The Butovo training ground is the site of Stalin's mass executions and burials, carried out from 36 to 53 years. Victims of political repression, criminals and individuals disliked by the authorities were brought here and shot.
There is now a whole memorial complex 20 km from Moscow - entry to the well-groomed territory is free, excursions are not conducted (by appointment only), and in general there is nothing to show.
The Butovo firing range was organized in 1935 as a shooting range for the NKVD with an area of 2 km. sq. Surrounded by a solid fence, it was an ideal place for execution. The cemeteries of Moscow did not accommodate such a number of dead, so they were buried like a layer cake - they were shot in a line near the ditch, the fallen were covered with earth, with a second batch on top. There are 13 ditches on the territory, each at least 300 meters long.
Misha Shamonin was shot at the Butovo firing range at the age of 13
The youngest, Misha, was 13 years old. A street kid who stole 2 loaves of bread. He could only be shot if he was 15, so his date of birth was corrected. And they shot me. People were shot for something less, for example, for having a Stalin tattoo on their leg. Sometimes people were killed by entire families of 5-9 people.
"Black Raven" - a vehicle for transporting prisoners
Paddy wagons (vans for transporting prisoners), which could accommodate about 30 people, approached the training ground from the Warsaw Highway at approximately one in the morning. The area was fenced with barbed wire, next to the place where people were unloaded, a guard tower was built right on the tree. People were brought into the barracks, supposedly for “sanitation.”
Immediately before the execution, their face was compared with the photograph in the file and the verdict was announced. The procedure continued until dawn. At this time, the performers were drinking vodka in a stone house nearby. The condemned were brought out to them one by one. Each performer accepted his victim and led him into the depths of the training ground, in the direction of the ditch. Ditches three meters deep and 100 or more meters long were specially dug by bulldozers during the intensification of repression, so as not to waste time digging individual graves. People were placed on the edge of the ditch and shot, mainly from service weapons, aiming at the back of the head. The dead fell into the ditch, covering the bottom of the trench. In the evening, a bulldozer covered the bodies with a thin layer of soil, and the performers, usually completely drunk, were taken to Moscow. The next day everything was repeated. Less than 300 people were rarely shot in a day. Unfortunately, the names of all those shot and buried at the training ground are still unknown. Accurate information is available only for a short period from August 37 to October 38. During this period, 20 thousand 761 people were shot.
In an excavation area of 12 m2, experts discovered the remains of 149 people
Most of those killed lived in Moscow or the Moscow region, but there are also representatives of other regions, countries and even continents who, of their own good, naive will, came to the Union to build communism
Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov)
Like, for example, a certain John from South Africa. Here lie representatives of absolutely all estates and classes, from peasants and workers to people famous in the past. Former general Governor of Moscow Dzhunkovsky, Chairman of the Second Duma Golovin, several tsarist generals, as well as a significant number of representatives of the clergy, primarily Orthodox - according to current information, more than a thousand people, including active laymen, suffered for their confession Orthodox faith. Of these, 330 were glorified as saints. “It is clear that the Grace of God cannot be measured in numbers, but, nevertheless, on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church there have not yet been places where the relics of a greater number of saints of God rest in relics,” says Archpriest Kirill Kaleda, rector of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
The host of Butovo new martyrs is headed by Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov) of St. Petersburg. A man from an ancient aristocratic family that gave the fatherland several polar explorers and admirals. Combat officer, for bravery shown in Russian-Turkish war during the storming of Plevna, he was awarded a golden weapon with a dedicatory inscription from the Emperor. Subsequently, he became a spiritual child of St. right John of Kronstadt, with his blessing he was ordained and became a simple parish priest. Future Metropolitan Seraphim is also known for writing the Seraphim-Diveyevo Chronicle, thanks to which the Monk Seraphim of Sarov was glorified. In gratitude for writing the chronicle, Metropolitan Seraphim was honored with the appearance of St. Seraphim. In 1937, when he was shot, Metropolitan Seraphim was 82 years old. To take him to prison, they had to call an ambulance and use a stretcher - Metropolitan Seraphim could no longer walk on his own. This is the oldest in rank and age of those executed at the Butovo training ground. According to testimony, burials of those executed and died in Moscow prisons were carried out at the training ground until the early 50s.
At the site of the execution there are strawberry beds
Photographs of some of those executed, taken from their investigative files, and data on the number of those executed at the Butovo training ground by day (from August 1937 to October 1938).
At the end of the 80s, several acts were issued to restore the memory of those killed during the years of repression, including a resolution of the Supreme Council. It stated that local councils People's deputies and amateur bodies should help relatives of victims in the restoration, protection and maintenance of burial sites. On the basis of acts and the law on rehabilitation, in the early nineties, measures were taken in different regions to restore the memory of those repressed. The activities included archival research, searching for burial sites, and putting them in order. But the funding mechanism was not provided for in the acts, so in different regions the law was implemented (or not implemented) differently.
In 1992, a public group was created in Moscow to perpetuate the memory of victims of political repression under the leadership of Mikhail Mindlin. He spent a total of more than 15 years in prisons and camps, and only thanks to his remarkable health and strong character he remained alive. At the end of his life (he was already over 80), he decided to perpetuate the memory of the victims of terror.
Thanks to Mindlin’s appeals, 11 folders with acts of execution of sentences were discovered in the KGB archive. The information is quite brief - last name, first name, patronymic, year and place of birth, date of execution. The place of execution was not indicated in the acts, but the sheets contained the signatures of the responsible executors. By order of the head of the KGB department for Moscow and the Moscow region, Yevgeny Savostyanov, an investigation was carried out in order to discover the burial sites.
At that moment, several NKVD pensioners who worked in the late 30s were still alive. Including the commandant of the economic administration of the NKVD for Moscow and the Moscow region. The commandant confirmed that the main place of execution was the Butovo training ground, and the burials were also carried out there. Based on the signatures of the performers, he determined that they worked in Butovo. Thus, it was possible to bind the lists to the polygon. The burial area (about 5.6 hectares in the central part of the landfill) at that time belonged to the Federal Grid Company (FSB) and was under round-the-clock security. The site was surrounded by a fence with barbed wire and guarded; inside there were several strawberry beds and an apple orchard. Around the former training ground there is a holiday village of the NKVD. On the initiative of Mikhail Mindlin, with the help of the Moscow government, a stone monument was erected on the territory of the test site.
In the spring of 1994, the group passed on information about the existence of the test site to the Church. The information was reported through the granddaughter of Metropolitan Seraphim, Varvara Vasilievna. In Soviet times, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor Varvara Chernaya (Chichagova) worked on space suits. It was she who created the material for the spacesuit in which Yuri Gagarin flew into space. Subsequently, Varvara Vasilievna took monastic vows with the name Seraphim, and became the first abbess of the newly opened Novodevichy Convent.
Having read the report about Butovo, Patriarch Alexy II put on it his resolution on the construction of a temple-chapel there. On May 8, 94, a memorial cross was consecrated at the training ground and the first cathedral memorial service was performed for the murdered. Soon, the relatives of the victims in Butovo turned to Patriarch Alexy II with a request to bless them to create a community and begin construction of a temple. In 1995, the burial site was transferred to the Church.
Now there are two temples - wooden and stone. “In 1989, when we learned that my grandfather had been shot (previously it was believed that he died during the war in a camp), it never occurred to us that we would be able to build a temple on his grave and pray in it,” he says . Kirill Kaleda. “The fact that this place was transferred to the Church is undoubtedly the grace of God, which was given to us for the feat accomplished by the new martyrs.” Since 2000, patriarchal services have been held at the open-air site, attracting several thousand worshipers. This happens on the fourth Saturday after Easter, on the day of remembrance of the New Martyrs, who suffered in Butovo.
The stone temple is also part of memorial complex. The interior space includes a reliquary in which the personal belongings of the killed are kept: clothes, prayer books, letters. And in the basement of the temple there is a museum: pre-mortem photographs of the victims in Butovo and things found in the burial ditch. Shoes, individual items of clothing, rubber gloves, shell casings and bullets - all of this, naturally, is in dilapidated condition. But the photographs speak volumes. It's hard to see real lives behind the cold numbers. But when you look into the eyes of these still living people, at that moment the story turns from abstract to personal. More than 20 thousand of them rest at the landfill personal stories.
The descendants of KGB officers and workers of the Butovo training ground live in a holiday village next to the site of the execution. Summer residents call members of the Butovo church community invaders.
Every year about 10 thousand people visit Butovo as part of pilgrimage groups. To this we can add a small number of single visitors. Overall, the figure is quite modest. “If we compare it with the million people who annually visit one French village burned by the Germans, we can draw a disappointing conclusion,” says Archpriest Kirill Kaleda. “We did not repent and did not realize the lesson of history that, by the grace of God, it taught us in the twentieth century. And this lesson was very clear.”
Worship cross brought by water from Solovki and installed in 2007 at the Butovo site near the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia
From the results of documentary research carried out by the Permanent Interdepartmental Commission of the Moscow Government for the restoration of the rights of victims of political repression, the circumstances of the executions at the Butovo training ground for the period from August 1937 to October 19, 1938 were clarified. In total, during the specified period, 20,765 executions were carried out, and 20 thousand people were identified by name. As of 2003, 5,595 people (27%) remained unrehabilitated. There were no results during the Second World War. The burials were carried out without notifying relatives and without a church or civil memorial service. Relatives of those executed began to receive certificates indicating exact date and causes of death only since 1989
In general, there were two main training grounds in Moscow - Kommunarka and Butovo. In Kommunarka, high-ranking officials, the aristocracy, and the party elite were shot (the famous 17th bloody party congress, almost all of whom were executed in 1937 (out of 56 congress members, only 2 survived) were killed there). The rest were brought to Butovo and finished off. The range's unique record - 582 executions - occurred on February 28, 1938.
"Butovo training ground"
The largest place of mass executions and burials in Moscow and the Moscow region - the Butovo training ground of the NKVD is located on the land of the former ancient Drozhzhino estate, known since the 16th century. Its last owner was Ivan Ivanovich Zimin, brother the famous Sergei Ivanovich Zimin, owner of the Moscow Private Opera. At the Zimin stud farm, wearing in the 1920s. name Kamenev and supplied horses to the troops of the GPU-OGPU, the former manager of the estate, the nephew of its recent owner, Ivan Leontyevich Zimin, worked as its manager. He lived here with his wife, the famous opera singer (later a professor at the Conservatory) Sofia Druzyakina. A wooden two-story house - with carved cornices and platbands, with a wide staircase and a small alley of blue spruce trees in front of it stood exactly on the site of the future training ground.
In 1934, the stud farm was closed, residents were evicted, and the stables were converted into prison premises. The prisoners were brought in on ten carts from the neighboring Catherine Hermitage, where a prison for criminals had been located since 1931 (later the famous political Sukhanovskaya Prison). But they weren't here long. Soon they were transferred to Shcherbinka, where a prison was also equipped on the former estate of the landowner Sushkin.
In the mid-1930s. On the eve of mass executions, the Economic Directorate of the NKVD became preoccupied with searching for places for special burials. Three such zones were identified near Moscow: in the area of the village of Butovo, on the territory of the Kommunarka state farm and near the city of Lyubertsy. (This third zone was kept as a reserve; as far as is known, it was not used.) A shooting range was equipped on the territory of the Butovo estate on an area of 5.6 hectares ( total area The special zone was then more than 2 square meters. km). Of course, there was no trace of a real training ground; there was only its imitation, as was done at all such “objects”. Local residents were informed that training exercises would be carried out near their villages. Indeed, starting in 1935, the sounds of shots from the firing range were heard constantly. And at first this did not surprise anyone. But over time, local residents, of course, began to suspect that something terrible was happening in their neighborhood. Late passers-by returning home from the night train were overtaken by “funnels” and covered paddy wagons; sometimes distant pleas and cries for help were heard from the depths of the forest.
After Yezhov’s July orders, mass executions began, unparalleled in world history. A total of 20,761 people were killed. The first execution according to these orders at the Butovo training ground was carried out on August 8, 1937. On this day, 91 people were executed.
The most numerous executions in Butovo occurred in December 1937 and February 1938: 474 people were shot on December 8, 502 on February 17, and 562 on February 28. Among Butov's victims, according to available documents, greatest number are Muscovites, residents of the Moscow region and neighboring regions, which were then wholly or partially included in the Moscow region. But there are also many representatives of the republics former USSR, persons of foreign origin and nationality whose only fault was an “inappropriate” nationality or place of birth. In terms of numbers, after the Russians, of whom there are 8,724 people in the Butovo burial ditches, Latvians, Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and Belarusians predominate; there are representatives from France, USA, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan, India, China; In total there are over sixty nationalities. Most of the people buried in Butovo were simple peasants, often illiterate or completely illiterate. Sometimes they were shot by entire families - five to seven people each; to carry out the plan, 15-18 people from any one village were captured. (We have compiled a list of these villages; it is planned to erect memorial crosses in them; several crosses have already been built). The next largest victims of Butov are workers and employees of various Soviet institutions. More than a third of total number those executed were prisoners of Dmitlag, this real state within a state; the composition of the Dmilagovites or, as they were called, “kanalarmeytsy” - from world-famous scientists, builders, poets, clergy, teachers - to unrehabilitated and not subject to rehabilitation recidivist criminals.
In the Butovo ditches lie the remains of outstanding statesmen of pre-revolutionary Russia: Chairman of the 2nd State Duma F.A. Golovin, Moscow governor, later chief of gendarmes - V.F. Dzhunkovsky, his adjutant and friend - General V.S. Gadon, great-grandson of Kutuzov and at the same time a relative of Tukhachevsky, professor church singing M. N. Khitrovo-Kramskoy, great-granddaughter of Saltykov-Shchedrin T. N. Gladyrevskaya; this is also one of the first Russian pilots N. N. Danilevsky and a Czech by nationality, a member of the expedition of O. Yu. Schmidt - Ya. V. Brezin, representatives of the Russians noble families: Rostopchins, Tuchkovs, Gagarins, Shakhovskys, Obolenskys, Bibikovs, Golitsyns; These are brilliant engineers, these are artists whose miraculously saved works now adorn the best museums and galleries in the world - Alexander Drevin, Roman Semashkevich, other artists: there are over eighty of them here - painters, graphic artists, decorators, designers.
One could name several more groups of people by profession who became victims of Butovo’s executions: these were poor grabbers - carters who delivered stone and gravel to the country’s construction sites. Expelled from their homes during dispossession, homeless, orphaned, no one knows how or with what they were supporting some cornered horse, they nevertheless passed as owners, kulaks. There are more than sixty of them in Butovo. Former policemen or, as they were also called, guards - about forty. There are representatives of lower, middle and higher police ranks here, there is even a royal executioner. We have not yet counted the numerous employees of the Chinese Eastern railway and simply born in Harbin or in the CER service area; Together with their relatives, who had never left their Popovka region near Moscow, they were accused of spying for Japan and sentenced to death. More than thirty Chinese workers who served Chinese laundries, very popular among Muscovites, were shot in Butovo as malicious “Trotskyists.” Several major cases were opened against climbers accused of spying for Germany and Austria. More than one hundred and fifty people were involved in these cases. Of these, fifteen people were the most beautiful, the bravest and the luckiest, who climbed the inaccessible Mountain peaks, including the Himalayan ones, fell under the bullets of security officers on the edge of the Butovo ditches.
A special group of those executed in Butovo were disabled people. At the beginning of 1938, a secret campaign began to “remove” disabled people from prisons and camps: there was not enough space for the newly arrested. Those sentenced to various terms (sometimes very short - 2-3 years), after a medical examination and confirmation of disability, were sentenced to capital punishment without reviewing the case or any further investigation. In fact, disabled people unable to work (blind, deaf-mute, without arms or legs, or simply seriously ill) were shot only because they were sick and they were refused to be accepted in the camps. The group of disabled people shot in Butovo is quite significant.
Among the “contingents subject to repression,” Yezhov’s Order No. 00447 lists “clergymen.” Among them there are all kinds of sectarians, Old Believers, Renovationists, who can be difficult to recognize from investigative cases. There are representatives of other faiths: three mullahs, one rabbi, there are Catholics, Protestants, Baptists (about 50 people), but their number is incommensurate with the number of killed representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are 940 of them who suffered for the Faith and the Church of Christ in Butovo.
The plans of the godless authorities building a new atheistic state included that by May 1, 1937, “the name of God should be forgotten throughout the entire territory of the USSR.” But the 1937 population census, as is known, showed that more than half of those surveyed recognized themselves as believers. The colossal work to destroy the Church, carried out from the first days of Soviet power, did not produce the expected results. In 1937, a new all-out attack on the Church and believers began. That year, another 8 thousand churches were closed, 70 dioceses and vicariates were liquidated, and 60 bishops were shot. Seven of them were shot at the Butovo training ground. This is sschmch. Seraphim (Chichagov) (glorified at the Council of Bishops in 1997), these are the smchch., canonized at the Anniversary Council of Bishops in 2000: Dimitri (Dobroserdov), Nikolai (Dobronravov), Nikita (Delectorsky), smchch.: Jonah (Lazarev), Arkady (Ostalsky). Butovo’s list of uncanonized clergy is headed by the murdered Bishop Arseny (Zhadanovsky).
Everyone involved in church business was charged with the standard: anti-Soviet agitation, counter-revolutionary activity. But the reasons for the accusation could be very different, for example: “preserving the church and planting secret monasticism”, “failure to inform” (“knew about the fugitive priest and did not inform”), helping exiles, sheltering homeless clergy, storing an icon or prayer. Among the executed clergy there were many well-known and deeply revered priests. Newly glorified Sschmch. Kronid (Lyubimov), the last 79-year-old rector of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, accepted martyrdom on December 10, 1937; ten people who were involved in the same case with him were also shot at the Butovo training ground. In December, January and February 1937-1938. 27 hieromonks of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra died in Butovo, having recently returned from prison; most of them were placed in the parishes of the Zagorsk region by Archimandrite Kronid. Day of death of Sschmch. Kronid and those who suffered with him became especially revered by the monks of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, who on this day visit Butovo and perform a memorial service at the place of execution at the large Worship Cross. Among the Orthodox, the names of the now glorified sschmchch were widely known and revered. Sergius (Makhaev) - the priest of the Iveron community on Bolshaya Polyanka, Zosima (Trubachev), who cared for the priests and nuns exiled to Maloyaroslavets and Vladimir (Medvedyuk), who was arrested there. To date, 304 new martyrs have been glorified among the victims in Butovo. Their names are now recorded in Orthodox monthly books and in the Synodikon of the Church of New Martyrs and Confessors in Butovo, published in 2005.
In the mid-1950s. The Butovo training ground was surrounded by a high wooden fence. This territory was strictly guarded. No one has been here except security officers.
For the first time, the gates of the Butovo training ground opened for relatives of the victims on June 7, 1993. In the fall of the same year, a memorial plaque was installed. In 1994, the Orthodox St. Tikhon Institute, based on a sketch by the sculptor D. M. Shakhovsky, whose father Priest Mikhail Shik was shot in Butovo, built a Cross of Worship, and the first liturgy was celebrated in the camp tent church of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. According to the sketch of D. M. Shakhovsky, the construction of the temple began in 1995, and in 1996 regular services began in the unfinished temple. Since that time, the parish community has been headed by the grandson of the martyr Vladimir Ambartsumov, who was executed at the Butovo training ground, Archpriest Kirill Kaleda, a former scientist geologist. Through his labors, work began to build church life and improve the territory of mass graves. O. Kirill and the initiative group that gathered around him managed to stop the construction of a new residential microdistrict “Novodrozhzhino”, the construction of which was planned directly on the border of the memorial burials. In 1995, the land of the Butovo training ground was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate.
In August 1997, with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch, archaeological excavations were carried out in a small area in Butovo. Qualified specialists took part in them: archaeologists, a tapologist, a specialist in industrial fabrics and footwear, a forensic expert, and a firearms specialist. A section of the burial ditch with an area of 12.5 m2 was uncovered. What was revealed to the eyes of the researchers defies description. Dead people lay side by side, interspersed, as if in some kind of burial ground for cattle. On the open surface of the burial were discovered the remains of 59 people, presumably men, aged 25–30, 45–50 years, shot, judging by their clothing, in late autumn or winter. In total, in that burial, located in several tiers, according to experts, there were the remains of approximately 150 people. Archaeological research on the soil continued in subsequent years and will continue in the future. For the 2005 season, 13 ditches were identified, located rather chaotically: meridional - in the direction from west to east, and diagonal - in the direction from northwest to southeast.
In the years preceding the publication of the truth about the Butovo training ground, the local village was a rather sad sight. Its only street, named Yubileiny as if in mockery, consisted of several faceless buildings. Everything was gradually destroyed. Life seemed to be leaving here. The school was closed, then the bathhouse, which had previously only worked once a week; To wash, you had to stand in line for hours. The first-aid post, the pharmacy stall, and the store were closed. The telephone, which had existed here since the beginning of the century, became the exclusive property of the NKVD. The regular bus that ran from the station past the Butovo training ground to Bobrov was cancelled. In the NKVD village, unknown old people lived out their lives, who were witnesses and often participants tragic events 1930–1950 Long years these people did not make any contacts with outsiders. They lived isolated from the rest of the world and led a secluded lifestyle. It was clear that they only understood each other well. Any, even the most cautious questions about the life of the training ground during the years of repression were suppressed by them in the rudest form. Either they answered that there had never been any executions or burials here, that all this was fiction and lies, or they said: “If someone shot someone, then it was necessary.” Often such a conversation ended with threats in word and action. The women who worked here during the years of the executions were not so embittered, but remained as hopelessly silent as their husbands. One after another, eyewitnesses passed away who could tell something about these tragic places - the Butovo training ground, Kommunarka, Sukhanovskaya prison. And those who were still alive and could tell us something priceless remained silent, afraid that everything would return to normal. It was impossible to persuade, to convince them that the past was gone forever...
What must all these people have felt, constantly being alone with their thoughts, memories, living next to the burial ditches that they once saw full of human bodies that had not yet cooled down?! Only gradually, over the years, some contacts began to be established between those who greedily sought the truth and those who certainly wanted to hide and forget it.
Life and even the appearance of the village of Drozhzhino (which includes buildings directly connected to the Butovo training ground) began to change noticeably with the appearance of the temple. More and more people came to the services and memorial services. At first, it was possible to enter the test site only at certain hours on Saturdays and Sundays. But in 1995, the security was removed, and the territory of the long-suffering Butovo training ground became accessible at any time.
In 1997, by order of the Moscow Government, “Project proposals for the creation of a memorial complex in the area of the village” were prepared. Drozhzhino..." They examined the territory of the main burial sites, the former Drozhzhino-Butovo estate and the NKVD village. The following year, 1998, with funds from the Moscow Government, the road leading from the Varshavskoye Highway to the Butovo training ground was re-asphalted and landscaped. Regular bus No. 18 was launched along the repaired road with the final stop “Butovo Polygon”. All these steps became possible with the tireless efforts and concerns of the parishioners of the Church of the New Martyrs and its rector, Fr. Kirill, who accepted responsibility for the future fate of the Butovo test site.
Children from general education and Sunday schools, Moscow lyceums and gymnasiums began to be brought here, and church employees told them about what was happening here. Children's voices were heard for the first time at the test site. Children and teenagers helped clear the area of overgrowth and put it in order as best they could. In November 1998, a Sunday school was opened at the Butovo Church. Not immediately, but contacts were established with teachers and students of surrounding schools and other local organizations. For parish needs and a Sunday school, premises were provided in houses that previously belonged to NKVD employees. Now there are about eighty students in the Sunday school, its study groups cover all ages, from the smallest children to adults. The school is attended mainly by residents of nearby areas: the village of Novo-Drozhzhino and the eastern part of South Butovo.
On May 27, 2000, the fourth Saturday after Easter, the first open-air service was held at the Butovo training ground, led by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus'. It seemed that all of Orthodox Moscow was present here. Eight bishops, about two hundred clergy from churches and monasteries in Moscow and the Moscow region, and more than three and a half thousand worshipers took part in the service. It was an unforgettable spiritual celebration. The joint choir of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute sang. The music of church chants merged with the loud singing of birds, as if sharing everyone’s joy. Patriarchal services in Butovo have become traditional. His Holiness the Patriarch called the Butovo training ground “Russian Golgotha.”
At the Consecrated Council of Bishops on August 16–18, 2000, among the 1,100 martyrs who suffered in Russia at the hands of atheists in the 20th century, 129 clergy and laymen who were killed in Butovo were canonized. Now (as of 2006) the number of canonized Butovo new martyrs has increased to 304 people.
In 2004, on the territory of the Drozhzhino estate, Patriarch Alexy II and the Supreme Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Metropolitan Laurus, laid the foundation for a new stone two-story church-monument to the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. The project of this grandiose five-tent cathedral was developed at the architectural and artistic center of the Moscow Patriarchate "Archtemple" (ACC "Archtemple"), by architect M.Yu. Kesler, under the leadership of A.N. Obolensky, whose grandfather, Prince Obolensky Vladimir Vasilyevich, was lost in 1937 at the Butovo training ground. The majestic temple-monument was consecrated on May 19, 2007, in the concelebration of Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Laurus, the clergy of the reunited parts of the Russian Church.
“Butovo site” is not only a place of inconsolable grief, where we again and again relive the horror of the tragedy that has taken place, today it is also a place of Memory, Reflection and Repentance - one of the most important in the cultural and spiritual landscape of the Moscow region.
In 2000, by order of the Moscow Government, the State Enterprise “Research Institute master plan Moscow" a "Project of protection zones for the historical monument "Butovo Polygon" was developed. A year later, on August 9, 2001, by decree of the Government of the Moscow Region, the Butovo Test Site was declared a historical and cultural monument of local significance. Together with security zones the total area of the historical monument was about 3 square meters. kilometers. From the west, its territory is limited by Warsaw, from the east – by Simferopol, from the north – by Rastorguevskoe highway, from the south – by the territory of the greenhouse complex of the state farm named after. XXI Congress of the CPSU and the right bank of the floodplain of the Gvozdyanka River. Almost all of this territory belonged to the 1930s–1950s. department of the OGPU-NKVD, and now has become a reserved area. On the territory of the historical monument, any new construction is prohibited, except for what is necessary to reveal the memorial content of the monument, as well as any economic activity leading to distortion of the historical appearance and natural landscape of the area. On the contrary, it is planned to preserve, restore and, if possible, restore the lost elements of historical buildings and park layout at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.
“Butovo training ground” is in our time, undoubtedly, one of the most significant historical monuments in socio-historical and spiritual terms. It is interesting to all segments of the population. Among those visiting Butovo are relatives of the victims, students and teachers of universities, members of historical and local history societies, students of secondary schools and Sunday schools and gymnasiums, and Orthodox believers. Moreover, about half of the tourists are children. It is also planned to create special exhibitions dedicated to those who suffered during the years of repression. Such activities have been carried out by members of the Butovo Church community from the very beginning of its existence. IN ground floor of the new church, before the construction of special museum and exhibition premises, a number of relics - icons and sacred objects belonging to the new martyrs killed in Butovo - were placed.
After the renovation of the first floor of the building in 2000 former School NKVD-KGB special services, in the hall that had previously served as a cinema club, exhibitions dedicated to the victims at the Butovo training ground began to be held. They were dedicated to the life and work of those killed in Butovo talented artists V. A. Komarovsky and V. S. Timirev, prominent hierarchs and clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church who suffered for their faith: Bishop Arseny (Zhadanovsky), holy martyrs Vladimir Ambartsumov, Peter Petrikov and others. Particularly rich material is presented at the exhibition: “The life and works of the holy martyr Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov). To the 100th anniversary of the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov."
In 2002, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, the Butovo Memorial Scientific and Educational Center (ANO) was created at the church. Its main goals, according to the charter, are to perpetuate the memory of the victims without distinction of their ethnicity and religious affiliation and “restoration of historical justice through the maximum possible preservation for future generations of spiritual, scientific and aesthetic values created by people who died during the mass repression" Parishioners and staff of the Memorial Center lead hard work on collecting information and systematizing data on victims of repression. Based on these materials, thematic exhibitions and presentations are prepared, relatives of the victims are met, and excursions are conducted. The “execution” cases were studied, 8 volumes of the book of memory “Butovo Test Site” were prepared and published (ed. Golovkova L.A.M., 1997 - 2004). In the context of this work, with the support of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, an electronic database is being created “Victims of mass terror, executed at the Butovo training ground of the NKVD in 1937-1938.” . In the future - the creation of a full-fledged Memory Museum. In 2004-2006, the Memorial Center held three scientific events. In particular, on June 6-8, 2006, a scientific and practical conference “Ethno-confessional traditions and memorialization of mass grave sites in the 21st century” was held. In the course of a fruitful dialogue with representatives of religious traditions, it was established what traditions of venerating such places and perpetuating the memory of the deceased exist within the framework of their cult practice, a detailed description and adequate interpretation of memorial rites was given, and recommendations were made to fellow believers regarding the veneration of such places. It is important to note that the dialogue took place in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation. Big public importance has the conclusion of the dialogue participants that in each of the traditions there are not only special forms commemoration of their fallen co-religionists, within the framework of their religious corporation, but also of all people who fell victim to one common misfortune. One of the first results of our meeting was the participation of the Muslim clergy in the Act of Commemoration of those killed at the Butovo training ground of the NKVD on June 8, 2006.
The myth of the “Butovo training ground” has become a gathering point for anti-Russian forces, just as the Great Victory Day is a gathering point for patriotic forces. Both the liberal and the white one trump them. Every person who shakes hands must remember the endless number of “innocent victims of the Bolshevik experiment killed by the tyrant” buried at the Butovo training ground.
A museum and funds are being created, an entire Butovo cultural tradition is being created, etc.
And the king is naked. In fact, there is nothing to rely on.
Let's look.
We go to the website http://www.sinodik.ru/?q=static&id=2 The Project website.
Project Manager - Garkavyi I.V. ([email protected]) (Write a letter)
We notice a de-Sovietizer on the editorial board Fedotova M. A., doctor legal sciences, professor, chairman of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Development civil society and human rights at the time. (now I don’t know what position he is in. What is clear)
They write:
“It is very important that the database will be constantly updated with new information. Over time, its Internet version on the website www.sinodik.ru should become a kind of electronic encyclopedia of the historical monument Butovo training ground.”
Without any reference to any of the most trivial sources, the reader is introduced to the topic:
“In the mid-1930s. On the eve of mass executions, the Economic Directorate of the NKVD became preoccupied with finding places for burials. Three such objects were identified near Moscow: in the area of the village of Butovo, ...
Local residents were informed that training exercises would be carried out near their villages. After the notorious order of N.I. Ezhov No. 00447 of July 30, 1937, mass executions began here. In total, from August 8, 1937 to October 19, 1938, 20,761 people were killed at the training ground. The first execution under these orders was carried out here on August 8, 1937. On this day, 91 people were killed.”
And off we go: how the executions were carried out, how the executed were brought, when, on what, accompanied by whom, etc. It’s interesting, but there are no sources. From the word GENERALLY.
Garkavy writes as if he himself was a participant in the executions. We won't believe it. It doesn't change with age.
“Already in 1994, a group of believers built a Worship Cross based on a sketch by D. M. Shakhovsky, and at the same time the first liturgy was celebrated in a camp tent church on the territory of the training ground.<…>Through the works of Fr. Kirill and members of the church community began work to improve the territory of mass graves ...»
Please note: already in progress social activity, everything is already as if everything has been known for a long time, no one is afraid - what if there is a mistake? But only
“in August 1997 In August 1997, with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch, archaeological excavations were carried out in a small area of the site. A section of the burial ditch with an area of 12.5 m2 was uncovered. The remains of 59 people were discovered on the open surface of the burial. A total of 13 ditches have now been identified, total length almost 900 meters.
Not a word about whether anything was discovered or not, but
“On August 9, 2001, by decree of the Government of the Moscow Region, the Butovo Test Site was declared a historical and cultural monument of local significance. Together with the protective zones, the total area of the historical monument was about 3 square meters. kilometers. In 2005-2006, the territory was improved and embankments were made over the burial ditches.”
- oops, and already the embankments. They covered everything. It's like they're covering their tracks. What about the investigation, gentlemen and comrades? What about the examinations? Not a word.
But
“In 2002, on the initiative of the parishioners of the temple and relatives of the victims, with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch, in order to coordinate the efforts of state, religious and public organizations to create a memorial complex was created Memorial Scientific and Educational Center "Butovo".Its main statutory goal (attention!) is“in restoring historical justice through the maximum possible preservation for future generations of spiritual, scientific and aesthetic values created by people who died during the years of mass repression”.
So far, nothing has been heard about the mentioned created values.
Next - honestly:
“It is based on execution lists NKVD, covering the names of 20,761 people, published in the Books of Memory “Butovo Test Site”. Gradually, scattered documents and evidence are united around this list, the analysis of which can only be carried out when creating a database.”
- that is, there was no analysis and no work. Well, what kind of execution lists? Let me see! Where did they come from like a piano from the bushes?
But maybe let's go to the section "documents and evidence", and there we will see the fruits of the work of the guardians of historical memory?
No, it's empty. Pristinely empty. http://p8.inetstar.ru/docs/ or http://www.sinodik.ru/docs/
In chapter "Research" -
“From the notes of the holy martyr Sergius Sidorov, executed at the Butovo training ground on September 27, 1937.”
His story about the funeral of Patriarch Tikhon is given. All.
*
The story of a relative of the repressed. She remembers her relatives. The story ends like this:
“In 1962, Boleslav Stanislavovich received three certificates: “Rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti.” The years of death were indicated: 1942, 1943. They allegedly died in the camps during the war from some kind of disease.»
And a vague attempt to somehow connect this with Butovo.“no one knew about Butovo then”.
Can THIS be relied upon as evidence? - No.
*
Another job: Smirnova T. A. Portrait of Count Yuri Olsufiev.
Reading the portrait. Where is Butovo? Here is Butovo: in the last line.
“When I say goodbye to life, I would like to say goodbye to it here.” July 10/23, 1933, Staraya Ladoga12.
He was shot on a cold night March 14, 1938 at the Butovo training ground near Moscow."Is there any logic? There is no logic. To hell with logic! A matter of national importance.
It was a warm-up. Now we bring to your attention another study, the author is unknown. I took it.
* * * *
The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.
(Dr. Goebbels).
The term “Russian Golgotha” has already been put into circulation; anyone can google and find a million links on this issue, from dry documentaries to yellowishness of various levels.
I had never heard anything about the test site before, but I was always interested in this historical period, so, having heard it out of the corner of my ear, I decided to surf the net in more detail and take a look.
Well, I worked through enough material to see that they were all copied: it is repeated everywhere that
"Only according to official data, in the period from August 1937 to October 1938, people were shot here 20 765
Human"
(although according to other data, by the way, lying on the site dedicated to Butov - " in Moscow and the Moscow region, 27,508 people were sentenced to capital punishment during the period from 1935 to 1953
"), everywhere it is said that to bury so many people with a bulldozer (in some places - with an excavator, and in one place even a certain hybrid "bulldozer-excavator" is described, even its name is given - "Komsomolets" (which is already an obvious invention - models of such there were none, and the excavators certainly weren’t given proper names,) special ditches were dug, everywhere it is reported that “200, 300, 500 people were shot a day. The ditches were filled gradually. The next batch was covered with a thin layer of earth, and the next day everything was repeated ", and the filled ditches themselves are clearly visible in aerial photographs.
The same facts, the same figures, in general, the source is clearly the same, most likely a book "Butovo training ground. 1937-1938". M., Institute of Experimental Sociology, 1997.
Although some people (in general, without doubting either the numbers or the facts), still notice inconsistencies and try to calculate (pure mathematics):
“The executions in Butovo were carried out by one of the so-called firing squads. According to the acting commandant, it consisted of 3-4 people, and on days of especially mass executions the number of perpetrators increased. The special detachment, according to the driver of the NKVD motor depot, consisted of 12 people.
Let's assume that the maximum number of performers was involved - 12 people. This means that each of them managed to kill 46-47 people. The condemned were not “mowed down” in bursts, no: they were each shot individually in the back of the head. How long could this procedure take - taking two people out of the barracks, shooting directly, returning to the barracks for more people doomed to death? Let's take a minimum time of 10 minutes. So, the executioner spent 470 minutes on the execution of 46-47 condemned people - that’s almost 8 hours of continuous murders!”
This can be explained simply - they drank liters of vodka, which is why they shot so accurately for eight hours in a row. It’s hard to believe, of course, that it’s possible to jam a driver all day long, and at the same time to deftly handle both small arms and a sober prisoner all this time, yes. Not to mention alcohol intoxication and delirium tremens - apparently, only Yezhov’s NKVD officers could function uninterruptedly in this mode for a whole year.
In general, many people doubt the numbers, but then correct themselves:
“There were four executioners working in Butovo. But, let’s say, on February 28, 1938, 562 people were shot at the training ground. It’s hard to imagine that each of them killed more than 140 people like that, “in the back of the head.”, because anyone who wants to believe will believe: “That means there was either help or machine guns.”I’m no expert, I could be wrong, but as far as I know, machine guns as such appeared in the Red Army’s arsenal only in the years since 1941, the Shpagin submachine gun ( PPSh) - V 1941-1942 year, and before that the NKVD could only use the Fedorov automatic rifle, but, again, as far as I know, it was not produced from the USSR, n and the only weapons in the NKVD were “pistols (Mausers)”, and "Operational composition of the NKVD, operational and command staff The police were supposed to be armed with a three-line rifle, a pistol and 2 hand grenades. The rank and file were armed with a three-line rifle and 2 hand grenades."
And of course, appetites are growing: “The 20,000-strong list is considered incomplete; they say that hundreds of thousands were shot here,” says the director of the Butovo Memorial Scientific and Educational Center. Igor Garkavyi"
- and in some publications they already boldly say that on Butovo there are hundreds of thousands of executed people.
(from myself: if you go to the website of Butovo’s “Project” http://www.sinodik.ru/?q=static&id=2
, then we will see in the calendar “On this day at the Butovo training ground” for today, April 27, that, according to the Project, 68 people were shot on this day. In total, there are 5 dates in April when executions were carried out: April 5, 7, 11, 14 and 27. In March - 8 dates. In May - 7. And months in two years - 24.)
Well, Garkavy can be understood, now Butovo is his job, he quite skillfully squeezes money from the budget for this business:
“To begin with, we had to stop the construction here, in Drozhzhino, of a microdistrict of several multi-storey buildings... a decision was made to preserve this place as a historical monument... a project for the improvement and landscaping of the Butovo training ground monument is ready... it will be necessary to resolve the issue of financing of improvement works. This issue was raised before the joint board of the Government of Moscow and the Moscow region. If we talk about what we could actually do now if we had the funds, then we could seriously begin to improve the territory... Money is required for repairs , but in fact the restoration of the preserved outbuilding of the estate. We intended to organize a museum in this building. Funds are also needed for our archival work, ongoing work, because we need consumables, equipment, and at least some kind of salaries for people... What The deeper we work on this project, the more problems arise so far, mostly purely domestic ones.It is necessary to resolve the issue of communications: first of all, electricity. We need to get gas going, everything needs to be changed."
In general, though" Not a word was said about Butovo as a place of mass executions and burials either during the “Beria rehabilitation” or during the “Khrushchev thaw” and also was nowhere to be found" not a single document, not a single order, even indirectly confirming the existence of the Butovo special facility", but some kind of information dump still happened, and information is spread from it using the method of a damaged phone.
Question - sorry for the rhyme - where is the stuffing from?? And for what? Wasn’t that enough in the thirties anyway? Why and to whom did it become necessary to make things worse?
“In the Central Archive of the FSB there is Fund No. 7, containing acts of execution of sentences, which no one has ever accessed before. I didn’t look at 1991. It was there that the Group Mozokhina documents were found indicating that in 1921-1928. burials of victims of repression were carried out in the very center of Moscow on the territory of the Yauz hospital, from 1926 to 1936. - at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, and from 1935 to 1953. - Partial burials, partially cremation of those executed were carried out in the Moscow crematorium at the Donskoye Cemetery. These documents contained clear instructions to the commandants of cemeteries (who, among many other public services, were then part of the NKVD system). The picture was this: for each fact of burial or cremation there was a memorandum in which they asked to accept so many corpses (about 10-20 per day) with a list of names.".
Is it clear now. Accounting and control. However, the volumes are not the same. Little bloodlust. And here
“In 1991, through the efforts of a public group led by M. Mindlin, execution lists of those sentenced to death with notes on the execution of sentences were discovered.”Or like this: “At the end of 1991, previously unknown, unregistered 18 volumes of files with orders and acts on the execution of sentences for the execution of 20,675 people were discovered in the archives of the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Security in the period from August 8, 1937 to October 19, 1938.”
In the other place: “And only at the end of 1991, previously unknown and not registered anywhere materials were discovered in the archives of the Moscow KGB department. More precisely, 18 volumes of files with orders and acts on the execution of sentences for the execution of 20,675 people from August 1937 to October 1938... One “veterans” of the NKVD, whose name the powerful agency did not want to reveal, verified their signatures and confirmed the presence of “special facilities” in Butovo and Kommunarka.”
“The declassification of the Butovo training ground could not have been done without a journalist: it turned out to be A.A. Milchakov, son of the repressed first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee A.I. Milchakova", which "found" the testing ground, "based on simple logic"
- like, they shot them in the millions, but you couldn’t kill them all on Donskoy territory, you had to bury those who were shot somewhere.
And here is Yagoda’s dacha in Butovo, as well as the NKVD rest house, as well as the NKVD shooting range - here it is, everything grows together.
Well, Milchakov made a TV report (when is unclear, but I believe, also in 1991, whoever remembers the wave of that time will understand everything - a spoon is dear to dinner).
Documents, as I understand it (18 volumes), no one except a group of researchers saw it, although the lists of those executed are posted online, or here (not scans, however, but in Word format).
That's all the documents. In Word format. And most of all the links (those who are not too lazy to google it themselves will see for themselves) are on words from unnamed "locals" and what the group was told by a certain
Journalists, as usual, paint: "Hundreds of people... silently wander along the narrow paths between thirteen filled ditches, noticeably standing out against the background of the earth. Twenty thousand dumb skulls under this earth, twenty thousand restless souls among these rare trees..."...
On the other hand, it is known that
“In 1997, partial archaeological research was carried out: one of the burial ditches was opened. On an area of only 12 square meters, burials in five layers were discovered; experts counted the remains of 149 people here. A lot of work The discovery of the ditches was carried out in the summer of 2002. Experts identified and mapped 13 burial ditches. But the research is not finished, answers to many questions have not yet been found."It would seem that these questions need to be answered! Not everyone can refer to rumors, to the words of nameless “former NKVD drivers”, to 18 volumes of “previously unaccounted for archives”, which no one except “a public group led by M. Mindlina" , as I understand it, and have not seen it, and which have already been published in a six-volume archive.
After all, if, as they write, up to five thousand people were actually shot a day, then it is necessary to carry out exhumation, reburial, in general, to provide the world with evidence, and for the murdered, a dignified rest.
After all - "Thirteen ditches filled to the brim with dead people like mud."
Although no one is going to do this, as I understand it, they will immediately build a museum and memorial complex, without really understanding what happened there.
Maybe because:
-
Were the remains of specific people found?
- No. To do this, apparently, some very complex research must be carried out.
Judging by the excavation that was done in 1997, there are no complete remains of, say, a human skeleton. Everything is mixed up there... They filled the ditches with whatever they wanted, with garbage."
Garbage. Between 20 and 100,000 victims were buried in debris so that Only 149 people were found.It is explained like this: " It is now simply impossible to identify individual remains : the executed lie so densely that archaeologists who recently carried out excavations on twelve square meters The remains of 149 people were discovered.".
We found 149 at 12 meters, then, as I understand it, we multiplied this figure by the approximate area of the ditches, so the problem matched the answer that was suggested by Mindlin’s group. For some reason I remember the case of the discovery of another mass grave site (I can’t find the link, but the story is well-known on the Internet, many should remember it), about which it was immediately announced - here it is, another evidence of the crimes of the NKVD (and there children’s remains were found , women's, etc.) - in general, they were just about to erect another monument to the victims, when it turned out that this was a plague burial of the thirteenth century.
In Butovo, the Butovo Memorial Center has already been created, work is underway to "to the creation of a memorial complex on the site of the former NKVD-FSB special zone "Butovo", and also write that “The Database “Victims of mass terror, executed at the Butovo training ground of the NKVD in 1937-1938 is being created. With the support Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (grant No. 06-01-12140v) creates a unique software. Work is underway to digitize documents and photographic materials. The publication of this Database on the Internet is being prepared.", but for some reason it seems to me that the word “grant” is key here and you shouldn’t really count on the appearance of digitized documents on the Internet confirming mass executions in Butovo on such a scale.
Especially when, already knowing about the “unexpectedly found” 18 volumes, undocumented stories of unknown eyewitnesses and Colonel M. E. Kirillina, you read that FSB allocated this training ground to the Patriarchate almost voluntarily, and at first they didn’t want to, but then “Unexpectedly, these issues were resolved quickly”, and then “with the funds of the Moscow government, the road from the Varshavskoe highway was practically rebuilt in Drozhzhino. A bus was launched here, a regular service was established. This flight was organized precisely so that people would come to the burial site”, then it becomes clear that the case was sanctioned from the very top, the most striking evidence of which is not even the FSB, but the fact that Luzhkov backed down from building a residential microdistrict there.
Now “Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II laid the foundation for a new stone church in Butovo,” and “Putin bowed to the victims of the “Russian Calvary.”
It seems that all this creepy story with the training ground there is another anti-Soviet myth, moreover, designed to bind the USSR and Nazi Germany more tightly. It’s not for nothing that almost all publications mention such recognizable details as the ditches themselves, “gas chamber” machines in which prisoners were poisoned with gas (yes, yes, we are told that the NKVD did this even before the war, before the Nazis), as well as such the facts that before the execution the prisoners were stripped naked and then their things were stolen - everything is as in fascist concentration camps, just put an equal sign, not to mention the fact that the whole essence is a carbon copy reminiscent of the Katyn execution case, about which many copies have already been broken.
It's almost official: "The Butovo training ground is one of the largest sites in Europe for mass executions and burials of victims of political repression."
And of course, “Our short memory and lack of repentance for the sins of communism, as was the case in post-fascist Germany, inevitably leads Russia to a new year in 1937.”
In general, to the point, what I'm all about is this: does anyone have information on the test site - besides that yellowness, rumors and the number 20,765, in general, what is everywhere on the Internet and is distributed as a carbon copy from one and the same or a dubious source?
Someone has already exposed the information scientific analysis? I tried to critically comprehend it and, perhaps, check it (my text, of course, does not pretend to be anything like that - I have neither the time nor the skills, I was just interested in the topic). If you have any information, please share.
I have no doubt at all that severe lawlessness was going on in the thirties, I do not in the slightest want to downplay the size of this tragedy, but I would like to know whether this whole story with the training ground was not a falsification.
I would like to clarify.
Purely for myself. For now.
Based on common sense, it seems to me more and more that the story with the training ground is Goebbelsism pure water. Everything fits together too neatly official version and too many unanswered questions remain on the merits.
I don’t believe that four (or even 12) people could unleash such a massacre using revolvers alone. I don’t believe that prisoners were taken to Butovo to be executed; this is still the outskirts, but in 1937, when Moscow was five times smaller, and the roads were five times worse, no one would drive paddy wagons such a distance every night (one road takes about three hours in both directions, plus gasoline, plus depreciation). Sentences were carried out in basements and courtyards prisons, there are tons of documentary evidence of this, and the corpses were taken to the nearest special cemeteries - it is possible that Butovo was one of them, and prisoners were actually buried there for thirty years, but there is still a difference between a mass burial and a mass execution, yes ?
I don’t believe that these so often mentioned ditches were dug specifically for executions - Butovo was officially a shooting range, and at every equipped shooting range there must be fortification and trench networks for training soldiers in conditions close to combat. The stories that some new types of weapons are being tested at shooting ranges are all jaundice; although such tests do happen, in 99 percent of cases the shooting range is used for shooting practice and testing soldiers. Hence the trench lines, which, I think, with the onset of war and the approach German troops to the capital were strengthened and re-equipped for military operations as lines of defense. After the war, they were apparently partly filled in over time, and partly they were used as garbage receptacles (hence the garbage in the ditches). We must not forget that in the area of the landfill there was previously an estate, and then NKVD warehouses and an NKVD rest house, so some part of the filled-in ditches may simply be traces of the laying of communications - gas, water, sewerage. In general, until remains with traces of bullets are presented, as well as some sane documents on the executions at Butovo, the story can be questioned.
On the mass grave in Katyn, say, there are entire libraries, photo libraries and even video libraries, but on Butovo - as I understand it, there are no documents except the mentioned collection "Butovo training ground. 1937-1938."
By the way, regarding mass graves - Have any of the journalists even tried to think that a hecatomb of such a scale (and, as they say, sprinkled with a “thin layer of earth”) is a guaranteed epidemic in the area?
How many crows should hang over the landfill, how many dogs and wild animals should come to tear up the graves, what hordes of rats should settle at the feast, what smell should linger for kilometers around, and how quickly the plague spread in the global grave will grow groundwater- and all this is close to the capital?
And how manybleach should be poured into ditches to avoid this
- what a “thin layer of earth” there is, according to the sanitary standards I read somewhere for the prevention of epidemics when carrying out mass graves (mass graves) during the war, at least 100 grams of bleach should be poured per kilogram of corpse weight, and near settlements- half a kilo. Let's calculate the volume of chlorine delivery to Butovo?
And not yet official results exhumation - with traces of bullet holes, carbon dating of the remains (to make sure that the burial is not from the thirteenth, say, century, and also not a gangster cache of the nineties for the corpses of hostages), as well as cartridges, etc. - to check the weapons from which the shots were fired, because by and large, the Germans were there too, and there were fighting there, so who the 149 discovered people were and who killed them still needs to be established) - in general, for now everything is based on such a shaky foundation, this whole story inspires little confidence.
In fact, only the given names are documented (as well as, as they say, biographies and summaries of the sentences of those executed), and, I think, they are all real - but where and from what documents they were taken is not very clear yet - after all, In Moscow and the Moscow region, 27,508 people were sentenced to capital punishment during the period from 1935 to 1953, and throughout the country - about 800,000, so there are enough names for more than one training ground.
In the meantime, it seems to me that the most likely theory is this: after the August 1991 coup, in the wake of anti-Sovietism and the destruction of all institutions of the USSR and its ideology, these “unexpectedly found 18 volumes” were given to the “memorialists,” who are always used in the dark, as well as confirmation events that were made by unnamed individuals, as well as professional disinformers. This was inspired by the Yeltsin mafia in order to support the ideological justification of their thorough anti-Sovietism, which, in turn, was the first step towards personal enrichment. However, at that stage, Yeltsin managed without Butov.
By 1993, the idea was generally clear. And the second wave of Butovo’s history falls precisely on the time following the shooting of the Palace of Soviets and the appearance of the term “red-brown.” Mark Deitch then wrote articles beginning with the words “as you know, fascism and communism are one and the same thing” (now he expressed more modestly), in general, the information that the NKVD executioners outdid the SS executioners came in very handy.
Well, the Butovo epic received another renaissance in 1995, when Yeltsin was elected for a second term (who remembers “vote with your heart”), and when the USSR was painted in such colors and with such Goebbelsian methods that it was even creepy. Why then there wasn’t a global release of information that hecatombs of such magnitude were found in the near Moscow region, I don’t know - most likely, they simply didn’t have time to prepare the material so that it would be perceived more holistically. After all, even now, after ten years of work, as we see, even a cursory glance makes us ask a lot of questions. Or maybe there were others, more effective methods, or the idea was simply abandoned for other reasons.
However, the fact that this project is not being promoted as well as it could be, but is not being closed (and we understand that Luzhkov would gladly build a residential microdistrict there, regardless of how many people are buried there) suggests that they are holding it back , as a trump card for the future. Just in case. Especially, time is running, people are becoming stupid, it is becoming easier to manipulate them, and in another five to ten years no one will even ask the slightest question whether there was a boy.
The following materials are a continuation of this one.
1937 Valery Chkalov makes the first non-stop flight from Moscow to Vancouver, Mikhail Romm releases Soviet Union the film “Lenin in October”, Vera Mukhina creates the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” for the World Exhibition in Paris, and the capital’s metro gets a new ring station"Kyiv".
Late in the evening, cars with the sign “Bread” often drive past the former Danilov Monastery (where a special detention center for children of “enemies of the people” was set up) along the old Warsaw road. If one of the Muscovites, surprised by such a concentration of grain trucks, managed to trace their route, it would turn out that the path begins from the prisons - Butyrskaya, Taganskaya, Matrosskaya Tishina, Lubyanka. And then it’s not difficult to guess that these cars were paddy wagons. But curiosity in those years was too dangerous a quality, bread was bread.
“Grain trucks” transported prisoners to the territory of the special zone of the economic administration of the NKVD, located between a forest surrounded by barbed wire and the remains of the Drozhzhino estate. This place was called the Butovo shooting range. From the cars, the prisoners were led into a long barracks, where a roll call was taken, then the people were compared with the documents delivered with them from prison and the verdict was announced: the death penalty. To avoid escape attempts and riots, sentences were not announced in prisons, and along the way people thought that they were being transported to another prison or to a transit camp. And only in the barracks at the training ground did they learn the truth.
On some days, several dozen, on others several hundred, people waited here for dawn and death. How did they spend these last hours, what sounds came from behind the wooden barracks walls - no one will ever know this secret. Started working after sunrise firing squad, consisting of several people. The suicide bombers were taken out of the barracks in small groups, placed on the edge of a ditch dug in advance using an excavator, and killed one by one with pistol shots to the back of the head.
The executioner saw every person whom he first took out of the barracks and then shot. Then the firing squad received a bucket of alcohol, and in the evening the driver took them to the NKVD hostel in a semi-conscious state, so that a few days later everything would repeat all over again.
In total, 20,761 people were shot at the Butovo training ground from August 1937 to October 1938. Their grave was 13 ditches dug by local residents with a bulldozer, with a total length of 900 meters. The width of each ditch was 4–5 meters, the depth was approximately 4 meters. Mass executions here began after the NKVD issued Decree No. 00447 on July 31, 1937, “On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements.” “Anti-Soviet elements” included the so-called “church members” - Orthodox priests and laymen.
In the Butovo ditches lie 935 people shot for professing the Orthodox faith. But most of all ordinary workers, employees of Soviet institutions and peasants are buried here. This is what is written in the investigative files: “farmers” and “grain growers.” The age of those killed ranged from 15-16-year-old teenagers to gray-haired old men over 80. It is known, for example, that the holy martyr Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), who was shot for “involvement in a counter-revolutionary monarchist organization,” who was 81 years old, was brought to the training ground on a stretcher.
Some were shot by entire families: husband, wife and adult children. Others - in villages: for example, from the village of Petrovo, Ryazan region, 18 people were shot in Butovo. Some were arrested only for nationality. So, in Moscow, since pre-revolutionary times, there was a Chinese community that ran laundries. The “Chinese washerwomen” who remained in Moscow after the Bolsheviks came to power, mostly men, were in great demand until 1937, when almost all of them were shot in Butovo.
Some were “rewarded” by execution for outstanding work. So, Baron von Grevenets, a native of famous family Russian Germans, was a talented engineer. He was sought out in the camps to design a unique mechanism for the spire at the River Station in Moscow: this spire could rise and fall. After the completion of the work, von Grevenets, like many other prisoners of Dmitlag, was sent to the Butovo training ground.
After the executions
After 1938, when mass executions stopped, the site and the surrounding area continued to be used for burials of those executed in Moscow prisons. And the commandant’s office building, located 100 meters from the burial ditches, became a “weekend rest house” for senior NKVD officers. Here they had barbecues in the park of the Drozhzhino estate, took a steam bath, and swam in the pond. Lavrentiy Beria himself loved to relax here and came often. There is evidence from local residents who worked as servants that the style of relaxation is not mHe got married in the first years of the war.
After the war, on the territory of the special zone, in the center of which there was firing range, several buildings for the training center for intelligence officers were built. In particular, specialists from countries studied here Warsaw Pact. A garden was laid out at the training ground, an apple alley and strawberry beds were planted. The center's employees and their students walked through this garden after classes, not suspecting (or perhaps even suspecting) that there were thousands of human bodies underneath them.
In the 1950s, employees of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs began to be given land in the former special zone for dachas. The plots were adjacent to the landfill, and when summer residents began to arbitrarily cut off their own land, they began to stumble upon incompletely decomposed human remains. And although the footage was verified and there was no unnecessary talk, some families retained memories of the terrible discoveries. Therefore, in the late 1960s, an area of approximately seven hectares, covering all the burial ditches, was fenced with a fence with barbed wire. Gradually it became overgrown with bushes and hogweed, turning into a wild wasteland. IN former building The commandant's office set up a pioneer camp for children of security officers, which later became a children's sports camp and existed until the early 1990s.
The Butovo training ground as a place of mass executions was not mentioned either during the “Beria rehabilitation” (after Stalin’s death, for a short period, Beria became the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and carried out a number of reforms, including releasing illegally convicted people from the camps), nor during the time of Khrushchev. When in 1988 the Council of People's Deputies of the USSR decided to rehabilitate those convicted under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country were posthumously rehabilitated. A rehabilitation group was created in the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Bank of the Russian Federation, one of whose members, a state security colonel, lived as a child in a holiday village near the Butovo training ground and heard about the burials. But no documentary evidence could be found.
In 1991, in the archives of the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Defense, the so-called “execution books” were found - bound orders for execution and acts of carrying out the sentence. But even there not a word was said about where exactly these twenty thousand people were shot. A confrontation began within the walls of the Ministry of Security: a group of employees tried to establish the truth and find the execution site, others resisted them. Even in the personal files of the executioners, the place where exactly they shot and buried the condemned was not indicated.
Finally, state security officers managed to contact the commandant of the administrative and economic department of the NKVD, who worked in the special zone in 1937–1938. It was in conversations with him that the word “Butovo” was heard for the first time. Then other witnesses were found - drivers and local residents, who not only confirmed the information about the Butovo training ground, but also pointed to another special facility ten kilometers from Butovo - “Kommunarka”, where tens of thousands of people were also shot and buried.
Next, researchers and members of a public group for perpetuating the memory of victims of repression under the Moscow Soviet under the leadership of former political prisoner Mikhail Mindlin got down to business, working in the archives, compiling a card index and biographical information for the Book of Memory “Butovo Test Site”. For each deceased person, archival investigative files with photographs were found in the FSB archives.
Community
In 1993, when the first relatives of the victims stepped onto the land of the Butovo training ground, it was an overgrown wasteland surrounded by a fence, which was patrolled daily with dogs. There were no longer any buildings here; bushes and hogweed stood taller than human height.
For relatives - and these were not only children and grandchildren, then the husbands, wives, brothers and sisters of those executed were alive - the information that their loved ones were shot in 1937 in the Moscow region was a shocking surprise. Most were sure that they died in the camps, because the sentence stated “ten years without the right to correspondence.” And suddenly it turned out that there was no Kolyma, no Magadan in their lives, that they met their death not far from well-known dacha places.
One of the first to come to the training ground in 1994 was the family of priest Vladimir Ambartsumov, who was shot here on November 5, 1937. Father Vladimir’s spiritual son, Gleb Kaleda, married his daughter Lydia Ambartsumova after the war. He became a major Soviet scientist, a doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences, and in 1972 he was secretly ordained a priest. For more than 18 years, no one except those closest to him knew that Father Gleb was performing divine services in his ordinary apartment in a nine-story block on the outskirts of Moscow. Thus, many children of the repressed became their successors: the children of priests were ordained, the children of the intelligentsia cherished their sense of inner freedom and continued to live in search of meaning.
After his entry into open ministry in 1990, Archpriest Gleb Kaleda served in churches in Moscow, revived the church in Butyrka prison, baptized and confessed to death row prisoners awaiting execution. For 57 years, the Ambartsumov-Kaled family knew nothing about the place, date and circumstances of the death of their father, grandfather, and father-in-law. At first they hoped that after 10 years he would return from the camp, then, like everyone else, they thought that he died there.
And in 1994, Kirill Glebovich Kaleda, the grandson of Vladimir’s father, learns from the daughter of a man arrested with Ambartsumov in the same case that his grandfather was most likely shot in Butovo.
“I came home and told my parents that I had found the place where my grandfather suffered,” says Archpriest Kirill Kaleda, rector of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Butovo. “My parents asked me in unison to take them there. This was Dad's first time leaving home after the operation. The burial area then belonged to the State Security Service, and it was possible to enter inside only on weekends, and we arrived on Tuesday. Radonitsa was just there. And dad served the first memorial service in Butovo near the fence on an overgrown path among the bushes, facing the burial area.”
Archpriest Gleb Kaleda died shortly after he found the resting place of his spiritual father and father-in-law, but his children, together with other children of the victims, created the first parish community at the site. In the same 1994, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II, a worship cross designed by Dmitry Shakhovsky was erected at the training ground. This successful artist and sculptor, author of the famous clock on the building of the puppet theater named after. S. Obraztsov, turned out to be the son of Archpriest Mikhail Shik, who was executed in Butovo.
Several families of the victims united to improve the site, formalize its legal status and hold joint services. Then the decision came to build a temple on the site of the executions. Kirill Glebovich Kaleda, by that time a researcher at the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was chosen as the head of the construction. His older brother, Sergei Glebovich, had a construction company that was brought in to work.
In 1995–1996, construction began on a small wooden church, which became the first home of the Butovo community. It was made in Soligalich, brought to the test site, and the interior decoration was designed by Dmitry Shakhovskoy in the style of Russian northern architecture. When the question arose about a priest for the newly built church, Archbishop Arseny (Epifanov) invited Kirill Glebovich Kaleda to continue the family tradition (and by that time one of his brothers, John, was already a priest, and sister Juliana was a nun, abbess of the Conception Monastery). Since then, Archpriest Kirill has been serving at the Butovo training ground, the site of his grandfather’s death.
Monument administered by the Church
The fact that the Butovo training ground was handed over to the Church is a unique coincidence of circumstances. In the 1990s, no one needed the execution sites: the authorities did not know what to do with them; these objects were transferred from the balance sheet of the FSB to the budget of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. That is, the Butovo test site should have been transferred to the Moscow region. But the Moscow region did not seek to increase the burden on its budget. At the same time, a public religious organization appeared - a group of active laymen who built the temple. At the same time, it was clear to the FSB officers that this place could not become a park for celebrations, that someone had to invest effort and money in maintaining the site.
In 1995, a decision was made to build a new microdistrict on the territory of the former special zone and dachas. The burial site itself, limited by a fence, although it had not yet been declared a historical monument, could not be touched, because from numerous publications in the press people knew what exactly was there. But the perimeter of the landfill could be surrounded by nine-story buildings. This would make further memorialization of the site impossible. Then the community of the Butovo Church, the relatives of the victims and the Memorial society decided to prevent construction at all costs. The Kaled family turned to Patriarch Alexy II for intercession, who in turn turned to the Moscow Government.
And the almost impossible happened: construction was stopped at the stage of building the ground floor, the skeletons of the foundations of which are still sticking out of the ground.
Thanks to the personal intervention of Yuri Luzhkov and the Moscow government, a highway was built here and regular bus No. 18 was launched. And since the Church then actually saved the Butovo landfill, it was given not only the land on which the wooden temple stands, but also the entire burial area that had passed on the balance sheet of the parish of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia (part is owned, part is rented, part is for free use). In 1997, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II, archaeological excavations were carried out in one of the burial ditches; these excavations confirmed the presence of execution burials.
On May 27, 2000, Patriarch Alexy II celebrated an open-air liturgy at the Butovo training ground for the first time. Almost the entire Moscow clergy (8 bishops, about 200 clergy) and three and a half thousand lay people served and prayed with him. Since then, the Patriarchal Liturgy at the Butovo training ground on the fourth Sunday after Easter has become a Moscow church tradition.
In 2001, the Butovo training ground was declared a historical monument. regional significance, which made it possible to avoid further attempts to develop land adjacent to the burial site.
In 2006, the land was reclaimed and the exact boundaries of each burial ditch were established. Today, the parish of the New Martyrs spends about 3 million rubles a year only on maintaining the territory of the landfill and security, which makes it impossible to finance additional projects, including those related to memorial work. Sponsors or additional budget money are sometimes found for one-time events: every year, for the arrival of the Patriarch, the access road is repaired, and a belfry was recently built. But in order to open a memory lane or make good memorial plaques, we already have to look for additional funds, which do not yet exist.
Among those who rest at the Butovo site, there are quite a lot of people of other faiths and religions and not believers at all. The issue was resolved very delicately: the symbolic space of the testing ground was divided. In addition to the temple and the worship cross, there is a platform with a stele, next to which there are benches and blue spruce trees growing - a small memorial in secular traditions. Civil memorial services are held here, wreaths are laid at the stele, and relatives can rest and remember their loved ones on the benches. The Old Believers recently took the initiative and found a compromise: an Old Believer cross-mednitsa was cut into the center of the worship cross and consecrated, and now funeral services according to the Old Russian rite are held here. Catholics, Lutherans, Muslims and Jews have the opportunity to come to Butovo and pray according to their own rules. The landscaping of the landfill is being carried out for everyone.
Saving Memory
Director of the Butovo Polygon Memorial and Educational Center Igor Garkavy believes that “state memorials always run the risk of becoming official projects of officials into which it is impossible to breathe life. And we see the Butovo memorial alive and developing.”
However, the museum complex still exists only in the form of several small exhibitions in the lower part of the stone temple. The Center has a small room in the parish house, where relatives of victims still come to clarify information about their loved ones or, conversely, provide new information or donate personal belongings to the museum.
Since 2006, according to the law, only relatives have the right to work with investigative files in state archives. The Center's employees advise them, tell them which archive to look for the file in, and ask them to copy the materials for research work.
In 2007, a new large white stone temple was consecrated next to the test site. It was designed by architect Mikhail Kesler in the tradition of Russian tented churches. In its lower part, the altar of which is consecrated in honor of the “Sovereign” icon of the Mother of God, everything is dedicated to the Butovo new martyrs. There are 51 icons hanging along the perimeter of the walls, corresponding to the number of days of execution. Each icon depicts saints shot together on the same day. In the narthex there is a small exhibition: in the display case are the belongings of those executed, recovered from excavations in 1997 - shoes, fragments of clothing, bundles, cartridges. In other display cases there are personal belongings of some of the new martyrs that served them during their lifetime: priestly vestments, books and notebooks, a violin, a shawl... This exhibition is the basis of the future museum.
“Our charter sets out the goal of perpetuating the memory of the victims by maximizing the preservation of the values that they chose as guidelines in life,” says Igor Garkavy. – This is not only the perpetuation of a name, but also a story about the world for which the person was shot. We want to ensure that there is a dialogue between the living and those who were destroyed here. So that they return to us through their images, their photographs, through their creations, if they are creative people.” That’s why the things that the dead used during their lifetime, the books they read, their letters are so important.
It will never be possible to know anything about most of those executed: how they lived, what they thought, who they loved. All that remains of them are lines in the investigative files. Their inner world, a view of things can be presented through historical reconstruction. Garkavy’s idea is to recreate in the museum space the world of the peasant, the world of Russian Germans, the world of the intelligentsia, and so on. It is planned to create a memory lane on the site itself. The execution lists will be immortalized on stone slabs: the names of the dead will be grouped by execution date. And to make it easier to find the right name, special electronic navigators may be used.
The Memorial Educational Center also studies and recreates Russian memorial culture. The tradition of churches on the blood, the installation of memorial crosses, mass graves - all this has been in Russia for centuries. An example of a museum-necropolis from relatively recent times is the cemetery in memory of all those who fell in the First World War in Vsekhsvyatskoe (the current Sokol district), destroyed under Soviet rule and with difficulty being restored today. But the developments of its creators have been preserved, on which you can rely.
Igor Garkavy, who often leads excursions around the Butovo training ground, claims that “it’s difficult to be here without an idea of Easter. For many secular people Arriving at the Butovo training ground is torture: “I’m standing, and there are thousands of bodies under me.” A believer feels this too, but he also knows that martyrs lie here. Christ has risen, and everyone who suffered with Him and for Him will also rise, and you understand that behind this terrible earthly death, Eternal Life was revealed to them, the reflection of the radiance of which falls on this place.”
The article was published in 2012 in the journal “Bulletin of the Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called”.
When preparing the text, the book “Butovo Test Site”, ed. L.A. Golovkova, M., 2004
Former special objects of the NKVD, which served as places of extrajudicial killings, torture, executions and burials during the period of mass repressions of the 30s of the last century, remain unhealing scars on the soil of the Moscow region.
The largest such place in Moscow and the Moscow region - the Butovo training ground or the Butovo special zone of the NKVD - is located on the land of the former ancient Drozhzhino estate, known since the 16th century. Its last owner was industrialist Ivan Ivanovich Zimin, brother of the famous Sergei Ivanovich Zimin, owner of the Moscow Private Opera. At the Zimin stud farm, which was worn in the 1920s. name Kamenev, the former manager of the estate, the nephew of its recent owner, Ivan Leontyevich Zimin, worked as the manager. He lived here with his wife, the famous opera singer (later a professor at the Conservatory) S.I. Druzyakina. A wooden two-story house with carved cornices and platbands, a wide staircase and a small alley of blue spruce trees in front of it stood on the territory of the future special zone.
Around 1934, the land of the Drozhzhino estate came into the possession of the OGPU. The horse depot was closed and residents were evicted. In the mid-1930s. On the eve of mass executions, the Economic Directorate of the NKVD became preoccupied with finding places for burials. Three such objects were identified near Moscow: in the area of the village of Butovo, on the territory of the Kommunarka state farm and near the city of Lyubertsy. (This third zone was kept as a reserve; it was not used.) A shooting range was equipped on the territory of the Butovo estate on an area of about 6 hectares (the total area of the special zone was then more than 2 sq. km). Local residents were informed that training exercises would be carried out near their villages. After the notorious order of N.I. Ezhov No. 00447 of July 30, 1937, mass executions began here. In total, from August 8, 1937 to October 19, 1938, 20,761 people were killed at the training ground. The first execution under these orders was carried out here on August 8, 1937. On this day, 91 people were killed.
Since the executions were carried out according to a plan defined in the “limits,” the security officers used a certain technology for the executions and burial of the remains. The Butovo training ground, as one of the central facilities of the NKVD KHOZU, was well technically equipped. 13 ditches for the burial of those executed were dug in advance with an excavator. Their depth is 4-4.5 m, width 4.5-5 m. The total length of the ditches is more than 900 m.
Those sentenced to execution were brought from Moscow prisons at night, placed in a common barracks and checked against documents (it was strictly necessary to have a photograph). In the morning, the firing squad began its “work,” arriving from Moscow and stationed in a house specially designated for it. Prisoners were taken out in small groups and shot with close range on the edge of the ditch. The bodies were dumped in a ditch and possibly stacked (rubber gloves were found during excavations).
The most numerous executions in Butovo occurred in December 1937 and February 1938: 474 people were shot on December 8, 502 on February 17, and 562 on February 28. Among Butov’s victims, according to available documents, the largest number are Muscovites, residents of the Moscow region and neighboring regions, which were then wholly or partially included in the Moscow region. But there are also many representatives of the republics of the former USSR, persons of foreign origin and citizenship, whose only fault was their “inappropriate” nationality or place of birth. In terms of numbers, after Russians, Latvians, Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and Belarusians predominate; there are representatives from France, USA, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan, India, China; In total there are over sixty nationalities. Most of the people buried in Butovo were simple peasants, often illiterate or completely illiterate. Sometimes they were shot by entire families - five to seven people each. The next largest victims of Butov are workers and employees of various Soviet institutions. More than a third of the total number of those executed were prisoners of Dmitlag, this real state within a state; the composition of the Dmilagovites or, as they were called, “kanalarmeytsy” - from world-famous scientists, builders, poets, clergy, teachers - to unrehabilitated and not subject to rehabilitation recidivist criminals.
In the Butovo ditches lie the remains of outstanding statesmen of pre-revolutionary Russia: Chairman of the 2nd State Duma F.A. Golovin, Moscow governor, later chief of gendarmes - V.F. Dzhunkovsky, his adjutant and friend - General V.S. Gadon, great-grandson of Kutuzov and at the same time a relative of Tukhachevsky, professor of church singing M. N. Khitrovo-Kramskaya, great-granddaughter of Saltykov-Shchedrin T. N. Gladyrevskaya; this is also one of the first Russian pilots N. N. Danilevsky and a Czech by nationality, a member of the expedition of O. Yu. Schmidt - Ya. V. Brezin, representatives of Russian noble families: the Rostopchins, Tuchkovs, Gagarins, Shakhovskys, Obolenskys, Bibikovs, Golitsyns; These are brilliant engineers, these are artists whose miraculously saved works now adorn the best museums and galleries in the world - Alexander Drevin, Roman Semashkevich, other artists: there are over eighty of them here - painters, graphic artists, decorators, designers. Among those shot were poor robbers - carters who delivered stone and gravel to the country's construction sites. Former policemen or, as they were also called, guards - about forty people. There are representatives of lower, middle and higher police ranks here, there is even a royal executioner. Numerous employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway and those simply born in Harbin or in the CER service area; together with relatives. A special group of those executed in Butovo were disabled people. In fact, disabled people unable to work (blind, deaf-mute, without arms or legs, or simply seriously ill) were shot as a way to “unload” the prisons, since they, convicted, as a rule, of begging or vagrancy, were refused to be accepted in the camps.
Among the “contingents subject to repression,” Yezhov’s Order No. 00447 specifically singled out “church members.” First of all, clergy, monastics and active laity of the Russian Orthodox Church; more than 940 of them were identified on the execution lists of the Butovo training ground.
In 1937, a new all-out attack on the Church and believers began. That year, 8 thousand churches were closed, 70 dioceses and vicariates were liquidated, and about 60 bishops were shot. Seven of them were shot at the Butovo training ground. This is sschmch. Seraphim (Chichagov) (glorified at the Council of Bishops in 1997), these are the smchch., canonized at the Anniversary Council of Bishops in 2000: Dimitri (Dobroserdov), Nikolai (Dobronravov), Nikita (Delectorsky), smchch.: Jonah (Lazarev), Arkady (Ostalsky). Butovo’s list of as yet uncanonized clergy is headed by the murdered Bishop Arseny (Zhadanovsky). Everyone involved in church matters was charged with a standard charge under Article 58 of the Criminal Code: anti-Soviet agitation, counter-revolutionary activity. But the reasons for the accusation could be very different, for example: “preserving the church and planting secret monasticism”, “failure to inform” (“knew about the fugitive priest and did not inform”), helping exiles, sheltering homeless clergy, storing an icon or prayer. Among the executed clergy there were many well-known and deeply revered priests: Archimandrite Kronid (Lyubimov), the last 79-year-old rector of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, died a martyr on December 10, 1937; ten people who were involved in the same case with him were also shot at the Butovo training ground. In December, January and February 1937-1938. 27 hieromonks of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra died in Butovo, having recently returned from prison; most of them were placed in the parishes of the Zagorsk region by Archimandrite Kronid. Day of death of Sschmch. Kronid and those who suffered with him became especially revered by the monks of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, who on this day visit Butovo and perform a memorial service at the place of execution at the large Worship Cross. Among the Orthodox, the names of the now glorified sschmchch were widely known and revered. Sergius (Makhaev) - priest of the Iveron community on Bolshaya Polyanka, Fr. Zosima (Trubachev), who cared for the priests and nuns exiled to Maloyaroslavets and who was arrested there, Fr. Vladimir (Medvedyuk). To date, 332 new martyrs have been glorified among the victims in Butovo.
In 1962, the Butovo training ground was surrounded by a high wooden fence. This territory was strictly guarded until 1995. However, already in 1990, acts on the execution of sentences in Moscow and the Moscow region were found and declassified. An internal investigation by state security agencies revealed that 20,761 people were shot in Butovo. Relatives of those executed began to come to this place of grief, and in 1993, with the assistance of the Moscow Government, the first memorial sign was installed here. In that difficult economic and political situation, which developed in the country in the 90s, neither the state nor any other political force were not ready to accept responsibility for turning the site of the executions into a place of memory. Therefore, the further fate of this “special object” was connected with the initiative public group formed in 1993-1995. mainly from relatives of the victims. Already in 1994, a group of believers built a Worship Cross based on a sketch by D. M. Shakhovsky, and at the same time the first liturgy was celebrated in a camp tent church on the territory of the training ground. In 1995, the land of the Butovo training ground was transferred to the parish of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, which was under construction. The parish community was headed by the grandson of the martyr Vladimir Ambartsumov, who was executed at the Butovo training ground - Archpriest Kirill Kaleda, a former geologist, son of a famous scientist, secret priest (from 1972 to 1990) and church writer Archpriest. Gleb Kaleda. Through the works of Fr. Kirill and members of the church community began work to improve the territory of mass graves. According to the sketch of D. M. Shakhovsky, whose father was also shot in Butovo, the construction of a wooden church began, in which regular services began in 1996. In August 1997, with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch, archaeological excavations were carried out in a small area of the site. A section of the burial ditch with an area of 12.5 m2 was uncovered. The remains of 59 people were discovered on the open surface of the burial. In total, 13 ditches have now been identified, with a total length of almost 900 meters. On August 9, 2001, by decree of the Government of the Moscow Region, the Butovo Test Site was declared a historical and cultural monument of local significance. Together with the protective zones, the total area of the historical monument was about 3 square meters. kilometers. In 2005-2006, the territory was improved and embankments were made over the burial ditches. The Butovo training ground is intended to become a historical and landscape memorial complex, an open-air museum; a “Garden of Memory” will be created on its territory, where the names of all victims will be immortalized. Thus, the Butovo site turned into a unique church and public memorial of national significance.
On May 7, 2000, the fourth Saturday after Easter, the first open-air service was held at the Butovo training ground, led by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus'. Since then, this annual patriarchal liturgy on the day of the Council of Butovo New Martyrs has become important event in the spiritual life of the entire Russian Church.
After the patriarchal service on May 15, 2004, Patriarch Alexy and the head of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Laurus, laid the foundation stone for a new stone church. The first draft design of the church belongs to A. S. Tutunov. The architectural design of the temple was developed by M. Yu. Koestler, under the auspices of the ARCHRAM company, the grandfather of whose leader A. N. Obolensky was also shot in Butovo.
The upper church was consecrated on May 19, 2007, three days after the signing of the act of reunification of the Russian Church Abroad. It is dedicated to the glorification of the feat of the new martyrs, the “Church Triumphant”. If the lower temple symbolizes Holy Week, then the upper temple symbolizes Easter. Patriarch Alexy gave his blessing to consecrate the central chapel of the upper church in honor of the Resurrection of Christ. The right chapel is consecrated in the name of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the left - in the name of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', as the head of the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
In 2007, on the seventieth anniversary of the Yezhovshchina, a unique religious procession was held from Solovki to Butovo. The religious procession brought to Butovo the Great Cross of Worship, made in the Solovetsky Cross-carving workshop of G. Kozhokar, one of the largest wooden carved crosses in the world. In the same year, Russian President V.V. Putin visited the Butovo training ground on the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression on October 30.
In 2002, on the initiative of the parishioners of the temple and relatives of the victims, with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch, the Butovo Memorial Scientific and Educational Center was created in order to coordinate the efforts of state, religious and public organizations to create a memorial complex. Its main statutory goal is “to restore historical justice through the maximum possible preservation for future generations of spiritual, scientific and aesthetic values created by people who died during the years of mass repression.” Through the joint efforts of the Center and the Parish, the Museum of Memory of the Victims is being created, for which the parish restored the building of the former commandant's office of the Butovo special zone of the NKVD.
Currently, also together with the Parish, the Memorial Center is working to create a Database on victims at the Butovo training ground in 1937 - 1938. It is based on the NKVD execution lists, covering the names of 20,761 people, published in the Butovo Test Site Memory Books. Gradually, scattered documents and evidence are united around this list, the analysis of which can only be carried out when creating a database.
It can be stated that the historical monument Butovo site is developing as a unique church and public memorial of national importance and known throughout the world.
Garkavyi I. V., Golovkova L. A.