For Decades, Wives Paid A Mysterious Woman To Fix Their Marriage—Until A Guilt-Ridden Client Told Police All

For nearly three decades, unhappy wives in late imperial Russia whispered the name of one woman when marriage had become unbearable.

She was known as Madame Popova.

The details of her early life are shrouded in mystery. Some accounts call her Alexe Katherina Popova, said to come from Samara, a city in the southwestern part of the country.

But what’s less contested is that by the late 19th century, Popova built a secret business around a brutal promise.