Secrets of Lubyanka and secret prison. This street, this house: st. b. Lubyanka, 2. apartment building of the insurance company "Russia", VChK, OGPU, NKVD, KGB of the USSR, FSB of Russia GPU building

Perhaps few houses in Moscow have undergone so many reconstructions and such a radical change in appearance as this formerly luxurious, and then so ominous house on the corner of Bolshaya Lubyanka and Lubyanka Square... Its modern appearance does not in any way remind of its turbulent historical past.

Back in the early 18th century, on Lubyanka Square, in the very place where the FSB building is located, there was a stone house and a large courtyard of the Mingrelian princes Dadiani. Immediately after the War of 1812, this plot of land with buildings was bought by Kriegsstalmeister Fedor Semenovich Mosolov. By inheritance, the plot passed to his daughters, and from 1857 it became the property of the Tambov landowner, retired lieutenant Semyon Nikolaevich Mosolov. In 1880, the house became the property of Mosolov’s son, titular councilor, famous engraver and artist Nikolai Semenovich Mosolov. A lonely man, he lived alone in a huge apartment in the main building, and the outbuildings and courtyard buildings were rented out for various establishments. One was occupied by the Warsaw Insurance Society, the other by a photograph of Moebius. There was also a tavern and a grocery store. On the upper floors there were furnished rooms occupied by permanent residents from the former Tambov landowners, who lived with the remains of the ransom money received during the liberation of the peasants. Mosolov supported the old landowners who had completely lived out their lives at his own expense.

Nikolai Semenovich Mosolov - (1847 - 1914) Self-portrait

N.S. himself Mosolov was a famous collector and engraver-etcher. He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, in Dresden and Paris, and since 1871 he had the title of academician. A passionate admirer of 17th-century Dutch art, he collected etchings and drawings by Dutch masters of that time. Its extensive collection included works by Rembrandt, Adrian van Ostade and many other artists and was considered one of the first in Europe in its completeness and quality. Currently, most of the collection of N.S. Mosolov is in the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin. Mosolov’s own works as an etcher were highly valued by experts and received awards at domestic and foreign exhibitions. He engraved paintings and drawings by Rubens, Raphael, Rembrandt, Murillo, Veronese, as well as Russian artists, his contemporaries - V.V. Vereshchagin, N.N. Ge, V.E. Makovsky and others.
More about this: “Under the Sign of Rembrandt.” Art collection of the Mosolov family
http://vittasim.livejournal.com/72225.html

At the end of the 19th century, many properties on Bolshaya Lubyanka were bought up by insurance companies for the construction of their offices and expensive apartment buildings. It is no coincidence that one of the largest insurance companies of that time, Rossiya, founded in 1881 in St. Petersburg, turned its attention to Lubyanka.

On April 12, 1894, a deed of sale was drawn up, according to which Mosolov ceded his ownership of a total area of ​​1,110 square fathoms with all buildings to the Rossiya company for 475 thousand silver rubles. The Rossiya Society immediately turned to the Moscow authorities with a request for permission to demolish all the buildings located on the site, and in their place to build a new five-story stone building with apartments for rent. City authorities did not object.

An open competition was announced for the design of the new building, as a result of which the design of the architect N.M. Proskurnin was recognized as the best, and the construction of the house began based on it (P.K. Bergstresser and A.A. Gimpel took part in the project). Then "Russia" decided to buy another corner plot, at Malaya Lubyanka 2, also overlooking Lubyanka Square. This acquisition gave rise to the idea of ​​building two houses at once - in the same style on two plots separated by Malaya Lubyanka Street. Academician of architecture A.V. was involved in the construction of buildings. Ivanov (author of the National and Balchug hotels), who, together with N.M. Proskurnin (who was a “full-time” architect of the Rossiya Society), completed the task. By 1898 a large building was built. Its roof was decorated with turrets, the central clock tower was decorated with two female figures, symbolizing Justice and Consolation. The second four-story house was built along Malaya Lubyanka in 1897–1900.

The first two floors of the large house were completely devoted to trade. There were shops here - a bookstore (Naumova), sewing machines (Popov), beds (Yarnushkevich), a beer shop by Vasilyeva and Voronin and others. There were 20 apartments on the third to fifth floors, each with 4-9 rooms. The tenant of such an apartment paid up to 4 thousand rubles in rent per year, while other similar apartments in Moscow cost twice, if not three times less.

After the Soviet government moved from Petrograd to Moscow in March 1918, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK) was located in house 11 on Bolshaya Lubyanka (owned by the Yakor insurance company). As for the houses of the Rossiya society, the security officers chose them a little later. In accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars in December 1918, all private insurance companies, including Rossiya, were liquidated, and their property and real estate were nationalized. Initially, in May 1919, the building on Lubyanka was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Council of Trade Unions, and then, literally a few days later, it was transferred to the Cheka, which within two months evicted all the tenants from it with a scandal. In September 1919, part of the house was occupied by the first representatives of the Special Department of the Moscow Cheka. And a few months later, the Central Office of the Cheka settled within its walls.

In addition to the two houses of the Rossiya Society, the block between Lubyanskaya Square and Furkasovsky Lane was occupied by several more buildings that stretched along Furkasovsky Lane. All together the buildings formed a vast quarter in plan, inside which stood another building - the Imperial furnished rooms.

It was this vast complex of buildings that the security officers, led by Felix Dzerzhinsky, had their eyes on. The rooms of the apartment buildings were occupied by hundreds of employees. And the former Imperial rooms turned into the famous internal prison.

From that time on, houses on Lubyanka came under the jurisdiction of the Cheka, then its successors - the OGPU, the NKVD and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (during the unification of the internal affairs and state security departments), the NKGB and the MGB (during the existence of separate state security departments), and from 1954 - the KGB THE USSR. After 1991, the main Russian intelligence services are located here, and since 1996 - the FSB.

By the end of the 20s, the tasks of the department in Lubyanka expanded significantly, the staff also grew, therefore, right behind the building of the Rossiya society on Bolshaya Lubyanka building 2, a site was cleared, on which in 1932-1933, according to the design of architects A.Ya. Langman and I.G. Bezrukov, a new building is being built, designed in a constructivist style. With its main façade the new house faces Furkasovsky Lane, and its two side facades with rounded corners look at Bolshaya and Malaya Lubyanka. The new building merged with the old building of the Rossiya society. At the same time, the old building was built on two floors, and the inner prison - on four. The architect Langman solved the problem of prisoners' walks in an original way, by arranging six exercise yards with high walls right on the roof of the building. Prisoners were brought here in special elevators or led up flights of stairs.

With the arrival of the new People's Commissar Lavrentiy Beria at Lubyanka, a new stage of reconstruction begins. The design of the work was entrusted to one of the most venerable architects of that time - the builder of the Mausoleum A.V. Shchusev. The architect had the idea to combine two buildings separated by Malaya Lubyanka, transforming part of Malaya Lubyanka from Lubyanka Square to Furkasovsky Lane into a courtyard. Design of the new building began in 1939. In January 1940, the preliminary design was approved by Beria.

But the war prevented the reconstruction of the building from starting. Work on the restructuring and reconstruction of the right part of the building and the development of Malaya Lubyanka began only in 1944 and was completed in 1947. The left part of the building, although it was built on 2 floors back in the 1930s, generally retained many historical details and the general previous style .

And today we will show photographs taken on Lubyanka Square and in the adjacent alleys.

Between Tetarny Proezd and Nikolskaya, from Lubyanka you can see a pseudo-Gothic building with a turret - the former Ferein pharmacy.

Before the revolution, there was a small spire on the turret, and in place of the holes there was a clock.

Facade of the KGB-FSB building. Somewhere exactly here there is a dividing line between the new building and the old building of the Rossiya insurance company.

This is what it looked like before the revolution

And so for some time during the transition period of the 1970s, when the old building had not yet been rebuilt in the forms of the new

The clock on the FSB building, from the square it seems very small

You can take a closer look

You can even peek a little through the windows

A small fact for the collection of conspiracy theorists: on most state buildings, all the symbols of the USSR and the KGB are still preserved in perfect condition. No one even intended to remove it.

According to popular legends, the KGB of the USSR walked on the roof of prisoners who were sitting in the dungeons of the Lubyanka under investigation. Looking at the bars and mesh on the roof, you begin to believe it.

True, there are no bars on the other side.

General view of the square

Since 1858, there has been a water fountain at this place (similar to the one behind the monument to Mark)

From Lubyanka you can also clearly see the relief of the very interesting and extremely history-rich area of ​​Ivanovskaya Gorka (where we conduct three excursions)

Behind the screened facades, a five-star hotel is being built, which is planned to open in 2011, but judging by the appearance of the construction, it will not meet the deadline.

And as usual, not a single construction site in the center of Moscow has the right to be called a full-fledged construction site if there are no “reconstructed” old buildings on its territory.
In this case, behind a fence and wall covered with netting and advertising, the remains of the Kalyazin Monastery's courtyard are hidden.

At large construction corporate events, no, no, but the following dialogue should flash:
— But we recently demolished the end of the 18th century, there was a lot of noise.
- What's this! We recently demolished it, and there in the basements the vaults of the 16th century were hidden, they were very old.
- But, in general, of course, these are not the same times now, they are not on the same scale. Yuri Petrovich, an honored builder, personally demolished the 16th century. Those were the times...

“The building of the information security center of the FSB of the Russian Federation is a striking example of Moscow eclecticism of the late 20th century,” the guide will say half a century later.

The end of the Polytechnic Museum overlooking the Lubyanka is decorated with all kinds of thematic decor

From a backward agricultural country...

...through enlightenment...

...to productive work

(just a picture based on a theme from a 1920s children's book)

Wonderful squirrels on the facade of the Polytechnic

And squirrels and paintings with one photo

The spelling is no longer pre-revolutionary, but still pre-war.

This stone was brought from Solovki and placed on the square in 1990 in memory of the dead political prisoners.

The roof of another FSB building

The building itself was built in the late 1920s in the fashionable constructivist style for the office premises of the OGPU. Based on the Dynamo store located on the ground floor, the building was named the Dynamo Society House with a club and a store.

Between the Soviet buildings there was a church, the foundation of which was built back in the 17th century. Nowadays it is used as a toy building, but back in the mid-19th century it was a rather noticeable building on the square.

Already on Rozhdestvenka, behind the building of the Dynamo Society, you can see another impressive eclecticism: terry constructivism was added to the elegant building of the Rostopchin estate in the Soviet 1920s.

Opposite the building of the Dynamo Society stands the large apartment building of the 1st Insurance Company.
In the first Soviet years, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs was located here, so in the courtyard there is still a monument to V.V. Vorovsky:

The statue received the nickname “monument to radiculitis.”
According to legend, Vorovsky is depicted at the moment when a treacherous White Guard bullet hits him in the back of the head.

Constructed with money from the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade

And two ancient beauties look at all this

... in the traditional costumes of ancient Crete and Mycenae, which, for obvious reasons, are not illustrated in school textbooks.

The wonderful rhythm of the pseudo-Gothic houses of the former Moscow merchant society is a little lost these days among the clutter of advertising and new buildings.

In Tretyakovsky Proezd, it is worth paying attention to the sign with pre-revolutionary spelling.

The "restorers" of Children's World are joking. You can see how the “restoration” is going from the inside on the Archnadzor website.

Lubyanka offers one of the best views of the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment

The remake of the Nautilus shopping center from the back looks even interesting, if you look only at individual details...

... but from the front... he grins at the FSB building.

A good half of the photos for this issue of Details were taken during (free, of course!).
We had a very good walk!
The second matinee will tentatively take place on Friday, June 18th. Follow the announcements on the site.

We are announcing excursions again

1) June 10, Thursday, at 19:00 there will be a tour of Tverskaya and its side streets from the beginning of the street to Pushkinskaya Square.
The tour is led by Alexander Usoltsev, editor and author of many materials from the “Walks around Moscow” project.

Bolshaya Lubyanka Street on Yandex panorama

Bolshaya Lubyanka Street - a street in the Krasnoselsky and Meshchansky districts of the Central Administrative District of Moscow. Located between Lubyanka Square and Sretensky Gate Square. The length of the street is 750 m.

Bolshaya Lubyanka Street in Moscow - history, name

In the XII-XIV centuries. the road to Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' passed here. The resulting street was called Sretenka and was one street with the current Sretenka. In the middle of the 19th century. part of the street from the center to the Boulevard Ring became known as Bolshaya Lubyanka. At the same time, Malaya Lubyanka appeared.

It is believed that in the 15th century. “bast craftsmen” were moved here from Novgorod, who made dishes for storing food, boxes, wallets, etc. from bast - linden and birch bark. But, judging by the documents, it was not ordinary artisans who were “brought” to the Moscow lands from Novgorod, but noble ones genera, which brought with them the Novgorod name Lubyanitsa, which later received the Moscow “coloring” - the ending “-ka”.

In 1926-1991. - Dzerzhinsky Street.

Houses on Bolshaya Lubyanka

Bolshaya Lubyanka, 2/1/2 . Myasnitskaya, 1 / Bolshaya Lubyanka, 2. House "Russia".

Bolshaya Lubyanka, 11. House of the insurance company "Anchor" . In the middle of the 19th century. The house of the merchant Lukhmanov that stood here was bought by the Yakor insurance company. In 1879 it was rebuilt into apartments for rent. After 1917, the building was occupied by the Cheka. In 1918, N.D. was brought to Dzerzhinsky’s office. Stakheeva. He left it with a lifelong pension and lived to be 81 years old.

Bolshaya Lubyanka, 12/1. House "Dynamo" . Here was the estate of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. Until 1917, the corner house was occupied by the 3rd Men's Gymnasium. In 1928-1931 in its place according to the project of I.A. Fomin built a residential building for the Dynamo sports society. Langman supervised the construction. In 1940, the upper floors of the building were transferred to the NKVD department, and on the ground floor, grocery store No. 40, which became well-known to residents of the capital, was opened.

Among the graduates of the gymnasium are the poet Khodasevich, the writer Remizov, and the historian Bogoyavlensky.

Bolshaya Lubyanka, 13/16. Houses of the Tryndins . At the address B. Lubyanka 13 there are two houses. One is located on the corner with Bolshoi Kiselny Lane, the second overlooks Bolshaya Lubyanka. The houses were built according to designs by A.E. Weber in 1877 and 1902-1904. commissioned by the Tryndin brothers.

The corner three-story building was occupied by shops and apartments for rent. In the early 1900s, the house was added one story.

The building overlooking the Lubyanka was externally three-story. In fact, it has six floors or levels. Huge bays of lower windows cover two floors. The first was occupied by the Tryndins’ store, which sold optical, physical, geodetic instruments, educational visual aids and medical instruments. The second, designed as a store mezzanine, is an auditorium for conducting experiments with the latest physical devices. The third floor is offices. The fourth is apartments for rent. The fifth floor is an astronomical auditorium. From there a twisted staircase led to the observatory.

In 1918, the house was taken for the needs of the Cheka: it housed a club, a canteen, etc. In 1919, the observatory was nationalized and opened to the public. In 1998, the observatory premises were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which owned the rest of the building. The equipment was dismantled and the observatory ceased to exist.

Bolshaya Lubyanka, 14. House of the Moscow Fire Insurance Society . The Baroque manor was rebuilt in the mid-18th century. according to the project F.I. Camporesi. In 1811 it was acquired by Count F.V. Rostopchin. The estate survived the fire of 1812. In 1826-1842. it belonged to his son - A.F. Rostopchin.

Having changed a number of owners, the estate in 1883 passed to the Moscow Fire Insurance Company, founded in 1858 by L.G. Knop, A.I. Khludov and K.T. Soldatenkov. In Soviet times, it belonged to state security agencies, in the 1990-2000s. - various commercial organizations. In 2009, the estate became the property of the state.

Bolshaya Lubyanka, 15/17. Apartment building I.S. Romanova . A house for renting apartments was built by Kaminsky in 1887 by order of I.S. Romanova. It acquired its modern appearance in 1914-1915, when it was built on three floors and refaced by Ostrogradsky.

Bolshaya Lubyanka, 22/1 . The ground floor of the two-story brick house, built in 1900, housed shops. One of them was the popular Fish store. The second floor was occupied by apartments that were rented out. After 1917 the apartments became communal. In the mid-1920s, Ilf lived here in a small room. In 2002, the house was demolished and the building of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation appeared in its place.

Human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants about the cultural heritage site damaged by Pyotr Pavlensky.

Human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants, a dissident and former political prisoner, testified for the defense at the trial of the actionist Pyotr Pavlensky, accused of damaging a cultural heritage site - setting fire to the doors of the FSB building on Lubyanka. Since the discussion was specifically about cultural heritage, Grigoryants emphasized in his speech that, indeed, “the building that was almost damaged by the accused is a cultural and historical monument,” and explained what exactly its cultural and historical significance is. The preliminary text of Sergei Grigoryants' speech is posted on his website. "Artguide", with the permission of the author, publishes a fragment dedicated to some architectural features of the FSB building.

The very high (which, of course, will go down in Russian history) significance of today's trial is that this is the first court hearing in 98 years where we are talking about the relations of the giant, known under different names (Cheka, GPU, NKVD, KGB, FSB) organizations and the Russian people, who are represented here by the artist Pyotr Pavlensky. Of course, Nikita Khrushchev tried unsuccessfully to destroy the KGB, dozens of trials were held, as a result of which many executioners were shot or sentenced to long terms, but these trials were closed, and today we are present for the first time at an open public trial, despite its small volume. Let's hope that it will be followed by further Nuremberg-type trials of SS and Gestapo officers.

In August 1991, thousands of Muscovites came to Dzerzhinsky Square in order to express their popular attitude towards the Lubyanka, destroy the building and deal with its employees. Only the demolition of the monument to Dzerzhinsky distracted the attention of thousands of people and saved Lubyanka employees from people's lynching. When about a year later this was mentioned in one of my articles in the Izvestia newspaper, KGB General Kandaurov wonderfully answered me: “You shouldn’t have been so worried, Sergei Ivanovich, about our safety, we had enough machine guns to protect ourselves.”

Buildings of the insurance company "Russia" on Lubyanka Square. Early 20th century

Now I would like to present to the court four photographs that complement the conclusion of the Ministry of Culture on the significance and some features of the cultural monument, which was almost damaged by the artist Pyotr Pavlensky. The first photo shows two buildings of the Rossiya insurance company, still unremarkable, where the Cheka was located after moving to Moscow. In the next photo we see the rebuilt second building, which already has some special features.

Lubyanskaya Square. 1958-1959. Source: pastvu.com

Mr. Pyotr Pavlensky and the employees of the Ministry of Culture probably know that practically under the door that Pavlensky tried to damage, there were and are prison cells. What is less known is that in the depths of the building there is a staircase going up, reaching directly to the clock on the roof of the monument and leading to the exercise yards for prisoners. They are blocked from the rest of the city by a strange architectural feature - a three-meter wall on the roof. And in this - in the prison, in the prison courtyards hanging over the capital of Russia - lies the architectural and social originality of this house. By the end of Khrushchev's rule, the Lubyanka was said to have ceased to be used as a political prison. One might think that all this is a thing of the past, but let’s look at the next two photographs of the reconstruction of our monument. One of them shows the process of architectural unification of two buildings, carried out in 1983 under Andropov.

Each bygone era leaves behind its symbols. There are a lot of them in our history, including modern history. These can be events, such as the Aurora salvo in 1917 or the red banner of victory over the Reichstag in May 1945. Someone will name August 1991 and Boris Yeltsin on a tank. Buildings can also be symbols. It is impossible to imagine Moscow without Stalin’s skyscrapers, and industrialization without the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Plant and Magnitogorsk. Among the symbols of the Soviet era, the Lubyanka building stands out. A huge number of rumors, fables, and secrets are associated with it. This is not surprising - for many years the building was the headquarters of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-KGB - the strongest intelligence service in the world. And intelligence services do not imply openness. There was also a prison at Lubyanka. Prison is a place of thousands of destinies, usually tragic. Today, the Lubyanka prison has long been gone and there are practically no secrets left.

((direct))

Leaving the USSR KGB building on Lubyanka Square, I experienced a burning desire to get away from this gloomy place as quickly as possible. Directly opposite the front doors - was this possible before 1992! – stopped the taxi. Noticing how relieved I sank into the seat, the driver winked conspiratorially:

“Well, commander, are people telling the truth that from those basements,” nodding towards the building, “Kolyma is clearly visible?”

- Why?

- Why, why. Firstly, you look as if you, in fact, had been lying on a bunk for a month. And secondly, they say the basements are ten stories high!

– Six... Six-story...

You, prisoner, don't ask for mercy

Chapped steps, iron doors, cramped stairwells. It took us a long time to climb into the cellars of the Lubyanka. I didn't make a mistake. They just got up. To the very cells of the highly secret “all-Russian prison” of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-KGB, which are located in the courtyard of house No. 2 on Lubyanka Square. Hence the name – “internal”, or more simply – “internal”.

In the past, this two-story building, distinguished by the grace of the proportions of the facade and window openings, served as a hotel for the Rossiya insurance company. Immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, the building was added to four floors with smooth walls and dim square windows. The result was a six-story architectural creation in the spirit of the emerging Stalinist barracks style “baracco”.

One of the first prisoners to settle into the “interior” were certain Sergei and Olga, brother and sister. However, they were not destined to glorify their family name. Someone else did it for them.

* * *

In 1900, the future leader of the world proletariat Vladimir Ulyanov, having returned to St. Petersburg from Siberian exile, decided to continue his political activities abroad. Yes, yes, exactly outside the Russian Empire! And all because the tsarist regime would never have allowed him to prepare a revolution in Russia.

Photo: RIA NOVOSTI

But to leave the country you needed a foreign passport. Whether the police department will hand him over to the unreliable Ulyanov is a question of questions!

It is known that the number of fences increases the number of loopholes. And the extremely cautious Ilyich found one.

With the help of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, his wife, he tracked down his former comrades in the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, Sergei Lenin and his sister Olga. They agreed to help their ex-mentor get out into the European open spaces.

The first thing that came to their mind was to borrow a foreign passport from their father, Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin.

Ilyich enthusiastically accepted this idea.

But, firstly, Nikolai Egorovich is almost half a century older than Ulyanov. Secondly (and more importantly!), there was no confidence that the real Lenin, a large landowner with ultra-conservative views, would agree to give his document to the needs of the international proletarian movement. And then it dawned on the future leader: you just need to steal the passport!

Soon Sergei Lenin handed over his father’s passport to Vladimir Ulyanov. The corresponding erasures were made in the document, and Vladimir Ulyanov, becoming Nikolai Lenin, left for Germany.

Until her death, Krupskaya categorically denied her involvement in the history of Ilyich’s appropriation of other people’s documents. But facts are stubborn things.

The paradox, or perhaps a pattern of history, is that in 1920, Sergei Lenin, the “godfather” and comrade-in-arms of “Volodenka” in the Social Democratic movement, after a short stay in the “interior”, was shot on the orders of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Vladimir Lenin.

Mental oppression system

From the instructions for managing the internal (secret) prison of the affairs management of the special department of the Cheka, approved on March 29, 1920: “The internal (secret) prison is intended to detain the most important counter-revolutionaries and spies while their cases are being investigated, or when, for well-known reasons, it is necessary to completely cut off the arrested person from the outside world, to conceal his whereabouts, to absolutely deprive him of the opportunity to communicate with his will in any way, to escape, etc.”

The bag-shaped building of the inner prison at the top ends in a rectangle of sky instead of a ceiling. It was an exercise yard, divided by blind partitions into six equal areas. Being here, not hearing the city roar, not seeing anything but the sky and walls, it’s hard to believe that you are in the center of a metropolis and under your feet is not the ground, but a flat roof and six floors of a prison below.

The prisoners were lifted here in a freight elevator that moved deliberately for a long time and with a deafening clanging, or they were led along gloomy flights of stairs - as if from the underworld, upward, towards the sun.

The huge opening in the middle, between the stairs, was covered with wire mesh - to prevent prisoners from trying to commit suicide by throwing themselves down onto the concrete floor.

Yagoda, Yezhov and Lubyanka Marshal Lavrentiy Beria had a system of oppressing the psyche of prisoners, which made them compliant. Surviving documents indicate that they personally gave orders which of the prisoners should be taken out for a walk along the stairs, and which, just to make matters worse, should be taken up in the elevator.

Thus, from a hoax, the myth of the “Lubyanka cellars” was born. A myth that was passed down from generation to generation during the Soviet years.

Another prison trick. Cell numbers were assigned not in order, but randomly, and the prisoners could not find out not only their total number, but even determine the location of their dungeon. In 1983, during Andropov's brief reign, when cells began to be converted into offices, several internal walls had to be broken down. It turned out that they all had empty cavities inside. Thus, the prisoners were deprived of their eternal privilege - the opportunity to knock with each other using the “prison telegraph”.

There have never been any escapes from here.

In the six museum chambers, left untouched for the edification of future generations, there is an imperishable smell of carbolic acid, ladle, dirty linen and sour cabbage soup.

The oppressive silence concealed the numbness, horror and despair of those who awaited their fate here.

Here you begin to believe that stone walls have energy-informational memory...

* * *

The “internal” regime differed significantly from the conditions of ordinary prisons. It was not allowed to receive information from outside or transmit any information from prison. The defendants were strictly prohibited from corresponding with relatives and reading the latest newspapers and magazines. Except for specially permitted cases, the use of writing instruments was prohibited.

Contrary to popular belief, no one was beaten or tortured in the cells. The bodies and souls of those under investigation were mutilated during interrogations, which were conducted in investigators' offices, where there were only tables and stools tightly screwed to the floor. Special tools were not used to obtain a confession from the person under investigation - as was the case in the dungeons of the Gestapo. Assault and torture with insomnia were common.

This is when alternate investigators interrogate you for several days in a row with breaks for short, no more than an hour, sleep. After three days of intense interrogation, in the intervals between which you fall into a state of restless oblivion, and the sense of time is lost. The line between nightmare reality and the horror of dreams, more similar to hallucinations, is completely erased. An all-encompassing, oppressive fear appears, turning into panic. After another two days, deprived of proper sleep, you can no longer navigate not only in time, but also in space, as if moving into the virtual world. And then... Then you will agree to everything, just to find yourself again and find yourself in the real world!

The arrestees were led to the investigators by guards while the prison keys jingled in time with each step. This accompaniment is not an accidental attribute of prison life. Hearing him in the corridor or on the stairs, one of the guards turned his prisoner to face the wall or pushed him into a specially equipped box and waited until he was escorted past the oncoming prisoner. There were cases when a wife going for interrogation passed by her husband standing in a box and they could not recognize each other.

Repressed elite

Today, only documents preserved in the legal department of the FSB can impartially tell about the conditions of detention of prisoners in an internal prison, about the laws and morals that reigned there. For example, the registration log of prisoners of the Lubyanka (internal) prison for 1937.

This is a thick, five-hundred-sheet case with cardboard covers that look like gray-brown marble with red veins. The reddish-brown web can be compared to streaks of blood caked on a prison floor.

From the register of prisoners of the internal prison for 1937

Arrested No. 365 Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich, 1888–1938. (There is no note about the photograph. Apparently, there was no need for this - everyone knew the editors of Pravda and Izvestia.) Arrived on February 28, 1937, left for Lefortovo on March 14, 1938.

Arrested No. 1615 Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich, 1887–1938. (participant in the revolution of 1905–1907 in Riga, revolution of 1917 in Moscow, People's Commissar of Railways, General Secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions). Arrived on September 5, departed on October 5, 1937 to Lefortovo prison.

Arrested No. 2068 Tupolev Andrey Nikolaevich, 1888–1972. (outstanding Soviet aircraft designer, future academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, three times Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes. He was in Lubyanka prison twice: from October 23, 1937 to October 8, 1938 and from January 18 to June 17, 1939. ). Left for Butyrka prison.

Arrested No. 2631 Vatsetis Joachim Joakimovich, 1873–1938. (commander of the 2nd rank, during the Civil War - commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic). In the “inside” from December 10, 1937 to January 9, 1938, he was sent to Lefortovo prison.

A note in the log book about the prisoner's departure to Lefortovo or Lefortovo prison meant execution. Throughout the subsequent years of Soviet power, this was the only prison in Moscow where those sentenced to death were executed.

In that fateful year, hundreds of well-known people throughout the country ended up in the Lubyanka dungeons.

Prominent government and party figures - distributor of Iskra and organizer of the underground Baku printing house "Nina" Avel Safronovich Enukidze; Lenin’s liaison officer, who was hiding in Razliv, was Alexander Vasilievich Shotman; activist of the Hungarian and international communist movement Bela Kun...

Outstanding designers and scientists - the creator of heavy bombers, Vladimir Mikhailovich Petlyakov; author of the theory of air-rocket engines Stechkin Boris Sergeevich; founder of Soviet rocket science Sergei Pavlovich Korolev...

Writers and cultural figures - the creator of the children's theater Natalya Ilyinichna Sats, the writer of everyday life of the revolutionary era Pilnyak Boris Andreevich, playwright Kirshon Vladimir Mikhailovich...

The bars and stones of the Lubyanka prison became the lot of the Cheka-OGPU employees and their relatives. A participant in three revolutions, an employee of the Cheka from the day of its founding, Ivan Petrovich Pavlunovsky; Chief of the Intelligence Department of the Red Army Headquarters Berzin Yan Karlovich; first head of the INO OGPU RSFSR Davtyan Yakov Khristoforovich; head of foreign intelligence of the NKVD Artuzov Artur Khristianovich; resident of the INO OGPU RSFSR in Vienna Zaporozhets Ivan Vasilievich; the legendary intelligence officer Dmitry Aleksandrovich Bystroletov and many, many others.

In total, from January 1 to December 31, 1937, 2,857 people were placed in the Lubyanka prison. Everyone was interrogated, protocols were drawn up, and after a while they were handed a travel document - some to Butyrka, and some to Lefortovo, that is, to eternity. Only 24 people were allowed to go home. Although who knew for how long...

Even on the days of revolutionary holidays, the flywheel of repressions that had gained momentum did not stop. On May 1, 1937, 4 prisoners were placed in the “interior”. November 7 – 5. December 21, Stalin’s birthday, – 6 “enemies of the people.” This did not go beyond the average daily norm of the Lubyanka prison: from 2 to 20 people. When the last day of this mortally terrible year arrived, the prison, as if realizing that two dozen prisoners had been released, immediately absorbed another 24 people.

* * *

There were prisoners in the “interior” who remembered the tsarist prisons, hard labor and exile. In September 1937, Maria Alexandrovna Spiridonova was taken there. A former militant, the leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, at the beginning of the century she destroyed General G.N. Luzhenosky, who suppressed peasant uprisings in the Tambov province. For this terrorist attack, the tsarist government sentenced her to hanging, but replaced the death penalty with eternal hard labor.

The October Revolution of 1917 liberated the underground. However, in 1918, Spiridonova, the inspirer of the Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion and the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach, was again behind bars. Then an amnesty from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and again a dungeon. In total, during the years of Soviet power, her total prison experience was 10 years in prison and 12 years in exile.

Lubyanka and Kazan prisons. Analogies and contrasts

The last guest of the “interior” was Viktor Ilyin, a lone tyrant fighter. On January 21, 1969, he emptied two clips while firing two Makarov pistols at General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev.

A grimace of fate: 16 bullets hit the Chaika with the cosmonauts, where in the front seat was twice Hero of the Soviet Union pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoi, who had a striking resemblance to the Secretary General...

* * *

The territory is fenced with a stone wall with barbed wire. In the corners are towers with machine gunners. Pre-zone with a control strip and another barbed wire fence. Internal solid fence with barbed wire. Signaling. Shepherd dogs. TV cameras.

This is not from films about war or fascist concentration camps. This is the Kazan special psychiatric hospital (read: prison for dissident elements), where Ilyin ended up in 1970 and where he spent eighteen years of imprisonment in solitary confinement.

In the internal security, in addition to guards (civilian warrant officers), unaccompanied criminals serving sentences for serious crimes monitor the patients. Criminals are called “orderlies,” anti-Soviet activists are called “sick” or simply “fools.” After finishing their shift, the criminals - all in white jackets and white caps - watch TV, eat food taken from patients, transferred from the outside, play volleyball, go to school...

The regime for the “fools” is strict - even for minor needs they are not always allowed out of their cells, they urinate in their shoe and pour it out the window.

The “orderlies” beat the “fools” for any reason, sometimes one of the medical staff watches the execution. They beat mercilessly, trying to cause the greatest damage to internal organs, especially the kidneys and liver. Goal: send every dissident who arrives for treatment with a “duck” for life...

Ilyin spent about two years in such conditions until the construction of a new building with solitary cells was completed.

The “orderlies,” having learned from the official chronicle that the admitted “patient” had attempted to kill the astronauts, arranged for him to be “tested in a pressure chamber.” This execution, like all the others, was not only agreed upon by the prison administration, but also sanctified by it.

It was explained to the subject that “testing in a pressure chamber” was carried out in order to determine his psychophysical capabilities for working as an astronaut.

The “patient” screaming obscenities, ignoring his height and build, was pushed into the bedside table by the “orderlies” and, having dragged her to the second floor, they pushed her down.

When the criminals tried to “test” Ilyin, he sank his teeth into the nose of one of the attackers and did not let him go until he had bitten off completely.

After this incident, Ilyin’s training as an astronaut went according to a different plan: real orderlies began to turn the terrorist’s buttocks into a sieve, injecting excessive doses of chlorpromazine.

* * *

On June 12, 1988, Ilyin was transported from the Kazan special psychiatric hospital to Lubyanka, where he communicated for three hours with the leaders of the Investigation Department of the KGB of the USSR. After signing the relevant papers, the last prisoner of the “interior” was released on all four sides.

With the execution of Beria, the golden age of the “interior” ended. By December 1953, out of 570 beds, only 170 were occupied, and on January 1 of the following year, only 97 people were kept in the Lubyanka prison.

During the years of Gorbachev's perestroika, when the movement from developed socialism to underdeveloped democracy began, six cells of the Lubyanka prison, this attribute of the camp-socialist statehood, following the highest order of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, were turned into a museum. Since December 1989, it has been open to visitors with security clearance...