Koirankangas [C] Execution & burial site | Russia's Necropolis of Terror and the Gulag

Koirankangas [C] Execution & burial site

Card

№47-02

Date of burial
1920s-1930s
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Address
Leningrad Region, Vsevolozhsky district, Rzhevsk artillery range (Koirankangas)
Access outside a populated area
Private or specialised transport
On foot
Visiting Hours or Restrictions
By agreement only
Comments
with Rzhevsk artillery range commander.
Type of burial
Secret interment of executed
Current use
Ceremonial events
Presence of memorials, etc.
Yes
Protected status
Not protected
Фотофиксация 2013 года. Источник: Архив НИЦ «Мемориал»
Фотофиксация 2013 года. Источник: Архив НИЦ «Мемориал»
Background

The Koirankangas landmark on the Rzhevk artillery firing range was the main location for the execution and burial of those shot in the Leningrad Region from the late 1920s to the 1930s on the orders of the NKVD and its predecessors. Local witnesses testify to the events, including those who inhabited the former Finnish villages in its vicinity.

In 2002 an exploratory group from St Petersburg Memorial found one of the burials. More than 50 pits containing the remains of those shot were discovered, with bodies laid in 2-3 layers to a depth of 2.5 metres, in a square kilometre of woodland in the northern part of the firing range. Further investigation was prohibited by the firing range administration in 2003.

In 2008 a memorial cross was erected over the burials. The inscription on the nameboard reads: “Here at Koirankangas in the 1920s and 1930s many thousands of our compatriots were shot by Stalin’s butchers. To their radiant memory”. Two years later the range administration agreed to permit annual Services for the Dead to be held at the cross.

(For earlier use of another part of the firing range for executions, see Kovalyovsky Woods [47-01].)

Books of Remembrance

No Book of Remembrance has been published for the Leningrad Region. Information about those shot in the area is included in the 19-volume Leningrad Martyrology.

Ceremonies
DateNature of ceremoniesOrganiser or responsible personParticipantsFrequency
October
Commemorative masses
Orthodox congregations
Priests, public
Annual event since 2010
Nature of area requiring preservation
State of burialsAreaBoundaries
Subsidence over the burials
not determined
not delineated
Administrative responsibility and ownership, informal responsibility for the site
On land of the Leningrad Region, under the management of the Russian Navy.

47-02