The mysterious death of Sergei Yesenin: what happened there?

Gray December morning December 28, 1925, 10:30. Elizaveta Ustinova went down to the floor and knocked on the fifth number: no one answered her, and the door was locked. I knocked again – there was no answer …

After a while, a friend of Sergei Yesenin, Wolf Ehrlich, approached. They knocked together – not a sound in the room. Sleeping? But Sergei always woke up early and woke the Ustinovs himself. Sensing something was wrong, she ran after the manager Vasily Nazarov.

Ustinova and Ehrlich entered the room and saw the dead poet. Ustinova again ran to the manager, who called the police …

First inconsistencies

The Angleterre Hotel, in which all this happened, was a two-minute walk from the GPU, the police and the prosecutor’s office. The news of the poet’s death shocked everyone, and it would seem that experienced investigators, forensic experts, and the chief of police were supposed to go to the scene of the crime.

But only the district militia officer, an employee of the 2nd police department N. Gorbov, with 6 months of work experience, came to the hotel. He drew up an act that served as the basis for the assertion that Yesenin committed suicide. Here’s what it said:

“On December 28, 1925, this act was drawn up by me uch. overseer 2nd from. L.G.M. N. Gorbov in the presence of the manager of the hotel International comrade. Nazarov and attesting witnesses. According to the telephone message of the hotel manager, citizen. Nazarova V. Mikh. about a hanged citizen in a hotel room.

Arriving at the place, I found a man hanging on a central heating pipe in the following form, his neck was tightened not with a dead loop, but only the right side of the neck, his face turned to the pipe, and with the brush of his right hand grabbed the pipe, the corpse was hanging near the ceiling and the legs were about 1 1/2 meters, near the place where the hanged man was found lay an overturned curbstone, and the candelabrum standing on it lay on the floor.

When removing the corpse from the rope and on examination, a cut was found on the right hand above the elbow on the palmar side, on the left hand, scratches on the wrist, a bruise under the left eye, wearing gray trousers, a nightgown, black socks and black patent leather shoes.

According to the documents presented, the one who hanged himself was Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin, a writer who arrived from Moscow on December 24, 1925. “

Witnesses stated that Yesenin’s face was disfigured, burned, there was a bruise under his left eye, and his hands were cut. Above the right eyebrow there is a circle, there are many extensive hematomas on the body. These injuries were caused to Yesenin during his lifetime. Who inflicted them on the poet? And when?

Let’s put it on the shelves – how did this happen at all and what are the reasons to think that the poet lost his life not of his own free will? So, 12 suspicious facts that give rise to suspicion that on the night of December 28, 1925, a murder took place at the Angleterre Hotel:

• After 95 years, many researchers adhere to the version of the murder of the lyricist. Confirm this, for example, Yesenin’s notes to Wolf Ehrlich, allegedly proving that the poet came to Angleterre voluntarily. But they not written by his hand!

This also applies to the power of attorney attached to the death case – it was written by Ehrlich and it contains a fake, forged signature of the deceased. At the same time, a genuine power of attorney was found in Sergei’s belongings, but torn apart.

• The fact that someone else was involved in the death of the poet is also said dead body state… Firstly, unnaturally bent arm… After death, the muscles weaken, and the hands of the deceased should have dropped along the body, but this did not happen. Secondly – scars from lips to chin… These are formed in the event that the perpetrator strangles the victim from behind. And thirdly – pierced forehead… The official version explains the resulting dent as a burn after hanging, but some take it for a trace from a lifetime blow.

P. Medvedev described the poet’s corpse as follows:

“… As now I see this convulsively stretched body. Hair, no longer flaxen, not golden, but matte, ash gray, stands on end. On his face, inhuman grief and horror. A burnt forehead makes him somehow ominous. The right hand, the one on which Yesenin tried to open the veins, is tucked up and unnaturally bent.

The head is folded to one side and turned out. As if Yesenin froze, preparing for a dark, tragic dance. “

• And also experts note that the corpse was suspended too unnaturally for suicide. Here is what the translator Nikolai Brown said from the words of his friend Lev Nappelbaum, who helped the policeman remove the poet’s body from the pipe:

“Yesenin did not hang in a noose, as is the case with suicides, and the rope was wound around his neck several times. That is why his body had to be removed before the writers arrived – he was hanged very improbably. “

• We know the above only from the words of eyewitnesses and from the papers of the case. But there are simply no photographs of the corpse at the scene in the loop. Also there is not a single posthumous photograph, in which Sergei Alexandrovich would have been depicted in full growth.

The outstanding Russian artist V. Svarog made a drawing of a corpse lying on the floor. In this picture, all of Yesenin’s clothes are in disarray, his trousers are unbuttoned and slightly lowered, the “American” suspenders are not in place, his shirt is disheveled.

And in the photograph of M. Nappelbaum, the clothes are in order, only the buttons on the codpiece are not buttoned. Undoubtedly, Nappelbaum photographed Yesenin after Svarog.

• When they entered the room, the curtains were drawn and the lights were off. That is, the poet had to do everything in pitch darkness! And this despite the fact that all his life he was very afraid of the lack of light. By the way, at night no one heard unnecessary sounds: only once the hotel commandant woke up from the sound of something heavy falling, like a pedestal. And that’s all. This is too strange.
• On Sergei Yesenin’s clothes, one could find small fibers from the carpet. Many researchers suggest that the poet was wrapped in a carpet.

In 1927, the artist V. Svarog about what happened in the hotel room:

“… It seems to me that this Ehrlich poured something on him for the night, well … maybe not poison, but a strong sleeping pill. No wonder he “forgot” his briefcase in Yesenin’s room. And he didn’t go home to “sleep” – with Yesenin’s note in his pocket.

It was not in vain that he was spinning nearby all the time, probably, their whole company was sitting and waiting for their hour in the neighboring rooms. The situation was nervous, there was a congress in Moscow, people in leather jackets walked all night in Angleterre. Yesenin was in a hurry to remove, because everything was so awkward and there were many traces. The frightened janitor who was carrying firewood and did not enter the room, hearing what was happening, rushed to call the commandant Nazarov … And where is this janitor now?

First there was a “stranglehold” – with his right hand Yesenin tried to weaken it, so the hand became numb in a convulsion. The head was on the arm of the sofa when Yesenin was hit above the bridge of his nose with the handle of the revolver.

Then they rolled him into a carpet and wanted to lower him from the balcony; a car was waiting around the corner.

It was easier to kidnap. But the balcony door did not open wide enough, they left the corpse by the balcony, in the cold. They drank, smoked; all this dirt remained …

Why do I think I was rolled into a carpet? When I was drawing, I noticed a lot of tiny specks on my trousers and a few in my hair … they tried to straighten their arms and slashed the Gillette razor along the tendon of their right hand, these cuts were visible …

They took off their jacket, crumpled and cut, stuffed valuables in their pockets and took everything away … They were in a hurry … They hung them in a hurry, already late at night, and it was not easy on a vertical stand. When they fled, Erlich stayed to check something and prepare for the version of suicide …

He put on the table, in a prominent place, this poem “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye …” A very strange poem … “

• The Voronezh director Yevgeny Parshchikov, who shot a film about the hero of our article, attracted the poet’s relatives and independent experts, and together they found out that everyone knows photo of the license plate taken after the tragedy – fake! Moreover, it is of poor quality: neither the position of the furniture, nor the heating pipe, nor the corners of the room correspond to the situation described in the investigation.

• Moreover, Sergey did not live in this hotel at all! Of course, he was there, but his last name is not on the list of tenants, and none of the staff of the institution even saw him. And all the witnesses who testified about communication with the poet in Angleterre were secret agents of the GPU.
• Most researchers adhering to the version of suicide cite Yesenin’s poem as evidence “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye …”, which he wrote in my own blood and gave it to Wolf the day before his death. Yes, blood! But this then did not bother anyone – the man often used it when there was no ink nearby.

The poem is considered posthumous, but it was not used as material evidence – probably due to the lack of dating. There was also no expert examination of the leaflet’s authenticity. Perhaps this is another forgery, or perhaps a work written more than a year before the incident, which is in no way related to the case.

• Over the past few years, the poet’s relatives, researchers and his admirers have repeatedly turned to the prosecutor’s office with a request to reopen the criminal case on the alleged murder. But all the answers were equally disappointing: “The cause of the poet’s death was confirmed as a result of the compression of the organs of the neck by a noose while hanging. ” Nobody even tries to start researching again.
• At the same time, there are continuous inconsistencies in the documents. For instance, most of the papers were damaged… Moreover, all of them are spoiled in about the same way: a fragment at the bottom of the page is torn out and lost. The signatures of the district supervisor also raise questions – they differ everywhere. During the inspection, the district policeman almost did not examine the scene of the incident, did not record blood on the floor, writing table, walls, did not find out how Yesenin’s right hand was cut, where the rope for hanging from, did not describe the state of the locks on the doors, constipation on the windows, did not note the presence or lack of a key to the door lock.
• And finally: almost all contemporaries doubted suicide Sergei. Most of his colleagues, relatives of friends – all were sure that something was wrong here. Anna Akhmatova, Pavel Luknitsky and Osip Mandelstam expressed their doubts.

Even the clergy almost unanimously closed their eyes to the conclusion of the investigation and buried the poet at the funeral, thereby tacitly recognizing him as dead not his own death – the funeral service for suicides is unacceptable.

What do you think – did Sergei Yesenin commit suicide, or did a still unsolved crime occur that night?

• Suicide
• The crime

Perhaps you will be interested in research material: “Was the tragic fate of Sergei Yesenin a foregone conclusion? Numerological Investigation Using Codes of Destiny “