From 1918 up to 1991 the Cheka and its successors (OGPU, NKVD, KGB) occupied the buildings of the closed Bogoroditse-Rozhdestvenskoe monastery. The interrogation and isolation centre of the security services was also located there. Sources indicate that executions and burials occurred in the buildings. The location of the burials was established by the Vladimir Region KGB when it was re-examining the criminal cases against those unlawfully arrested, imprisoned and shot in the 1930s-1940s and the early 1950s.
Decree No. 5 (4 January 1992) of the head of the Vladimir Region Administration recognised the grounds of the former monastery as a memorial cemetery. In autumn 1992 the monastery was handed back to the Vladimir and Suzdal diocese. On 30 October 1993 a cross in memory of the executed was unveiled and consecrated under an arch in the monastery wall: the memorial was created by deputies of the Vladimir city soviet and it was funded by the municipal budget. An inscription at the base of the cross reads: “May God grant peace to the souls of the slain innocents of the Vladimir Region”. To the right of the cross is a list of 28 people shot in the grounds of the monastery: they were sentenced to death by the OGPU in autumn 1930 as accomplices in a fabricated conspiracy.
At the same time a memorial plaque was attached to the external wall of the monastery. It reads: “During the years of repression those unjustly executed were secretly buried in the monastery grounds”.
Pain and Memory: A Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression in the Vladimir Region (2 vols. 2001, 2003) includes biographical entries on 11,500 who were shot or sent to the camps.
| Date | Nature of ceremonies | Organiser or responsible person | Participants | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
30 October
|
Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression (Service for the Dead in cathedral)
|
Vladimir branch of Memorial Society, supported by the City administration
|
City administration, members of Memorial, the public
|
Annual event
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
have not survived
|
not determined
|
not delineated
|
[ original texts and hyperlinks ]
Decree No. 5 (4 January 1992) of the head of the Vladimir Region Administration, “Commemorating the victims of political repression”
The Bogoroditse-Rozhdestvenskoe monastery”, website of the Vladimir-Suzdal diocese
A.L. Yershov, “… three priests: persecution of the church … in the 1930s”, commission for canonisation, Vladimir diocese [retrieved, 27 May 2022]
“Burials of prisoners in Vladimir’s Bogoroditsa-Rozhdestvenskoe cemetery”, Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 27 May 2022]
*
Reply by the Vladimir City Administration (№ 13-01/202 of 3 April 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
Reply by the Vladimir City Administration (№ 05-01/288 of 15 April 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
