Mass graves from Soviet mass executions

Mass graves in the Soviet Union were used for the burial of mass numbers of citizens and foreigners executed by the government of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.^[1] These mass killings were carried out by the security organisations, such as the NKVD, and reached their peak in the Great Purge of 1937–38.

Following the demise of the USSR in 1991, many of the killing and burial sites were uncovered,^[2][3][4] one as recently as 2010.^[5]

• Bykivnia Graves – containing an estimated 100,000–225,000 corpses^[6][7]
• Kurapaty – estimations range from 30,000 to 200,000 bodies found^[8]
• Butovo – over 20,000 confirmed killed^[9]
• Communarka - about 10,000 killed ^[10]
• Sandarmokh – over 9,000 bodies discovered^[11]
• Kolpashevo - over 1,000 bodies discovered in 1979, and then disposed of on instruction of the local party chief.^[12]
• In the areas near Kiev alone, there are mass graves in Uman, Bila Tserkva, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr.^[13]
• Katyn massacre
• Vinnytsia massacre
• In July 2010, a mass grave was discovered at St. Petersburg, which contained the corpses of 80 military officers executed during the Bolshevik "Red Terror" of 1918-21.^[14]
• Dem'ianiv Laz

Gallery

• 

  Katyn 1943 exhumation. Photo taken by Polish Red Cross delegation.

• 

  Memorial cemetery Krasny Bor near Petrozavodsk, Russia

• 

  Butovo firing range near Moscow

• 

  Kuropaty mass grave site near Minsk, Belarus

See also

• Stalinist repressions in Mongolia
• NKVD prisoner massacres

References