In 1926 Kyiv’s Red Building (the university auditorium) became a makeshift courtroom for what contemporaries called the city’s biggest corruption case. Prosecutors tried 113 people, most of them police officers and their associates, after criminal authority Samuil Kelmansky, known as “Munchik,” gave detailed testimony before his execution. The trial ran with heavy press attention and daily full houses from 15 April onward.
Arrests of senior officers happened at once—some detained at work, others on holiday or in restaurants. Fe dir Kovalenko, head of the gubernial militsiya accused of shielding the schemes, shot himself when investigators arrived. The 43‑day process ended with a 28 May 1926 verdict: senior figures Serhii Fradko, Mykola Malyshev, Rodion Menabde and Serhii Horsky‑Umnov received death sentences and were executed on 2 June.
Court testimony described everything from contraband perfumes and inflated purchases of whistles to regular ‘gifts’ extracted from shopkeepers, restaurants and so‑called nepmen. Wives and business owners also sat on the bench of the accused, underscoring how the networks of protection and extortion reached beyond uniformed officers into Kyiv’s civic life.