Kira Obolenskaya at the Institute of Noble Maidens. Kira Obolenskaya

New Martyr Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya belonged to the ancient Obolensky family, which traced its ancestry to the legendary Prince Rurik. She is a representative of the 31st tribe of Rurikovich. Her father, Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Obolensky, served as regimental adjutant of the 13th Narva Hussar Regiment. In the 14th year of his service in the active army, retired captain captain D.I. Obolensky transferred to the “civilian rank” and was appointed head of the Volodavsky district of the Sedletsky province of the “Kingdom of Poland”. 1 Shortly before receiving this appointment, on March 6, 1889, a daughter, Kira, was born into the family of Ivan Dmitrievich and Elizaveta Georgievna (nee Olderogge) Obolensky. Upon reaching the age of 10, Kira was brought by her father to St. Petersburg to be enrolled in the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens, which was a traditional place of training for people of noble origin. “Wishing to place my daughter, Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya, at her own expense, in the Nikolaev half of the Smolny Institute,” he wrote in his petition, “I ask the Council to issue an order to this effect on the basis of the attached documents.” 2 At that time it was one of the most privileged educational institutions in Russia. Founded during the reign of Empress Catherine II at the Resurrection Novodevichy Convent, it served as a model for the organization of not only other institutes, but also many boarding houses and various women's educational institutions. The curriculum of the Smolny Institute was almost the same as in women's gymnasiums. The difference was in the level of teaching and in the intensive study of new languages. The charter also provided for the pupils to learn the rules of good upbringing, good behavior, social manners and courtesy. An important place in the educational system was given to religious education. Smolny graduates received the right to private and public teaching activities. Institute in X I X century played a very important role in the life of Russian society. “Smolyanki”, as educators and teachers of both their own and other people’s children, had a huge influence on the mental and moral development of several generations of Russian people.

The Smolny Institute was initially divided into two halves: Nikolaevskaya, where the daughters of persons with a rank no lower than colonel or state councilor, as well as hereditary nobles, were admitted, and Aleksandrovskaya, where the daughters of persons of a lower rank and the children of archpriests, the philistine class, merchants, and honorary citizens studied. etc. Each half had its own boss and its own inspector. Kira, as the daughter of a hereditary nobleman and a person of princely origin, was assigned to the Nikolaev part of the institute. Entering Smolny meant for her a long-term separation from her mother, father, brothers and sisters, from the atmosphere of love and warmth that filled the Obolensky house, from the way of life of a quiet county town. The rules of the institute were strict; the girls were kept in complete isolation from the outside world, protecting them from infection by “bad examples.” Until 1860, Smolny pupils were not allowed to go home even during the summer holidays; only thanks to the reform activities of K. Ushinsky, who held the post of class inspector in those years, this rule was abolished.

On May 26, 1904, Kira Obolenskaya successfully graduated from the Institute of Noble Maidens with a special award. “The pupil Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya,” says her certificate, “who completed a full course of seven general classes, during her stay at this institution, with excellent behavior, showed success: excellent in the Law of God, excellent in Russian language and literature, excellent in French good, very good in German, very good in history, very good in geography, excellent in natural science, very good in mathematics, excellent in pedagogy. Moreover, Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya studied dancing, handicrafts and housekeeping. Upon graduation, this girl was awarded the Most Merciful silver medal.” 3 After graduation from the institute, a new working life begins for Kira, despite her princely origin. For the first six years after graduating from Smolny, she gives private lessons as a home teacher. Subsequently, teaching became the main occupation of her life - right up to her martyrdom, and even the October Revolution did not change the type of her activity. After 1917, many representatives of princely and noble families had to earn their living by doing odd jobs or the most ordinary work of a simple employee in some Soviet institutions. One might think that the transition to this way of existence was not painless and easy. Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya was lucky in this regard a little more than others: the revolution did not bring significant changes to her life, which in Tsarist times was filled with intense teaching work.

In 1906, the Obolensky family moved to St. Petersburg. This happened due to Ivan Dmitrievich’s retirement “due to length of service”. The size of the pension salary, which was not enough to provide a good education to the growing children, forced the head of the family to look for some place. On December 5, 1906, he was appointed to serve in the St. Petersburg City Government as a clerk at the boundary table with a more than modest salary of 100 rubles per month. But there was still not enough money. When, for example, the sons who studied in the cadet corps needed to sew a uniform, they had to turn to their sister for help. And only by 1916, when Ivan Dmitrievich received the position of head of the office of the boundary table with a salary of 970 rubles per month, the financial situation improved. But this short-term prosperity lasted only a few months.

Thanks to the move to St. Petersburg, Kira Ivanovna received the opportunity to engage in extensive teaching activities. Her deep religious feeling and sincere desire to serve her neighbor in a Christian way prompted her to do this work in schools in the capital and province. She never emphasized her princely origin and did not demand special treatment, always remaining a simple person and filled with an even desire to do good. In 1910, Kira Ivanovna became a teacher in a free school for the poor, and taught in a number of other schools in the city. At the same time, she “did not work in some privileged educational institutions, which she always had the opportunity to do, but carried her knowledge into the midst of the people, where it was needed, teaching exclusively in the working-class areas of the city: at a school on Ligovka, at a school at the station “Popovka”, in the city school on Bronnitskaya Street, at the “Triangle” plant, etc. 4

In these works, Kira Ivanovna was caught up in the world war of 1914, the very first months of which turned into a deeply personal tragedy for the entire Obolensky family: sons Vadim and Boris died on its fronts. The loss of her beloved brothers not only resonated with deep suffering in Kira Ivanovna’s soul, but perhaps for the first time made her acutely feel the temporary nature of earthly existence and the relativity of everything that happens in it, and rethink her life in a new way. Nevertheless, life continued to take its course, posed its own questions and persistently demanded their active resolution. In September 1916, Kira Ivanovna entered the higher French language courses established under the AIIIian society ceFrançaise dePetrograd" Most likely, the purpose of this admission was to obtain a document granting the right to teach French in secondary educational institutions of the city. According to the rules of the Ministry of Public Education, the mark “good” in this subject, which was on her certificate from the Smolny Institute, was not enough. It took Kira Ivanovna less than a year to complete the two-year course and receive the appropriate document. In May 1917, Princess K. Obolenskaya, according to the instructions of the course commission, was recognized as having passed the test. However, the Bolshevik seizure of power, which took place a few months after she graduated from the educational institution, prevented her from applying the acquired knowledge in practice. This coup d'etat, as a result of which power passed into the hands of a group of rapist adventurers, whose unprecedented cruelty made the whole world shudder, increased the chain of disasters that befell the Obolensky family with the outbreak of the First World War. In 1918, Prince Yuri Obolensky, Kira Ivanovna’s brother, became an officer in the Volunteer Army, and in 1920 he died in battle with units of the Red Army. At the same time, in 1920, another son of the Obolenskys, Prince Pavel Obolensky, was arrested as the brother of a White Guard. (Miraculously, he, wounded in the jaw, managed to escape right from the firing squad and emigrate to France, but this rescue of Pavel turned into lifelong separation for the Obolenskys. He would never see his family again.) On September 11, 1918, dismissal followed. the head of the Obolensky family, Ivan Dmitrievich, “due to the abolition of the position of head of the office in the survey department.” 5 And after some time, on October 25, 1920, his wife Elizaveta Georgievna became a widow. It is possible that the untimely death of Ivan Dmitrievich Obolensky was caused by the unbearable severity of the trials he experienced. The collapse of the Autocracy, which he and his ancestors served faithfully all their lives, the terrible execution of the Emperor and his Family, in which Ivan Dmitrievich saw the inviolable Anointed of God, the death of three sons and the forced emigration of the fourth - this burden undermined his strength and caused his premature death . “I had so many children who loved each other and my husband and me, but I was left, in the 90th year of my life, alone with sick Varya,” Elizaveta Georgievna wrote with bitterness and pain in one of her letters addressed to her daughter Kira , exiled in 1935 to Malaya Vishera.

As already mentioned, the revolution did not cause significant changes in the activities of Kira Ivanovna. From 1918 to 1930 she continued to work at the school. In the questionnaire for those arrested, attached to her investigative file of 1930, in the column “place of work from 1917 to the present day of arrest” it is written: “32nd Soviet school - teacher, 84th Soviet school - teacher, 73- I am a Soviet school librarian.” 6 The transfer of the “former princess-teacher to a librarian position was probably explained by the emergence of the Soviets’ own teaching staff by 1930, capable of meeting the needs of the socialist school. With the “comprehensive introduction of the gains of October into the life of Soviet society,” the need to use old personnel from the tsarist era in various positions, including in the field of education, disappeared. Now it was possible to get rid of not only services, but also the very presence of “former” people who were carriers of an alien, “bourgeois” culture.

The first arrest of Princess Kira Obolenskaya followed on September 14, 1930. The case in which she was involved was headed by her name and was called “Obolenskaya Kira Ivanovna and others.” Two more people passed through it: the daughter of the former Minister of Internal Affairs and maid of honor of the Empress N.P. Durnovo, and the former housekeeper Elben O.R. They were accused not of having done something illegal, but of could it is illegal to do this. “All these Elben O.R., Durnovo N.P. mentioned here,” the indictment said, “ are potentially (emphasis mine -approx. auto ) the ideological basis for our internal and external counter-revolution, which has not yet been completely rooted out, at times even penetrating into work in our cultural and educational institutions, such as, for example, the one taking place in this case b. Princess Obolenskaya K.I., and there, nurturing a harmful idealistic philosophy in the worldview of the younger generation. 7 No other charges were brought against those arrested. During the interrogation, Kira Ivanovna spoke openly and fearlessly about her attitude towards the Soviet regime. It is impossible to read this document, filled with calm fearlessness and incorruptible nobility, without inner excitement and deepest admiration for this amazing woman. This is what she told the investigator while in the dungeon of the NKVD, without, of course, assuming that this document would eventually become the property of Russian history and a kind of textbook of human dignity: “I do not consider myself to be in the category of people who share the platform of Soviet power. My disagreements with the constitution begin with the issue of the separation of Church and state. I consider myself to be a “Sergievite”, i.e. to people who adhere to the purity of Orthodoxy. I refuse to agree with the direction of Soviet statehood. I consider myself obligated to be loyal to the Soviet government, because I serve it and thereby have some kind of material security. In my service I am a librarian; I am isolated from direct communication with young people by the very nature of my work, since I am a classifier. I don’t do any social work and avoid it; I’m happy that my service consumes a lot of time and doesn’t force me to be active in the public background of school life. I must say that with my social and political views, I naturally cannot carry out social work in the Soviet spirit. I do not agree with the policy of the Soviet government in the field of agricultural life of the country. I consider dispossession to be an unfair measure towards the peasants; I consider punitive policies, such as terror, etc., unacceptable for a humane and civilized state. I categorically declare that I did not share my thoughts and moods with anyone except my family - my mother, sister and brother. She corresponded abroad with her aunt Chebysheva and with her brother, who emigrated to France at the beginning of the revolution and now serves as a rider at the hippodrome there. I don’t know any groups, organizations or individuals actively hostile to the Soviet regime, but at the same time I declare that I would not name any names if we were talking about their involvement in political crime against the Soviet regime. unworthy of themselves, because I know that in the conditions of Soviet reality this would bring them trouble, such as “crosses”, expulsions, etc.” This straightforwardness and organic inability to lie were used by the authorities against her: individual phrases were extracted from her testimony and, declaring them counter-revolution, she was sentenced to five years in forced labor camps.

There is no doubt that such behavior of the arrested woman aroused involuntary respect for the personality of Kira Ivanovna even among the inquisitors themselves. With her charm and rare inner beauty, she endeared herself to even the leaders of the revolution. In the materials of the investigative case of 1930, an extremely interesting document was preserved, testifying to the love that even Lenin’s comrades had for Kira Ivanovna. “I knew the school teacher in the village of Samopomich, Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya,” wrote the sister of the leader of the October Revolution, Anna Ilyinichna Elizarova-Ulyanova, in her petition for the release of the arrested Obolenskaya in 1904-1907, when I lived at Sablino station and often visited Popovka . I knew her as a person who had been working since school, and who showed nothing of her princely origin. Now that she is the only support for an old mother who lost two sons during the World War, I support the mother’s petition to release her daughter. A. Elizarova-Ulyanova. Party membership since 1898. Party card No. 0001150. October 5, 1930 Moscow, Manezhnaya, 9.” 8

This petition was sent to the Leningrad GPU from Moscow, but the local Cheka ignored it. Stalin did not like the revolutionaries from Lenin's circle. On January 15, 1931, an extract from the minutes of the meeting of the troika of OGPU PP in the Leningrad Military District was filed in the file “Obolenskaya and others” with the following content: “They heard case No. 3530-30 - obv. gr. Obolenskaya Kira Ivanovna Sr. 58/11 CC. They decided: Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya should be imprisoned in a concentration camp for a period of five years, counting the period from September 13, 1930. The case should be handed over to the archives.” 9

After the verdict was passed, Kira Ivanovna was sent by convoy to Kem and assigned to Belbaltlag. A year or two later she was transferred to Sivlag. In 1934, prisoner K.I. Obolenskaya was released early and settled 101 kilometers from Leningrad, since she was prohibited from entering the city. How her life developed in the camp and after liberation can be judged from one document attached to another of her investigative files, dated 1937. “While serving a five-year exile,” wrote Kira Ivanovna’s mother, Elizaveta Georgievna, to People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria in 1940, “she (Kira Ivanovna - approx. auto ) worked as a teacher and nurse in the hospital of the Belomorstroy camp and was considered an excellent student and shock worker, for which she received a shock worker’s book number 4299 and was released in 1934 with the best review. In 1934-1935 she worked in Malovisherskaya and Solinskaya (Soletskaya? – Note auto ) hospitals, which also received good feedback. Since 1936, she worked in the city of Borovichi as a teacher of German at the Velgian School and School No. 12, where she was considered and valued as an excellent methodologist and a serious teacher of children. Inspector Lengorono promised her a transfer to Leningrad to give her the opportunity to live with me. Her reasonable, honest character was her leader in her work and her only support in my old age.” 10

Bits of correspondence between Elizaveta Georgievna and relatives who lived in France have also survived to this day. “Kurnavochka (as Elizaveta Georgievna called her daughter Kira - approx. auto ) “At this time she is preparing for exams, otherwise she cannot work as a nurse,” she wrote to the family of her son Pavel in France in January 1935. “We see her very rarely, so Varechka and I, as usual, are orphans.” Living in a village in a settlement, Kira Ivanovna, despite her usual workload, illegally visited Leningrad to visit her elderly mother and sick sister Varya. “Kurnavochka comes to us very rarely and not for long, she comes at night and leaves again the next day in the evening. She now has an awful lot of work,” says Elizaveta Georgievna in another letter to Pavel. In July, thanks to money sent from France, she was able to come to Kira Ivanovna and even live with her for some time. “Thank you,” she thanks her son, “for the money sent, thanks to which I was able to go temporarily to Kira in the last days of June! Now we are at Kira’s, but it’s a very microscopic room, in a peasant family, there are no amenities, there is no garden, but only a yard, not particularly clean, but I can still sit and breathe fresh air. It was unbearable to stay in Leningrad - high up, 6th floor, stairs that were beyond my strength, and most importantly - completely without air.” 11

In September 1936, Kira Ivanovna moved from the village to Borovichi and, leaving medicine, returned to teaching. This probably happened after the unspoken ban on school activities was lifted from former prisoner K. Obolenskaya. “Kira has switched to her specialty - pedagogy - giving German lessons,” Elizaveta Georgievna informs her brother Pavel in another letter. “Of course, I had to leave the village and move to the city, but the most difficult thing here was to find an apartment, even a small room. And she has to spend 2 hours traveling to school and back.” 12 Slowly, life seemed to begin to improve, and nothing foreshadowed its tragic end. However, teaching at school and living in Borovichi lasted just over a year. On October 21, 1937, Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya was again arrested by the NKVD of the Leningrad Region.

Borovichi at that time was a place of exile for the clergy and church activists from among the laity of Leningrad and its environs. Here, after liberation from the camp, the Leningrad ruler Archbishop Gabriel (Voevodin) was in a settlement with some priests of the city, persons of the noble rank, it is unclear how the surviving general of the Kolchak army D. N. Kirchman and many others. All these persons, together with the Borovichi clergy, as well as other persons disliked by the Soviet authorities in this area, who, according to Stalin’s orders, were subject to destruction, were arrested in the fall of 1937 and declared a single counter-revolutionary organization. The main role was given to Archbishop Gabriel, and in total there were 60 people involved in this case. All of them: “clergy, monks, churchmen, wandering elements, kulaks, merchants, nobles, princes, a White Army general, a former bailiff” - were allegedly recruited into this organization by the arch. Gabriel. Among the other recruits were Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya. She, like everyone else, was accused of things that were fantastic in their essence: active struggle against the Soviet regime and propaganda for the establishment of a fascist system in the USSR, agitation against collective farm construction, agitation for bringing like-minded people into the Supreme Soviet, etc. The falsified nature of all these monstrous the accusations would be proven twenty years later, in 1958. “There is no objective evidence in the case that a counter-revolutionary organization was organized from among the persons convicted in the case and that it carried out anti-Soviet agitation. At the time of the arrest of the involved persons, the NKVD authorities did not have materials confirming the existence of a counter-revolutionary organization. From the case materials it is clear that the persons involved were convicted illegally,” says the rehabilitation part of the Borovichi case. The Stalinist dictatorship shot fifty-one people in case No. 1a/1307 without any corpus delicti, imprisoned nine in a concentration camp, of which only one survived to be liberated. But before she stained her hands with the blood of innocent people, she tried to destroy these people morally, demanding from them, under torture, their own confessions of actions they had never committed.

The arrested Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya was subjected to the first interrogation on the day of her arrest, October 21, 1937. It was of an informational nature: they demanded to name relatives and acquaintances, among whom was the name of Archbishop Gabriel, known to the arrested woman since 1923, when she lived in Leningrad. After three and a half weeks of imprisonment, on November 14, Kira Ivanovna was summoned for a second interrogation, which turned out to be a confrontation. For, even after three weeks in the cell and methods of physical coercion, no confessions could be extracted from the arrested woman herself. At this confrontation, the investigator arranged for the arrested woman to meet with one of the priests who could not withstand the pressure, who agreed to give incriminating evidence against her. The authorities hoped that this testimony from yesterday’s like-minded person would break the spirit of the arrested woman and convince her of the pointlessness of “denial.” The priest said at the confrontation that Voevodin himself told him about Obolenskaya’s membership in a secret counter-revolutionary organization. He also cited as evidence a conversation between Voevodin and Obolenskaya, confirming the existence of a political connection between them. “I don’t confirm L.’s testimony. I categorically deny,” Kira Ivanovna responded to the investigator’s proposal to confirm the testimony of witness L. 13 The next day, November 15, the defendant K. Obolenskaya was subjected to another interrogation, which also resulted in a confrontation. The accused I.A. accused her of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy with Voevodin, which took place in the apartment of the priest N.I. Voskresensky. This new accusation was followed by the same answer from the arrested woman: “I don’t confirm I.A.I.’s testimony.” On the same day, the authorities made a final attempt to persuade Kira Ivanovna to give false testimony. " Question. The investigator knows that you were a member of a counter-revolutionary organization of churchmen and in fact carried out counter-revolutionary work. I insist on giving truthful testimony. Answer. No, I was not a member of the counter-revolutionary organization of churchmen and never carried out work in it.” 14

Archbishop Gabriel could not withstand the pressure of the NKVD and put his signature on the fabricated testimony. The officer of the Tsarist Army, Kolchak General Kirchman, also could not stand the torture, and testified against two people. How did the arrested Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya manage to emerge victorious in this confrontation with the punitive machine, which mercilessly and cruelly massacred the spiritual and cultural elite of a sixth of the world? “She did not admit guilt,” says the protocol of the Special Troika of the UNKVD LO, which sentenced Princess K.I. Obolenskaya to death. (The sentence was carried out on December 17, 1937.) This laconic note contains the secret of the martyr of our time.

Kira Ivanovna’s niece, Kira Konstantinovna Litovchenko, now alive and living in St. Petersburg, remembers Kira Ivanovna well and her sudden disappearance in 1937. “Aunt Kira,” she says, “came to us often when we lived on Sergievskaya (from 1923 - Tchaikovsky Street - approx. auto ) on the street, and he and my mother talked about various topics that, due to my age, I could not yet understand. She was a warm, kind, affectionate and cozy person - there are such people. I remember how she and I sat on the balcony. Then there were still many churches in the area, and the evening bells would ring, the gospel would ring, and Aunt Kira would tell me: “It’s so nice to hear that in the evening.” Maybe this is why I love the evening, the twilight, because I always remember how we sat together and listened. When Aunt Kira disappeared and stopped coming to us, I asked where she was, and my mother, not wanting to tell the truth, said that she had gone to a monastery.” Her mother could not tell her at that time the whole truth about the globe, on which people obsessed with inhuman cruelty and invested with power methodically exterminate their own kind. Moreover, not only those who are absolutely innocent of anything, but also distinguished by the traits of genuine moral beauty. Because after such truth about the world, it could very well happen that the girl would refuse to live in it any longer. Now she knows the truth about her relative, including the fact that her aunt, Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya, who showed extraordinary heights of spirit in the bloody dungeon of the persecutors of Truth and showed an image of holiness in a world covered in the darkness of godlessness, belongs to the number of great Christian women XX century.

She was canonized as a saint in 2003.

HOLY MARTYR KYRA PRAY TO GOD FOR US

1 Central State Historical Archive St. Petersburg. F. 531, op. 163, d. 1432, l. 2.

2 Ibid. F. 2, op. 1, d. 19255, l. 2.

3 Central State Historical Archive St. Petersburg. F. 531, op. 1, d. 19255, l. 23.

4 Archive of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the region. D. No. P-85438.

5 Archive of the FSB. F. 513, op. 163, d. 1432, l. 27.

6 Archive of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the region. D. No. 85438, l. 6.

7 Ibid., l. 56.

8 Ibid., l. 14.

9 Ibid., l. 61.

10 Archives of the FSB for Novgorod and the region, No. 1-a/1307. Elizaveta Georgievna sent this statement with a plea to tell at least something about her daughter to Moscow in April 1940, when Kira Ivanovna was no longer alive. Intellectually, she probably understood that there was no hope of getting an answer. But, no longer able to fight her grief, not having the strength to endure the torment that lasted three years, she commits an act devoid of any meaning. “I beg you, help me,” she wrote to Beria, the supreme executioner of the Russian people. It was possible to decide on this only in a situation of complete hopelessness, finding oneself on the border of despair and insanity. Who can measure and describe the depth of suffering of this woman, from whom the war and revolution took away four sons and a husband, and the Soviet government deprived her of her beloved daughter in the decline of her earthly life, forcing her old woman’s heart to slowly, over the years, be torn apart from the uncertainty of her fate?

11 Personal archive of K. K. Litovchenko. St. Petersburg

12 Ibid.

13 Archive of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the region. D. No. 85438, l. 14.

14 Ibid., l. 63 rev.

15 Ibid., l. 60.

Based on the book:

New Martyrs of the St. Petersburg Diocese.

Hieromonk Nestor (Kumysh). Statis, 2003.

In December, the church commemoration of two new martyrs is celebrated - two sisters from Leningrad - Kira Obolenskaya and Ekaterina Arskaya. At first glance, it is difficult to find more diverse women.

Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya (1889 - 12/17/1937) belonged to an ancient family that traced its ancestry back to Rurik. From the age of ten she studied at the most prestigious women's educational institution in the Russian Empire - the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens, from which she graduated with a silver medal. After graduating from the institute, due to the difficult financial situation in the family, which, although it was a princely family, was impoverished, Kira Ivanovna went to work as a teacher. At first she gave private lessons, later she began working in schools, and she did not choose privileged institutions in which her origin and education allowed her to work, but went to the simplest ones, in working-class areas, for example, in Ligovka.

Ekaterina Andreevna Arskaya (04/1/1875 - 12/17/1937) came from a large merchant family, her father was the ktitor of the Church of Sorrows in Petrograd. She also received a good education, but at another institute - the Alexandrovsky Institute, which also belonged to the Smolny Institute, but accepted girls of a lower position - from the clergy, bourgeois, merchant class. Subsequently, Ekaterina Andreevna worked as a dressmaker.

In what years the sisters entered the Alexander Nevsky Petrograd Brotherhood, which was the center of the fraternal movement in the diocese, and when they met, there is no exact information. It is known that Ekaterina Andreevna was a member of the parish council of the Feodorovsky Cathedral for a year and a half, in which Archimandrite Lev (Egorov) began to preside in 1926. In fact, she became Father Leo's assistant. In the first years of the revolution, Ekaterina Arskaya lost her entire family - her beloved husband and five children who died of cholera and typhus; she subsequently lived in one of the secret women's monastic communities.

Kira Ivanovna also lost her relatives in the first years of the revolution - her father and five beloved brothers, with whom she had been very friendly all her life. So she became the only breadwinner for her elderly mother and sister, who was seriously ill with epilepsy. Kira Ivanovna was the spiritual daughter of one of the fraternal priests - Archimandrite Varlaam (Sacerdote), who replaced the leaders of the brotherhood when, due to arrests, they were not in the city at the same time.

The first of the two sisters was Kira Obolenskaya. In 1930, she was accused of being “potentially an ideological basis for not yet uprooting our external and internal counter-revolution.” This was her only fault, for which she received 5 years in a concentration camp. Ekaterina Arskaya was arrested two years later, on the famous “holy night”, when about 500 clergy, monks and nuns and other believers were arrested in Leningrad in one night. Among them there were more than 50 members; in total, 92 people were involved in the “case” in 1932.

In 1936-1937, members began to return from the camps; they were forbidden to live in Leningrad; they had to look for a new place. Some of them, more than ten people, settled in Borovichi. For some it was a place of exile, others came specifically to live with their own people. Kira Ivanovna taught foreign languages at a local school, and Ekaterina Andreevna worked as a blanket maker in the Red October artel.

In 1937, the planned system of the Soviet economy reached the NKVD. Plans for the number of arrested and executed were sent to all regions of the country. The race has begun to fulfill and exceed plans for executions and arrests. In this way, the state destroyed not only random people, but also everyone who in any way disagreed with revolutionary politics. In Borovichi, a case was opened against 60 people at once, mostly “clergymen” - both clergy and laymen. Despite the cruel torture, the sisters Kira and Ekaterina did not give any evidence either against themselves or against others.

Catherine Arskaya was brought to a confrontation with an experienced confessor, Archbishop Gabriel (Voevodin), who was identified as the leader of an allegedly counter-revolutionary organization. He was not a member of the brotherhood, but was well acquainted with it from his life in Leningrad. At that moment, the bishop succumbed to torture and named many people, but Ekaterina Ivanovna, looking into his eyes, firmly said:

- I don’t know anyone and I can’t name anyone.

After this, Bishop Gabriel repented and renounced his testimony.

Most of those arrested in this case (51 people) were shot, among them two women who turned out to be more resilient than many men.

The rector of the St. Petersburg Sorrow Church on Shpalernaya Street, Archpriest Vyacheslav Kharinov, reflects on how such fragile women were able to endure (it was in this church that Catherine Arskaya prayed in her childhood and youth, her father was a ktitor here, and now there is the only museum of new martyrs in St. Petersburg, telling about her fate):

- gave its members an amazing hardening, something that can be assessed as a kind of core, as a kind of inflexibility, which a parish, family or training in a theological school would not have given. The Brotherhood was intended to be an island in a sea of atheism, atheism and oblivion of Orthodox traditions. On this island such a vision of life was formed, such a following of Christ, such an imitation of Him that Catherine of Arskaya managed to go through her life without breaking a broken reed, according to the word of Scripture - not to betray anyone.

In 1958, the “case of Grigory Voevodin” was declared falsified due to the lack of corpus delicti, and in 2003, two Alexander Nevsky brothers, Petrograd new martyrs, were glorified by the church as saints.

Martyr Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya was born in 1889 in the family of Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Obolensky. The ancient Obolensky family dates back to Prince Rurik. At the age of 10, Kira was sent to the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in St. Petersburg, from which she graduated in 1904 with a silver medal. Kira's family lived at that time in the Siedlce province in Poland, where her father served. After graduating from the institute, Kira Ivanovna began giving private lessons as a home teacher. Subsequently, teaching became the main occupation of her life.

In 1906, the Obolensky family moved to St. Petersburg, where they lived in house number 28 on Mozhaiskaya Street. Thanks to this, Kira Ivanovna received the opportunity to engage in extensive teaching activities. She was prompted to this work by a deep religious feeling and a sincere desire to serve her neighbor. She never emphasized her princely origin anywhere and did not demand special treatment, remaining a simple and kind person everywhere.

In 1910, Kira Ivanovna became a teacher in a free school for the poor, and also taught in a number of other schools in the city. The First World War found Kira Ivanovna in these works. Two of her brothers, Vadim and Boris Obolensky, died on her fronts. The loss of her beloved brothers not only resonated with deep suffering in Kira’s soul, but also forced her to rethink her life.

The revolution brought new personal troubles into the life of the Obolenskys. In 1918, Kira Ivanovna’s brother Yuri joined the Volunteer Army and died in battle in 1920. In the same year, another brother Pavel was arrested. Directly from being shot, wounded, he miraculously managed to escape from the Cheka and emigrate abroad - he saved his life, but was forever separated from his family. In 1920, his father died. Caring for the family (an elderly mother and a sick sister) fell on the shoulders of Kira Ivanovna, who worked as a school librarian.

In 1930, Kira Ivanovna was arrested, the indictment read: “potentially is an ideological basis for not uprooting our external and internal counter-revolution.” In the investigative file, she is called a “former princess”; the following intentions were attributed to her: “to work in our cultural and educational institutions, and there to cultivate a harmful idealistic philosophy in the worldview of the younger generation.” No other charges were brought. During interrogation, Kira Ivanovna stated: “I do not consider myself to be in the category of people who share the platform of the Soviet government. My differences with the constitution begin with the issue of the separation of Church and state. I refuse to agree with the direction of Soviet statehood. I do not know any counter-revolutionary groups, organizations or individuals actively hostile to the Soviet regime, but at the same time I declare that I consider it unworthy of me to name any names, because I know that in the conditions of Soviet reality this would bring trouble to them " The troika under the OGPU in the Leningrad Military District sentenced Princess Kira Obolenskaya to 5 years in the camps.

After the verdict was passed, Kira Ivanovna was deported from the Leningrad prison to Belbaltlag in the city of Kem in the Arkhangelsk region, and then transferred to Svirlag in the city of Lodeynoye Pole in the Leningrad region. In the camp she worked as a teacher and nurse, worked a lot and diligently, for which she was released early. She was prohibited from entering the city, and she settled 101 kilometers from Leningrad.

In 1936, Kira Ivanovna moved to the city of Borovichi, where she began teaching foreign languages in a junior high school. Borovichi at that time was a place of exile for clergy and laity from Leningrad and the surrounding area. Kira Ivanovna communicated with all believers persecuted by the Soviet regime. Here met two Petrograd martyrs, sisters of the Alexander Nevsky Brotherhood, parishioners of the Feodorovsky Cathedral: Princess Kira Obolenskaya and Catherine Arskaya. They were truly spiritually close to each other, and the circumstances of their martyrdom are incredibly, surprisingly similar.

In 1937, mass arrests of exiled clergy and laity were carried out in Borovichi. Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya turned out to be one of the very few who did not give any testimony and did not incriminate either others or themselves in any way. She was already over 40, but she was still the same fragile princess-teacher.

Exhausted by the hungry life of the 20s, imprisonment in a camp, exiled life, new arrest and interrogations, two women - the new martyrs Kira and Catherine - with their righteous lives earned from the Lord the strength to endure to the end. They did not give any testimony under torture, did not name a single person, and did not even admit a single accusation against themselves.

A special troika under the NKVD in the Leningrad region sentenced them to death. The sentence was carried out in Borovichi on December 17, 1937.

Troparion to the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia

Today the Russian Church joyfully rejoices, / like mothers of children, glorifying their martyrs and confessors: / saints and priests, / royal passion-bearers, pious princes and princesses, / reverend men and wives / and all Orthodox Christians, / in the days of the godless persecution, their lives for faith in who laid down Christ / and kept the Truth with his blood. / By those intercessions, Long-suffering Lord, / preserve our country in Orthodoxy / until the end of the age

Kontakion general, new martyr, voice 4:

Passion-bearers, martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church, / who sanctified cities and all the world with their blood, / offered to God as an immaculate sacrifice, / quickly slain for the name of the Savior, / for the establishment of Orthodoxy in Rus', / in order to preserve our fatherland, / as a bulwark of the true faith .

“I do not consider myself to be among the people who share the platform of the Soviet government. My differences with the constitution begin with the issue of the separation of Church and state. I consider myself to be a “Sergievite”, i.e. to people who adhere to the purity of Orthodoxy. I refuse to agree with the direction of Soviet statehood. I consider myself obligated to be loyal to the Soviet government, because I serve it and thereby have some kind of material security. In my service I am a librarian; I am isolated from direct communication with young people by the very nature of my work, since I am a classifier. I don’t do any social work and avoid it; I’m happy that my service consumes a lot of time and doesn’t force me to be active in the public background of school life. I must say that with my social and political views, I naturally cannot carry out social work in the Soviet spirit. I do not agree with the policy of the Soviet government in the field of agricultural life of the country. I consider dispossession to be an unfair measure towards the peasants; I consider punitive policies, such as terror, etc., unacceptable for a humane and civilized state. ... I don’t know any counter-revolutionary groups, organizations or individuals actively hostile to the Soviet regime, but at the same time I declare that I consider it unworthy of me to name any names, because I know that in the conditions of Soviet reality this would entail they get into trouble, like “crosses”, expulsions, etc.”

Kira Obolenskaya, from an investigative case, 1930

1906 - the Obolensky family moves to St. Petersburg.

1910 - teacher in a free school for the poor.

1934 - released early.

1934-1935 — worked in Malovisherskaya and Solinskaya hospitals.

1936 - teacher of German at the Velgian School and School No. 12 in Borovichi.

“Aunt Kira often came to us when we lived on Sergievskaya (from 1923 - Tchaikovsky Street) street, and she and my mother talked about various topics that, due to my age, I could not yet understand. She was a warm, kind, affectionate and cozy person - there are such people. I remember how she and I sat on the balcony. Then there were still many churches in the area, and the evening bells would ring, the gospel would ring, and Aunt Kira would tell me: “It’s so nice to hear that in the evening.” Maybe that’s why I love the evening, the twilight, because I always remember how we sat together then, listening. When Aunt Kira disappeared and stopped coming to us, I asked where she was, and my mother, not wanting to tell the truth, said that she had gone to a monastery.”

Kira Konstantinovna Litovchenko, niece of Kira Ivanovna

From the book: New Martyrs of the St. Petersburg Diocese.

Hieromonk Nestor (Kumysh). Statis, 2003.

Lit.:

Extract from the journal of the meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on May 7, 2003, chaired by Patriarch Alexy II.
Nestor (Kumysh), hieromonk. New Martyrs of the St. Petersburg Diocese. SPb.: Satis, Power. 2003. pp. 232-244.
Leningrad Martyrology, 1937-1938: Book of Memory of Victims of Political Repression. T.5. 1937 St. Petersburg, 2002. P. 138.
New Martyr Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya // Church Bulletin. 2003. N 5. P.9.
Lydia Sokolova. HOLY PETROGRAD NEW MARTERS (Orthodox St. Petersburg No. 2 (145) 2004)

In 1910, Kira Ivanovna became a teacher in a free school for the poor, and also taught in a number of other schools in the city. The First World War found Kira Ivanovna in these works. Her two brothers, Vadim and Boris Obolensky, died on her fronts. The loss of her beloved brothers not only resonated with deep suffering in Kira’s soul, but also forced her to rethink her life.

The revolution brought new personal troubles into the life of the Obolenskys. In 1918, Kira Ivanovna’s brother Yuri joined the Volunteer Army and died in battle in 1920. In the same year, another brother Pavel was arrested. Right from being shot, wounded, he miraculously managed to escape from the Cheka and emigrate abroad - he saved his life, but was forever separated from his family. In 1920, his father died. Caring for the family (an elderly mother and a sick sister) fell on the shoulders of Kira Ivanovna, who worked as a school librarian.

No other charges were brought. During interrogation, Kira Ivanovna stated: “I do not consider myself to be in the category of people who share the platform of the Soviet government. My differences with the constitution begin with the issue of the separation of Church and state. I refuse to agree with the direction of Soviet statehood. I do not know any counter-revolutionary groups, organizations or individuals actively hostile to the Soviet regime, but at the same time I declare that I consider it unworthy of me to name any names, because I know that in the conditions of Soviet reality this would bring trouble to them " The troika under the OGPU in the Leningrad Military District sentenced Princess Kira Obolenskaya to 5 years in the camps.

In 1936, Kira Ivanovna moved to the city of Borovichi, where she began teaching foreign languages in a junior high school. Kira Ivanovna communicated with all believers persecuted by the Soviet regime. Here met two Petrograd martyrs, sisters of the Alexander Nevsky Brotherhood, parishioners of the Feodorovsky Cathedral: Princess Kira Obolenskaya and Catherine Arskaya. They were truly spiritually close to each other, and the circumstances of their martyrdom are incredibly, surprisingly similar.

The main role was given to Archbishop Gabriel, and in total there were 60 people involved in this case. All of them: “clergy, monks, churchmen, wandering elements, kulaks, merchants, nobles, princes, a White Army general, a former bailiff” - were allegedly recruited into this organization by the arch. Gabriel. Among the other recruits were Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya. She, like everyone else, was accused of things that were fantastic in their essence: active struggle against the Soviet regime and propaganda for the establishment of a fascist system in the USSR, agitation against collective farm construction, agitation for bringing like-minded people into the Supreme Soviet, etc. The falsified nature of all these monstrous the accusations would be proven twenty years later, in 1958.

“There is no objective evidence in the case that a counter-revolutionary organization was organized from among the persons convicted in the case and that it carried out anti-Soviet agitation. At the time of the arrest of the involved persons, the NKVD authorities did not have materials confirming the existence of a counter-revolutionary organization. From the case materials it is clear that the persons involved were convicted illegally,” says the rehabilitation part of the Borovichi case. The Stalinist dictatorship shot fifty-one people in case No. 1a/1307 without any corpus delicti, imprisoned nine in a concentration camp, of which only one survived to be liberated. But before she stained her hands with the blood of innocent people, she tried to destroy these people morally, demanding from them, under torture, their own confessions of actions they had never committed.

The priest said at the confrontation that Voevodin himself told him about Obolenskaya’s membership in a secret counter-revolutionary organization. He also cited as evidence a conversation between Voevodin and Obolenskaya, confirming the existence of a political connection between them.

“I don’t confirm L.’s testimony. I categorically deny,” Kira Ivanovna responded to the investigator’s proposal to confirm the testimony of witness L. The next day, November 15, the defendant K. Obolenskaya was subjected to another interrogation, which also resulted in a confrontation. The accused I.A. accused her of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy with Voevodin, which took place in the apartment of the priest N.I. Voskresensky. This new accusation was followed by the same answer from the arrested woman: “I don’t confirm I.A.I.’s testimony.”

On the same day, the authorities made a final attempt to persuade Kira Ivanovna to give false testimony. " Question: The investigator knows that you were a member of a counter-revolutionary organization of churchmen and in fact carried out counter-revolutionary work. I insist on giving truthful testimony. Answer: No, I was not a member of the counter-revolutionary organization of churchmen and never carried out work in it.”

Archbishop Gabriel could not withstand the pressure of the NKVD and put his signature on the fabricated testimony. The officer of the Tsarist Army, Kolchak General Kirchman, also could not stand the torture, and testified against two people. How did the arrested Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya manage to emerge victorious in this confrontation with the punitive machine, which mercilessly and cruelly massacred the spiritual and cultural elite of a sixth of the world? " Plead not guilty“, - said in the protocol of the Special Troika of the UNKVD LO, which sentenced Princess K. I. Obolenskaya to death. (The sentence was carried out December 17 1937.) This laconic note contains the secret of the martyr of our time.

Maybe this is why I love the evening, the twilight, because I always remember how we sat together and listened. When Aunt Kira disappeared and stopped coming to us, I asked where she was, and my mother, not wanting to tell the truth, said that she had gone to a monastery.” Her mother could not tell her at that time the whole truth about the globe, on which people obsessed with inhuman cruelty and invested with power methodically exterminate their own kind. Moreover, not only those who are absolutely innocent of anything, but also distinguished by the traits of genuine moral beauty. Because after such truth about the world, it could very well happen that the girl would refuse to live in it any longer. Now she knows the truth about her relative, including the fact that her aunt, Princess Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya, who showed extraordinary heights of spirit in the bloody dungeon of the persecutors of Truth and showed an image of holiness in a world covered in the darkness of godlessness, belongs to the number of great Christian women XX century.

Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya turned out to be one of the very few who did not give any testimony and did not incriminate either others or themselves in any way. She was already over 40, but she was still the same fragile princess-teacher. Exhausted by the hungry life of the 20s, imprisonment in the camp, exile life, new arrest and interrogations, two women - New Martyrs Cyrus and Catherine– with their righteous life they deserve from the Lord the strength to endure to the end. They did not give any testimony under torture, did not name a single person, and did not even admit a single accusation against themselves.

New Martyr Cyrus wasglorified as a saint in 2003.

In contact with

Holy Martyr Princess Kira Obolenskaya (1889-1937)

Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya was born in 1889 in the family of Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Obolensky. The ancient Obolensky family dates back to Prince Rurik. At the age of 10, Kira was sent to the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in St. Petersburg, from which she graduated in 1904 with a silver medal. After graduating from the institute, Kira Ivanovna began giving private lessons as a home teacher. Subsequently, teaching became the main occupation of her life. She was prompted to this work by a deep religious feeling and a sincere desire to serve her neighbor. She never emphasized her princely origin anywhere and did not demand special treatment, remaining a simple and kind person everywhere. In 1910, Kira Ivanovna became a teacher in a free school for the poor, and also taught in a number of other schools in the city. The First World War found Kira Ivanovna in these works. Her two brothers, Vadim and Boris Obolensky, died on her fronts. The loss of her beloved brothers not only resonated with deep suffering in Kira’s soul, but also forced her to rethink her life.

The revolution brought new personal troubles into the life of the Obolenskys. In 1918, Kira Ivanovna’s brother Yuri joined the Volunteer Army and died in battle in 1920. In the same year, another brother Pavel was arrested. Right from being shot, wounded, he miraculously managed to escape from the Cheka and emigrate abroad - he saved his life, but was forever separated from his family. In 1920, his father died. Caring for the family (an elderly mother and a sick sister) fell on the shoulders of Kira Ivanovna, who worked as a school librarian.

In 1937, mass arrests of exiled clergy and laity were carried out in Borovichi, and both Kira and Catherine were arrested. Exhausted by the hungry life of the 20s, imprisonment in a camp, life of exile, new arrest and interrogations, these two women, with their righteous lives, earned from the Lord the strength to endure to the end. They did not give any testimony under torture, did not name a single person, and did not even admit a single accusation against themselves. A special troika under the NKVD in the Leningrad region sentenced Kira Obolenskaya and Ekaterina Arskaya to death. The sentence was carried out in Borovichi on December 17, 1937.

In 2003, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.