July 1944. Riga. An unremarkable man walked into an atelier in Riga and ordered a leather coat. Many rear officers of the Red Army and NKVD wore them at that time.

Nothing special, if only... The customer made his own adjustments to the model - the pockets should be made roomy and elongated, and the right sleeve of the coat should be a little wider at the bottom.

The tailor took the order in silence. No need to ask questions when they're paying generously. You want it? We'll do it. That same evening a radio cipher about the strange order was sent to Moscow.

The owner of the atelier turned out to be a Soviet agent and passed on all the information that, in his opinion, could merit even the slightest bit of attention from Soviet counterintelligence.

The premonition did not deceive the Riga resident. Strange order was just one of the links in preparation for another adventure enterprise “Zeppelin” - an assassination attempt on Stalin. The realization of a fantastic in its plans operation was entrusted to Hitler's favorite - Otto Skorzeny, a German saboteur.

Former Soviet officer Pyotr Tavrin was chosen as the direct executor of the daring terrorist action. In 1942, the traitor voluntarily defected to the Germans. They arranged a thorough checkup for him, which he successfully passed.

After that, Pyotr Tavrin was sent to a special camp where he, together with other traitors, began to be trained for sabotage activities deep behind enemy lines. It was he, Tavrin, who was chosen out of two dozen cadets. He was placed in a hospital in Riga, where he underwent cosmetic surgery to simulate a severe stomach wound and minor arm wounds.

After rehabilitation, Tavrin was visited by Skorzeny himself. The two of them had a long conversation without witnesses. Apparently, Germany's number one saboteur was giving instructions to the newly minted graduate of the sabotage school.

A few days later, Tavrin was introduced to the radio operator. It was his compatriot - 20-year-old Lidia Adamchik. She, like him, had agreed to cooperate with the Germans after being taken away to work in Germany, and had also undergone a training course.

The couple, and this was their original legend, settled in a safe house in Riga. At the same time Tavrin made the order in the atelier, which we talked about at the beginning of the article.

The saboteur needed a wide sleeve to hide panzerknacks - a short-barreled armor-piercing grenade launcher. It was a small metal tube with a shaped projectile, strapped to his forearm.

Tavrin also carried a pen filled with explosive poison cartridges and a small radio-controlled bomb of enormous destructive power.

The documents for the couple were prepared especially carefully. Both of them, according to legend, were active SMERSH officers. Tavrin was a major, fresh from the hospital, and Adamchik was a junior lieutenant. To make it more convincing, Tavrin was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. And all the documents were real, not fake.

There was only one fake - the newspaper “Pravda”. There, on the front page, was information about the awarding of Red Army soldiers, among whom appeared the name of Peter Tavrin. The saboteur took this copy with him, so that in case of anything, no one had any doubt that in front of them a hero.

They were to be thrown to the rear of the Russians by a unique four-engine monoplane - high-speed and high-altitude “Arado-332”. Using a special landing gear, this airplane could land on a small area, even if it was a freshly plowed arable land.

A Soviet M-72 with sidecar was placed in the passenger compartment of the airplane. After landing, Tavrin and Adamchik were to use it to get to the Soviet capital.

Only Tavrin knew about the task assigned to the group. His task was to infiltrate the Kremlin for some official event, the invitation to which was to be obtained on the spot. There, in the Kremlin, Tavrin, approaching the leader, had to use a pen with bursting bullets or lay a radio-controlled bomb of enormous destructive power.

In case Tavrin could not get into the Kremlin, he had to use the same mini grenade launcher. He would only need to get close to the route of Stalin's automobile caravan and make an aimed shot.

But things didn't work out the way the Zeppelin Company had envisioned. The carefully planned operation was doomed to failure.

From seemingly unrelated sources of information, a picture emerged - a group of saboteurs with a particularly important mission was being prepared to be thrown into the Soviet rear.

The first information came from Zeppelin documents. They were seized by partisans when they raided one of the organization's subversive schools. Next came a cipher from a Riga tailor about a strange order. Then information about an unusual strange airplane that landed on the airfield of Riga.

Plus there was an unscheduled landing of “Arado-332”. When the airplane with saboteurs crossed the front line, it was fired upon by anti-aircraft gunners. For a while it still pulled through, but eventually had to make an unscheduled landing.

The pilots of the plane went west, and Tavrin and Adamchuk on a motorcycle continued eastward. The German pilots were caught three days later, but they could only tell the number of their passengers and the motorcycle on which they left.

To all SMERSH units was sent out the information received from the pilots of “Arado-332”. The approximate age of the couple and the vehicle on which they would probably be traveling.

The saboteurs were stopped at one of the checkpoints. Despite the rather cool weather, Tavrin was wearing a tunic with a gold star of Hero and several orders and medals. But despite the “iconostasis” and the presented certificate of military intelligence SMERSH, NKVD officer Vetrov still insisted that Tavrin and Adamchuk went under escort to the nearest district office of the NKVD.

Vetrov's attention was attracted by the fact that Tavrin's military awards were not quite correctly arranged on his tunic, that is, not in the order in which they were prescribed to be worn according to the NKO order of June 21, 1943.

The couple didn't refuse for long. Soon they told us who they really were and with what task they had been sent behind the front line. There was no limit to the surprise of the counterintelligence officers. This assignment gave off some kind of fantasy. It is not sick something their German colleagues and they are held for idiots. Or maybe it's just a diversionary maneuver, under which other large-scale diversions are hidden?

It was decided to start a radio game with Zeppelin, especially since Adamchuk, the radio operator of the group, agreed to cooperate. Already in September of '44 the first cipher flew to “Zeppelin”.

The purpose of this radio game was to calm the Germans and convince them that Tavrin was still at large and was preparing an assassination attempt. In total, about 200 messages were transmitted. The Germans really believed that Tavrin was close to his target and did not send any more saboteurs with a similar mission.

The war was over. But not for Soviet counterintelligence. For several more years, they listened to the airwaves in the hope that someone from the former German agents or representatives of other intelligence services will get in touch with Tavrin's group. But this did not happen.

In 1952, Pyotr Tavrin and Lidia Adamchik were convicted. As traitors, they were sentenced to the highest penalty - execution by firing squad.