The last years of Mayakovsky. The death of wonderful people: Vladimir Mayakovsky

From the "Conclusion" of experts:

  "one. Damage to V.V. Mayakovsky’s shirt is a gunshot entrance, formed when firing from a distance of “lateral emphasis” in the direction from front to back and somewhat from right to left almost in a horizontal plane.

2. Judging by the characteristics of the damage, a short-barreled weapon (for example, a pistol) was used and a low-power cartridge was used.

3. The small size of the blood-soaked area located around the entrance of the gunshot damage indicates its formation as a result of simultaneous ejection of blood from the wound, and the absence of vertical blood flow indicates that immediately after being injured V.V. Mayakovsky was in a horizontal position, lying on the back.

4. The shape and small size of the blood blots located below the damage, and the peculiarity of their location along the arc indicate that they arose as a result of the dropping of small drops of blood from a small height onto the shirt in the process of moving down the right hand, splattered with blood, or weapons in the same hand. "

Is suicide so thoroughly imitated? Yes, in expert practice there are cases of dramatization of one, two, less often five signs. But the whole complex of signs is impossible to falsify. It was established that drops of blood are not traces of bleeding from a wound: they fell from a small height from a hand or weapon. Even if we assume that the Chekist Agranov (and he really knew his job) was a murderer and inflicted a drop of blood after a shot, say, from a pipette, although he simply did not have time for the restored timing of events, it was necessary to achieve a complete coincidence of the localization of the drops blood and traces of antimony. But the reaction to antimony was discovered only in 1987. It was a comparison of the location of antimony and drops of blood that became the pinnacle of this study.

Autograph of death

The specialists of the laboratory of forensic handwriting examinations had to work, too, because many, even very sensitive people, doubted the authenticity of the death letter of the poet, executed in pencil with almost no punctuation marks:

“To everyone. Do not blame anyone for dying and please do not gossip. The dead man did not like this terribly. Mom, sisters and comrades, I'm sorry this is not a way (I do not advise others), but I have no way out. Lily - love me. My family is Lilya Brik, mother, sisters and Veronika Vitoldovna Polonskaya ...
  Love boat \\ crashed about life. \\ I am counting on life \\ And there’s nothing to list \\ Mutual \\ troubles \\ And insults. Happy to stay. \\ Vladimir \\ Mayakovsky. 12.IV.30 g. "

From the "Conclusion" of experts:

  “The presented letter on behalf of Mayakovsky was executed by Mayakovsky himself under unusual conditions, the most likely cause of which is the psychophysiological state caused by the excitement.”

The dating was not in doubt either - namely on April 12, two days before his death - “immediately before suicide, the signs of unusualness would have been more pronounced”. So the secret of the decision to die is not in the 14th day of April, but in the 12th.

  “Your word, comrade Mauser”

More recently, the case “On the Suicide of V.V. Mayakovsky” was transferred from the Presidential Archive to the Poet Museum along with a fatal browning, a bullet and a cartridge case. But the protocol of the inspection of the scene of the incident, signed by the investigator and an expert doctor, states that he shot himself from a "Mauser revolver, caliber 7.65, No. 312045". According to the certificate, the poet had two pistols - Browning and Bayard. And although Krasnaya Gazeta wrote about a shot from a gun, an eyewitness V.A.Katanyan mentions a Mauser, and N. Denisovsky, after years of browning, is still hard to imagine so that a professional investigator could confuse Browning with a Mauser.
  Employees of the V.V. Mayakovsky Museum applied to the Russian Federal Center for Forensic Expertise with a request to conduct a study of the Browning No. 268979 pistol, bullets and cartridges handed to them from the Presidential Archive and establish whether the poet shot himself with this weapon?

A chemical analysis of the plaque in the channel of the browning barrel made it possible to conclude that “no shot was fired from the weapon after the last cleaning. But the bullet once removed from Mayakovsky’s body really "is part of the 7.65 mm Browning cartridge of the 1900 model." So what's the deal? The examination showed: “The caliber of the bullet, the number of tracks, the width, the angle of inclination and the right-hand orientation of the tracks indicate that the bullet was fired from a Mauser model of 1914 from a pistol.”

The results of the experimental firing finally confirmed that "the 7.65 mm bullet of the Browning cartridge was fired not from a Browning pistol No. 268979, but from a 7.65 mm Mauser."

Still - a Mauser. Who replaced the weapons? In 1944, an employee of the NKGB, “talking” with the disgraced writer M. M. Zoshchenko, asked if he considered the cause of Mayakovsky’s death clear, to which the writer answered with dignity: “She remains mysterious. It is curious that the revolver from which Mayakovsky shot himself was presented to him by the famous Chekist Agranov. ”

Could it be that Agranov himself, to whom all the materials of the investigation had flocked, changed his weapon by attaching Mayakovsky’s browning to the case? What for? Many knew about the “gift”, besides, the Mauser was not registered for Mayakovsky, which could have come back to Agranov himself (by the way, he was later shot, but for what?). However, this is from the realm of speculation. Better to respect the last request of the poet: “... please do not gossip. The dead man didn’t like that terribly. ”

V.V. Mayakovsky

At a concert, a short man jumped up to Vladimir Mayakovsky and shouted: “From the great to the ridiculous - one step!” Mayakovsky stepped forward to meet him: “So I am doing it.”

But the brilliant Poet took not only a step from the great to the ridiculous. He crossed the line of life and death. Voluntarily or not, researchers of V.V. Mayakovsky’s life and work are still actively arguing about this.

His death caused a public outcry, came as a surprise to both his enemies and friends and relatives. This happened in Moscow on April 14, 1930 at 10:17 a.m. Vladimir Mayakovsky committed suicide by shooting at point blank range in his heart.

Don't blame anyone for dying and please
  do not gossip. The dead man did not like this terribly.
  Mom, sisters and comrades, I'm sorry - this is not a way
  (I do not advise others), but I have no way out.
  Lily - love me.
  Comrade government, my family is Lilya Brik,
  mom, sisters and Veronika Vitoldovna Polonskaya.
  If you give them a decent life, thank you.
  Give the started poems to Briks, they will figure it out.

As they say -
  "Incident is broken"
  love boat
  crashed about life.
  I'm with life in the calculation
  and there’s nothing to list
  mutual pain
  troubles
  and insults.

Happy to stay.
  Vladimir M, and I to about in with to and y.
  12 / IV -30 g.
  Take a close look at the date of writing - April 12 (Mayakovsky died, I recall, on the 14th). Does this mean that the Poet, just a few days before his death, was preparing to "lay hands on himself"?

Himself or not himself? - that's the question.

There are many mysteries in the death of Mayakovsky. The most controversial question: was it by itselfmurder?

Here, the opinions of researchers diverge directly in opposite directions. Some claim that the Poet was killed. The main evidence, they believe, is a criminal case instituted on the death of Mayakovsky.

The most confident of the intentional murder declared V.I. Skoryatin. He conducted independent investigations and concluded that the nameless killer existed.
  Film director S. Eisenstein also spoke out about this: “He had to be removed. And they removed him. ”

However, experts have officially identified the "undeniable" fact of suicide. The indisputable word here is in quotation marks, since heated debates are still underway on this issue.

Disagreements of scientists about the authenticity of the note (suicide letter) throw even more firewood into the “discussion fire”. Skoryatin bases his doubts on the following: first of all, the note was written in pencil, "although the poet was very reverent about his fountain pen and always used only it." And with a pencil it’s easy to imitate someone else’s handwriting.
  All the same S. Eisenstein notes that Mayakovsky did not write anything like this.

Re-opening the body. For what, and what did it show?

Already on the evening of April 14, specialists performed an autopsy of the body and removed Mayakovsky’s brain. Personally, this seems disgusting and unethical to me, despite the “good” scientific goals.
  It is worth noting only that the brain did not have any significant deviations from the norm.

“... suddenly loud knocks were heard from his room unceremoniously: it seemed that only a tree could chop. This was an autopsy. Mayakovsky’s brain was in the pelvis ... ”- V.P. Kataev, even thirty years later, could not forget this story.

On April 17, a reopening of the body was performed. This was due to rumors about Mayakovsky’s disease (as if he suffered from syphilis). However, the survey results refuted all kinds of gossip.

Is the will of V. Mayakovsky broken?

Speaking of gossip. The deceased’s request, noted in the very first lines (which indicates its significance), was not fulfilled: “... please do not gossip. The dead man did not like this terribly. ”

But rumors spread around Moscow faster than news reports, and the death of the Poet became known even before the official "promulgation" (not without far-fetched details, however).

From the intelligence report:
“The news of Mayakovsky’s suicide made a very strong impression on the public ...
  Conversations, gossip.
Newspaper reports of suicide, a romantic lining, an intriguing posthumous letter aroused, for the most part, the average citizen an unhealthy curiosity. ”

Strange ... Have you noticed that often the wills of great people are not only not fulfilled, but distorted or completely ignored?

“God thinks: wait, Vladimir!” Did the poet foretell his death?

Vladimir Mayakovsky, like many geniuses of this world, predicted his own demise. They say this, no - the lines of his poems proclaim it:

“More and more often I think - is it better to put a bullet point at its end?”
  “Anyway, I know, I'll die soon!”(The Flute Spine)

"And the heart is torn to a shot, and the throat raves with a razor"
  “Loop a ray around your neck”("Man")

"One has only to lend a hand - a bullet instantly into the afterlife will draw a thundering path"("About it")

“Well, come out.
  Nothing.
  I will be fastened.
  See - how calm!
  Like a pulse
  The dead man. "("A cloud in pants")

Not only in the works, but also in his speeches, the Poet repeatedly mentioned the possibility of suicide.

Why did the great poet master pass away?

The exact causes of suicide are still not clear.
  For example, A. Potapov writes about the impact personal anxiety  A poet on his fate.
  He notes that Mayakovsky was characterized by sharp fluctuations in moods and impressionability. Success inspired him, failure led to depression.

Internal tension, an exaggerated fear of getting sick (associated with the death of Mayakovsky’s father), a frequent change of mood, a thirst for fame, failures in the love sphere - all this greatly influenced the tragic outcome of his life.

According to the memoirs of Lily Brik, Mayakovsky has repeatedly tried to take his own life. July 18, 1916, he first made an attempt to shoot himself, but the weapon misfired. The second case took place on October 11, 1917, which also turned out to be unsuccessful. In the poet’s diary, these dates are marked with the following words: “Immediately somehow there was absolutely nothing to live for.”

  And only in the fateful third time a ruthless piece of metal stopped the beating of the heart of the great and unique Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ...

But understand: incomparable right
  Choose your death yourself

85 years ago, on April 17, 1930, the body of the famous poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was cremated in Moscow.

April 14, 1930 in his apartment, in the house number 3 on Lubyansky passage, the poet committed suicide, leaving a suicide note:

"ALL
  Do not blame anyone for dying and please do not gossip. The dead man did not like this terribly.
Forgive my mom sisters and comrades - this is not a way (I do not advise others), but I have no way out.
  Lily - love me.
  Comrade government, my family is Lilya Brik, mother, sisters and Veronika Vitoldovna Polonskaya. -
  If you give them a decent life, thank you.
  Start the poems give Briks they will understand.
  As they say - “the incident is broken”, the love boat crashed into everyday life
  I am with life in the calculation and there is nothing to the list of mutual pains, troubles and insults.
  Happy to stay
  VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY.

12 / 4-30 years.

“Comrades Vappovtsy, do not consider me cowardly, seriose - there is nothing to be done. Hey.
  YERMILOV say that it’s a pity that he removed the slogan.
  V.M.
  I have 2000 rubles in the table. pay in tax. Get the rest with GIZ
  V.M. ”

On April 15, 16, 17, 150,000 people passed by Mayakovsky’s tomb through the hall of the club of writers. The photographs taken by Ilya Ilf on April 17 during the funeral are preserved. On one of them, Valentin Kataev, Joseph Utkin, very gloomy Mikhail Bulgakov, lost Yuri Olesha.

Yuri Olesha tells V. Meyerhold in a letter dated April 30, 1930: “The funeral made a tremendous impression: the whole Povarskaya from Kudrinskaya to Arbat was packed with people, people were standing on the fences, on the roofs. It went beyond the coffin of 60 thousand, if not more. They shot at the crematorium in the air to enable the coffin to be brought into the gate. There was a stampede, there were trams - if he knew that they love him so much and they know, he wouldn’t shoot himself ... ”

Ilf and Petrov in the sketches for the novel “The Great Combinator” (1930) have a record: “Ostap at Mayakovsky’s funeral. Police chief apologizing for the mess:

I had no experience in the funeral of poets. When another such dies, then I will know how to bury.

And the police chief didn’t know only that such a poet happens once in a century ”

Vladimir Mayakovsky, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, was among the first Russian people whose bodies were cremated. The procedure took place in the Don crematorium in Moscow, later the ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery.

Excerpts from newspapers:

"On April 17 at 6.30 a.m., the oven of the Moscow crematorium will incinerate the body of the poet Mayakovsky with the heat of its thousands of degrees. It will burn the one in whose mind big and hot thoughts were born and born. Maybe they are as hot as the flame of a cremation furnace." . (newspaper "Trud")

"The 942nd day of the crematorium.
  April 17, 1930.
  Surname, name, patronymic: Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich.
  Age 36 years old.
  Time: 7 hours 35 minutes. "
  (crematorium registration book)

Description of an eyewitness of farewell:
"... Mayakovsky’s funeral took place on the third day after his death ... The coffin with the body is lifted onto a truck sheathed with iron sheets. No flowers, at the tomb there is the only iron wreath of hammers, flywheels and screws with a laconic inscription" Iron poet - an iron wreath "...

The Mayakovsky funeral committee determined that the poet’s body would be cremated in the # crematorium of the Donskoy Monastery, which opened about three years ago and its use was still a novelty in Moscow, a kind of “avant-garde”, which corresponded to the image of the deceased ...

An armored truck is sailing through a crowd of thousands of Muscovites who have come to take the poet on his last journey. Mounted policemen are trying to restore order in this unforeseen and unorganized grandiose funeral procession. Here’s the crematorium of the Donskoy Monastery, from which black smoke falls from the chimney ...

“Lilya Yuryevna and Osip Maksimovich walked all the way with a young friend, Varshavskaya-Krasnoshchekova, who later recalled:“ ... Trams were on the Arbat, new people poured in, and we were cut off from the car with the coffin. So, with difficulty keeping in mind the procession, we got to the crematorium. The gates were closed, as the crowd broke into the courtyard, and a crush could occur, but we managed to somehow get into the courtyard. At the entrance to the crematorium was a mounted militia. We sat on a small bench. And then Lilechka said that we would sit here until it was all over. Suddenly the mounted policeman shouts: "Brik! Where is Brik? They demand Brik!" - it turns out that the poet’s mother Alexandra Alekseevna did not want to say goodbye to her son and allow cremation without Lily Yuryevna. ... Osia and Lily went to the crematorium ... "

The last minutes of farewell ... The International sounds ... The coffin with the body of the poet falls into the heat of an all-devouring flame. The sash closes. It's all over ... A few days after the cremation, Briki phoned the Mayakovsky and went with them to the crematorium of the Donskoy Monastery. There, with them, an urn with the ashes of Mayakovsky was placed on a special hill-top in the columbarium premises. Here she was to stand for 22 years ... Despite the fact that the urn with Mayakovsky’s ashes occupied a place of honor in the columbarium’s premises, it became clear over time that such a primitive “burial” of the famous poet did not correspond to his social status and should somehow be fixed. position.

And only on May 22, 1952, the urn with the ashes of Vladimir Mayakovsky was transferred from the columbarium of the crematorium of the Donskoy Monastery to the Novodevichy Cemetery.

This happened on April 14, 1930 in Moscow, in the Lubyansky passage. In the working room of Vladimir Mayakovsky, a shot rang out. The debate whether the poet passed away voluntarily or was killed has not subsided so far.
  One of its participants, a professor at the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Sechenov MMA named after Alexander Vasilievich Maslov, talks about a virtuoso investigation of experts.

Versions and Facts

On April 14, 1930, Krasnaya Gazeta reported: “Today, at 10 hours and 17 minutes, Vladimir Mayakovsky committed suicide in his working room with a shot from a gun in the heart region. The ambulance arrived and found him already dead. In recent days, V.V. Mayakovsky did not reveal any spiritual discord and did not portend a catastrophe. ”
  In the afternoon, the body was transported to the poet’s apartment in Hendrikov Lane. The sculptor K. Lutsky removed the posthumous mask, and it was bad - he stripped the deceased person's face. The employees of the Brain Institute removed Mayakovsky’s brain, which weighed 1700. On the very first day, professor Talalay autopsy performed a pathologist in the prefecture of the clinic of the medical faculty of Moscow State University, and on the night of April 17, he underwent an autopsy: because of creeping rumors about a venereal disease allegedly from the poet, which were not confirmed. Then the body was cremated.

As with Yesenin, Mayakovsky's suicide caused a different reaction and many versions. One of the "targets" was the 22-year-old actress of the Moscow Art Theater Veronica Polonskaya. It is known that Mayakovsky asked her to become a wife. She was the last person who saw the poet alive. However, the testimony of the actress, her roommates and the investigation data indicate that the shot rang out right after Polonskaya left Mayakovsky’s room. So she couldn’t shoot.

The version that Mayakovsky, not in a figurative, but in the literal sense of the word "lay down on the barrel", put a bullet in his head, does not hold water. The poet’s brain has been preserved to this day and, as the Institute of the Brain Institute rightly said in those days, “according to the external examination, the brain does not represent any significant deviations from the norm.”
  A few years ago, in the program "Before and after midnight," the well-known television journalist Vladimir Molchanov suggested that in the posthumous photograph on the chest of Mayakovsky the traces of TWO shots are clearly visible.

This dubious hypothesis was dispelled by another journalist, V. Skoryatin, who conducted a rigorous investigation. There was one shot, but he also believes that they shot. Specifically, the head of the secret department of the OGPU Agranov, with whom, by the way, the poet was friends: hiding in the utility room and waiting for Polonskaya to leave, Agranov enters the office, kills the poet, leaves a dying letter and goes out into the street again. And then he rises to the scene as a security officer. The version is entertaining and almost fits into the laws of that time. However, without knowing it, the journalist unexpectedly helped experts. Mentioning the shirt that was on the poet at the time of the shot, he writes: “I examined it. And even with the help of a magnifier I did not find any traces of a powder burn. There is nothing on it but a brown stain of blood. " So the shirt has been preserved!

Poet's shirt

Indeed, in the mid-1950s, L.Yu. Brik, who had the poet’s shirt, handed it to the State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky - the relic was stored in a box and was wrapped in paper impregnated with a special compound. On the left side of the front of the shirt is through damage, dried blood is visible around it. Surprisingly, this “material evidence” was not subjected to examination either in 1930 or later. And how many disputes were around the photos!
  Having received permission to study, without dedicating to the gist of the matter, I showed the shirt to a major forensic expert E.G. Safronsky, who immediately made a "diagnosis": "Entrance bullet gunshot damage, most likely, a point-blank shot."

Upon learning that the shot was fired more than 60 years ago, Safronsky noted that such examinations were not carried out in the USSR then. An agreement was reached: the specialists of the Federal Center for Forensic Expertise, where the shirt was handed over, would not know about its belonging to the poet - for the purity of the experiment.

So, a beige-pink shirt made of cotton fabric is subject to research. There are 4 mother of pearl buttons on the front. The back of the shirt from the collar to the bottom is cut with scissors, as evidenced by the ledge-shaped edges of the cut and the even ends of the threads. But to claim that it was this shirt, bought by the poet in Paris, was on him at the time of the shot, not enough. The photographs of Mayakovsky’s body taken at the scene of the incident clearly distinguish the fabric pattern, texture, shape and localization of the blood stain, and gunshot damage. When the museum shirt was photographed from the same angle, magnification and photo-aligned, all the details coincided.

It was not an easy task for the experts from the Federal Center to find on the shirt the traces of a shot more than 60 years ago and establish its distance. And there are three of them in forensic medicine and forensics: a shot at point-blank range, from close and long distances. Linear cross-shaped injuries characteristic of a point-blank were found (they arise from the action of gases reflected from the body at the moment of tissue destruction by the projectile), as well as traces of gunpowder, soot and scorching both in the injury itself and in adjacent areas of the tissue.

But it was necessary to identify a number of stable signs, for which the diffuse-contact method was used, which did not destroy the shirt. It is known: when fired, a red-hot cloud flies out with the bullet, then the bullet is ahead of it and flies further. If they fired from a long distance, the cloud did not reach the object, if close, the gas-powder suspension had to settle on the shirt. It was necessary to study the complex of metals that make up the shell of the bullet of the intended cartridge.

The resulting prints showed a small amount of lead in the area of \u200b\u200bdamage, and almost no copper was found. But thanks to the diffuse-contact method of determining antimony (one of the components of the capsule composition), it was possible to establish an extensive zone of this substance with a diameter of about 10 mm around the damage with the topography characteristic of a shot at the side support. Moreover, the sectoral deposition of antimony said that the muzzle was pressed at an angle to the shirt. And the intense metallization on the left side is a sign of firing from right to left, almost in the horizontal plane, with a slight downward slope.

From the "Conclusion" of experts:

"one. Damage to V.V. Mayakovsky’s shirt is a gunshot, formed when fired from a distance of “lateral emphasis” in the direction from front to back and somewhat from right to left almost in a horizontal plane.

2. Judging by the characteristics of the damage, a short-barreled weapon (for example, a pistol) was used and a low-power cartridge was used.

3. The small size of the blood-soaked area located around the entrance of the gunshot damage indicates its formation as a result of simultaneous ejection of blood from the wound, and the absence of vertical blood flow indicates that immediately after being injured V.V. Mayakovsky was in a horizontal position, lying on the back.

4. The shape and small size of the blood blots located below the damage, and the peculiarity of their location along the arc indicate that they arose as a result of the dropping of small drops of blood from a small height onto the shirt in the process of moving down the right hand, splattered with blood, or weapons in the same hand. "

Is suicide so thoroughly imitated? Yes, in expert practice there are cases of dramatization of one, two, less often five signs. But the whole complex of signs is impossible to falsify. It was established that drops of blood are not traces of bleeding from a wound: they fell from a small height from a hand or weapon. Even if we assume that the Chekist Agranov (and he really knew his job) was a murderer and inflicted a drop of blood after a shot, say, from a pipette, although he simply did not have time for the restored timing of events, it was necessary to achieve a complete coincidence of the localization of the drops blood and traces of antimony. But the reaction to antimony was discovered only in 1987. It was a comparison of the location of antimony and drops of blood that became the pinnacle of this study.

Autograph of death

The specialists of the laboratory of forensic handwriting examinations had to work, too, because many, even very sensitive people, doubted the authenticity of the death letter of the poet, executed in pencil with almost no punctuation marks:

“To everyone. Do not blame anyone for dying and please do not gossip. The dead man did not like this terribly. Mom, sisters and comrades, I'm sorry this is not a way (I do not advise others), but I have no way out. Lily - love me. My family is Lilya Brik, mother, sisters and Veronika Vitoldovna Polonskaya ...
  Love boat \\ crashed about life. \\ I am counting on life \\ And there’s nothing to list \\ Mutual \\ troubles \\ And insults. Happy to stay. \\ Vladimir \\ Mayakovsky. 12.IV.30 g. "

From the "Conclusion" of experts:

“The presented letter on behalf of Mayakovsky was executed by Mayakovsky himself under unusual conditions, the most likely cause of which is the psychophysiological state caused by the excitement.”
  The dating was not in doubt either - namely on April 12, two days before his death - “immediately before suicide, the signs of unusualness would have been more pronounced”. So the secret of the decision to die is not in the 14th day of April, but in the 12th.

“Your word, comrade Mauser”

More recently, the case “On the Suicide of V.V. Mayakovsky” was transferred from the Presidential Archive to the Poet Museum along with a fatal browning, a bullet and a cartridge case. But the protocol of the inspection of the scene of the incident, signed by the investigator and an expert doctor, states that he shot himself from a "Mauser revolver, caliber 7.65, No. 312045". According to the certificate, the poet had two pistols - Browning and Bayard. And although Krasnaya Gazeta wrote about a shot from a gun, an eyewitness V.A.Katanyan mentions a Mauser, and N. Denisovsky, after years of browning, is still hard to imagine so that a professional investigator could confuse Browning with a Mauser.

Employees of the V.V. Mayakovsky Museum applied to the Russian Federal Center for Forensic Expertise with a request to conduct a study of the Browning No. 268979 pistol, bullets and cartridges handed to them from the Presidential Archive and establish whether the poet shot himself with this weapon?

A chemical analysis of the plaque in the channel of the browning barrel made it possible to conclude that “no shot was fired from the weapon after the last cleaning. But the bullet once removed from Mayakovsky’s body really "is part of the 7.65 mm Browning cartridge of the 1900 model." So what's the deal? The examination showed: “The caliber of the bullet, the number of tracks, the width, the angle of inclination and the right-hand orientation of the tracks indicate that the bullet was fired from a Mauser model of 1914 from a pistol.”
  The results of the experimental shooting finally confirmed that "the 7.65 mm bullet of the Browning cartridge was fired not from the Browning pistol No. 268979, but from the 7.65 mm Mauser."

Still - a Mauser. Who replaced the weapons? In 1944, an employee of the NKGB, “talking” with the disgraced writer M. M. Zoshchenko, asked if he considered the cause of Mayakovsky’s death clear, to which the writer answered with dignity: “She remains mysterious. It is curious that the revolver from which Mayakovsky shot himself was presented to him by the famous Chekist Agranov. ”
Could it be that Agranov himself, to whom all the materials of the investigation had flocked, changed his weapon by attaching Mayakovsky’s browning to the case? What for? Many knew about the “gift”, besides, the Mauser was not registered for Mayakovsky, which could have come back to Agranov himself (by the way, he was later shot, but for what?). However, this is from the realm of speculation. Better to respect the last request of the poet: “... please do not gossip. The dead man didn’t like that terribly. ”