pletely empty, filled only with air. Whoever punctured the boy fourteen
times, the report concluded, did so to draw blood.8
On May 5, Inspector Lukashevich made a thorough search of Mirka
Aronson’s house, paying particular attention to the kitchen, tool shed,
and stable, and was not able to uncover any evidence that linked Mirka
or any other members of the household (her daughter Slava, son- in- law
Shmerka Berlin, grandson Hirsh, and granddaughter- in- law Shifra)
with the murder. He then asked to take a look at the cellar, but Berlin
replied that the house had none. Lukashevich later learned that the
house was equipped with two cellars— the first one located in the foyer,
the other in the lavka (trade shop) where goods and spirits were sold.
When asked why he had concealed the truth, Berlin replied that he did
not see the point of showing them to the inspector: “Both cellars are
in the most decrepit shape, and there is absolutely nothing in them.”
Clearly, Berlin felt that he had much to lose if the authorities uncovered
anything remotely suspicious.9
Registered officially as a merchant of the third guild, Shmerka Berlin
occupied a respected place in the social hierarchy of the town. Not only
did he make quite a bit of money selling lumber and spirits and man-
aging the only glass factory in the provincial district, but he also mar-
ried into an affluent family that lived in the most magnificent house in
Velizh. Mirka Aronson’s two- story brick house was located in the center
of the town. The southern side of the house overlooked the marketplace
and town hall, while the western side faced Il’inskaia Street— one of the
town’s main thoroughfares, populated mostly by Jews. Considered large
by any standard, the house had a grand total of twenty- four rooms, thir-
teen of which were located on the first floor. A tavern and grocery store,
at least three trading stalls, two cellars (one of which was equipped with
a secret staircase), and several additional chambers all could be found
on the first level. Together with his wife Slava, Shmerka occupied one of
the more spacious chambers on the ground floor, while their daughter
and her husband slept in a slightly smaller one. Mirka Aronson spent
20
20
the Velizh affair
A postcard of the marketplace. Mirka Aronson’s house is the fourth building from the right. Velizh Museum
much of her time in an adjoining wing of the house, comprising six
additional rooms.
In Velizh, as in other market towns in the western borderlands, the
boundaries between rural life and urban civilization were never rigid.
This was also the case for the Aronson household.10 Visitors would
walk up to a sturdy iron gate on Il’inskaia Street, where they would be
greeted by a domestic servant and escorted inside the courtyard. Here,
they would find goats, roosters, and other domestic animals, a modest
garden, and encounter all the sights and smells of small- town life. The
courtyard was separated into two distinct sections by a long wooden
fence. Several small wooden structures lined the eastern side of the
property, including a guesthouse reserved for visitors, tool shed, stable,
outhouse, and a wooden hut composed of three modest rooms built
especially for the domestic servants.
Thanks to Miron Ryvkin’s historical- ethnographic recollections (one
of the earliest and most penetrating accounts of the case), it is possible
to get a glimpse of details that are strikingly absent from the official
feDOr gOes fOr a walk
21
judicial records.11 On any weekday this imposing structure was the site
of much activity and commotion. Customers from various parts of the
town as well as the surrounding villages would come to drink beer or
vodka at the tavern or purchase food from what was considered to be the
town’s best- stocked grocery store. Besides alcohol, they could acquire
buns, cottage- cheese cakes, pickled herring, fruits, coffee, tea, tobacco, matches, candles, and so much more.12 Visitors who came to town on
business would walk up the wooden staircase to the traktir (inn), where they could get a bite to eat in the dining room and retire for the night in one of the guest rooms. From time to time the poor and needy showed
up on the doorstep as well: Mirka Aronson, it seems, was well known
for her exceptional generosity. Aronson’s two sons lived quite comfort-
ably only a few doors away on Il’inskaia Street, while Shmerka Berlin’s
brother lived right around the corner on Petersburg Street, next to
two of Velizh’s most prominent personalities, the town councilor Evzik
Tsetlin and his wife Khanna. On Saturdays and on holidays, the entire
extended family— around forty people in all— would gather for a meal
on the second level of the house.
Without the support of their Christian neighbors, neither Shmerka
Berlin nor Khanna Tsetlina would have been able to operate successful
taverns. According to Ryvkin, all the respected residents of the town—
from the wealthiest Polish landowners to the most powerful imperial
bureaucrats— could be spotted, from time to time, at either Berlin’s or
Tsetlina’s tavern.13 We should, however, be careful not to paint life in
Velizh as a multicultural idyll. The day- to- day exchange of goods and
services not only brought people together but also produced many of
the conflicts and quarrels between town residents. This was a world that
was consumed by petty disagreements, disputes, jealousy, and gossip.
And as in so many other small towns and villages around the world,
communal unity in Velizh represented an ideal far removed from what
was taking place in everyday life.14
If Mirka Aronson and Shmerka Berlin were regarded as upstanding
members of the community, Anna Eremeeva and Maria Terenteeva
were considered to be two of the town’s most marginal characters.
Anna had lived a hand- to- mouth existence in and around Velizh for
more than twelve months when the boy’s lifeless body was first discov-
ered. On March 25, about a month before Fedor disappeared, Anna
2
22
the Velizh affair
found herself in the village of Sentiury. While out on a walk, she sud-
denly felt weak and fell asleep on the side of the road. The townsman
Larion Pestun noticed Anna curled up sleeping in the shrubby grass
and decided to take her to his warm bathhouse. Fast asleep for two days
and two nights, Anna dreamed of the archangel Mikhail, who took
her by the arm and whispered in her ear that the Jews would murder
a Christian soul on Easter Day. This was not the only time that Anna
had dreamed of the archangel Mikhail: on Easter eve, he appeared to
her one more time, revealing that Jews would seize a Christian soul
and bring him to Mirka Aronson’s home. When Agafia Prokof’eva
came to Sentiury to inquire about little Fedor’s whereabouts, Anna told
her: “On the way here you walked into the very home where they’re
keeping your son. If you have the strength to rescue the boy, then do
so. But if you don’t m
ake it on time, then stay vigilant and watch over
[the house].”15
Like Anna, Maria Terenteeva had lived in Velizh for a year or two
at the time of the investigation (it is impossible to determine for sure
from the archival records), surviving on whatever food and money
A postcard of Smolensk Street. The marketplace and the town council are in the background. Velizh Museum
feDOr gOes fOr a walk
23
she could find. She married a man who spent most of his adult life
serving in the army. Several residents testified that Terenteeva had
led a “debauched” lifestyle ever since she came to town— giving birth
to a son out of wedlock, stealing food every chance she could, and
walking in the streets at all hours of the night screaming, “God help
me, they’re trying to suffocate me.”16 Abram Kisin remembered first
encountering Terenteeva during broad daylight, when he caught her
stealing carrots and beets from his yard. Once he confronted her,
Terenteeva “hit him so hard that he barely made it back home that
day.” On other occasions, as well, Terenteeva would come by Kisin’s
house in a fit of rage to steal fresh vegetables from the garden or throw
clean linens on the ground and stomp on them with her bare feet in
a wild rage.17
Terenteeva testified that on Easter Day she begged for alms in
front of a church and chatted briefly with a woman who was passing
by. Afterward, she made her way to the outskirts of town, seeking
charitable handouts along the way. It was already nightfall when she
made her way to the Konevetse Creek, at which time she saw two
small children standing on the bridge. One was a boy with white-
blond hair, wearing a cap and dressed in a coat and boots. At that
precise moment, Terenteeva recalled, Khanna Tsetlina walked up to
the boy and took him away by the arm. Although Terenteeva did not
say anything about the whereabouts of the other child, she claimed
that Tsetlina took the boy back to her own home, where four Jewish
women were waiting for her. Terenteeva was not certain if the women
had come from Shmerka Berlin’s home, but she was confident that
she would be able to identify at least two of them. She then described
her encounters with Emel’ian Ivanov and Agafia Prokof’eva and con-
cluded the deposition by saying that Emel’ian had refused to believe
a word she had said.18
Maria Terenteeva’s testimony proved absolutely devastating for the
Jews. Over the course of several weeks, authorities questioned dozens
of town residents, both Jews and Christians, focusing their attention on
four primary suspects— Evzik and Khanna Tsetlin, Mirka Aronson, and
Shmerka Berlin— and on the missing spring britzka. Emel’ian Ivanov’s
sister- in- law, Kharitina Prokof’eva, was convinced by all the talk that
the Jews had murdered her nephew. Another town resident, Efim’ia
24
24
the Velizh affair
Fedorova, heard from one of her neighbors that the Jews took the little
boy inside their school, where they proceeded to torture and kill him.
Avdot’ia Maksimova, who worked as a housekeeper for Khanna Tsetlina
(and would later play an important role in the case), testified that she
had not seen a Christian boy at the house and had not seen Tsetlina
walk outside that day. Eleven other witnesses— representing a broad
cross section of the population— declared that they, too, had not seen
Jews with the young boy and had no knowledge of who had committed
the crime. They acknowledged, however, that the Jews must have been
involved in the murder. The investigators then proceeded to question
twelve more people. Two testified that Shmerka Berlin’s and Khanna
Tsetlina’s behavior had always been excellent; eight said they did not
suspect either Berlin or Tsetlina of doing anything malicious; but all
twelve were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Jews had
killed the little boy.19
The court records demonstrate how influential tales of blood sac-
rifice had become in the mindset of the town residents. Witness after
witness asserted that Jews had ritually murdered the boy, even though
no one had actually seen them do this. The only person other than
Maria Terenteeva who claimed to have observed Khanna Tsetlina with
a Christian boy was Daria Kasachevskaia. On Easter Day, at either
one or two o’clock in the afternoon, Kasachevskaia went to Shmerka
Berlin’s tavern to purchase beer. On the way, she saw Khanna Tsetlina
with a blond- haired boy who was dressed in either a blue or green caf-
tan. Kasachevskaia surmised that Tsetlina and the little boy were walk-
ing to town from either the embankment or the creek, but she had no
idea where they were going. After purchasing the beer, Kasachevskaia
returned home immediately and did not see either Tsetlina or the boy
again that afternoon. It seems likely that Kasachevskaia based her nar-
rative on the many tales that were circulating around town, for when
authorities pressed her for additional testimony she could not remember
anything else.20
Over the course of the investigation, tsarist officials attempted to
obey the letter of the law by not casting blame on any suspects until
they had interviewed all possible witnesses, exhausted all possible
lines of inquiry, and reviewed all the forensic evidence. And as they
feDOr gOes fOr a walk
25
questioned more and more people, and gathered more and more evi-
dence, communal tensions began to rise. How could they not? The
Jews, it seems, thought that it was just a matter of time before the
most respected and wealthiest members of their community would
be formally charged with ritual murder. On May 17, when Inspector
Lukashevich interviewed Father Kazimir Serafinovich, who had come
to town to visit his friend the land surveyor Kottov, more than one
hundred Jews encircled Kottov’s house, climbed on the fence, and
began to shout to the inspector: “You don’t have the right to treat the
town councilor Tsetlin in this manner; he’s our leader!” This unex-
pected turn of events put the authorities on high alert. Fearing that
the heated emotions could easily escalate into unrestrained hostility,
the magistrate issued an immediate injunction: none of the suspects
or witnesses would be allowed to travel beyond the town’s boundaries
and everyone would be kept under strict surveillance until all the sor-
did details of the case were sorted out. The last thing the magistrate
needed to deal with was a full- blown riot.21
The Jews, meanwhile, vehemently denied their role in the mur-
der. Khanna Tsetlina testified that she was at home on Easter Day.
Furthermore, she insisted that she never brought a Christian boy
inside the house and had no knowledge of who had committed the
crime. Several days after giving the deposition, Tsetlina submitted a
formal appeal to the town council proclaiming her innocence, calling
all the accusations “unfounded.” “I never brought a Christian boy
> home, as [Terenteeva] has claimed, or left the house because I was
home the entire day tending to my sick son.” According to Jewish
custom, a sick person could not be left alone, and for this reason
several friends came by to help Tsetlina watch over her ailing son.
Tsetlina invited the magistrate to interview Abram Kurin, Malka
Baraduchi, and Genia Vezmenskaia, among other friends and neigh-
bors, who would all testify on her behalf. She concluded the appeal
by suggesting that, in all likelihood, Terenteeva had invented the
“awful slander” to settle an old score. The beggar woman had a habit
of walking around town asking for charity. On several occasions, after
appearing on the doorstep, Tsetlina had “run her out of the house”
without giving her any handouts. Each time such an incident had
26
26
the Velizh affair
Khanna Tsetlina’s appeal to the Velizh town council proclaiming her innocence in Fedor’s death. A professional scribe recopied the document in January 1829, when all the files in the dossier were being prepared for review by the Senate in St. Petersburg. Natsional’nyi istoricheskii arkhiv Belarusi, f. 1297, op. 1, d. 190, ll.
217ob– 218
occurred, Terenteeva would tell everyone in town how unjustly she
was treated.22
On Easter Sunday, Tsetlina’s husband, Evzik, strolled around the
marketplace browsing the items on display, and then went on several
errands around town. For this reason, he could not say for certain
if his wife went out anywhere that day, but he was convinced that a
Christian boy had not set foot inside their house. At the age of seventy,
Mirka Aronson tried to stay out of the day- to- day affairs of the family
and avoided paying any attention to gossipy talk. While she had no
idea who had killed the boy, there was no doubt in her mind that her
son- in- law Shmerka and her grandson Hirsh were not involved in the
murder because she knew for a fact that they stayed home the entire
day. Showing signs of desperation, Shmerka Berlin made the outland-
ish conjecture that someone had “run over the boy accidentally and
feDOr gOes fOr a walk
27
then proceeded to puncture the body” to mask the death as a ritual
The Velizh Affair Page 5