Non-fictional drama: Who became the prototypes of the heroes of Abdulov and Neyelova in the film "Prison Romance"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Crime drama by Evgeny Tatarsky "Prison Romance" was released in 1993 and immediately won the love of the audience, largely thanks to the actors who played the main roles - Alexander Abdulova and Marina Neyelova … Few people know that the story of a woman investigator who lost her head from a prisoner and arranged his escape was based on real events, and the main characters had their own prototypes - one of the most famous Soviet raiders Sergei Maduev and senior investigator for especially important cases under the Prosecutor General of the USSR Natalia Vorontsova. And in life, the ending of the story was much more dramatic than in the movies.

The fate of Sergei Maduev was predetermined from the very birth - he was born in places of imprisonment. His father was a Chechen convicted of resisting deportation and a Korean woman serving time for speculation. After his release, his father left his family, and Sergei was raised by the street. He began to steal from the age of 6, and at 17 he first went to jail - he was sentenced to 6 years in prison for complicity in theft. In 1980 he was released, but a few months later he was arrested again for robbery and robbery, and the second time he was sentenced to 15 years.

For a while, Sergei Maduev, nicknamed Chervonets, behaved almost like Robin Hood: he robbed only those who made wealth dishonestly, did not take the latter, and once even called the owner of the robbed apartment an ambulance, as he had a heart attack … However, his "nobility" did not last long. He himself called himself an "outlaw thief", even the criminals considered him an "outlaw", since he did not stop at anything, stole the common fund of thieves in law from Tbilisi and Tashkent, withstood the attack of 12 criminals who intended to kill him for this, and could use weapons at any moment. Although Maduev took up criminal activity back in the 1970s, he committed his most high-profile cases in the late 1980s, for which he was called the last criminal of the USSR era.

In 1988, the offender was transferred to a colony-settlement, from where he fled. They put him on the all-Union wanted list, but for about two years they could not catch him. During this time, he committed not only a series of robberies and robberies, but also several murders. His crimes became more and more daring: in one of the Leningrad cafes, in front of visitors, he shot a doorman for being rude to him. But in 1990 he was nevertheless captured and put in the "Kresty".

Maduev knew that most likely this time he would be sentenced to death, so he gave evidence, pointed out the crime scenes and signed the protocols without looking. He was charged with more than 60 crimes, 10 of them were murders. But in March 1991, when the criminal was supposed to be transported to Moscow, he suddenly took out a pistol from his bosom and tried to escape. As it turned out later, this was the same revolver with which he committed several murders. It was kept in the safe of the prosecutor's office, and only one of the employees could transfer it.

As it turned out, the weapon was handed over to the criminal by Natalya Vorontsova, an investigator for especially important cases of the USSR Prosecutor General's Office. Maduev has always enjoyed success with women, and he managed to seduce Vorontsova and convince her to help him escape. During interrogations, she confessed everything: "".

To Maduev himself, according to his confession, romantic feelings were alien: "".

In the film, the hero of Abdulov is killed during the escape, and nothing is said about the further fate of the heroine Neelova. In fact, the escape failed, the offender was wounded, but survived, and later tried to escape twice more. Investigator Vorontsova was fired from the prosecutor's office and sentenced to 7 years. In 1995, Maduev was sentenced to death, but because of the moratorium, the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment. In 2000, he died of cardiovascular failure and diabetes.

The film "Prison Romance" was shot, as they say, in hot pursuit. The director read about this story in the newspapers, and later Alexander Abdulov invited him to film him in the role of Maduev. The film was released two years after the real crime drama took place in "Crosses".

Some criminals, thanks to cinema, have become romantic heroes and even legends, such as, for example, Bonnie and Clyde are the most famous crime couple.