In the Medvedevsky Woods on the northern outskirts of Oryol 157 prisoners from the city prison were shot on 11 September 1941. They had been condemned to death by the Military Collegium of the USSR’s Supreme Court for “terrorism, espionage, subversion and other counter-revolutionary activities”. It has not proved possible to determine the exact location of the burial.
The full list of those shot was compiled from archival materials and published in 1991 in the Orlovskaya pravda newspaper. Notable figures of the State, Party and scientific elite were among the executed. On 11 September 1990 a monument to the victims of political repression, funded by the Oryol city executive committee, was erected on the edge of the Medvedevsky Woods. The granite pillar bears the inscription: “In memory of the victims of repression in the 1930s-1940s and early 1950s”. In 1993 the Oryol city soviet declared that 11 September would henceforth be a Day in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression across the Region.
In 2006 a small hermitage in honour of Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors was created next to the site of the burials. It is subordinate to the Monastery of the Assumption in Oryol.
Requiem, A Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression in the Oryol Region (5 vols. 1994-2001) contains 11,900 biographical entries for those shot or sent to the Gulag; the fifth volume contains lists of the dekulakized and deported.
| Date | Nature of ceremonies | Organiser or responsible person | Participants | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
25 January
|
Feast of Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors
|
Oryol and Livna diocese
|
Clergy of the Oryol and Livna diocese, hermits of the Medvedevsky Woods hermitage
|
Annual event
|
|
11 September
|
Day in Memory of Victims of Political Repression in Oryol Region
|
Oryol Region administration
|
Representatives of city and regional administrations, Memorial society, relatives of the victims
|
Annual event, 1990-2000
|
|
30 October
|
Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression
|
Oryol City administration
|
Representatives of city administration, Memorial society, relatives of the victims
|
Annual event
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
have not survived
|
not determined
|
not delineated
|
[ original texts and hyperlinks ]
“The tragedy in the Medvedevsky Woods”, Requiem, a Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression, Yu. N. Bakalin (ed), Oryol, 1994, Vol. 1
“The tragedy in the Medvedevsky Woods”, Orlovskaya pravda, 11 January 1991
G. Mayorov, “A game of chess in the Medvedevsky Woods”, Orlovsky Vestnik, 30 March 2000
S. Kuznetsova, “Specially chosen people placed a fabric gag in the mouth of the convicted person”, Kommersant-Vlast weekly, 2011, No. 15 (919)
*
Reply by the department for culture and archives of the Oryol Region (№ 772 of 21 March 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
