<<Protocol of the interrogation of Abashidze, former commandant of Tbilisi>>

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Protocol of interrogation

Abashidze, David Grigorievich. Born 1907, Georgian, nonpartisan.

From 1925 to 1932 he lived in Austria and Germany. Came to the USSR legally.

From 1932 to 1935 he was deputy head engineer in the construction of a paper factory in Tbilisi.

From 1935 to August 1936 he was laboratory head, later head engineer and deputy director of the Deryugino paper factory.

From August to November of 1936 he was head of production at the Lower Dnieper paper factory.

Before his arest he was head engineer of the Dniepropetrovsk pasta factory.

From February 10, 1937

Question: Where did you live and what was your occupation during the year 1935?

Answer: In January of 1935 I traveled to Moscow to meet my wife, who at the time had arrived from Germany, where she had been visiting with her parents for a month and a half.

Question: How much time did you spend in Moscow then?

Answer: Three or four days.

Question: Where did you live during those three or four days?
Answer: The first day I spent with my wife at the apartment of Eduard Bravets, who lived on Brussovsky Lane, house #6, apt. #7. The second and third days were at an unknown citizen's home, on B. Dmitrovka, I don't remember the house number and I don't know her last name.

Question: What do you know about Bravets?

Anwer: Eduard Bravets, I don't know his patronymic, 30, Czech, citizen of Czechoslovakia, son of a former major Moscow merchant.  In 1935 his father left Moscow legally to reside permanently in Czechslovakia. Before that he was sent away by Soviet government organs for some crimes to remote areas of the Union.

Eduard Bravets has been working as a driver for many years at the Polish embassy in Moscow.
Question: Where and under what circumstances did you meet Eduard Bravets?

Answer: I first met Eduard Bravets in 1933 in Moscow, under the following circumstances.

In February of 1933 my wife first came to see me from Germany. Prior to that she was living with her parents in Keten. In Keten she met

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Eduard Bravets's brother – Georgiy Bravets, who was studying at the Keten industrial institute. Almost at the same time as my wife, Georgiy Bravets came to Moscow, where through my wife I met him and his brother Eduard Bravets. When I was in Moscow, I would visit with them.

Question: The purpose your trip from Deryugino to Moscow in July of 1935.
Answer: In July of 1935 I went to Moscow for a business trip.
Question: On what business?
Answer: On the matters of the reconstruction of the Deryugino paper factory and to obtain technical materials necessary to repair the factory.
Question: How many days did you spend away?
Answer: Formally I tied my stay in Moscow to questions that I allegedly needed to resolve at the factory in “Glavtabak”; in actuality I used the majority of my time away for my personal interests – I wanted to walk around Moscow.

Question: Where did you stay in Moscow?

Answer: At my brother's apartment – Georgiy Grigorievich Abashidze.
Question: You had testified earlier that your brother Georgiy Abashidze lives in Tbilisi.

Answer: He was in Moscow in the summer of 1935 for a research trip from the Narkomzdrav [People's Commissariat of Health] of Georgia. He worked

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to raise his surgical medical qualifications at the Sklifasovsky institute. In Moscow he was able to move into an apartment belonging to some acquaintances who had left Moscow for a long period of time.
Question: The address for your brother's apartment?
Answer: Tverskaya-Yamskaya street or Tverskoy-Yamskoy lane; I don't remember the house number.
Question: How long did you stay at your brother's apartment?
Answer: 8 to 10 days.
Question: Where did you live the rest of the time?
Answer: At the apartment of an acquaintance, Valiko Yelisabedashvili.
Question: What do you know about Yelisabedashvili?
Answer: Yelisabedashvili Valiko, I don't remember his patronymic, about 30 years old, Georgian, son of an old underground Bolshevik, who worked in the pre-revolutionary underground along with Stalin.
Valiko Yelisabedashvili is a mechanical engineer in the Narkomvod. At the time he lived in Ostozhenka, on Savelyevski lane, house #8, I don't remember the apartment, on the third floor. Valiko Yelisabedashvili's wife is Nitsa Yelisabedashvili, born Abashidze, she is 24 or 25 years old, Georgian, daughter of a prince, she keeps house.
Question: Nitsa Abashidze is a relative of yours?

Answer: No, she just has the same last name.

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Question: When, where and under what circumstances did you meet Valiko Yelisabedashvili and his wife?
Answer: I met Valiko Yelisabedashvili and his wife Nitsa in July of 1935 in Moscow, during my stay on a business trip. My brother, Georgiy Abashidze, introduced me to them.
Question: What are the reasons for you leaving your brother's apartment and moving to the Yelisabedashvilis' apartment?
Answer: Moving in with the Yelisabedashvilis was my idea. The reason was my desire to establish a strong friendship with the Yelisabedashvilis.

Question: For what purpose?

Answer: From my brother, Georgiy Abashidze, I learned that Yelisabedashvili frequently visited Stalin's apartment in Moscow and has a close friendship with Stalin's relatives, frequently visiting their apartment. In confirmation of what he said, my brother Georgiy told me that in Moscow, he personally, through Yelisabedashvili, had met Stalin's son Yasha, who lived with his aunt Svanidze. At Svanidze's apartment – my brother Georgiy was there with Yelisabedashvili. According to my brother, Stalin's nephew also lives at the Svanidze apartment. He's an eletrical engineer and works in the Narkomtyazhprom [People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry]. He is married to Babiko Paatashvili, whom I knew in Tbilisi from 1933 to 1934, before her marriage.

In order to complete the tasks given to me in Berlin by the leadership of “Tetri-Georg” and the German intelligence, I decided to become closer to the Yelisabedashvili family and through them get to know Stalin's family in order to reach him.

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Question: What tasks specifically?
Answer: An attempt to take the lives of Stalin and Ordzhokidze.

Question: Did your brother Georgiy know of your goals?
Answer: No, my brother did not know of my intentions.
Question: Were the Yelisabedashvilis made aware of your intentions?
Answer: No. I did not tell them about it and did not give them any reason to suspect me of holding counterrevolutionary and anti-soviet beleifs. With them I behaved like a passionate Soviet patriot.
Question: You managed to meet the Svanidze family.
Answer: Yes, only Svanidze – Stalin's first wife's sister.
Question: Under what circumstances did you meet her?
Answer: After learning from my brother Georgiy, and later from the Yelisabedashvili family that Babiko Paatashvili is married to Stalin's nephew and currently lives in the same apartment as Svanidze and Stalin's son Yasha, on one of the weekends I asked Nitsa Yelisabedashvili to call Paatashvili and tell her that I am in Moscow and would like to see her.
Nitsa Yelisabedashvili fulfilled my request and Babiko Paatashvili invited the Yelisabedashvilis and me to visit her at her apartment. Nitsa Yelisabedashvili agreed with Paatashvili that we would be at her apartment by 18:00 or 19:00 and asked her to warn the doorman at the entrance about our arrival, so that he would let us in.

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We gathered, I, the Yelisabedashvili family and my brother – Georgiy Abashidze, who had come to visit the Yelisabedashvilis for the weekend, – and we went to see Babiko Paatashvili.

The doorman, on Valiko Yelisabedashvili's request, called in to the Svanidze apartment and asked if we could be let in. After receiving permission, the doorman let us all in.

In the apartment we were met by Svanidze and invited into the living room. I was introduced to her by Valiko Yelisabedashvili as Georgiy Abashidze's brother and his own friend.
A few minutes later, Babiko Paatashvili entered the living room and after a usual exchange of greetings began peppering me with questions about Germany, where, according to her, her husband was supposed to go on business in a few days, and he had promised to take her, Babiko Paatashvili with him.
After spending a couple of hours in the apartment, together with Babiko Paatashvili we went for a walk in a small park near the Svanidze residence.
Question: What is the address that Babiko Paatashvili lives at?
Answer: I don't know Moscow well at all; I have a poor orientation. I don't remember the address. From Savelyevski lane, my brother Georgiy, the Yelisabedashvili family and I took the metro in Ostozhenka, passed 4 or 5 stops, and from there walked about 3 blocks to Paatashvili's apartment.

Question: Did you meet Babiko Paatashvili's husband?
Answer: No. When we were at Paatashvili's, her husband, according to Babiko, was watching a soccer match with Stalin's son Yasha. When we left the apartment they had not yet returned.

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Question: After the time you described, had you visited the Svanidze apartment again?

Answer: No.

Question: Did you try to gain access to that apartment again?

Answer: When I was saying goodbye to Babiko Paatashvili, she, evidently more out of politness than out of a desire to see me again, asked me to come over again sometime.
On the next day I wanted to make use of that invitation, but I could not find an excuse to invite the Yelisabedashvilis so we could go together. I decided to repeat my visit to the Svanidze apartment during my next trip to Moscow.

In 1936, when I was in Moscow, I attempted to reconnect with the Yelisabedashvilis and called on them at their apartment. A stranger answered that the Yelisabedashvilis had moved out of Moscow to the Voronezh region. Thus any chances of me visiting the Svanidze apartment were gone.

The protocol is written from my words correctly, has been read by me and signed by me personally.

Abashidze.

Questioned by:

Deputy director of the 3^rd department of the UGB [State Security] of the NKVD [People's Commissariat of Internal Matters] of the USSR [Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic]

Captain of state security

(Samoilov)

Ensign of state security

(Ovchinnikov)

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Extracted from the case: “Regarding the c.-r. [counterrevolutionary] terrorist groups (1935-1937)
File 4”

<<A. Getty: Stalin often received transcripts of the interrogations of arrested officials.  This one was important because the accused, Абашидзе Abashidze, was acquainted with members of the Svanidze family, Stalin's in-laws.  In December, Stalin would order the arrest and imprisonment of his brother-in-law Alexander Svanidze (brother of Stalin's first wife). >>