ST PETERSBURG "Levashovo" [C]** Executed & prison dead [P]

Card

№78-03

Date of burial

1937-1954

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Address

St Petersburg, 143 Gorskoe Highway

Access in a populated area

Public transport

Private or specialised transport

Visiting Hours or Restrictions

Visiting hours

Comments

Accessible during cemetery opening hours

Type of burial

Secret interment of executed

Camp (prison) burial ground

Current use

Cultural and/or educational purposes

Excursions

Ceremonial events

Presence of memorials, etc.

Yes

Protected status

Regional / Republican

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Background

From September 1937 to 1954, the area next to the Levashovo rail station (now within St Petersburg city limits) was used for the burial of those who died or were shot in the prisons of Leningrad. In 1937 the territory was fenced off and carefully guarded. It remained under the control of the Leningrad Region KGB until 1990.

The burials were found in spring 1989 by the search group of the Leningrad Memorial society led by V.T. Muravsky. On 18 July 1989 a decree of the Leningrad city soviet executive committee declared that the Levashovo Wasteland would be a memorial cemetery to the victims of political repression and undertook to clear and tidy the site. In 1989 and 1990 the Surveying and Engineering Trust (GRII) and a group from the geological research institute (VNIGRI) carried out an investigation of the area but the results were not published.

Subsidence in the soil over the burial pits and trenches, which has still not been levelled, indicate the location of the burials. Evidence from the archive of the St Petersburg and Leningrad Region FSB suggests that 19,540 people were buried here, including about 8,000 during the Great Terror. For the most part the names of the victims are unknown. Lists of citizens shot in Leningrad after conviction by extra-judicial bodies (troika, etc) were published between 1990 and 1998 in the Vecherny Peterburg newspaper and in the many volumes of the Leningrad Martyrology (1995 onwards) Books of Remembrance.

Relatives and family of those who were shot during the years of terror began to tidy and care for the burial area in spring 1989 and they continue this work to the present. As of 2017 more than 1,300 personal memorials and gravestones had been placed there, all of which have a symbolic location. One of the first collective monuments was added by Memorial in July 1989. More than 20 memorials have been installed by various public organisations and national societies. In June 1993 a belltower was erected due to the efforts of the St Petersburg Association for the Victims of Unjust Repression. In 1996 the mayor of St Petersburg instructed that the monument of “the Moloch of Totalitarianism” be installed opposite the entrance to the cemetery.

Books of Remembrance

The Leningrad Martyrology, 1937-1938: A Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression (11 vols. 1995-2011) included biographical entries on 37,500 who were shot or sent to the camps.

The Memorial database (2025) draws on the Martyrology and adds 6,281 individuals from St Petersburg Memorial: it lists 53,831 victims in the Leningrad Region.

The Martyrology names 46,382 who were shot, almost all during the Great Terror (46,257). This includes many of those sent to the camps in the early 1930s or then deported to special settlements (but see Memorial figures below). Charges against 276 other individuals were dropped; 18 died in custody. 2,497 were earlier sentenced to 5-10 years in the camps: 2,087 of them were shot in 1937-8. Of the families and individuals (total 1,073) previously deported from the Region, 999 were shot in 1937-8.

St Petersburg Memorial adds to all these categories and provides a different perspective. It lists a further 997 who were shot, most in 1937-8 (885). Charges against 115 other individuals were dropped; 14 of them died in custody. Over 4,000 were sent to the camps: 408 of them were shot later (almost all in 1937-8). Of the families and individuals (total 577) previously deported from the Region, 68 were shot later (almost all in 1937-8).

Adding the two sources together (see 9 January cemetery): 401 prisoners died in captivity, many of them already sentenced to death (242).

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Левашовская пустошь

Ceremonies

Date	Nature of ceremonies	Organiser or responsible person	Participants	Frequency
25 January	Feast of Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors	Russian Orthodox Church (the Metropolitan of St Petersburg)	nk	Annual event
June	Solemn ceremonies in Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression	district councils within the city, St Petersburg Memorial Society	nk	Annual event
30 October	Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression	St Petersburg Memorial Society and other NGOs	NGOs, city officials, diplomats, foreign delegations, ethno-confessional groups, relatives & descendants of the victims	Annual event
nk	Commemorative Services	nk	nk	From time to time

Nature of area requiring preservation

State of burials	Area	Boundaries
subsidence over burial pits and trenches; many grave-markers have survived in varied condition of preservation	11.5 hectares, of whiich the burials occupy 6.5 hectares	territory is surrounded by a wooden ́́fence

Administrative responsibility and ownership, informal responsibility for the site

On land under the control of the St Petersburg City Administration. Designated a regional site of cultural heritage (No 10-605, 22 December 2015) by the city’s committee for the oversight, use and protection of monuments. [Unified Register, Oct 2023, lists as a "place of interest", 781630570100005.]

Sources and bibliography

[ original texts and hyperlinks ]

Memorial Research & Information Centre archive (St Petersburg)

“The Levashovo memorial cemetery, pages from history”, Their Names Restored website

St Petersburg Administration website (text of Order 10-605, 22 December 2015)

“The Levashovo memorial cemetery”, Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 7 June 2022; no longer accessible]