Levashovo Memorial Cemetery () commemorates the victims of political repression between 1937 and 1954: some were shot, others died in the city's prisons, all were buried here in unmarked graves. Archival evidence suggests that 19,540 bodies lie here, 8,000 of whom were shot or died during the

Great Terror The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

. The cemetery is located near the rail station at

Levashovo, Saint Petersburg Levashovo (russian: Левашово) is a municipal settlement under the administrative jurisdiction of Vyborgsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transconti ...

, in an empty area referred to in Russian as the ''Levashovskaya Pustosh'' (Russian: Левашовская пустошь), the Levashovo Wasteland. Bodies dating back to the Terror were first found there in spring 1989 by a

Memorial (society) Memorial ( rus, Мемориал, p=mʲɪmərʲɪˈaɫ) is an international human rights organisation, founded in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union to study and examine the human rights violations and other crimes committed under Joseph ...

exploration group led by V.T. Muravsky. The FSB, successor to the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

and

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

, finally handed the area over to the city council in 1990.

Monuments, memorials and plaques

Many collective memorials to particular ethno-confessional groups have been added in the grounds of the cemetery since 1990 (see "Gallery" below) and the large monument of the "Moloch of Totalitarianism" (sculptors Nina Galitskaia and Vitaly Gambarov) was erected by the entrance in 1996. A memorial to Italians who died in the Soviet

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

Galina Stolyarov
Italy’s Gulag Victims Get Memorial
The St. Petersburg Times Issue #1285 (51), 3 July 2007 was added to the site (Gallery No. 8) in 2007. By established tradition, relatives or descendants of the victims also began adding their own personal memorials or plaques. By 2017 more than 1,300 of them (Gallery No. 12) were distributed around the 6.5 hectares of the site. They were symbolic acts of remembrance: the actual location of any particular body was not known and impossible to determine.

Annual events

Various annual events are held at the cemetery. On 25 January or the nearest Sunday in January or February, the "Feast of Russia's New Martyrs and Confessors" is celebrated by the St Petersburg Metropolitan of the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

. In June solemn ceremonies are held in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression. On 30 October each year, the

Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions The Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression (russian: День памяти жертв политических репрессий) is an annual day when victims of political repression in the Soviet Union are remembered and mour ...

, commemorative events are organized at the cemetery by the

Memorial society Memorial ( rus, Мемориал, p=mʲɪmərʲɪˈaɫ) is an international human rights organisation, founded in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union to study and examine the human rights violations and other crimes committed under Joseph ...

and other NGOs. In 2016 the event was attended by NGOs, city officials, diplomats, foreign delegations, representatives of various ethno-confessional groups and relatives and descendants of the victims.

Buried at Levashovo

Some of those known to have died or been executed in the city's prisons before and after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

are listed below. Nikolai Alekseevich Voznesensky, for instance, was sentenced to death in 1950 as the leader of the so-called Leningrad plot. Others like the writers Livshits and Kornilov, or the German communists Rudolf and Anna Tieke, were victims of the

(1937–1938). *

Igor Akulov Igor Alexandrovich Akulov (Epiphany, Epiphanius; 13 April 1897, Novo-Nikitskaya, Korchevsky County, province of Tver — 27 August 1937, Leningrad) originally a Russian Orthodox monk, later a priest of the Russian Catholic Church and victim of Jose ...

* Evgeny Henkin *

Boris Kornilov Boris Petrovich Kornilov (''russian: Бори́с Петро́вич Корни́лов'') (29 July 1907, in Semyonov, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Pokrovskoye, Semyonovsky Uyezd, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate – 20 February 1938) was a Soviet Unio ...

Alexey Kuznetsov Alexey Alexandrovich Kuznetsov (, in Borovichi – 1 October 1950, in Moscow) was a Soviet statesman, CPSU (since 1925) functionary, Lieutenant General, member of CPSU Central Committee (1939-1949). He was Second Secretary (deputy leader) to L ...

* Benedikt Livshits *

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Nevsky Nikolai Aleksandrovich Nevsky (russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Не́вский; the surname is also transcribed Nevskij; 24 November 1937) was a Russian and Soviet linguist, an expert on a number of East Asian languages. H ...

* Nikolay Oleynikov *

Mikhail Rodionov Mikhail Ivanovich Rodionov (russian: Михаи́л Ива́нович Родио́нов; – 1 October 1950) was a Soviet- Russian statesman who was from 1946 to 1949 the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian SFSR, literally meanin ...

Julian Shchutsky Julian Konstantinovich Shchutsky (russian: Юлиан Константинович Шуцкий, 11 August 1897, Ekaterinburg – February 18, 1938, Leningrad) was a Russian sinologist. Education and scientific career Shchutsky's father was of ...

* Kirill Stutzka * Anna and Rudolf Tieke * Nikolai Alekseevich Voznesensky

Gallery

File:Левашовская пустошь. Ассирийцы.JPG, 1. To Assyrians File:Левашовская пустошь. Беларусы.JPG, 2. To

Belarusians , native_name_lang = be , pop = 9.5–10 million , image = , caption = , popplace = 7.99 million , region1 = , pop1 = 600,000–768,000 , region2 = , pop2 ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Верующим.JPG, 3. To

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

believers File:Левашовская пустошь. Вечная память.JPG, 4. Never forget File:Левашовская пустошь. Евреи.JPG, 5. To

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Исповедь.JPG, 7. Confession File:Левашовская пустошь. Итальянцы.JPG, 8. To

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Колокол.JPG, 9. The Bell of Memory File:197. Левашовская пустошь. Памятник латышам.jpg, 10. To

Latvians Latvians ( lv, latvieši) are a Baltic ethnic group and nation native to Latvia and the immediate geographical region, the Baltics. They are occasionally also referred to as Letts, especially in older bibliography. Latvians share a common Latvi ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Литовцы.JPG, 11. To

Lithuanians Lithuanians ( lt, lietuviai) are a Baltic ethnic group. They are native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another million or two make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Uni ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Одиночные памятки.JPG, 12. Private plaques & memorials File:Левашовская пустошь. От новгородцев.JPG, 13. To Novgorodians File:Левашовская пустошь. Поляки1.JPG, 14. To

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Украинцы.JPG, 15. To

Ukrainians Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Финны.JPG, 16. To

Finns Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Эстонцы.JPG, 17. To

Estonians Estonians or Estonian people ( et, eestlased) are a Finnic ethnic group native to Estonia who speak the Estonian language. The Estonian language is spoken as the first language by the vast majority of Estonians; it is closely related to other ...

File:Левашовская пустошь. Энергетики.JPG, 18. Energy workers shot by the NKVD File:Левашовская пустошь. Траурные ленты.JPG, 19. Funeral ribbons File:Левашовская пустошь. У входа..JPG, 20. By the entrance to Levashovo File:Левашовская пустошь. Поляки.JPG, 21. To Poles File:To Germans of Russia.jpg, 22. To Soviet / Russian Germans

References

External links