Lefortovo prison
Encyclopedia
Lefortovo prison is a prison
in Moscow
, Russia
, which, since 2005, has been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. It was built in 1881. It was named after the Lefortovo District
of Moscow where it is located, which in turn took its name from Franz Lefort
, a close associate of Tsar
Peter I the Great.
During the Great Purge
Lefortovo prison was used by NKVD
for interrogations with torture
.
Lefortovo was an infamous KGB
prison and criminal investigation isolation ward (Russian: СИЗО, следственный изолятор) in the Soviet Union
for detainment of political prisoner
s. In 1994 it was transferred to MVD and in years 1996 - 2005 it was handed back to secret police
FSB, a successor of the KGB.
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, which, since 2005, has been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. It was built in 1881. It was named after the Lefortovo District
Lefortovo District
Lefortovo District is a district of South-Eastern Administrative Okrug of Moscow, Russia. Population: It is named after a close associate of Tsar Peter the Great Franz Lefort, whose troops were stationed nearby at the German Quarter. The district is considered to be founded in 1699. In the 18th...
of Moscow where it is located, which in turn took its name from Franz Lefort
Franz Lefort
Franz Lefort was a Russian military figure of Swiss origin, general admiral , and close associate of Peter the Great....
, a close associate of Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Peter I the Great.
During the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
Lefortovo prison was used by NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
for interrogations with torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
.
Lefortovo was an infamous KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
prison and criminal investigation isolation ward (Russian: СИЗО, следственный изолятор) in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
for detainment of political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s. In 1994 it was transferred to MVD and in years 1996 - 2005 it was handed back to secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
FSB, a successor of the KGB.
Famous prisoners
- Vladimir BukovskyVladimir BukovskyVladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer, neurophysiologist, and political activist....
- Nicholas DaniloffNicholas DaniloffNicholas Daniloff is an American journalist who graduated from Harvard University and was most prominent in the 1980s for his reporting on the Soviet Union...
- Alexander DolgunAlexander DolgunAlexander Dolgun was a survivor of the Soviet Gulag who wrote about his experiences in 1975 after being allowed to leave the Soviet Union and return to his native United States.- Pre-Gulag years :...
- Hugo EberleinHugo EberleinHugo Eberlein was a German Communist politician. He took part of the founding congress of the Communist Party of Germany , and then in the First Congress of the Comintern , where he held important posts until 1928, the result of his involvement with the Conciliator faction...
- Yevgenia GinzburgYevgenia GinzburgYevgenia Ginzburg was a Russian author who served an 18-year sentence in the Gulag. Her given name is often Latinized to Eugenia.-Family and early career:...
- Vasily BlyukherVasily BlyukherVasily Konstantinovich Blyukher Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher (also spelled Bliukher, Blücher, etc., , Soviet military commander, was among the prominent victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s....
- Nikolai GlushkovNikolai GlushkovNikolay Glushkov is a former Deputy Director-General of Aeroflot and a former Finance Manager of AvtoVAZ.Glushkov had been AvtoVAZ's Finance Chief until he left his job in autumn 1995 and was appointed as Deputy General Director of Aeroflot on request from Yevgeny Shaposhnikov in February...
- Zoya KrakhmalnikovaZoya KrakhmalnikovaZoya Alexandrovna Krakhmalnikova was a Russian Christian writer, of Ukrainian origin. She was an activist and former Soviet dissident who was repeatedly arrested by the authorities of the former Soviet Union for her publications.- Early life and career :Krakhmalnikova was born in the city of...
- Soviet ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
dissident - Platon LebedevPlaton LebedevPlaton Leonidovich Lebedev is a former CEO of Group Menatep, currently imprisoned in Russia, and is best known as a close associate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.-Conviction:...
- Eduard LimonovEduard LimonovEduard Limonov is Russian writer and political dissident, and is the founder and leader of radical National Bolshevik Party. An opponent of Vladimir Putin, Limonov is one of leaders of Other Russia political bloc.-Early life:...
- Alexander LitvinenkoAlexander LitvinenkoAlexander Valterovich Litvinenko was an officer who served in the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service ....
- Vil Mirzayanov http://www.bu.edu/iscip/vol4/Mirzayanov.html
- Osip PiatnitskyOsip PiatnitskyOsip Piatnitsky was a revolutionary.He was an associate of Vladimir Lenin since 1902, when he smuggled Lenin's propaganda into Russia from abroad....
- Ian RokotovRokotov-Faibishenko caseThe Rokotov–Faibishenko case, tried in the Soviet Union in 1961, helped demonstrate that despite the Khrushchev Thaw, Stalinist tendencies were still present in the Soviet judicial system...
- Mathias RustMathias RustMathias Rust is a German aviator known for his illegal landing on May 28, 1987 near Red Square in Moscow. As an amateur pilot, he flew from Finland to Moscow, being tracked several times by Soviet air defence and interceptors...
, the 19-year-old GermanGermansThe Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
who landed a Cessna 172Cessna 172The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is a four-seat, single-engine, high-wing fixed-wing aircraft. First flown in 1955 and still in production, more Cessna 172s have been built than any other aircraft.-Design and development:...
airplane near Red SquareRed SquareRed Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
. - Natan SharanskyNatan SharanskyNatan Sharansky was born in Stalino, Soviet Union on 20 January 1948 to a Jewish family. He graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As a child, he was a chess prodigy. He performed in simultaneous and blindfold displays, usually against...
- Andrei SinyavskyAndrei SinyavskyAndrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer, dissident, political prisoner, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher...
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3002001.html - Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
- Igor SutyaginIgor SutyaginIgor V. Sutyagin is a Russian arms control and nuclear weapons specialist. In 1998 he became the head of the subdivision for Military-Technical and Military-Economic Policy at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where he worked before he was...
- Raoul WallenbergRaoul WallenbergRaoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II...
- Nadezhda Ulanovskaya, wife of Alexander UlanovskyAlexander UlanovskyAlexander Petrovich Ulanovsky was the chief illegal "rezident" for Soviet Military Intelligence , who was rezident the United States from 1931 until 1934 and later, with his family, prisoner in the Soviet gulag.-Background:Born into a Jewish family in Kishinev, , as Izrail...
- Several members of the August Coup
- Chingiz IldyrymChingiz IldyrymChingiz Sultanov Ildyrym oglu better known as Chingiz Ildyrym, was a Bolshevik revolutionary, innovator and the first People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of Azerbaijan after occupation of Azerbaijan by 11th Red Army on April 28, 1920.-Early life:Ildyrym was born to the family of a...
, AzerbaijaniAzerbaijanAzerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
Bolshevik and statesman - Rashid Khan GaplanovRashid Khan GaplanovRashid Khan Gaplanov Zavid oglu , also known as Rashid Khan Kaplanov, was an Azerbaijani statesman of Kumyk ethnicity who served as the Minister of Finance and Minister of Education and Religious Affairs in the fifth and fourth cabinets of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.-Early years:Gaplanov was...
, EducationMinistry of Education (Azerbaijan)The Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan Republic is a governmental agency within the Cabinet of Azerbaijan in charge of regulating the education system in Azerbaijan. The ministry is headed by Misir Mardanov.-History:...
and FinanceMinistry of Finance (Azerbaijan)The Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan Republic is a governmental agency within the Cabinet of Azerbaijan in charge of regulating the financial sector in Azerbaijan Republic. The ministry is headed by Samir Sharifov.-History:...
Minister of Azerbaijan Democratic RepublicAzerbaijan Democratic RepublicThe Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the first successful attempt to establish a democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world . The ADR was founded on May 28, 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 by Azerbaijani National Council in...
External links
- Lefortovo prison – Includes hand-drawn floorplan
- New Times Loom for Fabled Lefortovo Prison The St. Petersburg Times, June 7, 2005