The Jewish wolfhound David Kurland is a real prototype of the Gotsman from the TV series "Liquidation"

This man was appreciated by colleagues, loved by ordinary people, respected and feared by criminals. David Mikhailovich Kurland was a legendary man in the Odessa criminal investigation department — there were rumors that he saw the thoughts of intruders and was charmed by a bullet. The Jewish wolfhound Kurlyanda was nicknamed for a reason — this man was a thunderstorm of the most hardened criminal "wolves", of which there were more than a dozen on his account.

David Kurland's merit was the elimination of such Odessa gangs as "Black Cat", "Odessa Tarzan" and "Dodge ¾". This man became the prototype of David Gotsman, the hero of the TV series "Liquidation" — in the hero of Vladimir Mashkov there are not only the courage and integrity of the Kurland, but also his benevolence and humanity.

Despite the dangerous profession, which meant communication not with the best members of society, David Mikhailovich has always remained a man. He was noble with defeated enemies and attentive to the victims. Kurland helped many people to return to normal life, and not by the method of pressure and threats, but thanks to the ability to find an approach to a person and his impeccable authority.

The life of the Jewish Wolfhound himself was far from cloudless. David Kurland was born in 1913 in Odessa, on Moldovanka. His family moved to the city by the sea shortly before the birth of the boy from the distant Lithuanian Vilna. The father of the future legend of the Odessa criminal investigation department was a simple stove maker, and his mother was a housewife raising three children.

The upheavals caused by the First World War, revolutions and The Civil War hit the Courland family hard. Money was sorely lacking and not even ordinary bread was on the table every day. In 1920, the father of the family died and David, as the youngest, was sent by his mother to an orphanage, where the children were somehow fed. True , the boy was on state support for a short time — in 1922 he was demobilized from The Red Army is his older brother, who took David to himself.

The younger Kurlyand did not find any other occupation for himself, how to follow in his father's footsteps and learn to be a stove maker. But the restless teenager was not tempted by the prospect of spending his whole life among bricks and lime, and he abandoned the construction of stoves and fireplaces.

After that, Kurland graduated from the factory apprenticeship school and even managed to work a little as a shoemaker. Needless to say, he did not like this activity much more than the stove business. But the work brought at least some income, so the guy held on to it. A little later, after joining the Komsomol, David became a permanent member of the people's squad.

It was in the squad, working on enthusiasm alone, that the young Odessa citizen for the first time came face to face with the brutal realities of the Odessa underworld. In the early 30s, vigilantes not only patrolled the streets, observing order, but also participated in serious police operations and even in the capture of dangerous armed criminals.

Kurlyand, who favourably differed from his colleagues in the squad with his initiative and ingenuity, was quickly noticed by the authorities, who offered the guy a Komsomol ticket to the criminal investigation department. In the police, David was immediately hired as an assistant to an operative. So, in 1934, the history of the Jewish Wolf began.

In the 30s, the Odessa police was incredibly busy. There was a very criminogenic situation in the city and the victims went to the criminal investigation department with statements in an endless stream. In such a situation, it was difficult to give everyone enough time, but Kurland it turned out. The young employee listened attentively to each visitor and, regardless of what the case was connected with, visited the crime scene.

David Mikhailovich managed to show his best side in the first months of work. Nerves of steel, incredible intuition and a high level of knowledge gained through sleepless nights spent with textbooks on criminology allowed Courland to go from assistant to senior operative of the criminal investigation department in a few years.

Kurland participated in the most dangerous operations, always being at the forefront of the confrontation. At that time, the losses among the Odessa police officers were great, but David Mikhailovich seemed charmed. Not a single bullet hit the brave opera, the first to break into the most dangerous thieves' dens.

The wolfhound actually ruthlessly crushed criminals, but at the same time never used deception, violence or meanness. For this, Kurlyand was respected even by those who had to serve time because of him. David Mikhailovich never retreated and nothing could prevent him from completing the work he had begun.

The war caught Kurland at the time of the development of another urban gang. The criminal investigation officer categorically refused to leave Odessa without finishing his work and for two and a half months performed his functions in the city, close to which the enemy stood.

The senior operative fell under the action of the directive on the evacuation of valuable personnel, but it was possible to force Kurland to leave Odessa only with the help of blackmail. On the last ship with the military, leaving the bay already shot through by enemy artillery, David Mikhailovich's wife and daughter refused to be accepted without him.

As a result, the selfless policeman had to obey and he and his family were sent to Uzbekistan, where David Mikhailovich worked for more than a year as deputy head of the republican criminal investigation department. Kurland's mother and sister stayed at home and were soon shot by the Nazis along with other Jews of the city. The man returned to Odessa on the day of its liberation, entering the city with the first detachments of the Red Army on April 9, 1944.

The senior operative immediately got involved in the work — German saboteurs remained in the city, whose goal was to destabilize life in the city. The criminal situation has not improved during the occupation either — when fleeing, German troops left a lot of weapons that surfaced here and there during robberies and gang fights.

A couple of weeks after the liberation of Odessa, residents of the city were surprised and horrified to see handwritten ads on poles and fences, in which the following was written: "Citizens! Your walking around the city is from 8 am to 8 pm, and from evening to 8 am is ours." The audacious appeal was signed by the Black Cat gang.

In the post-war years, there were several "Black Cat" gangs in the country. The most famous acted in Moscow and the fight against it is described in the novel by the Weiner brothers "The Era of Mercy". Most of us know this work from the famous film by Stanislav Govorukhin "The meeting place cannot be changed".

But the gang shown in the film was much less dangerous than the one that terrified Odessa at night. As soon as dusk descended, the streets and boulevards of the city became a place of daring robberies and ruthless murders. In addition to the "Black Cat", two other large gangs of criminals operated in Odessa — "Dodge ¾" and "Odessa Tarzan", as well as many small gangs and robbers of "individuals".

Thanks to the efforts of David Kurland and his colleagues, the city was cleared of gangs in a very short time. The criminals went to Kolyma, and the ringleaders who resisted fiercely were destroyed. The senior operative of the criminal investigation department personally handled the neutralization of the leaders of the "Black Cat".

Operation Masquerade, shown in the TV series Liquidation and initiated personally by Marshal Zhukov, was also carried out, but very little is known about it. Most researchers tend to believe that it was ineffective and was conducted mainly on paper.

In 1960, David Mikhailovich Kurland assumed the post of deputy head of the criminal investigation department of the Odessa region. Despite the high position, the legend of the Odessa criminal investigation department was still huddled with her family in a communal apartment — Kurland could not use his official position, much less ask.

The integrity of the new deputy of the regional criminal investigation department stood like a bone in the throat of the party apparatus of the city and three years later the pressure on The kurland intensified so much that, in order not to go against his conscience, he retired. But even being on a well-deserved rest, the Jewish Wolfhound could not sit idle and willingly advised his colleagues on particularly difficult cases.

In addition, David Mikhailovich trained the younger generation of operatives, lecturing in Odessa Police school. Kurland spent his free time in the archives, collecting information about the work of the criminal investigation department in the pre-war and war years. Publications of the operative known throughout Odessa can be seen in the Museum of the Odessa Police Department. The master's diary is also kept there, which describes the most interesting cases from his rich practice.

Experts admit that the author had an undoubted literary talent. Almost all the chapters of the diary are written in lively and easy language with indestructible Odessa humor. Their names speak for themselves — "Yashka the Chinese", "18-year-old governor", "Failed tour", "Werewolf". What are not ready-made detectives, which are based on real stories of the fight against crime?

David Kurland died in 1993 from a heart attack. Fame came to the Jewish Wolfhound only 15 years later, when the premiere of the television series "Liquidation", the main character of which is David Gotsman, was written off from him. The popularity of the film served as a belated recognition of the merits of the Odessa criminal investigation department, which were usually hushed up. The memory of the Kurland is immortalized in the monument to the Odessa policeman, installed at the police building on Jewish Street, where the Odessa criminal investigation department was located for many years.