Butovo and the “Garden of Memory”

On the southern outskirts of Moscow in the settlement of Butovo lies a memorial complex where Soviet state security (NKVD) executed and buried more than 20,000 people in unmarked mass graves. Between 1937-38, thousands of “enemies of the people,” including labor camp prisoners, former tsarist officers, and members of the clergy, were murdered in this killing field during Stalin’s purges. Today, only a few posters, small monuments, and two Orthodox churches mark the site where so many Soviet citizens perished. A memorial wall named the “Garden of Memory” bearing victims’ names is set to open on the site in the near future.