The Kremlin Wall Necropolis is the former national cemetery of the Soviet Union, located in Red Square in Moscow beside the Kremlin Wall. Burials there began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolsheviks who died during the Moscow Bolshevik Uprising were buried in mass graves. This improvised burial site gradually transformed into the centerpiece of military and civilian honor during the Second World War.
Centered on Lenin's Mausoleum, the Necropolis was initially built from wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–30. After the last mass burial in Red Square in 1921, funerals there were usually conducted as state ceremonies reserved as the final honor for highly venerated politicians, military leaders, cosmonauts, and scientists. Sometime between 1925 and 1927, burials in the ground stopped, replaced by the interment of cremains in the Kremlin wall itself. Burials in the ground resumed with Mikhail Kalinin's funeral in 1946.
The Kremlin Wall is the de facto resting place of the Soviet Union's deceased national icons. Burial there was a status symbol among Soviet citizens, and even since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, citizens of the Russian Federation and many other former post-Soviet states continue to pay their respects to Soviet national heroes at the Kremlin Wall.
The Kremlin Wall Necropolis was designated a protected landmark in 1974, and the practice of burying dignitaries at Red Square ended with the funeral of General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985.
Site
The eastern segment of the Kremlin Wall, and Red Square behind it, emerged on its present site in the 15th century, during the reign of Ivan III; the wall and the square were separated with a wide defensive moat filled with water diverted from the Neglinnaya River. The moat was lined with a secondary fortress wall, and spanned by three bridges connecting the Kremlin to the posad.
In 1707–08, Peter the Great, expecting a Swedish incursion deep into the Russian mainland, restored the moat around the Kremlin, cleared Red Square and built earthen fortifications around Nikolskaya and Spasskaya towers. From 1776 to 1787, Matvey Kazakov built the Kremlin Senate that today provides a backdrop for the present-day Necropolis.
In the 18th century the unused, neglected fortifications deteriorated and were not properly repaired until the 1801 coronation of Alexander I. In one season the moat with bridges and adjacent buildings was replaced with a clean span of paved square. More reconstruction followed in the 19th century.
In 1812, the stretch of Kremlin Wall south from Senate Tower was badly damaged by the explosion at the Kremlin Arsenal set off by the retreating French troops. Nikolskaya Tower lost its gothic crown which was erected in 1807–1808. Arsenalnaya Tower developed deep cracks, leading to Joseph Bove proposing in 1813 the outright demolition of the towers to prevent the wall's imminent collapse.
Eventually, the main structures of the towers were deemed sound enough to be left in place, and were topped with new tented roofs designed by Bove. Peter's bastions were razed (creating space for nearby Alexander Garden and Theatre Square), The Kremlin Wall facing Red Square was rebuilt shallower than before, and acquired its present shape in the 1820s.
Timeline of burials in Red Square
Burials from 1917 to 1927
Between the 1917 October Revolution and June 1927, the area outside the Kremlin Wall between the Senate and Nikolskaya towers was used for mass and individual burials of people who had to some extent contributed to the socialist revolution or the Bolshevik cause. This included ordinary soldiers killed in battle, victims of the Civil War, militia men fallen while fighting anti-Bolsheviks, noted Bolshevik politicians, and individuals associated with creating the new Soviet society. Burial plots of the 1917–1927 period are organized into 15 landscaped grave sites with the names of the buried inscribed on black marble tablets.
Table: List of burials (by grave) in Red Square ground, 1917–1927Grave Name No. 1 A. I. Vantorin, P. G. Tiapkin, I. S. Erov, H. M. Snegirev, Vladimir Zagorsky (1919), A. Nikolaeva, I. M. Ignatova, M. Volkova, S. Arafoshin, S. Goriunov, I. Dudinsky, X. Zvonov. No. 2 I. Zimin, I. Ivanov, S. Kokorev, A. Kosarev, N. N. Kropotov, A. N. Khaldina, G. V. Titov, Mark Mokryak (1919), P. Kospianik, V. Krashenilnikov, A. Leshikov, F. Lizenko. No. 3 Anton Khorak (1918), F. Lysenkov, I. Petukhov, V. Romanov, G. N. Razorepov-Nikitin, Aleksandr Safonov (1919), X. Kolbin, A. L. Krash, M. Ryzhev, A. Smirnov, F. Sologudinov, X. Sopliakov. No. 4 S. Fedorov, S. Khokhlov, S. Tsipliakov, V. Shefarevich, Vadim Podbelsky (1920), Alexander Kuchutenkov (1918), I. M. Valdovsky, Yegor Shvyrkov, Nikolay Pryamikov, F. Drozdov, D. Esulov, G. V. Tomsky. No. 5 A. A. Sukharev, G. L. Elagin, I. G. Stepachev, Inessa Armand (1920), John Reed (1920), Ivan Rusakov (1921), Semyon Pekalov (1918), X. Stefanovich, K. Volsky, X. Taraev. No. 6 Victor Nogin (1924), Lev Karpov (1921), Vitaly Kovshov (1920), Vasily Likhachev (1924), Van Chzhan. No. 7 D. M. Vorovskaya, Vaclav Vorovsky (1922), Nariman Narimanov (1924), Pyotr Voykov (1927), Anton Stankevich (1919), P. A. Zasukhin, D. I. Iudichev, S. P. Kapelin, I. V. Kotov. No. 8 P. P. Sherbakov, Pavel Andreev (1917), A. A. Kireev, M. Draudyn, Ivan Khomyakov (1920), Mikhail Yanyshev (1920), L. A. Lisinova, Ivan Smilga (1918), V. E. Morozov, S. A. Shiriaev, L. F. Mikhailov. No. 9 A. P. Saporoshez, Yakov Bocharov (1920), A. T. Timofeev, Augusta Aasen (1920). No. 10 G. Timofeev, A. A. Iniushev, I. Gavrikov, M. T. Usoltsev. No. 11 T. A. Baskakov, S. V. Vladimirov, T. F. Nedelkin, N. R. Trunov, V. E. Voitovich. No. 12 A. Sakharov, Fyodor Sergeyev (1921), E. N. Silunov, A. P. Voronov, I. A. Nazarov, G. A. Skvortsov. No. 13 Ivan Zhilin (1922), Ivan Konstantinov (1921), Valerian Abakovsky (1921), Paul Freeman (1921). No. 14 O. Vever, O. K. Virzemnek, I. E. Zweinek, Heinrich Zweinek (1919), Yefim Afonin (1922), Otto Strupat (1921), Oskar Hellbrück (1921), John William Hewlett (1921), Alexander Kvardakov (1918), X. Stepanov. No. 15 Alexander Gadomsky (1918), Felix Barasevich (1918).
Mass graves of 1917
In July 1917, hundreds of soldiers of the Russian Northern Front were arrested for mutiny and desertion and locked up in Daugavpils (then Dvinsk) fortress. Later, 869 Dvinsk inmates were transported to Moscow. Here, the jailed soldiers launched a hunger strike. Public support for them threatened to develop into a citywide riot. On 22 September, 593 inmates were released. The rest were left behind bars until the October Revolution.
The released soldiers, collectively called Dvintsy, stayed in the city as a cohesive unit, based in Zamoskvorechye District and openly hostile to the ruling Provisional Government. Immediately after the October Revolution in Saint Petersburg, Dvintsy became the strike force of the Bolsheviks in Moscow. Late at night on 27–28 October, a detachment of approximately two hundred men marching north to Tverskaya Street, confronted the loyalist forces near the State Historical Museum on Red Square. During the fighting, 70 of the Dvintsy, including their company commander, Sapunov, were killed at the barricades.
The following day, loyalists led by Colonel Konstantin Ryabtsev succeeded in taking over the Kremlin. They gunned down the surrendered Red soldiers at the Kremlin Arsenal wall. More Red soldiers were killed as the Bolsheviks stormed the Kremlin, taking control on the night of 2–3 November. Street fighting tapered off after claiming nearly a thousand lives. On 4 November the new Bolshevik administration decreed their dead would be buried at Red Square next to the Kremlin Wall, where most of them were killed.
Voices reached us across the immense place, and the sound of picks and shovels. We crossed over. Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall. Climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and workers were digging in the light of huge fires. A young student spoke to us in German. "The Brotherhood Grave", he explained. – John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World.
A total of 238 dead were buried in the mass graves between Senate and Nikolskaya towers in a public funeral on November 10., provides a description of the ceremonies John Reed incorrectly mentions 500. Two more victims were buried on the 14 and 17 of November. The youngest, Pavel Andreyev, was 14 years old. Of 240 pro-revolution martyrs of the October–November fighting, only 20, including 12 of the Dvintsy, are identified in the official listing of the Moscow Heritage Commission. As of March 2009, three Moscow streets are still named after these individual victims, with Dvintsev Street named after the Dvintsy force.
The loyalists secured a permit to publicly bury their dead on 13 November. This funeral started at the old Moscow State University building near Kremlin. Thirty-seven dead were interred at the Vsekhsvyatskoye Cemetery, now demolished, in the then-suburban Sokol District.
Burials of 1918–1927
Mass and individual burials in the ground under the Kremlin Wall continued until the funeral of Pyotr Voykov in June 1927. In the first years of the Soviet regime, the honor of being buried on Red Square was extended to ordinary soldiers, Civil War victims, and Moscow militia men killed in clashes with anti-Bolsheviks (March–April 1918). In January 1918, the Red Guards buried the victims of a terrorist bombing in Dorogomilovo. In the same January White Guards fired on a pro-Bolshevik street rally. The eight victims were buried under the Kremlin Wall.
The largest single burial occurred in 1919. On 25 September, anarchists led by former socialist revolutionary Donat Cherepanov set off an explosion in a Communist Party school building in Leontyevsky Lane when Moscow party chief Vladimir Zagorsky was speaking to students. Twelve people, including Zagorsky, were killed and buried in a mass grave on Red Square.
Another unusual incident was the 24 July 1921 crash of the Aerowagon, an experimental and not fully tested high-speed railcar fitted with an aircraft engine and propeller traction. On the day of the crash, it delivered a group of Soviet and foreign communists led by Fyodor Sergeyev to the Tula collieries. On the return trip to Moscow, the aerowagon derailed at high speed, killing 7 of the 22 people on board, including its inventor Valerian Abakovsky. This was the last mass burial in the ground of Red Square.
Yakov Sverdlov, who died in 1919, allegedly from the Spanish flu, was buried in an individual grave near the Senate Tower. This area later included eleven more individual graves of top-ranking Soviet leaders (see Individual tombs section). Sverdlov was followed by John Reed, Inessa Armand, Viktor Nogin and other notable Bolsheviks and their foreign allies. Interment in the Kremlin Wall, apart from its location next to the seat of government, was also seen as a statement of atheism. Burial in the ground at a traditional cemetery next to a church was deemed inappropriate for a Bolshevik.
For the same reason, cremation, then prohibited by the Russian Orthodox Church, was preferred to burial in a coffin and favored by Lenin and Trotsky – though Lenin expressed the wish to be buried next to his mother in St. Petersburg. The new government had sponsored the construction of crematoria since 1919. In 1925, the first burial of cremated remains in a niche in the wall took place.