What he was really.
Not so long ago on the screens released a multi-part feature film “the Life and adventures of Teddy jap”, which contributed to the outbreak of interest to the historical prototype of the hero. Around his name so many legends that it is very difficult to understand who he really is – a thug is a thug, revolutionary anarchist or a noble Robin hood.
The myth of the noble robber, and arose probably after the publication of “Odessa tales” by Isaac Babel, which featured raider Benya Krik. His prototype was a real historical character – the Bear jap, though in life he was very far from the romanticized literary hero. Moisey Vinnitsky was born in Odessa in the heart of Moldavanka, at birth they called him Moshe-Yakov. Later, because of the slanted eyes, broad cheekbones and swarthy skin color he was nicknamed Yaponchik.
Raids he worked from childhood. In his youth he joined the squad of anarchists, under the guise that are often hidden to the ordinary raiders. And although he had a lot of “feats” in the archives of the pre-investigation his name is not mentioned. The glory about it rattled in 1918, then in the newspaper “Odessa mail appeared a proclamation by the “group of thieves”, which was proclaimed a code of honor: the bandits have announced that they are at the same time with the sailors and workers, vowed to robbing only the bourgeois, demanded respect, and promised to help the poor.
When the Bolsheviks were preparing an armed uprising in Odessa, they appealed for help to the Jap using hijackers in the terrorist attacks and buying weapons from them. So the bandit became almost a hero of the Civil war. Sensational was the robbery of the Romanian gambling club. The raiders dressed in the form of sailors, burst into the hall in the midst of the game and the name of the revolution” was taken standing on the stake of 100 thousand rubles.
The goal of jap coincided with the Bolshevik: to help working people. Robbed left money on the cab, the poor are not touched, some of the stolen money, according to legend, went to charity: jap helped the unemployed port workers, orphans and homeless. In his name the inhabitants of a Moldovan woman was handing out food and clothes. Therefore, in Odessa, he enjoyed the respect and credibility.
Mishka Yaponchik is often wrongly called a thief in the act. Professor J. Gilinsky, who study the criminal world, says: “Mishka Yaponchik really didn’t like the violence, especially the “murders”, but the kingpin was not least because the thieves ‘law appeared only in the late 20’s. Mishka Yaponchik can be called the forerunner of the thieves in the law”.
When the Odessa began the fight against banditry, jap expressed a desire to create a regiment and go to war with the whites. In June 1919 were indeed formed the 54th infantry Soviet regiment them. V. I. Lenin, the commander of which was the jap. To the front of the bandits were in no hurry, and in the end of 2000 fighters arrived only 800 – the rest escaped. After the first fight desert tried the rest. According to one version, the jap was shot while trying to escape. However, the exact circumstances of his death are not known, as well as the hard facts of life. To separate truth from speculation is extremely difficult.
