Golden Hand

Sofia Ivanovna Blyuvshtein (also spelled as Bluvstein, Bluvsztejn; better known as Sonia (Son'ka) the Golden Hand; 1846–1902), was a female con artist who lived in the Russian Empire and was eventually convicted of theft. She committed several carefully planned robberies, and was eventually captured and exiled to the Sakhalin penal colony. She became the basis of several books and films, in which she is romanticized as a Robin Hood figure, who never killed, and who stole only from the rich. In 1890, she met Anton Chekhov, who was visiting Sakhalin during his investigations into prison reform; he subsequently described the incident in his book Sakhalin Island. A headless statue by an unmarked grave in Moscow's Vagankovo Cemetery is used as a shrine to Sonia; worshippers, who believe Sonya to be buried there, ask for her spiritual assistance in their own crimes.