Veliky Ustyug [C]* Prisoners execution & burial site; deportees

Card

№35-07

Date of burial

1918-1930s

Show Map

Address

Vologda Region, Veliky Ustyug, Krasnoarmeiskaya Street

Access in a populated area

Public transport

On foot

Visiting Hours or Restrictions

Unrestricted

Type of burial

Secret interment of executed

Camp (prison) burial ground

Deportees’ graveyard

Current use

Cultural and/or educational purposes

Ceremonial events

Presence of memorials, etc.

Yes

Protected status

Not protected

Background

From 1918 until the end of the 1930s prisoners were shot and buried in the ravine behind the old Stefanovskoe town cemetery on Mount Krasnaya.

In 1930 Veliky Ustyug became a staging point in the despatch of forced settlers, dekulakized peasant families, to the north. The town’s monasteries were re-equipped as a camp in which many died of hunger and disease while waiting to leave for their place of exile. The dead were transported to the town cemetery and thrown into the ravine. Old inhabitants recall that several dozen bodies were buried in one grave and in winter they were not even covered with earth but with bast matting.

In 2004, at its own expense, the Stefanovo church erected a commemorative cross where the executions had taken place. It also cares for the memorial area.

Books of Remembrance

The online Memorial database (2025) names 24,320 victims in the Vologda Region (BR 2,820). See Chashnikovo.

It lists 84 who were condemned to death. Charges against 735 other individuals were dropped; 109 of them died in custody. 1,841 were sent to the camps; 158 individuals were deported from the Region. Police records add many more local families and individuals (total 7,028) who were sent to special settlements elsewhere (5,844 termed “kulaks”) or born there (649).

The Memorial database includes the names of 70,783 Polish citizens deported after 1939, almost all from databases for the Arkhangelsk (56,173) and Vologda (14,402) Regions.

Ceremonies

Date	Nature of ceremonies	Organiser or responsible person	Participants	Frequency
30 October	Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression	Veliky Ustyug town administration	Veliky Ustyug administration, clergy and congregation of Stefanovo church, relatives of the victims, schoolchildren	Annual event

Nature of area requiring preservation

State of burials	Area	Boundaries
Have not survived	not established	not delineated

Administrative responsibility and ownership, informal responsibility for the site

On land under the control of the Velikoustyuzhsky municipal district.The memorial area is cared for by parishioners of the episcopal metochion of St Stefan of Perm (Russian Orthodox church)

Sources and bibliography

[ original texts and hyperlinks ]

O.B. Zenkova, “ ’We shall build our own New World’ From the history of Ustyug’s monasteries after 1917”, Veliky Ustyug almanac, Vol. 8, Vologda, 2004 [retrieved, 27 May 2022]

“Veliky Ustyug, the town cemetery”, Website of the minor Orthodox orders of the fraternity of the Transfiguration [retrieved, 27 May 2022]

Reply by the Veliky Ustyug municipal district administration (№ 01-121/1113 of 28 April 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)

Reply by the Veliky Ustyug municipal district administration