Plot synopsis

The issue of the documentary series by Nikolai Svanidze is dedicated to 1933 and the head of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda.
1933 was the year of the career peak of the all-powerful head of the all-powerful organization called the NKVD. The author of the film will tell about how the White Sea Canal was built, how the NKVD managed the Soviet economy and why Stalin removed Yagoda... Genrikh Yagoda was born in 1891 in the city of Rybinsk in the family of a goldsmith. In 1908 he graduated from high school in Nizhny Novgorod, where he then worked as a statistician, and in 1907 he became a member of the RSDLP(b). He conducted party work in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, where he met Maxim Gorky, with whom he remained friends throughout his life. From 1919 he was a member of the Cheka, was a close associate of Felix Dzerzhinsky, who constantly promoted him. After the death of Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda became the first deputy chairman of the OGPU, he concentrated in his hands the management of almost all affairs and the apparatus of the OGPU. He headed the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal by prisoners (1929-30). And from July 10, 1934 he was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. On October 7, 1935 he was appointed General Commissar of State Security.
It was Yagoda who turned the NKVD into a huge industrial empire based on the slave labor of prisoners. Without the sanction of the Central Committee, he ordered the creation of court departments in the NKVD camps to hear cases of crimes. On his initiative, special ranks were introduced for the organization's employees. A giant statue of Yagoda, erected by prisoners, decorated the entrance to the White Sea-Baltic Canal for several years. After his arrest, it was blown up along with the rock on which it stood.
In 1938, Genrikh Yagoda was convicted and executed along with 20 "enemies of the people."

Commentaries

Сценарии телесериала «Исторические хроники с Николаем Сванидзе», с 1913го по 1933 год. [Scénarios de la série télévisée « Chroniques historiques avec Nikolaï Svanidzé », de 1913 à 1933], Marina ZHUKOVA, Амфора, 2014

- Screenplay

Selected in the following festivals or events :

- Historical Chronicles with Nikolay Svanidze, (kinoglaz.fr), 2026

Photos, videos, texts

Guenrikh YAGODA (Генрих Григорьевич ЯГОДА) 1891-1938