The robbery attack (in the language of RSDLP members, "expropriation" or "exp"), committed on June 13, 1907, on Tbilisi's Erivan Square, has gone down in history as one of the most daring and major crimes of the early twentieth century. The attackers, having killed, according to official data, three people accompanying a collection vehicle and wounded 50 others, escaped with 250 thousand rubles, a sum equivalent to 5 million dollars today.
Roman Brakman in his book "The Secret Folder of Joseph Stalin. Hidden Life" gives a curious version of participation in the expropriation of the future generalissimo. According to his information, Max (Meer) Wallach (future Soviet People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov), Joseph Stalin and a native of Tbilisi Simon Ter-Petrosyan (Kamo) on behalf of Vladimir Lenin, who was at that time in Berlin, were engaged in direct preparation for the robbery attack. Bombs for this purpose were made by the future People's Commissar of Foreign Trade of the USSR Leonid Krasin. The robbers had accomplices in the Tiflis branch of the State Bank, who informed them of the time and place where the cash collectors would be traveling, as well as the amount of money to be transported.
Kamo provided practical guidance and participated in the robbery himself. Together with him, according to the author of the book "Lenin's Dossier without Retouching. Documents. Facts. Evidence", Akim Arutyunov, Tbilisi criminals Eliso Lomidze, Datiko Chiabrishvili, Bochua Kupriashvili, Stepko Intskirveli, Vano Kalandadze, as well as ladies Anneta Sulakvelidze and Patsia Goldava took part in the attack on cash collectors. The same names were mentioned by Kamo's widow Sofia Medvedeva-Ter-Petrosyan in her memoirs. The girls tracked the route of the collector's phaeton, warned the accomplices and after the attack helped them to escape in the confusing Tbilisi alleys.
The "expropriators" threw several bombs in the direction of the phaeton (according to various sources, eight, a figure given by guard Zhilyaev at the interrogation). Revolvers were also used in the attack. Kamo, disguised in an officer's uniform, caught up with the horses that carried the phaeton after the first explosion, and, firing a revolver, seized two bags of money, after which the attackers fled, none of them were detained.
There are directly opposite opinions about Stalin's role in the "eksa". Roman Brackman argues that Koba worked as an informant of the Tsarist guards and should have informed the police department about the impending attack. But for some reason he didn't. The writer labeled Stalin's participation in the robbery as follows: "during the robbery, Koba stood in the doorway of the house, smoked and watched the bloody scene".
The revolutionaries managed to smuggle some of these funds abroad, particularly to Paris and Munich, where they tried to exchange them for local currency. The French and German police arrested several couriers carrying large amounts of money, and these arrests were quickly linked to the "exodus" in Tiflis.
The "brigadier" of the expropriators, Kamo (Ter-Petrosyan), seems to have lived the longest. According to the memoirs of his widow Sofia Medvedeva, Ter-Petrosyan was arrested in Berlin in the fall of 1907, the local police found weapons, explosives and revolutionary literature in the militant's apartment. The arrested man feigned insanity in Moabit prison and was extradited to Russia. After 3 years he escaped from the Tiflis mental hospital and managed to move abroad. In Paris he had a meeting with Lenin. On his return to Russia he tried to organize another party "ex" on the Korjok highway, but the attack failed - most of the gang members ran away.
Kamo was arrested again and sentenced to hang for each of the four crimes charged against him. However, the militant fell under the amnesty announced on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov and the death sentence was replaced by 20 years' hard labor. The February Revolution freed Kamo from Kharkov prison. He actively joined the struggle against the White movement in the North Caucasus, in the last years of his life he worked in the Foreign Trade and People's Commissariat of Finance of Georgia. Ter-Petrosyan was highly appreciated by Lenin; a complimentary mention of this figure is in the collected works of the first head of the Soviet state.
In the summer of 1922, Kamo was fatally hit by a truck in Tbilisi - the car crashed into Ter-Petrosyan while he was riding a bicycle. Mortally wounded, he died in hospital from his injuries without regaining consciousness.
