The last years of Mayakovsky. Death of Remarkable People: Vladimir Mayakovsky

From the "Conclusion" of the experts:

"one. The damage on the shirt of V.V.

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

3. small size of the blood-soaked area located around the entrance gunshot injury, indicate its formation due to a simultaneous ejection of blood from the wound, and the absence of vertical blood streaks indicates that immediately after the injury, V.V. Mayakovsky was in a horizontal position, lying on his back.

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

Is it possible to simulate suicide so carefully? Yes, in expert practice there are cases of staging one, two, less often five signs. But the whole complex of signs cannot be falsified. It has been 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 Chekist Agranov (and he really knew his business) was a murderer and applied drops of blood after a shot, say, from a pipette, although according to the restored timing of events, he simply did not have time for this, it was necessary to achieve a complete coincidence of the localization of drops blood and the location of traces of antimony. But the reaction to antimony was discovered only in 1987. It was the comparison of the location of antimony and blood drops that became the pinnacle of this study.

Death autograph

The specialists of the laboratory of forensic handwriting examinations also had to work, because many, even very sensitive people, doubted the authenticity of the poet’s dying letter, written in pencil with almost no punctuation marks:

“Everyone. Don't blame anyone for dying, and please don't gossip. The dead man disliked this terribly. Mom, sisters and comrades, sorry, this is not the 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 into everyday life. \ I'm counting on life \ And there is no need for a list of \ Mutual \ troubles \ And insults. Happy to stay. \ Vladimir \ Mayakovsky. 12.IV.30"

From the "Conclusion" of the experts:

“The submitted letter on behalf of Mayakovsky was written by Mayakovsky himself in unusual conditions, the most likely cause of which is the psycho-physiological state caused by excitement.

There was no doubt about the dating - it was April 12, two days before death - "immediately before the suicide, the signs of unusualness would have been more pronounced." So the secret of the decision to die does not lie in the 14th day of April, but in the 12th.

"Your word, Comrade Mauser"

Relatively recently, the case “On the suicide of V.V. Mayakovsky” was transferred from the Presidential Archive to the Museum of the Poet, along with the fatal browning, bullet and cartridge case. But the protocol of the inspection of the scene, signed by the investigator and the expert doctor, says that he shot himself with a "Mauser revolver, caliber 7.65, No. 312045." According to the certificate, the poet had two pistols - a browning and a bayard. And although Krasnaya Gazeta wrote about a revolver shot, eyewitness V.A. Katanyan mentions a Mauser, and N. Denisovsky, years later, Browning, it’s still hard to imagine that a professional investigator could confuse Browning with a Mauser.
Employees of the V.V. Mayakovsky Museum turned to the Russian Federal Center for Forensic Examinations with a request to conduct a study of the Browning pistol No. 268979, bullets and cartridge cases handed over to them from the Presidential Archive, and to establish whether the poet shot himself with this weapon?

A chemical analysis of the plaque in the Browning bore led to the conclusion that "the weapon was not fired after the last cleaning." But the bullet, once removed from Mayakovsky's body, really "is part of a 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 direction of the tracks indicate that the bullet was fired from a Mauser model 1914 pistol."

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

Still, Mauser. Who changed 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 to be clear, to which the writer adequately replied: “It continues to remain 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 flocked, changed weapons, adding Mayakovsky's Browning to the case? What for? Many people knew about the “gift”, besides, the Mauser was not registered for Mayakovsky, which could greatly backfire on Agranov himself (by the way, he was later shot, but for what?). However, this is out of the realm of conjecture. Let's better respect the last request of the poet: “...please don't gossip. The dead man disliked this terribly.”

V.V.Mayakovsky

At one of the concerts, a man of short stature jumped up to Vladimir Mayakovsky and shouted: “From the great to the ridiculous - one step!” Mayakovsky stepped towards him: "So I'm doing it."

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

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

For the fact that I'm dying, do not blame anyone and please
don't gossip. The dead man disliked this terribly.
Mom, sisters and comrades, I'm sorry - this is not the 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.
Give the started poems to the Briks, they will figure it out.

As they say -
"Incident is over"
love boat
crashed into life.
I'm in with life
and no list
mutual pain,
troubles
and resentment.

Happy to stay.
Vladimir M, and I am k o v s k i y.
12/IV -30
Look carefully at the date of writing - April 12 (Mayakovsky died, I remind you, on the 14th). Does this mean that the Poet, already a few days before his death, was preparing to “lay hands on himself”?

By myself or not by myself? - that is the question.

There are many mysteries in Mayakovsky's death. The most controversial question is whether it was self murder?

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

Most confident about intentional murder said V. I. Skoryatin. He conducted independent investigations and came to the conclusion: the nameless killer existed.
Film director S. Eisenstein also spoke about this: “He should have been removed. And they took him away."

However, officially, the experts revealed the "indisputable" fact of suicide. The word indisputable here is in quotation marks, since there is still heated debate on this issue.

Even more firewood is thrown into the "discussion fire" by the disagreements of scientists about the authenticity of the note (suicide letter). Skoryatin bases his doubts on the following: first of all, the note was written in pencil, "although the poet was very kind to his fountain pen and always used only it." And with the help of a pencil it is easy to imitate someone else's handwriting.
All the same S. Eisenstein notes that Mayakovsky did not write anything of the kind.

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

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

“... suddenly unceremoniously loud knocks were heard from his room: it seemed that only a tree could be cut like that. This was an opening of the skull. Mayakovsky’s brain was in the pelvis…” – V.P. Kataev, even thirty years later, could not forget this story.

On April 17, a second autopsy was performed. This was due to rumors about Mayakovsky's illness (as if he suffered from syphilis). However, the results of the survey refuted all sorts of gossip.

Has V. Mayakovsky's will been violated?

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

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

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

Strange... Have you noticed that often the testaments of great people are not only not executed, 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 death. They talk about it, no - it is proclaimed by the lines of his poems:

“More and more often I think - is it not better to put a bullet point at my end”
“All the same, I know, I will die soon!”("Spine Flute")

"And the heart is eager for a shot, and the throat is raving with a razor"
"Put a beam around your neck"("Human")

"One has only to stretch out one's hand - a bullet will instantly draw a thundering path into the afterlife"("About it")

“Well, get out.
Nothing.
I'll get stronger.
See how calm!
Like a pulse
Deceased."("A cloud in pants")

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

Why did a great poet pass away?

The exact causes of suicide are still not clear.
For example, A. Potapov writes about the influence personal anxiety Poet to his fate.
He notes that Mayakovsky was characterized by sharp fluctuations in mood, impressionability. Success inspired him, failures made him depressed.

Internal tension, an exaggerated fear of getting sick (associated with the death of Mayakovsky's father), frequent mood swings, 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 tried to commit suicide more than once. On July 18, 1916, he made his first 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 for the fateful third time did a ruthless piece of metal stop the heartbeat of the great and unique Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ...

But understand: incomparable right
Choose your own death

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

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

"ALL
Don't blame anyone for dying and please don't gossip. The dead man disliked this terribly.
Mom, sisters and comrades, forgive me - this is not the 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.
Give the poems you have started to the Briks, they will figure it out.
As they say - "the incident is ruined", the love boat crashed into everyday life
I am counting on life and there is no need for a list of mutual pains, troubles and insults.
happy to stay
VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY.

12/4-30 years.

“Comrades Vappovtsy, do not consider me cowardly, seriously - nothing can be done. Hello.
Tell YERMILOV that it’s a pity he took off the slogan, it would be necessary to quarrel.
V.M.
In the table I have 2000 rubles. enter in the tax. Get the rest with GIZ
V.M.”

On April 15, 16, 17, 150,000 people passed by the coffin of Mayakovsky through the hall of the writers' club. The pictures taken by Ilya Ilf on April 17 during the funeral have been preserved. On one of them, Valentin Kataev, Iosif Utkin, a very gloomy Mikhail Bulgakov, lost Yuri Olesha.

Yuri Olesha tells V. Meyerhold in a letter dated April 30, 1930: “The funeral made a grand impression: the entire Povarskaya from Kudrinskaya to Arbat was packed with people, people stood on the fences, on the roofs. There were 60 thousand behind the coffin, if not more. They fired at the crematorium into the air to make it possible to bring the coffin through the gate. There was a crush, there were trams - if he knew that he was loved and known so much, he would not have shot himself ... ”

Ilf and Petrov in their sketches for the novel The Great Combinator (1930) have an entry: “Ostap at Mayakovsky's funeral. Police chief, apologizing for the mess:

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

And the only thing the police chief did not know was 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 Donskoy crematorium in Moscow, later the ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery.

Newspaper excerpts:

"April 17 at 6:30 p.m. the furnace of the Moscow crematorium will incinerate the body of the poet Mayakovsky with the heat of its thousand degrees. It will burn the one in whose brain big and hot thoughts were hatched and born. Maybe as hot as the flame of the cremation oven" . (newspaper "Trud")

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

Description of an eyewitness 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, the coffin has a single iron wreath of hammers, flywheels and screws with a laconic inscription "Iron wreath for an iron poet "...

The Mayakovsky Funeral Commission 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 floats through a crowd of thousands of Muscovites who came to see the poet off on his last journey. Mounted police officers are trying to restore order in this unforeseen and unorganized grandiose funeral procession. Here is the crematorium of the Donskoy Monastery, from the chimney of which black smoke is pouring ... "

“Lilya Yurievna and Osip Maksimovich made the whole journey on foot with a young acquaintance, Varshavskaya-Krasnoshchekova, who later recalled: “... There were trams on the Arbat, new people poured in, and we found ourselves torn off from the car with the coffin. So, with difficulty keeping in the head of the procession, we reached the crematorium. The gate was closed as the crowd broke into the yard and there might have been a stampede, but somehow we managed to get into the yard. Mounted police were at the entrance to the crematorium. We sat down on a bench. And then Lilechka said that we would sit here until everything was over. Suddenly, a mounted policeman shouts: "Brik! Where is Brik? They are demanding Brik!" - it turns out that the mother of the poet Alexandra Alekseevna did not want to say goodbye to her son and allow cremation without Lily Yurievna. ...Osya and Lilya went to the crematorium..."

The last minutes of farewell... The "Internationale" sounds... The coffin with the body of the poet descends into the heat of an all-devouring flame. The shutters are closing. It's all over ... A few days after the cremation, the Briks, having phoned the Mayakovskys, went with them to the crematorium of the Donskoy Monastery. There, with them, the urn with the ashes of Mayakovsky was placed on a special hill in the columbarium. Here she had to stand for 22 years... Despite the fact that the urn with the ashes of Mayakovsky occupied an honorable place in the columbarium, over time it became clear that such a primitive "burial" of a famous poet did not correspond to his social status and that this should be somehow corrected 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 Lubyansky passage. A shot rang out in the working room of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Disputes whether the poet died voluntarily or was killed have not subsided to this day.
One of its participants, Professor of the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Moscow Medical Academy named after Sechenov, Alexander Vasilyevich Maslov, tells about the virtuoso investigation of the experts.

Versions and facts

On April 14, 1930, Krasnaya Gazeta reported: “Today at 10:17 am, Vladimir Mayakovsky committed suicide in his working room with a revolver shot in the heart area. Arriving "ambulance" found him already dead. IN last days V.V. Mayakovsky did not reveal any spiritual discord and nothing foreshadowed a catastrophe.
In the afternoon, the body was transferred to the poet's apartment in Gendrikov Lane. The sculptor K. Lutsky removed the death mask, and badly - he tore off the face of the deceased. Employees of the Institute of the Brain removed Mayakovsky's brain, which weighed 1700 g. On the very first day, in the presector of the clinic of the medical faculty of Moscow State University, the pathologist Professor Talalay performed an autopsy, and on the night of April 17, a re-opening took place: due to rumors that the poet allegedly had a venereal disease, which have not been confirmed. The body was then cremated.

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

The version that Mayakovsky, not in a figurative, but in the literal sense, “lay down with his temple on the barrel”, put a bullet in his head, does not stand up to criticism. The poet's brain has been preserved to this day and, as employees of the Institute of the Brain rightly reported in those days, "according to external examination, the brain does not show 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 traces of TWO shots were clearly visible on Mayakovsky’s chest in a posthumous photograph.

This dubious hypothesis was dispelled by another journalist - V. Skoryatin, who conducted a thorough investigation. There was one shot, but he also believes that he was shot. Specifically, the head of the secret department of the OGPU Agranov, with whom, by the way, the poet was friends: hiding in the back room and waiting for Polonskaya to leave, Agranov enters the office, kills the poet, leaves a suicide letter and again goes out into the street through the back door. And then he rises to the scene as a Chekist. The version is amusing and almost fits into the laws of that time. However, without knowing it, the journalist unexpectedly helped the experts. Referring to the shirt that the poet was wearing at the time of the shot, he writes: “I examined it. And even with the help of a magnifying glass, he did not find traces of a powder burn. There is nothing on it but a brown stain of blood. So the shirt is saved!

Poet's shirt

Indeed, in the mid-1950s, L.Yu. Brik, who had the poet's shirt, handed it over to the State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky - the relic was kept in a box and wrapped in soaked special composition paper. On the left side of the front of the shirt there is a 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, I, without devoting to the essence of the matter, showed the shirt to a major specialist in forensic ballistics E.G.

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

So, a beige-pink cotton shirt is subject to research. Front placket with 4 mother-of-pearl buttons. The back of the shirt is cut with scissors from the collar to the bottom, as evidenced by the ledge-like edges of the cut and the even ends of the threads. But for the assertion that this particular shirt, bought by the poet in Paris, was on him at the time of the shot, it is not enough. In the photographs of Mayakovsky's body taken at the scene, the fabric pattern, texture, shape and localization of the blood stain, gunshot wound are clearly distinguishable. When the museum shirt was photographed from the same angle, magnification, and photo-aligned, all the details matched.

Experts from the Federal Center had a hard job - to find traces of a shot more than 60 years ago on a shirt and establish its distance. And there are three of them in forensic medicine and forensic science: a shot at point-blank range, from close and long distances. Linear cruciform injuries, characteristic of a point-blank shot, were found (they arise from the action of gases reflected from the body at the moment the projectile destroys the tissue), 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 features, for which the diffuse-contact method was used, which does not destroy the shirt. It is known that when fired, a red-hot cloud flies out with a bullet, then the bullet outruns it and flies further. If they fired from a long distance, the cloud did not reach the object, if from a close one, the gas-powder suspension should have settled on the shirt. It was necessary to investigate the complex of metals that make up the shell of the bullet of the proposed cartridge.

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

From the "Conclusion" of the experts:

"one. The damage on the shirt of V.V.

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

3. The small size of the blood-soaked area located around the entrance gunshot injury indicates its formation due to a simultaneous ejection of blood from the wound, and the absence of vertical blood streaks indicates that immediately after the injury, V.V. Mayakovsky was in a horizontal position, lying on the back.

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

Is it possible to simulate suicide so carefully? Yes, in expert practice there are cases of staging one, two, less often five signs. But the whole complex of signs cannot be falsified. It has been 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 Chekist Agranov (and he really knew his business) was a murderer and applied drops of blood after a shot, say, from a pipette, although according to the restored timing of events, he simply did not have time for this, it was necessary to achieve a complete coincidence of the localization of drops blood and the location of traces of antimony. But the reaction to antimony was discovered only in 1987. It was the comparison of the location of antimony and blood drops that became the pinnacle of this study.

Death autograph

The specialists of the laboratory of forensic handwriting examinations also had to work, because many, even very sensitive people, doubted the authenticity of the poet’s dying letter, written in pencil with almost no punctuation marks:

“Everyone. Don't blame anyone for dying, and please don't gossip. The dead man disliked this terribly. Mom, sisters and comrades, sorry, this is not the 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 into everyday life. \ I'm counting on life \ And there is no need for a list of \ Mutual \ troubles \ And insults. Happy to stay. \ Vladimir \ Mayakovsky. 12.IV.30"

From the "Conclusion" of the experts:

"The submitted letter on behalf of Mayakovsky was written by Mayakovsky himself under unusual conditions, the most likely cause of which is a psycho-physiological state caused by excitement."
There was no doubt about the dating - it was April 12, two days before death - "immediately before the suicide, the signs of unusualness would have been more pronounced." So the secret of the decision to die does not lie in the 14th day of April, but in the 12th.

"Your word, Comrade Mauser"

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

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

A chemical analysis of the plaque in the Browning bore led to the conclusion that "the weapon was not fired after the last cleaning." But the bullet, once removed from Mayakovsky's body, really "is part of a 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 direction of the tracks indicate that the bullet was fired from a Mauser model 1914 pistol."
The results of experimental shooting finally confirmed that "the bullet of the 7.65 mm Browning cartridge was fired not from the Browning pistol No. 268979, but from the 7.65 mm Mauser".

Still, Mauser. Who changed 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 to be clear, to which the writer adequately replied: “It continues to remain 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 flocked, changed weapons, adding Mayakovsky's Browning to the case? What for? Many people knew about the “gift”, besides, the Mauser was not registered for Mayakovsky, which could greatly backfire on Agranov himself (by the way, he was later shot, but for what?). However, this is out of the realm of conjecture. Let's better respect the last request of the poet: “...please don't gossip. The dead man disliked this terribly.”