Butovo training ground is official. Butovo execution range

Butovo training ground was organized in 1935 as a shooting range of 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.

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.

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 off barbed wire, next to the place where people unloaded, a security 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 square meters. m. 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. 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 is not measured in numbers, but, nevertheless, on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church So far no places have been discovered where the relics would rest larger number saints of God,” 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 courage shown in the Russian-Turkish war during the storming of Plevna, 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. The future Metropolitan Seraphim is also known for writing the Seraphim-Diveyevo Chronicle, thanks to which he was glorified Venerable Seraphim Sarovsky. 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 ambulance and using 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 beginning of the 50s.

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 of people's deputies and amateur performance 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 the 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, it was created in Moscow community group 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 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. Located around the former landfill holiday village 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 handed over to the Church is undoubtedly the grace of God, which was given to us for the feat accomplished by the new martyrs.” Since 2000, at the test site open air pass patriarchal services, which attracts 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 the 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 such personal stories rest at the site.

The descendants of KGB officers and workers of the Butovo training ground live in a holiday village next to the site of the execution. Members of Butovo church community summer residents are called 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.”

From the results of documentary research carried out by the Standing 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 church or civil funeral 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.

How to get to the Butovo training ground

The test site can be reached from the Dmitry Donskoy Boulevard metro station. Bus number 18 goes directly to the training ground. This bus runs from 6-20, with intervals of exactly one hour. The last bus leaves from the metro at 20-20. Alternatively, you can get there from the metro by any minibus that goes along the Warsaw highway. You will need to go out at the turn to the training ground (the landmark is the overpass above Varshavka), cross the underground highway to the opposite side of the highway, and then walk along Berezovaya Alley for about 800 meters.

The burial grounds are open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. There is a tour service at the temple. Groups of pilgrims are accepted daily, subject to prior arrangement. There are no cafes in the immediate vicinity of the memorial, however, by prior arrangement, it is possible to have lunch in the refectory Sunday school. There is also a memorial center “Butovo” at the temple, where you can get advice on finding repressed relatives.

On the outskirts of the Butovo district in the south of Moscow there is a former NKVD training ground, where from the mid-30s to the early 50s. Tens of thousands of people were shot and buried. Of these, several hundred were in lately canonized as martyrs. In the mid-90s, the territory of the test site was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. A wooden church was built on it in honor of St. New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Now at the training ground, services are constantly held for the saints who suffered here and memorial services for all those who died on this earth. Editorial membersmagazine “We are in Russia and Abroad” Vadim Sergienko, Irina Zubova And Nikolay Bobrinsky met with the rector of the Church of the New Martyrs of Russia in Butovo Archpriest Kirill Kaleda to talk about the history of this place, its significance for our modern life and the meaning of the feat of those who suffered here.

Vadim Sergienko: Father Kirill, Patriarch Alexy called Butovo the Russian Golgotha. What grounds are there for calling this place that?

Father Kirill Kaleda: Of the currently known places where clergy and laity suffered for the Orthodox faith, strange as it may seem, Butovo has the most such victims. Now in the Butovo Synodik, i.e. the list of those people who died here for the confession of the Orthodox faith includes 940 names. Even on Solovki this number is lower. In addition, of this number, to date, if I am not mistaken, 304 people have been canonized. There is no other place on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church where the relics of so many saints rest in one place.

Sergienko: But here, at the Butovo training ground, the remains of not only clergymen, but many, many of the most different people, including those associated with the regime, communists, security officers. Who even died here?

O. Kirill: Total number We do not know the names of those who suffered at the test site. The landfill began operating at the end of 1935 or 1936, and until the beginning of the 50s, burials of those executed and died in Moscow prisons were carried out here. And we only know those people who were shot and buried here between August 1937 and October 1938. This is almost 21 thousand, more precisely 20,761 people. When I first saw these lists, I was amazed that among those executed there were very many of the most ordinary people, i.e. workers, peasants. There are, it seems, two 14-year-old boys.

The oldest is Lord Seraphim ( Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov), Metropolitan of Leningrad - approx. ed.), he was 82 years old, the oldest in age and the most senior in rank. There are about a thousand who suffered for their faith - mostly clergy and monastics, but now about 200 lay people have been identified who were arrested for this. Undoubtedly, this number is larger, but it is quite difficult to detect them, because the line here is not always clear. Most of the victims are Russians, Slavs: Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians. And these are mostly residents of Moscow and the Moscow region. But along with them there are people, one might say, from all over the world: many Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, there are Chinese, several Indians, natives of America, etc. There's even one from South Africa. The poor guy came here to build communism and ended his life here.

And indeed, in Butovo, in common ditches, lie saints, righteous people, and terrible criminals. There is evidence that those officers who took part in the executions were also shot here, thrown over and placed in the same ditches. And this is a big lesson for us: with the Lord, in the face of death, they were all united. This point, from my point of view, has not yet been theologically realized or comprehended.

Bobrinsky: But there were robbers at Calvary too.

O. Kirill: And in this sense there is also a parallel. There is another similarity. After all, the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Hebrews (Heb. 13.12) says that since the bodies of the sacrificial animals were burned outside the camp, Christ also suffered outside the gates of the city: He was taken outside of Jerusalem. Butovo is also outside the gates, the boundaries of the city, but near the city.

Sergienko: Another interesting comparison: the martyrs of the first centuries of Christianity, with their feat of faith, defeated, one might say, the Roman Empire, transformed it, and revived it. Martyrdom in Rus' now, in the 20th century, was large-scale, very strong, but at the same time it did not lead to any noticeable results. In 1943, the feat of witnessing by blood stopped, but the Church was actually enslaved, strict control was established over it, and the martyrs were not remembered until the regime itself collapsed. And only now is all this beginning to be revived, people are beginning to understand the meaning of martyrdom, and not all of them, and very few of those who fully understand it. What then was the feat of the new martyrs? After all, they could neither destroy the state nor revive the people.

O. Kirill: I don't quite agree with you. There is a real miracle in their feat, in the fact that the regime collapsed, and in what is happening now. Moreover, most The population is now non-church; an unprecedented number of churches and monasteries have been erected throughout the country. Russia has never seen such temple construction. Yes, I understand, you may object that very often, unfortunately, these are only external walls. But nevertheless, in order to erect these walls, quite large resources are needed, not material, but spiritual. This is a real miracle of God, and I am deeply convinced that this also happens thanks to the feat of martyrdom of those people. After all, they themselves said that there would be a time when Soviet power would end and churches would be erected again in Rus'. A lot of people said this.

When I first saw the cases of the victims, I was surprised by the very similar answers, the general mood, and clear wording: “ Soviet power, like any power, is a temporary phenomenon.” And not only educated people spoke about this, but also the simplest grandmothers. Quite calmly, the illiterate old women said to the faces of their tormentors that all this was sent for the sins of the people, but the time would come when everything would change. But another question arises: are we worthy of their feat? And can we use this, their feat, for our benefit, for the benefit of our children, for the benefit of our fatherland? Are we worthy of this?

Sergienko: What does it take to be worthy? How should we show ourselves?

O. Kirill: First, there must be faith. There is a need for a revival of churchliness. Real churchliness, and not pseudo-churchism, when we attend church on some days or on some events. Now, thank God, we won’t be expelled from the institute for this, we won’t be kicked out of school, and even if some teacher or boss says something, we can forgive it, realizing that there won’t be very big consequences. We really need faith, we need love, we need unity between people, which, unfortunately, does not exist.

I talked with one such priest-confessor, Father Vasily Evdokimov. He was born in a Russian province, in the city of Kozlov, Tambov province, in 1902 and said: “Kiryusha, you can’t even imagine how happy life was in Russia before 1917.” It is clear that he had a childish perception; we always perceive childhood very rosy, if there are no strong shocks. But, nevertheless, I asked him: “Why, what was so special?” There were all sorts of difficulties in Russia, the economy and the like. And he characterized what was good and what is not now. People trusted each other. And now it's gone. This, unfortunately, is not even inside church life, this vice, the division of this world. We are divided.

Bobrinsky: I had the idea that it is very difficult for us, the descendants of martyrs, to turn to them in prayer, because we are often also the descendants of those who are guilty of their murders. After all, many people at that time participated in these crimes in one way or another, or at least did not resist them. Solzhenitsyn, for example, argues that only those who died resisting are not to blame for the crimes of the Soviet regime.

O. Kirill: Undoubtedly, this problem exists. Responsibility for what happened in Russia lies with the entire Russian people, to varying degrees, of course, but nonetheless. In the end, it was our ordinary Russian peasants who beat the landowners in 17 and 18, and not just anyone else. But atheism was propagated by the intelligentsia, and in seminaries it was considered “higher class” to profess atheism. Therefore, there were cases when teachers were killed there. It was considered chic to profess atheism in the seminary. So we finished our confession. At the same time, there is probably some other side. Now I often return to the phrase that Vladyka Sergius of Solnechnogorsk, now Metropolitan of Voronezh, said when he consecrated the cross at the training ground: “Here everyone carried his own cross. Both those who were shot and those who were shot.” I didn’t take it in then, that’s probably why I remembered her.

And indeed, we are all human. Each of us, including those sitting at this table, has the right to make a mistake. Unfortunately, we are also mistaken. Everyone can say this to themselves. Yes, thank God, the Lord did not put you and me before such a choice as to whether or not to go to work in the Cheka. Before taking such a step, we would have understood that we would have to, if not shoot, then, in any case, carry out certain actions that would bring suffering to people. But each of us still makes some compromises. To what extent can we repent of our sins? After all, the centurion Longinus, who crucified Christ, repented and became a saint, and now we pray to him. And there are examples, I know cases of specific people who, having found themselves in the authorities, then truly repented. I'm not saying that they need to be recognized as saints, but they brought repentance. And now the gravity of our situation lies precisely in the fact that the majority of the population of this one-sixth of the world, to put it mildly, does not give a damn about what happened 60 years ago. This lukewarmness is scary. This lack of spirituality, obviously, leads us to destruction as a people and a state.

Sergienko: But tell me, why do we, our generation, need these burdens? Those who suffered, those who shot - they have already endured, some have repented, some have not, and we are now a new generation, we have our own problems, the economy, joining the WTO, we have integration into the world community. Why do we need this feat of martyrs? Why do we need to carry this burden with us?

O. Kirill: Because a tree, when it grows, is nourished by its roots. If these roots are diseased, the tree dies. If some mole or someone else gnaws at the roots, the tree will dry out. So we will dry out in the same way if we cut off our roots. A person cannot live without roots. This is exactly what the Turks did when raising bashi-bazouks - they tore a person from his roots, raised him as a robot, a puppet. If we want to be puppets in the hands of the WTO or someone else, then, really, why do we need all these problems - we don’t need them. And if we want to be human, we will have so many questions about it. They recently asked me: “Having started working on this place, devoting your life to it, you have become a thing of the past. Do you have no future? I replied that I categorically disagree. This is exactly what I do so that we all have a future.

Sergienko: Father Kirill, when you began to serve at the Butovo training ground, somehow this place showed itself, namely the holiness of this place. There must have been some evidence, special experiences, sensations?

O. Kirill: I am a person of little faith. Like Peter, when a miracle was shown to him, he said to the Lord: “Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). And I am afraid of direct contact with a miracle, and therefore, if I ask the Lord for something, and I understand what is happening according to His will, but I ask that it happen by a natural combination of circumstances. And miracles happen here. Today is one year since the stone temple was founded.

Bobrinsky: I have often noticed that there are now few books about the new martyrs in Orthodox bookstores. It’s as if believers are relatively less interested in them than, for example, in St. Seraphim or Metropolitan Anthony. This surprises me because here, next to us, there is such a source of invaluable experience and holiness.

O. Kirill: This, firstly, is blindness, because it is said: no prophet is accepted in his own country (Luke 4:24). Here they are nearby, and it seems to us that something is wrong with them. They even asked the question: “Well, what kind of saints are they?” Indeed, what kind of saint, I don’t know, some dad, served in the village, waved a censer, and then they took him and shot him. He didn’t renounce Christ, and finally said that your power will end. What feat did he accomplish? Here Father Mikhail Uspensky fed the parishioners with apples from his garden on Transfiguration. He was taken away for this. “How do you, dad, do propaganda?” Well, how can you compare this with, say, Anthony the Great? I just fed him apples. So that's the whole point! I think that potentially none of us have done and Venerable Sergius or St. Seraphim, no matter how much we cover the floors with our foreheads, bowing, no matter how many theological books we read, will not achieve. They were originally different. Yes, they had temptations, but they withstood these temptations and did what we cannot do.

And these people, the new martyrs, are just like us. But they had the courage to follow Christ. Despite the fact that it was difficult, despite the fact that they had families, they worried about them. The cows that fed their children were taken away from them, and they served thanksgiving services for this. Here's the father. He served in Ramenskoye. He had eleven children. They took the cow away, but he came and immediately, as soon as he found out, said: “We must serve a prayer service.” Mother to him: “Sash, what are you doing?” And he put the children on his knees and became Saint Nicholas thanksgiving prayer serve. After that, for more than a year, every morning on his porch he had a basket with two bottles of milk and a loaf of bread. The children looked but could not see. They spied on it, they were on duty at night to see who was setting it up, but they couldn’t see it. And then they put some security officer with an open form of tuberculosis in his apartment. And oh. Alexander buried his children every year afterwards. And he, nevertheless, did not refuse, did not leave. They were very similar to us. This is the remarkableness of their feat.

Sergienko: Maybe so. But there is not much time between their feat and us, and practically nothing living has reached us. The feat is over, and now to feel it as our own, so that it is passed on to us - this is almost impossible. Even in families in which the parents were martyrs and confessors, they often simply remained silent and did not tell anything about their lives.

O. Kirill: I agree with you, on the one hand, because I saw several people come to the Butovo Church and began to say that their grandfather was a monk and, perhaps, he suffered here - he was shot somewhere. They picked up the materials - it turned out that their grandfather was the Archbishop of Vladimir - Nikolai (Dobronravov), a very famous theologian. On the other hand, it was not hidden. For example, I always knew that my grandfather suffered somewhere because he was a priest ( O. Kirill is the grandson of the man who was shot in Butovo on November 5, 1937 - approx. ed.), that my comrades also suffered someone. This one was real life. Life among those people who endured it all. And when dad ( Archpriest Gleb Kaleda, during Soviet times he was secretly a priest for many years - approx. ed.) came and said that he had been secretly ordained as a priest, we accepted this quite naturally. This was not something extraordinary. Although there was an understanding of what the consequences could be, not only for him, but also for us. Therefore, the roots exist.

Sergienko: Tell me, on what basis is it possible to accept this past, to recognize the 20th century, the feat of the martyrs, and the revival of churchliness? After all, everything has fallen apart, there is almost nothing.

O. Kirill: This question is very difficult. Indeed, by and large, there was a huge country, and it seemed to go under water. Atlantis. Only the mountain tops remained. So, separate islands in the endless ocean. And now it may happen that another storm will flood these islands too. Probably our task now is to understand, to calmly realize what is happening. We must understand that if we want something to remain from this amazing culture, from this Russia, we need to build dams around the islands, otherwise we will not be able to survive the next tsunami.

Bobrinsky: Dam - in what sense?

O. Kirill: Of course, first of all in a spiritual, moral sense, and there should be a very clear awareness of our roots.

Sergienko: Another such moment. For a Russian person, it is probably very painful, because God gave everyone a father, mother, brother, God gave a fatherland. God can take away both. But from time immemorial in Rus' it turned out that what was special among us was the love for our fatherland, for father's coffins. Do you think that now, God forbid, there is some kind of wave that we will not be able to withstand. Now, indeed, the state is weak, the people are dying out at a catastrophic rate. Another wave - from the south, from the east, from the inside. Now we are saying - revolution, soon there will be a revolution. Everyone is trying to use the youth impulse and direct it somewhere. Russia, will there be Russia - this faith, this path - without state education?

O. Kirill: I don’t know - I’m not a prophet, not a historian, not a thinker. Don't know. But it has long been said:

Russia is finished...
Lastly, we talked about her, chatted,
They slurped, drank, spat,
Got dirty in dirty squares,
Sold on the streets: shouldn't it?
Who wants lands, republics and freedoms,
Civil rights? And the people's homeland
He was dragged out to rot like carrion.
Oh, Lord, open up, waste away,
Send fire, plagues and scourges upon us,
Germans from the west. Mongol from the east,
Give us into slavery again and forever,
To atone humbly and deeply
Judas' sin until the Last Judgment!

This is Voloshin, 1917. The same Voloshin said that “everything will blow, Europe and Russia.” We must understand that the Roman Empire is over and Byzantium is over. Unfortunately, we now live at a crossroads when it is very possible that our civilization will end. And then we are one of the last. But, if the Lord wills, everything can be reborn.

Irina Zubova: It also depends on us.

O. Kirill: Yes, it also depends on us. That’s the whole point: it depends on us, on how we behave. And not in going about with demonstrations, but in clearly organizing one’s life on the basis of Orthodoxy.

Sergienko: And what if some part of society prays and goes to church, will this save the country, will it revive it?

O. Kirill: When the Lord went to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham asked Him: “Perhaps there are fifty righteous people in this city? Will You really destroy and not spare this place for the sake of fifty righteous people?” The Lord said: “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, then for their sake I will spare the whole city.” And Abraham began to gradually reduce the number of righteous people for whose sake the city would be saved, and only after the number ten does the Bible say: “And the Lord went away, ceasing to speak with Abraham” (Gen. 18, 23 - 33). So the answer to your question lies in the power of the Lord God. He will make a decision when He stops speaking to us and the Judgment comes.

In 1935, approximately 15 kilometers south of Moscow, on the territory of the former Butovo estate of I. I. Zimin, an NKVD shooting range was set up and the territory was taken under round-the-clock armed guard. This place is now known as the Butovo training ground.

In 1937, when the Bolsheviks unleashed Great Terror(although mass executions and repressions had not stopped before), Moscow cemeteries could not cope with the flow of burials. And in mid-1937, the NKVD allocated two new special facilities - Butovo and Kommunarka. Moreover, representatives of the Bolshevik nomenklatura, officers of the Red Army, engineers, cultural and artistic figures, executioners-workers of the NKVD ended up in Kommunarka, and in Butovo ordinary citizens were shot: workers, peasants, former White Guards, as well as clergy and laymen who fell under the rink of repression.

People were shot until the early 1950s, then the Butovo firing range was guarded by KGB troops until 1995, when it was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. It is now open to the public.

Under the cover of the earth there are at least 21,000 dead (data from 1937-38 only), who died a violent death.

The reactions of people who come here are different; the Internet is full of creepy horror stories about the training ground on the theme “the dead stand with scythes.”

But the Orthodox call the Butovo training ground the Russian Golgotha, where thousands of martyrs for the Faith of Christ found their martyrdom, but is Golgotha ​​a dark and gloomy place?

After all, we serve the liturgy on the relics of saints. Even in the first centuries, those who suffered martyrdom for Christ were buried in the catacombs. The throne on which the Eucharist was served in the first centuries of Christianity was precisely these coffins, the sarcophagi of the martyrs. The throne was originally the tomb of a martyr, therefore, during the consecration of the temple, a particle of the relics is placed at the base of the throne. Particles of the relics are also sewn into the antimension, without which the celebration of Divine services in the church is impossible.

And here, in Butovo, reside the relics of hundreds and thousands of holy martyrs.

So, when I made a short pilgrimage here (with my 7-year-old daughter), I had no fear. The goal was to bow and say:

Holy martyrs of Christ, pray to God for us!

And the impression is very positive: a bright open-air Temple.

So, photo report

We started on foot from the Butovo Park microdistrict, which is actively under construction. Its developers make it sound like Butovo is already the capital. In fact, this is Bulatnikovskoe rural settlement Leninsky district of the Moscow region, from new houses to the landfill - less than 1 km.

We pass through the Butovo dacha community, where dachas were given to state security veterans. The dachas are adjacent to the burial places of the repressed and are separated by a fence.

Near the landfill in 2007, it was built and consecrated big temple New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia (at the training ground there is also a small wooden church built in 1996)

mosaic icon on the facade of the temple - Saint Seraphim (Chichagov)

Butovo Poklonny Cross, made in Solovetsky Monastery made of three types of wood (cypress, cedar and pine) and installed at the Butovo training ground at the end of a two-week procession Solovki-Butovo in 2007. It was installed as they are installed on Solovki - surrounded by stones.

Another Worship Cross at the altar of the temple

The execution range itself is across the road.
There is a memorial stone at the entrance.

A wreath at the stone - to Vladimir Fedorovich Dzhunkovsky, Moscow governor in 1908-1913. It was conferred on him by the city of Mozhaisk: Dzhunkovsky - Honorary Citizen of the city.

Worship cross at the training ground

Memorial plaques to clergy

Burial scheme:

Project of the memorial complex:

Stands with information about the victims of Bolshevik repressions:

In the early 90s, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy, a trial opening of the burials was done. A hole measuring 6 by 6 meters was dug. It contained 72 human body, arranged in rows of 5 layers. Their clothes were nearby. This is where it now stands worship cross. All other burials are undisturbed today.

And endless rows of graves.

Most Muscovites associate the word “Butovo” with a new residential area located outside the southern limits of the Moscow Ring Road. But there is another Butovo, and it stands on a par with such concepts as “Solovki”, “Kolyma”, “Buchenwald”, “Auschwitz”. From the mid-30s to the early 50s. At the Butovo training ground of the NKVD, tens of thousands of people were secretly shot and buried. Today we know the names of 20,765 people executed for short period time - from August 8, 1937 to October 19, 1938
On the territory of the former Kosmodemyanskoye-Drozhzhino estate, a shooting range was organized in mid-1935. To do this, they evicted all the residents living in the manor houses, fenced an area of ​​2 square kilometers with barbed wire and organized enhanced security. However, already from the end of 1935, the landfill began to be used for carrying out death sentences and the subsequent burial of convicts. According to documented data, only in the period from August 8, 1937 to October 19, 1938, 20,765 people were executed here. After the war, executions at the training ground stopped. The territory began to be used for the burial of the dead or those executed in Moscow prisons. In the mid-50s, the special zone was liquidated, the burial sites were surrounded by a fence with barbed wire, and at the edges of the landfill, where there were no burials, a holiday village for KGB officers was built by prisoners of war.
Mass executions at the Butovo training ground began on August 8, 1937. On that day, the first 91 people were shot...
He supervised the creation of the zone, the delivery of prisoners to the zone and the execution of sentences by M. I. Semenov. Isai Davydovich Berg was responsible for the economic part and supplying the operational group of performers with everything necessary.
Butovo was also frequently visited by high authorities: the commandant of the NKVD Central Apparatus (later General) Blokhin, General Kosov. General V.M. Blokhin is one of the few responsible NKVD officers who survived the 1930s–1950s. This was a man without whose participation not a single bloody operation could take place in those years in the country, be it Katyn, Kharkov or Mednoe near Tver, where, in addition to the Russians, a total of about 15 thousand Polish officers were shot.
Nowadays it is no longer a secret that V. M. Blokhin took personal part in the executions, although due to his position he was not obliged to do so. While carrying out his difficult work, he, like a butcher at a slaughterhouse, dressed in a brown rubber apron, leggings and rubber boots. Blokhin was his own man both at the Kommunarka special facility and at the Butovo training ground...
At first, local residents did not pay much attention to the shots coming from the Butovo firing range. They were warned that a shooting range would be set up here. But gradually terrible suspicions began to creep into people's souls. Passers-by returning home from the night train were overtaken by “funnels,” covered paddy wagons. Cars roared along a broken forest road. There were sometimes two or three, sometimes up to ten. Sometimes voices and distant screams could be heard from the direction of the forest. But such fear settled in the people who lived in these parts that they did not dare to talk about their guesses even to each other.
People sentenced to death were brought to Butovo without telling them why or where they were being taken. This was done deliberately, in order to avoid unnecessary complications. The cars, covered paddy wagons, were persistently called “gas chambers” by the people. There were rumors that people were poisoned in paddy wagons by venting a pipe with exhaust gases inside the van where the condemned were located. There was a lot of talk about these “gas chambers” at one time. The name of the inventor was Berg. But the existence of these “gas chambers” was still not documented at that time.
In 1994, the Great Cross of Worship was erected on this long-suffering land. At the same time, the community of the future Church of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was formed. In 1995, the territory of the Butovo training ground was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The first official liturgy in Butovo was celebrated on June 25, 1995 in the camp tent church of All Saints who shone in the Russian land. Soon the land of the Butovo training ground was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate. According to the design of D.M. Shakhovsky, the son of Priest Mikhail Shik, who was executed in Butovo, a wooden church was built in the name of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Its rector became Priest Kirill Kaleda, the grandson of the martyr Vladimir Ambartsumov, who was executed here. The temple was consecrated on the day of the death of the Sergian lord Seraphim (Chichagov) - December 11, 1996.
On August 9, 2001, Resolution No. 259/28 was adopted declaring the former secret facility of the NKVD - KGB, which operated from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, “Butovo training ground” in the Leninsky district, a State historical monument.
On May 19, 2007, Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Laurus, performed the great consecration of the new white stone church of the “Cathedral of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.”

The estate changed hands many times. The last owner of the estate and the stud farm built with it was the merchant-industrialist I.I. Zimin. And after the revolution, Drozhzhino fell into decline, although the stud farm supplied horses for the Red Army.

In the 1920s, an agricultural colony of the OGPU appeared in the eastern part of the former estate. Prisoners were brought from the neighboring St. Catherine's Hermitage, which became a prison, in 1934. They were housed in the former master's stables. But soon the prisoners were transferred to neighboring Shcherbinka, the stud farm was closed, and the workers were evicted. An area of ​​2 km2 was fenced with barbed wire, and residents in the area were told that a shooting range had opened here.

Soon shots began to be heard from the direction of the training ground. Since August 1937, the shooting lasted for several hours. “Funnels” and “paddy wagons” became frequent guests. Local residents quickly realized the true purpose of the landfill, so they forbade children from even approaching it.

Mass executions at the Butovo training ground began on the orders of the People's Commissar of the NKVD Yezhov on August 8, 1937.

People sentenced to death were brought to Butovo without telling them why or where they were being taken. The covered “paddy wagons,” into which up to 50 people were pushed, were persistently called “gas chambers” by the people. There is evidence from former executors that people were poisoned in paddy wagons, with a pipe carrying exhaust gases leading inside the van.
Cars were approaching from the direction of the forest. There were 2 buildings on the territory of the landfill - a small one stone house and a long wooden barracks fenced with barbed wire. Those sentenced to death were taken to a barracks, supposedly for “sanitation.” Here the decision was announced, the data and the availability of photographs were checked. They were taken out for execution one at a time... At first, those executed were buried in small burial pits, which were dug by hand. But from August 1937, executions in Butovo assumed such proportions that it was necessary to use special means and equipment... Trenches were dug 3 m deep and more than 150 m long. Less than 100 people were rarely shot in a day in Butovo. There were days when 300, 400, and over 500 people were executed. The peak of executions in Butovo occurred on February 28, 1938. On that day, 562 people were shot. After another execution, a local man appeared at the training ground. He started the bulldozer and covered the bodies of those shot with a thin layer of earth. New victims lay on top of these bodies.

10 km from the Butovo training ground there is another place of mass graves of victims of repression - the special facility of the NKVD “Kommunarka”. In total, according to official data, 20,000 people were shot in Butovo.

From the middle of the war, camps for German prisoners of war were set up in Butovo. They worked on the construction of the Simferopol highway, at a brick factory. During the war years they were hardly fed, and the prisoners ate leaves from hunger, boiled tree bark, and inedible roots. Local residents fed them, despite the prohibitions. Many prisoners of war died in Butovo from exhaustion. They were buried in common pits on the edge of the rural cemetery in Drozhzhino, near the Butovo training ground.

In 1949-1951, a village of 3 brick houses was built on the territory of the special zone. Apartments in two of them were given to MGB officers, and in the third there was a special school for officers of internal services of countries Eastern Europe. In the mid-1950s, the special zone was liquidated and the central part with the burials was surrounded by a solid fence with barbed wire.

In 1994, a worship cross was installed at the Butovo training ground. At the same time, the community of the future Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was formed.

The first official liturgy in Butovo took place on June 25, 1995 in the camp tent church of All Saints. And by the end of 1996, a wooden church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was built at the Butovo training ground according to the design of D.M. Shakhovsky, the son of Priest Mikhail Shik, who was executed here. The rector of the church was Priest Kirill Kaleda, the grandson of the martyr Vladimir Ambartsumov, who was executed here.

In the narthex of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia there are pre-mortem photographs of the victims in Butovo, and things that were found in the burial ditch during the 1997 excavation. On the walls of the church at the Butovo site you can see more than fifty icons of the Butovo saints, and on the bell tower is the name of the bells cast in Tutaev. They also depict the faces of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

What could you tell us about the Butovo training ground?