Lev (Grigoryevich) Tsitseroshin (February 17, 1870 – date of death unknown) — the last police chief of Nizhny Novgorod. Lieutenant colonel. Arrested and transferred to Odessa in the course of the 1917 revolution.
Early life
Lev Grigoryevich Tsitseroshin was born on February 17, 1870, in Kherson Governorate. In the small village of Podmogilova in Aleksandriysky Uyezd, where the Tsitseroshin family estate was located, he inherited 200 desyatinas of land together with his brothers. The young nobleman was educated at the Yelisavetgrad Military Progymnasium, then studied at the Odessa Infantry School, from which he graduated in 1888 with the rank of podporpraporshchik and was assigned to the 132nd Bendersky Regiment.
Tsitseroshin served capably and efficiently. By 1889 he was already a second lieutenant in the Vindava Reserve Regiment, and four years later a full lieutenant. The young officer distinguished himself through his discipline and mastery of military craft, serving as a model for his peers. He regularly won prizes in shooting competitions. From time to time he was sent on assignment — sometimes to train militia recruits, sometimes, as recorded in his service file, to assist the civil authorities in suppressing revolutionary disturbances. Such was the case, for example, in 1905 in Libau, at the insistent request of the Courland Governor.
In an empire subjected to terrorist attacks, however, the army was called upon only as a last resort. The main burden of maintaining public order fell on the gendarmerie and the police, who naturally required bold and skilled officers. It is therefore no surprise that in July 1906, army captain Lev Tsitseroshin was transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs by imperial decree, while remaining on the rolls of the army infantry. On May 27, 1907, by order of the Estland Governor, he was appointed police chief of the governorate capital, Reval (present-day Tallinn).
Career in the Tsarist police
The duties of a police chief were always complex and wide-ranging. But during that period, those charged with protecting the peace and safety of citizens and the state faced particular difficulties. The country was still recovering from the revolutionary upheaval of 1905. Strikes and armed uprisings had given way to acts of terrorism. Socialist-Revolutionary, anarchist, and Social-Democratic militants staged robberies of post and telegraph offices and cash-transport carriages, and threw bombs at representatives of authority. In addition to combating ordinary crime, police officers had to strain every resource to prevent assassinations and terrorist attacks. Tsitseroshin acquitted himself admirably in this regard. His personal file contains numerous commendations for faithful and effective service.
His superiors deemed exemplary the security measures taken by the Reval police during Emperor Nicholas II's visit to Estland on May 27, 1907. Tsitseroshin received two further commendations for maintaining impeccable order during two solemn ceremonies attended by the Tsar — the laying of the foundation stone and the unveiling of a monument to Peter I in Reval, on June 27, 1909, and September 28, 1910, respectively. The monument was erected to mark the 200th anniversary of the incorporation of the Baltic region into Russia.
Lev Grigoryevich's service was noted and rewarded. In 1909 he received the rank of lieutenant colonel; a year later, the Order of Saint Anna, Second Class.
The police chief also had a number of successful operations against ordinary crime to his credit. In 1913, Tsitseroshin received a commendation for "personally taking steps toward the search and apprehension, by officers of the Reval detective division, of a dangerous criminal." A certain Gradetsky had by that time committed a series of crimes. On one occasion, during an attempted arrest, his bullet killed a constable by the name of Bolundz. Who knows how much more the recidivist might have done had he not been stopped by Reval's highly experienced police chief.
When the German Reich declared war on Russia on July 19, 1914, Lev Tsitseroshin was immediately enrolled in the garrison of the Reval Naval Fortress of Emperor Peter the Great. The mobilization proclaimed on the eve of war demanded much of him as well. He was awarded a light-bronze medal for his efforts in support of the call-up. In October 1915, the police chief was honored with the imperial "heartfelt gratitude" for exemplary order maintained during the Tsar's and the heir apparent's stay in Reval.
Ah, i see. Well that's not too tikcry at all!"
In Nizhny Novgorod
There was little time to truly settle into the office in the two-story red-brick building of the police directorate at 12 Varvarka Street. But the police chief adapted quickly. His predecessors — Aleksandr Bogorodsky, Andrey Komendantov, Valerian Ushakov, Dmitry Charnoluzsky — had raised the standard of law enforcement in the city and at the yarmarka to a proper level. The police chief was also fortunate in his staff. His deputy chiefs, Fyodor Rozhdestvensky and Nikolay Makolyin, head of office Boris Mamykin, and registrar Nikolay Orlovsky were all experienced and diligent. The district sergeants of both Kremlin sections, as well as the Rozhdestvenskaya and Makarievskaya sections of the city — Kirill Zaruba, Mikhail Shidlovsky, Ignatiy Ivanov, Nikolay Kazansky — were cut from the same cloth. The Nizhny Novgorod police force was surprisingly small at the time. In 1910 it numbered just 266 men. In addition to the police chief, the district sergeants, and their deputies, the force comprised 28 precinct inspectors, 43 police guards, and 173 constables. And yet what order was maintained!
Everything began to crumble after the events that struck unexpectedly in Petrograd on February 28, 1917: disorder among the garrison troops, the seizure of power by the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, followed by the Tsar's abdication.
Nizhny Novgorod mirrored the capital's upheaval in every detail. The spontaneously formed Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Executive Committee, under the chairmanship of city mayor Dmitry Sirotkin, issued orders for the dissolution of the gendarmerie and the police, and for the arrest of all former officials — including the governor and vice-governor, the chief of the gendarmerie directorate Ivan Mazurin, his deputy Vladimir Strekalovsky, and many district sergeants from the city and the uyezds. Meanwhile, criminals — both political and ordinary — were released. A paradox!
Lev Tsitseroshin was also taken into custody. He spent long weeks confined in Block 1 of the prison on Arzamasskoe Highway.
An investigative commission was established to search for evidence. Its composition was reported by the Nizhegorodsky Listok newspaper: "acting chairman — Bitker, secretary — Lubetsky, member — Shreyder." No evidence was found. Telegrams with inquiries were sent to Reval and to the local revolutionary authorities. In reply came the most flattering testimonials about the former police chief: honest, incorruptible, competent. There was no choice but to release him.
In the meantime, criminal activity ran rampant throughout the city and the uyezds — hardly surprising, since the experienced police officers had been replaced by militiamen recruited from students of the Warsaw Polytechnic and assorted others. In command was placed E. F. Stepanov, commander of the 671st home-guard company, who had little grasp of detective work, alongside other inexperienced officers. Before long, a report was dispatched to the authorities: "Crime is progressively increasing. Up to 15 or more offenses are committed per day, among them very serious ones — murders, robberies, and large-scale thefts." The militia leadership pleaded for the dismissed policemen to be reinstated. The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies resisted this at every turn. And all the while, the police chief sat in prison.
Exile to Odessa
The last document concerning Tsitseroshin that we have found in the archives is dated September 23, 1917. It reads: "Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Provisional Government. To the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Commissioner. The Main Administration for Militia Affairs hereby informs you that, according to a communication from General Headquarters dated 16.9.1917, No. 162134, by order pertaining to the army infantry, the acting Nizhny Novgorod police chief, Lieutenant Colonel Tsitseroshin, has been transferred to a reserve unit attached to the headquarters of the Odessa Military District."
What happened next, we do not know. Whether fate brought Lev Tsitseroshin into the ranks of the White movement, as was the case with his predecessor Bogorodsky — or whether he perished in the abyss of Red Terror, like the gendarmerie colonel Mazurin and many officers of the Nizhny Novgorod police.
Perhaps Tsitseroshin was fortunate — as were, say, the former head of the secret police section Strekalovsky and the former head of the Provincial Gendarmerie Directorate Globachev — and lived out his days peacefully somewhere in Tallinn, Paris, Cairo, or New York, longing for his homeland and dreaming of seeing it again. God willing, history will reveal this secret to us as well.
Nizhegorodskaya Pravda, Stanislav Smirnov