Mednoye
Encyclopedia
Types of settlements in Russia
The classification system of the types of inhabited localities in Russia, the former Soviet Union, and some other post-Soviet states has certain peculiarities compared to the classification systems in other countries.-Modern classification in Russia:...
in Kalininsky District
Kalininsky District, Tver Oblast
Kalininsky District, Tver Oblast is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 36 in Tver Oblast, Russia....
of Tver Oblast
Tver Oblast
Tver Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Tver. From 1935 to 1990, it was named Kalinin Oblast after Mikhail Kalinin. Population: Tver Oblast is an area of lakes, such as Seliger and Brosno...
, 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...
, located on the Tvertsa River
Tvertsa River
Tvertsa is a river in the Tver Oblast in Russia, a left tributary of the Volga River. The Starotveretsky Canal is considered Tvertsa's riverhead, which connects the river with the Vishnevolotskoye Reservoir. The latter drains up to 80% of its water from the Tsna River into the Tvertsa...
, 28 km west of Tver
Tver
Tver is a city and the administrative center of Tver Oblast, Russia. Population: 403,726 ; 408,903 ;...
, by the 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...
–St.Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
highway. Population: 3,047 (1992).
Mednoye was first mentioned as a votchina
Votchina
Votchina or otchina was an East Slavic land estate that could be inherited. The term "votchina" was also used to describe the lands of a knyaz.The term originated in the law of Kievan Rus...
of one of Tver boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
s in some documents dating from the 14th century. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the village prospered due to its location on the road leading from Tver to Torzhok
Torzhok
Torzhok is a town in Tver Oblast, Russia, famous for its folk craft of goldwork embroidery. Population: Torzhok has twenty-two large and medium-sized industrial enterprises. Two of them are especially significant...
and Novgorod. During the Oprichnina
Oprichnina
The oprichnina is the period of Russian history between Tsar Ivan the Terrible's 1565 initiation and his 1572 disbanding of a domestic policy of secret police, mass repressions, public executions, and confiscation of land from Russian aristocrats...
, there were 104 households in the village.
In the 19th century, Mednoye was a post station on the route from Moscow to St. Petersburg. One chapter of Alexander Radishchev
Alexander Radishchev
Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev was a Russian author and social critic who was arrested and exiled under Catherine the Great. He brought the tradition of radicalism in Russian literature to prominence with the publication in 1790 of his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow...
's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow
Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow
The Journey From St. Petersburg to Moscow , published in 1790, was the most famous work by the Russian writer Aleksandr Nikolayevich Radishchev....
is dedicated specifically to this village.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Mednoye was a centre of heavy tank fighting (October 1941) which formed part of the Battle of Moscow
Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of...
. It also became known as a 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....
mass execution site. Between April 3 and April 19, 1940, 6,311 Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
officers from the Ostashkov
Ostashkov
Ostashkov is a town and the administrative center of Ostashkovsky District of Tver Oblast, Russia, located west of Tver on a peninsula at the southern shore of Lake Seliger. Population:...
POW camp were brought to the area of Mednoye and subsequently shot to death behind the village of Yamka during the Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
.
Apart from the Katyn war cemetery
Katyn war cemetery
Katyn war cemetery is a Polish military cemetery located in Katyn, a small village 22 kilometres away from Smolensk, Russia, on the road to Vitebsk. It contains the remnants of 4,412 Polish officers of the Kozelsk prisoner of war camp, who were murdered in 1940 in what is called the Katyn...
, the landmarks of Mednoye include the Church of Our Lady of Kazan (1764), the 18th-century post station, and the memorial house of Sergey Lemeshev.