During the Great Terror mass executions and burials took place in the Tesnitsky Woods outside Tula. The site was discovered in summer 1991 as the result of exploratory work prompted by the Tula Memorial Society. Tula Region KGB officers and staff from the Regional Prosecutor’s Office formed part of the search party.
One of the burial trenches was then opened and the remains of 30 bodies were exhumed. The prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation and forensic examination established that the bones belonged to those shot in the 1930s. Archival research confirmed that people were executed in the Tesnitsky Woods but most of the bodies were of those shot in other places. More than one hundred burial trenches were counted, and incomplete data indicated that no less than 2,500 lay buried there. Name lists have not been found; a few names are known.
The remains were reburied where they were found on 26 August 1994 and the foundation stone of a memorial to the victims of political repression was laid at the site with a commemorative cross. In 2002 a chapel dedicated to Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors was built and consecrated nearby. In early 2011 the foundation stone of the memorial was replaced by a boulder and a plaque that reads, “Here lie buried the slain innocents of 1937-1938, victims of Stalinist repression”.
*
In the Ministry of Culture’s Unified Register (October 2023) the protected status of the site was upgraded from Local to Regional/Republican.
A Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression in the Tula Region, 1917-1987 (5 vols. 1999-2011) includes 8,874 biographical entries for those shot, sent to the camps or otherwise repressed since 1918.
Memorial’s online database names 2,363 who were shot in 1937-1938: very limited information is provided. The Tula Memorial Society website (accessed February 2022) reports that during the Great Terror the NKVD Regional troika condemned 2,195 to be shot and 5,484 to be sent to the Gulag. These totals do not include those sentenced by the Special Troika during the last weeks of the Terror.
| Date | Nature of ceremonies | Organiser or responsible person | Participants | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
25 January
|
Feast of Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors
|
Tula diocese
|
Clergy and parishioners, relatives of the victims
|
Annual event
|
|
16 September
|
Service in the chapel of Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors
|
Tula diocese
|
Clergy and parishioners, relatives of the victims
|
Annual event since 2002
|
|
30 October
|
Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression
|
Tula Region administration
|
Representatives of city and regional administrations, Memorial Society, relatives of the victims, clergy, schoolchildren
|
Annual event
|
|
nk
|
Commemorative Services
|
nk
|
nk
|
From time to time
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
Subsidence indicates positon of execution trenches
|
not determined
|
not delineated
|
[ original texts and hyperlinks ]
Reply by the Tula Region section of the Memorial Society (№ 231 of 26 July 2004) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
Reply by the Tula Region FSB (№ ОРАФ/6 of 24 June 2004) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
T.V., “Too numerous to count”, Russky Vestnik (Moscow), 16 September 2011 [retrieved, 29 May 2022]
Website of the Tula diocese [retrieved, 29 May 2022]
*
Reply by the Lenin district administration of the Tver Region (№ 14/1-3173 of 7 May 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
