Butyrskaya prison (), usually known simply as Butyrka ( rus, Бутырка, p=bʊˈtɨrkə), is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, Russia. In

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

it served as the central transit prison. During the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

era (1917–1991) it held many political prisoners. Butyrka remains the largest of Moscow's remand prisons. Overcrowding is an ongoing problem.

History

The first references to Butyrka prison may be traced back to the 17th century. The current building was erected in 1879 near the Butyrsk gate (, or Butyrskaya zastava) on the site of a prison-

fortress A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

which had been built by the architect Matvei Kazakov during the reign of

Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...

. The towers of the old fortress once housed the rebellious

Streltsy The streltsy (, ; , ) were the units of Russian firearm infantry from the 16th century to the early 18th century and also a social stratum, from which personnel for streltsy troops were traditionally recruited. They are also collectively kno ...

during the reign of Peter I, and later on hundreds of participants of the 1863

January Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. Members of Narodnaya Volya were also prisoners of the Butyrka in 1883, as were the participants in the Morozov Strike of 1885. The Butyrka prison was known for its brutal regime. The prison administration resorted to violence anytime the inmates tried to protest. Its famous inmates include the influential revolutionary poet

Vladimir Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, Russian Revolution, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Ru ...

, the Russian

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

Nikolay Bauman, and the founder of the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

Felix Dzerzhinsky. During the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

, the workers of Moscow freed all the

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

s from the Butyrka. Following the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

, Butyrka remained a place of internment for political prisoners and a transfer camp for people sentenced to be sent to the

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

. During the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, about twenty thousand inmates at a time were imprisoned in Butyrka. Thousands of political prisoners were shot after investigations. Later, prominent political prisoners included the writers

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

and Yevgenia Ginzburg.

Living conditions

Varlam Shalamov notes in one of his tales, that the Butyrka is extremely hot in summer;

Eduard Limonov Eduard Veniaminovich Limonov (né Savenko; , ; 22 February 1943 – 17 March 2020) was a Russians, Russian writer, poet, publicist, political dissident and politician. He emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1974, but returned to Russia in 1991 ...

, in his

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

''Death in the Police Van'', emphatically agrees. He says that, with the collapse of the Soviet regime, overcrowding has become a real issue; there are more than one hundred

inmate A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a sentence in pr ...

s in cells meant to contain ten people. In a 2019 interview the

warden A warden is a custodian, defender, or guardian. Warden is often used in the sense of a watchman or guardian, as in a prison warden. It can also refer to a chief or head official, as in the Warden of the Mint. ''Warden'' is etymologically ident ...

of the prison said "The limit of our detention facility is 1,847 inmates. In fact, now when we are talking there are 2,292 people here." Most of these people are politically unreliable subjects from the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

. Since epidemics are a problem, the wardens try to fill cells entirely with people with

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

, or with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

; however, this does little to curb the problem, since many inmates are drug users, and there is at most one needle per cell. Moreover, inmates are brought to the tribunal in overcrowded police vans, so that healthy inmates are exposed to tuberculosis.

Notable inmates

* Fabijan Abrantovich, Catholic priest and a pro-independence activist from

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

* Anna Abrikosova, nun of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

and prominent figure in the Catholic Church in Russia * Andrei Amalrik, Russian historian and famed dissident during the 1960s; author of "Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984" *

Władysław Anders Władysław Albert Anders (11 August 1892 – 12 May 1970) was a Polish military officer and politician, and prominent member of the Polish government-in-exile in London. Born in Krośniewice-Błonie, then part of the Russian Empire, he serv ...

, Polish general and prime minister * Isaak Babel, writer, killed in 1940 * Aron Baron, Ukrainian

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

* Mieczysław Boruta-Spiechowicz, Polish general and one of the leaders of anti-communist opposition in the 1970s * Alikhan Bukeikhanov, Kazakh statesman * Walerian Czuma, Polish general * Felix Dzerzhinsky, Cheka founder * Vladimir Dzhunkovsky, Russian statesman * Yuli-Yoel Edelstein (, is an Israeli politician. One of the most prominent refuseniks in the Soviet Union, he has been

Speaker of the Knesset The speaker of the Knesset (, ) is the presiding officer of the Knesset, the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Speaker also acts as President of Israel when the President is incapacitated. The current speaker is Amir Ohana, who ...

since 2013 * Blessed Leonid Feodorov, Exarch and reputed

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

of the Russian Greek Catholic Church * Rashid Khan Gaplanov,

Education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

and

Finance Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

Minister of

Azerbaijan Democratic Republic The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (), also known as the Azerbaijan People's Republic (; ), was the first secular democracy, democratic republic in the Turkic peoples, Turkic and Muslim worlds. *Tadeusz Swietochowski. ''Russia and Azerbaijan: ...

* Yevgenia Ginzburg, author of '' Journey into the Whirlwind'' and ''Within the Whirlwind''; mother of the writer Vasili Aksyonov; her books tell of her arrest during the 1937 purges in the city of

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

, where she worked as a leading member of the local Communist Party structures of Tartary * Filipp Goloshchyokin, Soviet politician and party leader, was briefly held in Butyrka and sent to Kuibyshev and shot there in October 1941 * Sergey Golovkin, serial killer and the last person to be executed in Russia * Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich, aircraft designer * Vladimir Gusinsky, led to the "shares for freedom" transaction or Protocol No.6 (Протокол N.6. Доля свободы) that was signed by Minister for Press, Broadcasting and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Lesin * Werner Haase, one of Adolf Hitler's personal physicians, died in captivity in 1950 * Heinz Hitler, German dictator Adolf Hitler's favorite nephew, died after several days of torture in 1942 * Vladimir Ionesyan, spree killer executed in 1964 * Vyacheslav Ivankov, mob boss and

thief in law Theft (, cognate to ) is the act of taking another person's property or Service (economics), services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synon ...

* Aleksandr Ivanov-Sukharevsky, far right politician and leader of the Peoples National Party (NNP) * Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet and futurist, killed in 1938 * Elena Karpuchina, the 1967 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Champion, born in 1951 and spent her first two years living in Butyrki until her mother's pardon in 1953 * Aleksandr Kokorin, Russian footballer *

Sergei Korolev Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet Aerospace engineering, rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He invented the R-7 Sem ...

, Russian rocket and spacecraft designer * Walter Linse, German human rights lawyer kidnapped in the American sector of Berlin in July 1952, executed 15 December 1953 * Alexander Litvinenko * Blessed Zygmunt Łoziński, Catholic bishop of

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

* Sergei Magnitsky, lawyer, whose 2009 death in Matrosskaya Tishina Prison led to a 2009 Russian law forbidding jailing of tax criminals and also to the Magnitsky Act being passed by the

US Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

in 2012. * Nestor Makhno, Ukrainian

* Pavel Mamayev, Russian footballer *

, poet * Günther Merk, SS-'' Brigadeführer'' and war criminal, executed in January 1947 * Leopold Okulicki, Polish general, last commander of the Armia Krajowa, killed in Butyrki in 1946 * Konstantin Päts, president of the Republic of Estonia when it became occupied by the

in 1940 * Unto Parvilahti, SS-Officer * Nikolai Polikarpov, Soviet aeronautical engineer * Yevgeny Polivanov, Soviet linguist, orientalist and polyglot who was executed in 1938 * Yemelyan Pugachev, pretender to the Russian throne and leader of a Cossack insurrection in 1773–1774 * Varlam Shalamov, writer and soviet dissident; wrote '' The Kolyma Tales'' * Kazys Skučas, Lithuanian politician and general of the Lithuanian Army *

, Nobel Prize laureate, writer and dissident; wrote '' The Gulag Archipelago'' and '' One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' * Elena Stasova, Russian communist * Karlo Štajner, Yugoslav communist activist and writer * Baruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army * Léon Theremin, a pioneer of electronic music, the inventor of the theremin and an electronic eavesdropping bug * Sergei Tretyakov,

Avant-Garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

playwright during the 1920s; apparently threw himself down a prison stairwell to avoid execution * Augustinas Voldemaras, once the prime minister of

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, died in this prison after Lithuania was occupied by the

in 1940 * Avgustyn Voloshyn, former president of Carpatho-Ukraine, died in Butyrka in 1945 * Helmuth Weidling, German ''

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

'' general and last commandant of Berlin, died in custody in 1955 * Jonas Žemaitis, Lithuanian general, head of the Lithuanian anti-Soviet partisan forces after World War II, shot to death in 1953; later recognized as the fourth President of Lithuania in 2009 * Abba Gordin, anarchist

References

External links

*
Former Butyrka inmate says: "They throw you there to break you"
- interview on

Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...

Article of the political prisoner's department of the Russian mypeople.ru

Article of ''Rossiskaja Gaseta''

A list of prisons in Moscow

BBC report about Butyrka prison at Johnson's Russia list

Unofficial website of workers of The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Moscow Castles in Russia Prisons in Russia Prisons in the Soviet Union Tverskoy District Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Moscow Execution sites in Russia