got to turn a Schwitz into a glow.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
So anyway, sonya, I'm so much past Schmitz. That'd be
like backtracking to get to Schmitz.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
She it was this old man that owned the shop,
and she just charmed him with like her polite find speech,
and she told this tragic tale about her husband's death,
that she was a war widow. He was high ranking
and he lost his life in the crimean. Yeah, and
so she distracts him with conversation and tea. And she

(17:14):
as she's doing this, she's discreetly sliding like a dozen
silk gloves and two ivory handled fans into her coat.
Sleeves and like she later Yeah, apparently she had also
sown secret pockets into the lining and her clothing for
exactly this purpose, Like the forty they were around the
same time, like maybe they knew about each other. Anyway,

(17:36):
When the shopkeeper discovered the theft after she'd left, he
was too embarrassed to report it, really because he'd been
just smitten by her and this young, beautiful, wealthy woman
had wanted to hear what he had to say and
had been paying full attention to him, and he hadn't
noticed a thing, as she's just like taking the valuable stop.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
So he was a mote.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Let's take a break. We'll have more Sonia when we
get back.

Speaker 7 (18:00):
In her.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Zaren Darren Elizabeth Sonia golden Man.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
I'm still loving that name.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Her life is full of these kind of anecdotes of
these little con jobs that she'd pull off. Uh, you know,
jewelry shops, boutiques. Here's another one for you. I like
this one. She pulled this one in a lot of
different jewelry stores, so like she'd do the same, Like
I'm a baroness or a diplomat's wife or whatever. Yeah,
and she's luxury and aristocracy with just money to burn.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
And possibly silliness where she's like, oh, I forgot this
thing and could I have three of them? Right?

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Yeah? Very kind of like a little absent minded and fun.
So she she'd have all these posh clothes and she'd
have an immaculate manicure, and but one of the nails
was not hers. It was a custom made false nail
that was lacquered and painted to match her real ones,
except this one was designed to open and close like

(19:14):
a tiny hinged lid. What like, how long were her nails.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
And how big were her nails if you could hold
anything behind that lacquered there, crazy, my nails do not
lift that high?

Speaker 3 (19:28):
I long? And then like I don't know, I guess
that guess with the curvatureath and it's thicker so people
can't see it. So she'd go into the jewelry shop
in like the full get up veil, gloves, furs and
like that. She did this like aristocratic boredom really well.

(19:50):
And so she'd ask to see loose diamonds or unset stones,
because that's something that only a serious buyer one, oh yeah, yeah,
And so the jeweler would lay them out and they
would talk about the cut and the clarity, and she
would like pick it up and examine it closely and
hold it between her thumb and her forefinger, like really
close to her eye, and then in one motion she'd

(20:12):
slip the gem into the compartment beneath her false nail,
and then she'd return a duplicate stone, a fake or
even like sometimes nothing.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
At all, so like a cubic zirconium or something like that,
like where it's like a just a piece.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Of glass, and then like put it in there, palm
the rest of the scene with chatter compliments like oh,
she would just keep the whole show going and then
out the door. And it was never it would always
take them a few days before they'd realize it. Then
there's no proof, you know, no no forced entry. Yeah exactly,
they hadn't noticed it.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
She's getting it, like basically the but if you.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Run in these things, maybe more than one a day.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Who that's a job.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah. So she didn't always target merchants though. In October
of eighteen eighty four, there was this banker Dogmroov. He
was sitting in a cafe in Odessa, and a bodacious
babe that she's stunning. She made eye contact back. He
goes over and introduces himself. No, she's I am missus

(21:14):
Sophia san Donato. That's a great aga, Soia.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Of course, yeah, this Italian lady written me off.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, exactly. So she chats for a while, flirts it up,
and then she asked him for a favor. She's like,
I'm so sorry, this is so embarrassing, but can you
I was hoping that you could change a thousand rouble
bill for him, that the big stuff, Like, dang, that's
a big bills. Like, of course, I work at a bank.
Come by the bank later. She's like, so great. And

(21:44):
then she's like, the thing is I'm leaving for Moscow
on the train tonight, and he's like, wait, so am I.
He's like, I I got to take some stuff to
the main bank over there. Why don't we travel together?
But she's like, what a coincidence. I had no idea
you were going to be on that train. She's got
eyes and ears everywhere planned this out. So they continued

(22:04):
chatting and then they meet up at the train station
later and they shared a sleeping compartment, which I'm sure
was a delight for dogmrov.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
I'm betting yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
So they continue their chat. They're like cracking each other up.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
We're talking peak life moment.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
For right, he picked up this rich lady and.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Like on a train, a sleeper car. Strange. Everything's like
his life is sexy, romantic fun.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
You're having these deep conversations, having deep conversations, indulged in
a luxurious box of chocolate.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Bad luxury chocolate, luxury chocolate. This is like one of
my peak life just described a damn doga morov.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
So night fell. By morning he had enjoyed a sound,
contented sleep.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
I bet.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
The light began to peek through the curtains in the
train car and he looked around. No Sophia sun Donato.
He reached for his travel case. The cash he'd been
carrying was gone, as well as forty three thousand roubles
and securities documents. She took him. Uh, there was one heist, though.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
I got it. One thing I had to say about
that that sucks to go from that peak moment to
the absolutely the mountains slipped and now you're at the
bottom of the valley that was just as high as
the mountain.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Because you think about it, you have to explain what happened.
You've got chocolate on your ship.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Chocolate what happened?

Speaker 3 (23:26):
But you don't understand h So there's this one heist.
So this is the one that cemented her as queen
of the thieves. And like the ultimate con artists, a
full on ConA. It was a grand performance with identity, theft, seduction, forgery, escape.
I'm bu she pulls us off with like complete elegance

(23:49):
and cunning and when it was revealed, it pretty much
made Golden Hand a household name across Imperial Russia.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Go on, tell me, it's called the.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Von Mel Heist me life. May eighteen eighty three. Three okay,
So Sonya showed up at the von Mel jewelry store,
done up in all our finery. This time she was
not a countess or a baroness. She said she was
the wife of a very well known and very wealthy psychiatrist.
That she said she was in the market for some

(24:18):
fine jewelry. She wanted to treat herself, and her husband said,
you know what, spare no expense, not yourself.

Speaker 7 (24:23):
Phone.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
He came from money. He wanted her to have it all.
So she picked out a bunch of different pieces with
a value all together of almost fifty thousand roubles. That
was an incredible sum. So that's like the equivalent of
showing up on a whim to a jewelry store today
and being like, show me two million dollars in bobbles,

(24:45):
you know those things because I feel like it. Yeah, exactly,
let's so break me. So she picked out what she wanted,
She gave the jeweler her home address. She said that
her husband had the money to pay for it. She
certainly wasn't going to walk around with that kind of
cash on her.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
And from what we've talked about previously, in Russian like exchanges,
you can get your bills settled up much later. Yeah, yeah,
very understood.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
She wasn't taking possession of the jewelry right then. She
was like, you bring it to my house and you know,
my husband will pay you. It'll be easy that way.
It's like you'll cash on delivery totally.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Zaren Cod huh.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Cod, close your eyes. Oh, I want you to picture it.
You are a courier for Carl von mel, a fancy jeweler.
He made a huge sale today and the two of
you are off to deliver it to the woman who
bought the gems. Apparently her husband is incredibly wealthy, filthy rich,

(25:44):
and he's going to pay upon delivery. You're carrying the
case with the jewelry in it, and von Mel is
there to get the money and schmooz up with the couple.
The two of you walk briskly down a leafy boulevard
in Saint Petersburg. It's a lovely spring day. The sun
is out and the chill is fading from the air.
Horses with shiny coats pulling gilded carriages roll by on
the street. You are in a very nice neighborhood. The

(26:07):
horse and carts where you live are more, shall we
say rusty. People in their finery, well crafted hats and
luxurious coats of embroidered fine fabric brush past you on
a sidewalk with polite nods and smiles. Von Mel is giddy.
He makes some big sales at the shop, but nothing
like this, and the potential for establishing a good relationship

(26:28):
with this wealthy couple has him excited. There's a pepinist step.
He's promised you a bonus too. You're in your best suit,
looking clean and sharp. This is a great day. You
reach the address the woman gave you and ring the bell.
After a pause, the large lacquered door opens and a
butler appears. He welcomes you out of the din of
the street and into the dark, lush interior of the

(26:50):
town home. Von Mell announces himself and the butler leads
you down a rich hallway, shine parquet floors and walls
thick with expensive oil paintings, to a very comfortable and
inviting study. Heavy leather club chairs face a rich mahogany
desk with intricate carved scroll work. A grandfather clock ticks
behind you. The woman is waiting in the office and

(27:13):
rises from one of the chairs to greet you. You
doff your cap. Von Mel bows and kisses the woman's
offered hand. She invites him to sit in the chair
beside hers. He accepts and instructs you to stand where
you are to the side. She tells Von Mel that
her husband will be in momentarily and how much she
appreciates the home delivery. She shoots you a sparkling smile

(27:33):
and a small wink. You go weak in the knees.
She's so beautiful, and she has this quality you can't
quite put your finger on, but you get this flash
that maybe she's sweet on you. Oh, that can't be,
but the look was undeniable. You blush a little. The
grandfather clock chimes two. Von Mel clears his throat and
tells you to present the case to madame. You approach

(27:56):
the woman and gently hand her the case full of jewels.
She takes it in her hands. You look at the
turn of her wrist. She is intoxicating. You blush again
and step back to your spot against the bookcase. Just then,
the door to the study opens. An older man in
a perfectly cut suit strides in, followed closely by two
other men in white outfits. The husband asks von Mel

(28:17):
what he's doing there. Von Mel pauses a little confused
and compliments the psychiatrist on his beautiful wife's incredible taste. Now,
if he could just get payment for these items. The
two men in orderly's whites come from behind the psychiatrist
and grab von Mel by the upper arms. They lift
her from the chair and began to drag him out
of the room. Von Mell is stunned, he protests, but

(28:39):
they're having none of it. Von Mel calls out for you,
and you look back and forth. A psychiatrist and his wife.
You briefly contemplate grabbing the case of jewelry, but this
whole thing is so strange that you just stand there
and stunned silence. The psychiatrist shouts in a booming voice
for you to leave, to get out of his office.
You put your head down and make for the door.
When you get out on the street, do you see

(29:00):
von Mell being crammed into a carriage Mark Saint Petersburg
Asylum on the side. He's still protesting as the carriage
rolls away. You can't go back to the shop, you
don't have key. You side the head home and hope
everything makes sense to Wow. Yeah, Zaren, what just happened?

Speaker 2 (29:17):
I think only this got like shanghaied to a mental hospital.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
We need to rewind a little bit. So before von
Mel and the fictional Zaron arrived at the home, Sonia
got there first, and she asked to see the psychiatrist.
And of course she's not married to him. We knew that,
but how did she get into the house. She introduces
herself to the psychiatrist as von Mel's wife, and she
said that her husband was old and confused, losing his mind.

(29:44):
It's impacting his business. It seems that he'd bought far
more diamonds than he could afford, and it was kind
of made him snap that he was going around telling
people that they had ordered diamonds and that he was
there to deliver and take payment. And he'd done this
for a couple of weeks now and he's just like
totally crackers. She needs, like, she needs to get him help.
He had a full on nervous breakdown. She's like, I

(30:07):
need to have him committed. So she pays the psychiatrist
up front for the treatment. She's like, my husband will
be here shortly, and you know what, he's gonna put
up a fight, but this is for his own good
that he just needs to be hauled away, no matter
what he says. And he was. He was hauled away,
as we saw, and then Sonia and the jewels gone.

(30:29):
So obviously the jeweler and the psychiatrist they figured it out,
you know, later on when it happened. But at that point,
she's gone.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
All she needs that night's ride.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
So let's pause here. When we get back from these ads,
I'm going to tell you how things finally caught up
with Golden.

Speaker 6 (30:45):
Pandaren, Yes, Zaren Golden Hand, dude.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
That was the I'm still reeling from that story, like
I've you know, that's a lot of old radio shows.
I had had an episode on Suspense that basically did that.
It was slightly different, but where they turnt they conned.
It was the doctor was conning people, and then when
the cops would show up, he would con the cops
into believing that the people he'd abducted were mentally unwell
and that's why they're protesting, and so he was like

(31:33):
and he's doing experiments on fear. It was it was
a great episode, but that's a much better use of
the same ideas.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Thinking about how at this time, you know, it's like
this burgeoning yan.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, and it's very well respected and they're trying to
help people and this is for your gold. But they're
gonna take you.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
Off serious science. Yeah, doctors, but they.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Can throw you in like a rubber room, in like
one of those like straight jacket and there's nothing you
can do for like what seventy.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Two hours, right, And so for this one, it's especially
if she's so put together, presents herself and do you want.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
To save her from this man? All you have to
do is just lock up her husband and then of
course you know that dispels all suspicion.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
So she she's doing these kind of cops. That's the
big one. Where Ever, it's just like wow, respect that
was amazing masterpiece. Yeah so that. But she doesn't just
hit Russia, like I said, She pulled these scams all
over Europe and she played the countess or the rich lady.
She would seduce guys and get them to lavish her
with expensive gifts. She did some of like the merchant

(32:34):
ones as well, but traveling money. Yeah. Mostly it was
like she would just travel in these like the same thing.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
As like the sting. You're gonna have your big scores
and you gotta have your little scores in between your.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Big scores, right right, And so she would. She'd promise
marriage a lot of times and then usually bailed before
that could happen. But obviously sometimes she had to go
through with it and marry the guy. That's how she
racked up all those marriages.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
So she really did stand there and somebody it was
her name exactly, but she did went through the process
and along.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
The way she had two kids.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Wow. Yeah, really you saved that one.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, So she has was on purpose. Yeah, she's two girls.
She was able to send them off to really really
expensive and prestigious boarding schools in Europe, and she didn't
want them to know what she really did, so they
were just like cartel daughters yet total cartel daughters and
like so pretty soon though, she shows up in America

(33:27):
at least she did according to our papers. Well, in
reading all yeah, in reading all the accounts, it seems
like some of the stories that they tell are almost
identical to tales of her exploits in Russia and across Europe,
Like too much of the detail is exactly the same. Okay,
Like maybe, yeah, she has a set playlist of what
she does. But I think that in that era, like

(33:49):
you were saying before yellow journalism, that they just grabbed
wire stories and get in there.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Sidicated stories were like a new thing basically, So you
would take a story and know that nobody in tepeak
had seen this, you could run it.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
And then there's one where they're like I almost felt
like they were going to run a story and knew
that people would call him on it, so they created
even more of a backstory. So this is this article
from the Brooklyn Citizen in July of eighteen eighty nine
that claimed that Goldenhan once lived in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
The local girl.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
How did they know this, they said? The paper said
they got a letter from an American official who was
living in Paris, who told of her exploits in the
United States, and the stories were supposedly backed up by
the recollections quote of an old Brooklyn detective, an old
Bertain detective who happened to be an ex Pankerton detective.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
To oh, of course, was he was he named? Or
is he go unnamed?

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Unnamed cars from the article quote Goldenhan's husband's continued. The
official like the numerous fictitious names which she adopted were
taken from all nationalities, and she regarded neither age nor
creed in choosing her victims. She ran away from two
in France, three in Germany, one in Spain, one in England,
and others in Italy. I had several in Russia and

(35:01):
the United States. She was in America in eighteen seventy eight,
and I saw her there, but she had a new
assumed name and was so rehabilitated in appearance that I
did not recognize her until one night after having met
her several times. The next day she disappeared with the
confiding broker's diamonds, and I did not see or hear
her again until some two or three years afterwards, when

(35:22):
she appeared in Paris. I love that he's saying, she
looks totally different, but it had to be her.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah. I saw her a while back, and then I
was like, this isn't this is a new look for her.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
The letter to the paper is supposed to be like
completely like unsolicited.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, and also that it goes unnamed. He's not giving
any details that you can be like, oh not just
it's something he could confirm, but it would make sense,
like why he would come across her like, oh we
did this. She told me about this and connected to Russia.
It's just like, okay, you met goldenand okay, sure, well, let's.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
Let's just go with it. Okay, let's it makes it worse.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Let's say it happen.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
If she made it states I do like it. So
the reporter was like, I got this letter and I
ignored it because I thought it was stupid. I thought
he published it, you'll fight well no, Then so he
gets the letter. Then there's a description of this lady
con artist. That sounds familiar, So the reporter finds the
old letter and then runs the stories by an ex Pinkerton,
who said that the description from the American in Paris

(36:19):
was spot on with a woman he had followed in
Brooklyn in eighteen seventy two.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Do we think this is one of those journalists is
making up their sources and then he makes up a
source for his made up so he's now doubling down
on like that, and then he ads a whole little
I dismissed it previously, that's baby.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
So apparently according to the expats god, she was calling
herself miss Pauline clan Cardi. That wow, that's she's a Russian,
pulling off like a convincing Irish woman.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah, she was the red hair.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
She was living with a Frenchman, a card sharp.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Who hasn't done that in Brooklyn.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Height, right? Who among us in Brooklyn Heights?

Speaker 2 (36:57):
So that or a saxophone player French.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
So she'd seduce men and then the Frenchman would storm
in and act like her enraged brother, irate that someone
had taken his sister's virtue. Then they'd blackmail the guy
who was almost always married and the guy would pay
the French quote brother to keep him calm and quiet.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Huh, I was like something you'd expecting, like dead wood.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, it's so bizarre. One wealthy merchant though he'd had enough.
He contacted the detective and this is from the article quote.
It took me but a short time, said the old detective,
continuing his story, to find proofs of the conspiracy. But
the old merchant had not the moral courage even then
to face a public scandal. By shrewd work, the agency

(37:47):
for which I was then working managed to frighten the
Frenchman into leaving the country, and finding that the merchant
would no longer suffer the imposition practiced upon him, the
adventurous soon after word disappeared, probably to join her fellow
swindler in some new field of action. Referring to thick
volumes of criminal history, the detective traced the career of

(38:09):
a woman who he is sure was identical with Golden
Hand in various schemes in other parts of this country.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
One thing I love about in the nineteen start, like
the eighteen nineties, eighteen eighties, they write like they have
so much time.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Oh yeah, not a care on the world.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
We're going to get to the point, but first I
want to take you through some details. It's some turns
of frames.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Slow it down.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Slow it down every So the detective said that he
caught up with a woman a couple of years later
in Baltimore.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Oh god, he's not much At the same time.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
She's supposed to be ping ponging all over Europe.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
But anyways, apparently she makes her scores and comes over
to celebrate in Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
I want an eighties style T shirt that says Golden
hand with like the cities listed below, Moscow, Paris, Balta,
Oh yeah, Fresno.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
So the detective was chasing an embezzler. This is a
guy who'd gotten the gig as the treasurer at a
religious society in New York, and then he made off
with thirty five thousand dollars of their funds. So, as
the detective described it quote, this sanctimonious fraud was a
good deal of a swell. Could see he was running

(39:15):
with the fancy, So the detective went undercover, as you do.
He ran with the rich and fabulous of Baltimore too.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
A big Wallers mustache and had fun Oh, my god.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yes, and so it was there that he crossed paths
with golden hand. So he told the baby.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
A story story goes.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
So he said that she was posing as a young
Russian heiress named Princess Nita Alexandria of Romanovmanov. I need
a Romanov by estimates with what he knew later, she
had to be like in her forties, but he said
she looked like she was in her twenties.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
It was definitely her great skincare.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
Yeah, the detective told the reporters. Quote. She was supposed
to be unable to speak much English and was accompanied
by a vinegar old Russian woman who passed is her
aunt and performed the functions of a chaperone with hawk
like vigilance.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Oh somebody got denied, yeah, Vinigary.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
I love this quote. Quote. The Princess Nita was quite
the rage in Baltimore society when I made my debut
as an amateur dude, and she was certainly a captivating creature.
Surrounded with all the accompaniments of wealth. She was greatly
improved in appearance, though I at once recognized her as
the same blackmailer whom I had driven out of Brooklyn.

(40:30):
It took some time to get a trace of the
oily rascal for whom I was looking, and I saw
the princess often. She was reputed to have endless wealth,
kept a stylish turnout, and lived in a mansion taken
for the season.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
I cannot tell which I prefer to imagine that he
made all this up and then he makes himself this
dude who's chasing after the golden hand and she's denying him,
but he still is there, or if this actually did
happen and he was some one and just another schmuck,
which she basically, yeah, got excited and then turned and
he got too. Now he's like, oh I ran round
of Brooklyn apprentic. Yeah, right, is like, man, come on.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Well, So one night, the detectives at this posh party
at some banker's house and he's wandering around. He found
a place in the conservatory to smoke a cigar, and
he's trying to keep an eye on that embezzler that
he's tracked.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
And that place was not outside. No, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Yeah, so's he's tracking the embezzler with a cigar with
a cigar, wants to keep an eye on him, so
he posted up behind a plant in a conservatory and
like did a little steak out, Like he just sat
tooting on it, and like pretty soon here's the rustle
of a ball gown behind him and whispering. And then

(41:42):
a couple brushes past him and goes into an alcove
next to him. And they didn't see him, according to.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Him, because he was so well hidden behind the planet
with his cigar.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
He peeked at them through the plants fronds, and he
watched the whole scene. It was very deer penthouse. He
saw princess and to quote all, a tremble with emotion
hanging on the arm of a scion of a leading
Baltimore family, who pressed one of her hands fervently in
the alcove. The youth dowered forth a passionate appeal, urging

(42:14):
the princess to fly with him that night, et cetera,
et cetera.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Pressing hands like he's pressing, touching flesh.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
You're just like pressure.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
I dare to impress upon you the rustling of fat,
feel heart beat in my hand.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
But so then he hears Nita, who supposedly does't be English,
confess her love to the guy in perfect English, and
she said she was too. She said, I want to
run off with you tonight, come down. But I doubt
your devotion. I doubt your devotion to sparkle motion.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, I want to see it in money.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Where's your commitment? So are you using me just in
this moment? Are you just caught up in the intoxicating
moment of it all?

Speaker 5 (42:59):
Like?

Speaker 3 (42:59):
How do I know that you're true? What she said?
So he pulls from his pocket a handful of diamonds.
According to the detective, so apparently he knew he was
going to meet up with the princess and he wanted
to impress her, so he stole his mom's diamonds worth
ten grand, and he hands them to Nita possibly golden hand,

(43:19):
as proof of his love. And so suddenly like yeah,
the diamonds hit her golden hand. Suddenly that quote Vinegary
chaperone shows up and she's got this big scary Egor
dude with her. They pitch a fit and they like
whisk the princess away. Igor's like I'll meet you outside tomorrow,

(43:40):
I'll beat you, and so the like rich sale Sun
is just weeping. The next morning, Princess Nita Alexandra Romanov's
mansion empty, no sign of the entourage. They've skipped down her.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
And then the Vinegary matron and eared.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Guy, they're all gone, gone gone. There were sightings by
this detective of Golden Hand and other cities before she
scooted off back to Europe. One was in Cincinnati, naturally
now she seduced a lawyer there.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Okay, lawyers there.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
The back in Mother Russia, Goldenhand had become a folk hero.
Everyone loved the stories of her exploits. So it got
to the point where people were recognizing her on the
street for business.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
That's never good for business. I thought people were doing
like pamphlets about her. It's all of a sudden, now
you got sketches of her.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
They were writing songs.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Oh damn, and she's in.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
The paper and everyone loves the stories of the exploits.
But yeah, so it's like it's getting harder for her
to do this possible. As she got older, she also
got a softer touch, like not with crime but other humans.
So she became more and more charitable, and that only
enhanced her reputation as this folk hero, but also made
her more vulnerable. Her daughters were thriving. They grew up,
one went into the theater and they knew who their

(44:59):
mother was at that point, but like didn't let anyone
else know.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
She became an actress a different names, natural talents exactly.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
So in the end she got busted for going too big.
Thank you for asking, she I did, that's good. She
found herself in the court of the Czar, in the
presence of the Shaw of Persia.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
And she tried to pull a move and take the
Shaw's jewels and got caught. She mad. She had her
private train car attached to the Shaw's special train.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
But then like everyone got wise.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
To romance, uh huh uh huh.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
One thing to hit merchants in like low level. She
went after a big dog in the biggest dog's house.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah, and that's the emperor visiting emperors. We can't rip
him off. They're both going to because and they were.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
So she gets arrested. She stands trial, convicted. They shipped
her off to Siberia. Yeah, she wasn't there long though
before she seduced the war.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
So they get married and they run off married, they
run off together to Constantinople leaves the prison. He's like
run away with me. She's like, of course, I'd love
to Constantinople. Now is stanble? So she left him there
and then went back to Russia, and she was living
under the radar for two years before they caught her again,

(46:20):
just you know, going about her business. She goes to
trial again. When she gets caught, her defense lawyer Constantinople.
I guess not defense lawyer got to see her in action,
because like he go. After the trial, he goes to
visit her in prison, and she just keeps telling him
how grateful she is for his hard work, even though
she'd been sentenced to go back to Siberia. Please accept

(46:41):
this token of thanks, she says, and she hands him
a gold watch and chain and she puts it on
the table in front of him. He looks down and
he's like, I recognize that that's my watch, Shane. She
picked his pocket and presented him with his own.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, yeah, she should have given this.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
She gets sent to Smolensk, escaped there a couple of times.
Oh yeah, she would like disguise herself as.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
A soldier and oh I thought she had got she'd
seduced a soldier and got him.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
She escaped. They're like Okay, we're gonna send you to
the prison on the island of Sokolin, Oh in the north.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, this is the territory that the Russians were fighting
with the Japanese. Yeah, very remote. She skipped out there
a couple of times too, but she would get caught
and they finally put her in solitary and she was
basically tortured. They kept her in chains. They sold photos
of her like that as postcards, and those became really
popular all over Russian Yeah, all chained up. The Russians

(47:43):
are dark souls. Dude.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Well I don't mean yeah whatever, but like the that's
just like.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
She said that the postcard was the worst punishment. Of course,
I quote, this is such a picture of human degradation.
They tortured me with these photographs.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
I completely agree. I mean it's not only did they
dehumanize her, but then they made her an image of dehumanization, right.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
So while she was there, she had visitors.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
She's the living symbol. Now, I mean that just sucks.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Anton Chekhov came calling.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Oh yeah, he's like, I'm gonna name uncle Vanya after you.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
He wrote, quote, looking at her, it is impossible to
believe that not long ago. She was beautiful to such
a degree that she charmed her prison guards, as she
did in Smolensk, for example, where the overseer helped her
to escape and himself ran away with her. He described
her as quote, small, skinny, already graying woman with a
crumpled old womanish face. And at this point she's in

(48:35):
her late forties. So it took a toll, but it
sounds like Tiberia is, oh god, five or so years
later though she's doing better.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
I'd be willing to bet you if you look back.
She was like, you know, let me tell you a
little story about his shotgun.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
There's this article in the Southern Daily Echo in Hampshire,
England that relayed the experiences of a man who visited
the Russian penal settlements. They're in sucklin' quote. Books have
been written and songs sung throughout Russia about the Golden
Hand who now lives in a pretty cottage on the
outskirts of Raikovskaya. I did not say that, and supplies

(49:15):
the village with eggs and vegetables. Sophie Bluffstein the name
she was using that did you have the gardeners and
chicken shoes keeping, received me very graciously and we passed
a pleasant hour together. For my hostess spoke French and
German fluently and was not unacquainted with London. She's a small,
slightly built woman with sharp, clearly cut features and clear

(49:36):
blue eyes and still shows traces of beauty that even
prison life has failed to obliterate. So they chat about
London and Paris. She's like, I love Paris. London's almost
as depressing as sad and sad as here. Yeah, so
like way to exaggerate, the author. Yeah, the author notes

(49:57):
at the end of his account, quote notwithstand. She is
a pleasant, cheerful little person. She's a cheerful little gal.
So she she died in nineteen oh two in Sokolen.
In addition to the folk songs, she was immortalized in
Russian films and literature. There's TV you know series. What's

(50:18):
wild is that there's this headless statue in a cemetery
in Moscow that is said to be her grave. Headless,
it's just stylized, kind of just this body. There's debate
about whether that is her grave, because a lot of
people are like, she's actually buried in Siberia, but most
believe that she's buried in that cemetery and it's become

(50:38):
this place of pilgrimage.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
So her admirers to this day leave tokens and seek
like spiritual assistance in their criming.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Really, there are.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Messages there that say stuff like sonya help us to
become good thieves.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
She is a patron saint of crime.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Crime. Yeah wow, so Zaren, what does your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 2 (50:57):
But of course Russia would have patron saints of crime.
I love that. It's like the Narcolero. It's like, oh, yes,
we have we have songs about crime, we have patron
saints and crime. Rushia is like, yes, we.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Understand, we have the queen, we have crime. What is yours?

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Elizabeth? What's your ridiculous take I wish?

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Oh my god, thank you so much. Thank you Elizabeth
for asking Elizabeth. I was really shocked. I have never
heard of her, stumbled upon her.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
What an incredible name, credible story.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
What's interesting, too, is that there was like a TV
series I think like in the nineties. Yeah, in Russia
that they a lot of news articles tell her story
based on that. But then there's I found an interview
in a Russian language paper that I translated out where
they're like, yeah, we made up like ninety percent of

(51:44):
the story and so, but people didn't find that. So
it's really hard parsing.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Out, like you had to go to that question papers.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, but it was I I just can't believe we
haven't heard more about her. She's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
That's a great story. But also, how are you going
to try to rip off the shop Persia while he's
hanging out with the Emperor of Russia?

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Yeah, come on, come on.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
I guess she was just desperate, wanted like her retirement,
like one last.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
One that was less Probably it I think we need
to talk about.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Hell yeah, we do produci D. Can you favor us
with one? Super?

Speaker 3 (52:24):
I went cheap?

Speaker 5 (52:29):
I had a fourth grade student commit a ridiculous crime.
What she did was independently right in print permission slips
for the class to go to the zoo and then
to Walmart to practice being Walmart greeters. It was five
dollars cash that must be paid to her. She is
the teacher's aid for the field trip, and she collected

(52:49):
over fifty dollars in cash from her classmates. She would
have gotten away with it, except on the day of
the supposed field trip, a parent called to see if
their child needed to bring lunch.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Oh my god, our little golden han Wow that is
that is brilliant and funny and terrifying. Yea god bless Look.
You gotta gotta take care of your that's it for today.
Who is a good one? You can find us online
at ridiculous crime dot com. We're on blueskide Instagram. You

(53:22):
can email us ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Of
course we have a talk back on the iHeart app.
But then also we have episodes on YouTube now, so
we're trying to make it easier for people who use
YouTube as like they're everything player. We're gonna start putting
new episodes in there and like a steady stream of
earlier ones. The episodes have looped animations, so you don't

(53:43):
get to look at our ugly mugs, So they're meant
for like if you have YouTube on in the background
while you're doing other stuff. But the animation is amazing,
It's so cute. Yeah, watching the dog.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Did a great job.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Incredible, And then it's also worth subscribing for people who
listen in other ways because We're planning on putting like
exclusive news, short bits and surprises all.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
There for time, so it a whole different channel of stuff.
You have a different channel that channel, but a different
stuff you want here here right.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
You won't find it anywhere else here here, It'll only
be on YouTube, So subscribe even if that's not like
your everyday thing. Basically connect guys, there it is. Ridiculous
Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced
and edited by the original Golden Hand Countess Dave Cousten,

(54:33):
starring Annalice Rutger as Judith. Research is by Silvertoe Marissa Brown.
The theme song is by Tin Elbow, Thomas Lee and
Copper Knee Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany
five hundred. Guest Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.
Executive producers are Bronze Ankle, Ben Bolan and Nickel Jaw

(54:53):
Noel Brown. Crime Say It One More Time Udiquious Crime.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.