“She was the first woman in the history of crime in Russia to create a well-coordinated criminal group, which she ran for decades…”
–from “Women in Organized Crime in Russia” by Yakov Gilinsky (2007)
From 1880 to about 1905, newspapers around the world were abuzz with a sensational tale about the comeuppance of a Russian racketeer. This criminal, reporters alleged, was a bigamist (married no less than “sixteen times”) and high roller who had preyed upon Europe’s blue bloods by conning them out of sackloads of jewels and roubles. One after another had succumbed to the Russian’s quick fingers and magnetic gaze which, it was claimed, could break coffers and hearts. And yet, in spite of it all, the elusive mastermind had been prosecuted, convicted, and shipped off to Alexandrovsk katorga, a labour camp in the easternmost reaches of the Russian Empire. The story was framed like a Wild West tall tale. Each headline conveyed the message that an evildoer from the snows of Muscovy had been exiled to “hell on earth”, an outpost at the edge of the world.
The convict at the centre of the media frenzy was “adventuress” and Odessite Sophia Bluhstein. On the street, she was known as “The Golden Hand”, a name more suited to her professional image and cloak-and-dagger activities. Sources on Bluhstein’s origins and escapades were hard to come by, but this predictably did not stop the press and its powers of imagination.
One correspondent, writing in The New York Sun speculated that she was a wayward countess who had forsaken aristocratic life in order to become a doyenne of the Russian underworld. Arthur Griffiths, in his book The History and Romance of Crime, made similarly gripping claims, asserting that Bluhstein and her crew of gangsters had once stolen a vessel and engaged in piracy. Bluhstein was perhaps best known, however, for attempting to steal the Shah of Persia’s diamonds during the monarch’s visit to Russia. Had it not been foiled, it’s conceivable that Bluhstein’s heist would have strained relations between the two countries.
But Bluhstein was not only known for her dexterous cons. Her ostentatious displays of wealth were the stuff of legend. It was said that she had travelled in the most luxurious carriages and lived in the grandest mansions. A ci-devant socialite, she reportedly had spent thousands of pounds on upscale soirées. Additionally, the New Zealand-based Auckland Star maintained that she was a polyglot. If this is true, her multilingualism, in addition to her love for fineries, can account for the ease by which she accessed wealthy circles in cities like St Peterburg, Moscow, Vienna, Brussels, Constantinople, Paris, and London.
During her retirement, Bluhstein was given permission to resettle in the coastal city of Vladivostok, the last stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Here she re-branded herself as a hotelier and entertained guests with retellings of her adventures. All the while, postcards of the elderly ex-con and cosmopolite were distributed across the country and around the world. Westerners and many of Bluhstein’s own countrymen flocked to Russia’s Far East to see her in the flesh.
Unsurprisingly, Bluhstein enjoyed a prosperous afterlife. Louise McReynolds in her book Murder Most Russian: True Crime and Punishment in Late Imperial Russia tells us that after Bluhstein’s death she was immortalised on the silver screen by filmmakers Alexander Drankov and M.D. Klefortnov. As a result of her ascension to the world of cinema, Bluhstein surged in popularity and became a legendary figure in Russian popular culture.
In retrospect, it’s worth noting that certain aspects of Bluhstein’s reputation can be attributed to the merging of her already vibrant persona with specific folkloric archetypes. Like the Apulian brigand Ciro Annicchiarico (whom English writers likened to a werewolf and sorcerer) Bluhstein was seen as an enigmatic and exotic phenomenon. Victorian commentators undoubtedly saw in her something well beyond their puritanical ideals. Tenacious, cunning, self-reliant, and self-indulgent, Bluhstein became for them the vampish femme fatale: Deianira, Delilah, Medusa, and Lilith all fused into one composite temptress.
Although the media was instrumental in broadcasting these characterisations, studies have shown that Bluhstein truly was an exceptional gangster. An opportunist at heart, she capitalised on her victims’ conceits and exploited the Russian government’s justice system with savvy know-how and calculated intimidation. In time, she worked her way up the backstreets of Odessa, rising from a petty thief to a boss capable of mobilising gangs of hired muscle.
Recent scholarship has also shown that her Mafia-like organisation set a kind of precedent for future crime outfits in Russia. For example, Yakov Gilinsky and Yakov Kostjukovsky in their essay “From Thievish Artel to Criminal Corporation: The History of Organised Crime in Russia” have noted that Bluhstein internationalised her thieving by delegating duties to her subordinates (all of whom carried multiple passports) in places like Rostov and Moscow.
All things considered, it’s apparent that the breadth and effectiveness of Bluhstein’s racketeering enterprise set her apart from her peers, and she rightly goes down in history as one of the most remarkable and ruthless self-made criminals of Tsarist Russia.
Want more stories? Check out our spin-off project, Godfrey’s Almanack.