Vyakhya Toivo Yukhonpoika (underground name Petrov Ivan Mikhailovich)

Genus. in 1901 in Helsingfors, Grand Duchy of Finland, in a working-class family. After graduating from primary school, at the age of 14 he began working at a machine-building plant, then, in search of work, he came to St. Petersburg. During the civil war in Finland, he fought in the ranks of the Red Guard; after the defeat of the “Red Finns” in the civil war in 1918, he returned to Soviet Russia. He took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising and in the ski trip of Toivo Antikainen's detachment to Kimasozero. In 1923 he graduated from the Petrograd School of Red Commanders. From the spring of 1923 - commander of the 13th border guard post near Sestroretsk (later a border outpost). From this moment begins the period of his life associated with the counterintelligence operation (“Trust”), developed by the OGPU, the purpose and result of which was the arrest of the English spy Sidney Reilly. Toivo Vähä was assigned the task of “keeping open” the “window” on the border section of his border cordon. The success of Operation Trust became possible thanks to the developed legend that Toivo Vähä was a traitor and traitor, who was subsequently allegedly shot after being exposed and arrested.
To preserve this legend, he was forced to part with his name and nationality. Instead of Toivo Vähä, at one of the border posts of the Far East, Ivan Mikhailovich Petrov (awarded, by that time, the Order of the Red Banner) “appeared”, and the commander of the 13th border guard post, Toivo Vähä, “disappeared” for many years.
In 1928 he graduated from the Higher School of Border Troops. He was arrested as an enemy of the people in 1938, soon acquitted, released and drafted into the newly created Finnish People's Army. From the end of 1939, he served in the ranks of the Red Army as commander of a separate ski regiment and commander of the 126th Infantry Regiment. Received the rank of major (until 1940).
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he was appointed commander of the 143rd Army Reserve Regiment, then commander of the 936th Regiment of the 254th Infantry Division of the 11th Army of the Northwestern Front. In the battles near Staraya Russa he was seriously wounded. Subsequently, until 1946, he served as deputy chief and head of the educational department of the Zlatoust Infantry School, and received the rank of colonel of state security.
In 1964, he “revealed himself” for conversations with the writer Lev Nikulin.
On August 30, 1964, the newspaper “Kaliningradsky Komsomolets” published an article entitled “The Man from the Legend,” after which the names of Toivo Vähä and I.M. Petrov became one.

Author of the books: “Red Finns. Memoirs" (Finnish: Suomalaiset punikit: muistelmia), "In the Chekist Operation Trust", "Ilyinsky Post", "My Borders", "Second Echelon" - this is an incomplete list of books created by I.M. Petrov. He was accepted as a member of the USSR Writers' Union and was awarded the title of Laureate of the State Prize of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
He was awarded numerous awards, including the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Red Star, the Order of Friendship of Peoples, and numerous medals. He was buried in Petrozavodsk at the Sulazhgorsky cemetery.