The walled territory of the Old Believers’ Church of the Assumption, closed in 1937, was one place where inhabitants of Ryazan and the Ryazan Region executed during the Great Terror were buried. Their bodies were interred in the cellars of the church buildings and also in its inner courtyard. The exact number buried there is unknown.
In 1991, G. Romanov, a former officer of the Ryazan City NKVD, gave official testimony and indicated the location of one of the mass burials: he had taken part in burying the bodies. The congregation of the Church of the Assumption erected a wooden commemorative cross at the site. On 30 October 2000 a marble plaque was fixed to the outer brick wall surrounding the church territory: “Never again! In the common grave behind this wall lie the remains of the victims of political repression of the 1930s in Ryazan. The Memorial Society.” The initiative and funding for the commemorative plaque came from the Ryazan Memorial society.
A Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression: the Ryazan Region (1 vol., 2001) includes biographical entries on 5,000 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
|
Ryazan Memorial Society
|
Ryazan Memorial, descendants of the victims, city officials
|
Annual event
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries | Other sites in same area |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Have not survived
|
Not defined
|
unmarked
|
The Skorbyashchenskaya (Old Believer) Church, a protected monument
|
[ original texts and hyperlinks ]
Andrei Blinushov (compiler), The History of Political Repression in Ryazan: A guide, Krasnoyarsk, 2011
“A Wall of Remembrance for the Victims of Terror”, Ryazan Memorial archive collection [retrieved, 29 May 2022]
*
Reply by the Ryazan City Administration (№06/2-14-1232 of 26 March 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
