The fate of the last female thief in law Aglaya Demidova, who died because of love

As you know, women cannot be thieves in law. There can be no exceptions to the rules, even if we are talking about the most respected and experienced nurse. But this was not always the case, and even in the mid-20th century, women with the title of thieves could be found in camps and prisons. The last of them was Aglaya Demidova, a daring and experienced criminal who was destroyed by love.

A meeting of thieves in law, at which it was decided not to accept women into the family of thieves, took place in 1956. This decision had been brewing in the criminal world for a long time, but the last straw was the story of Aglaya Demidova, tragic, but at the same time so romantic that it could well become the plot of a novel.

The exact date of birth of Aglaya Mikhailovna Demidova, as well as the place, is not known to anyone. Presumably she was born in the early 20s in Moscow or the Moscow region. From an early age, the future aristocrat of the world of thieves was engaged in theft, specializing in pickpocketing.

At the age of 15, Aglaya was caught red-handed and received her first sentence in a juvenile colony. After that, Demidova ended up behind bars three more times, serving a total of at least 12 years. The beautiful, daring and cheerful thief aroused sympathy among people and knew how to win her over. It was easy for her to rob her victims and find a common language with her cellmates.

Already at the age of 30, Demidova was crowned and became a full member of the thieves' family. Aglaya’s word carried great weight in the criminal world, and male thieves trusted her completely and willingly took her on the case. Having received a high status in the criminal world, the thief changed her specialization and, instead of pickpocketing, began to carry out raids on stores, cash registers and apartments with her accomplices.

Obviously, she lost her pickpocket qualifications by doing big "cases." Once, deciding to remember the past, Aglaya reached into the pocket of a passerby at the market and was caught by the hand. The absent-minded onlooker in a cap and thick glasses turned out to be an experienced operative hunting pickpockets.

Since Demidova had plenty of criminal records, she, as a repeat offender, was given the full sentence - 10 years in the camps. For any person, such a period is a tragedy and the collapse of his entire life, but for a thief in law it is just a change of scenery. Authoritative criminals in prison do not work and do not experience need, using the money and products of other prisoners as if they were their own.

But this time Aglaya Demidova really didn’t want to sit, since her lover was still free. This passion became fatal for the criminal, leading her to an inglorious end, and the era of female thieves to the end. To shorten the sentence, the woman became the mistress of the camp doctor. He promised to help Aglaya by issuing a “false” certificate of severe tuberculosis, which would allow the criminal to change the camp barracks to a hospital, and then be completely released.

The plan was good and had every chance of success if other prisoners had not found out about the connection between Aglaya and the doctor. Since any representative of the camp staff, even a doctor, was considered a representative of the authorities, Demidova’s act was unforgivable. At a camp meeting of authorities, it was decided to “ask” the violator - to deprive Demidova of her thieves’ title, and then execute her according to thieves’ laws.

Verka Korma, a criminal experienced in stabbing, was assigned to remove the culprit, who attacked Demidova with a sharpener. But it was not in vain that Aglaya went through her thieves’ “institutes” - she was ready for a vile attack and put up serious resistance. The warden rushed to separate the criminals who were locked in mortal combat; in the heat of the fight, someone hit her in the neck with a sharpened blade and killed her on the spot.

Demidova was “designated” as the culprit, and she was immediately transported to the village of Taezhny, where the trial was to take place. Of course, the experienced thief did not expect anything good from this event, so she had nothing to lose. On the way, Aglaya disappeared along with her guard, and after several hours of searching, the security officer was found in the taiga with his throat cut.

Most likely, the woman took advantage of her charm and offered her guard a love session, after which both fell behind the column and retired into the forest. One way or another, violation of the regulations cost the “guard” his life, and Demidova went on the run. But the woman, blinded by love, made the mistake of going straight to the Moscow region, to her lover, criminal Timofey, nicknamed Zhigan.

Sometimes on foot, sometimes on hitches, and sometimes in freight cars, Aglaya crossed a huge country in a few months and appeared before the surprised gentleman. But the thieves’ radio sometimes works no worse than the telegraph, and Zhigan knew that his passion was sentenced to death by the gathering. He had two options - to share the fate of his beloved and become an eternal outcast who is hunted, or to carry out the sentence.

Zhigan lost heart and chose the second. After a joyful meeting and a feast with conversations, he meanly thrust a knife into Demidova’s back. But this is only one of the options for the death of the legendary thief. The famous writer and expert on the criminal world, Varlam Shalamov, argued that the romantic story of love and betrayal is nothing more than a prison tale.

In fact, Aglaya was never able to get out of the taiga after her daring escape; she was captured by a convoy and, after a quick trial, was shot in the village of Taezhny. Regardless of the outcome of this story, Demidova’s life was cut short, and her offense became the reason for that very “historical” gathering of 1956.

Before this council of thieves in law, women could be equated with thieves, having special services to the criminal world, although they were not called thieves. An excellent example can be considered Sonya “Golden Hand”, who overshadowed many male thieves in Tsarist Russia and had enormous weight among criminals.