An Actual Soviet Monster, Seriously
Stalin looks like a saint compared to him.
Now, last year for October, I talked about the infamous “Black Volga”. A mysterious sedan that prowled the streets of many Eastern European countries, and depending on who you asked, its occupants carried corrupt government officials, demonic priests, and even the Devil himself. Each region had its own version of the story with one common factor: if the Black Volga was following you, you would never be seen or heard from again.
The Legend of the Black Volga
The legend of the Black Volga has some truth to it, as the Volga was a real car built by GAZ and it was a very popular vehicle with organizations that would indeed snatch people off the street. But there is a common belief that the story itself can be traced back to one man who was not only a high-ranking Soviet official but was pure evil.
His name was Lavrentiy Beria, a Georgian-born Bolshevik and Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union, and most infamously, head of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (a.k.a., the NKVD). He was even promoted to deputy premier under Stalin in 1941, so to say he had rank would be quite the understatement. He also did a lot of things that I won’t list here because it would take too long. But let’s just say that if he was not a Communist, he would have been right at home in Nazi Germany and even held in high regard by Hitler himself.
Lavrentiy Beria: A Name of Terror
But as it turned out, Beria was far worse than that. As head of the NKVD, he would prowl the streets of Moscow or other nearby cities in his official vehicle, which was sometimes a GAZ-M1 sedan. He would look for women and have them snatched off the streets, from where they would be taken to either his home or wherever he was staying and be forced to do unspeakable things—things I do not want to get into, but you can probably guess what they were. Using his position to force women to do these things under threats of being sent to the Gulags if they were to say anything, or in some cases, promising to release loved ones if they allowed him to have his way.
Yeah, like I said, a monster. But this story does have a happy ending, as after Nikita Khrushchev came to power, Beria was arrested and charged with treason. Along with being painted as a sexual deviant and predator during the trial, he was executed.
~NC
