Elena Shamova

Mishka Yaponchik was a Ukrainian gangster, Jewish, lived in Odessa at the beginning of the XX century, the military leader of two thousand of gangsters and the prototype of Benia Krik in The "Odessa Tales" by Soviet Jewish writer Isaak Babel. Born Moisei Vinnitsky, Yaponchik ("the Japanese") was an exceptional and eccentric character. Hailed as the next Robin Hood, he established his own code of conduct forbidding the robbing of the poor and professional classes.