Russia's top counterfeiter's Lenin forgery shocked Goznak experts

The story of Viktor Baranov, a Stavropol native called Russia«s most famous counterfeiter, reads like a film script. A man who could have been an inventor benefiting the state instead spent twelve years in silence, assembling his own »laboratory« in a shed and printing high-quality fakes in makeshift conditions that stunned even experts from Goznak, the state securities printing authority.

A correspondent visited the Museum of the History of Internal Affairs Bodies of the Russian MVD Main Directorate for Stavropol Krai, where materials from Baranov«s case are stored. The exhibition features a copy of his handwritten confession: neat handwriting, a dry tone, precise details—without corrections or strikethroughs. The very first line confesses to distributing 25-ruble banknotes (approx. $30 at current rates) of »my own manufacture.«

A separate episode is the place where it all began. Zheleznodorozhnaya Street on the outskirts of Stavropol looks different today: house No. 119 is gone, replaced by a vacant lot. But this is precisely where the underground workshop was located, where Baranov night after night mixed paint compositions, aligned security grids, rejected sheets, and started over—until he achieved the «perfect» result.

According to the investigation, Baranov spent years preparing to counterfeit money. In the end, his forgeries were so sophisticated that the state not only had to punish the counterfeiter but also learn from him.

Read the full story of Viktor Baranov, with details from the archives, quotes from his confession, and the story of the site of his workshop, in the full feature on 26.RU.