Where is the body of Stalin. Mysteries of the reburial of Stalin's body

Joseph Stalin is the greatest personality XX century. He is called the "father of peoples" and a traitor, a great ruler and a man who committed the genocide of his people. Contemporaries and historians still cannot give an unambiguous assessment of the activities of this person. It is known that he died only because his subordinates were afraid to approach him at the right moment and provide assistance. Where is Stalin buried? What were the last days of his life like? You will find answers to all questions in this article.

Disease

The first attack of the disease overtook the leader of the peoples on March 1, 1953. He was found unconscious in the official residence - at the Kuntsevskaya dacha, where Stalin settled in the post-war years. The personal doctor of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars was so frightened that for a long time he could not admit that a high-ranking patient had a stroke. However, the next day the doctor found the strength to make a diagnosis and determine the paralysis of the right side of the leader's body. Stalin did not get up that day. He only occasionally raised his active hand, as if asking for help. But she never came. Some historians believe that fear is not the only motive due to which the leader did not receive the necessary treatment in time. The fact is that the closest associates of the "father of peoples" - Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov - were interested in his speedy death. Many are interested in where Stalin is buried. After all, the story of his burial could be no less strange than the fact of his sudden death.

demise

According to official sources, the guards, who discovered the prostrate body of the leader on the floor in the dining room, could not call the doctor without special orders from Beria. That night, Lavrenty Pavlovich could not be found in any way. Only ten hours later the necessary permission was obtained. Only then did the patient receive medical attention. And the next day he had another stroke. Beria knew from the evening that the "father of the peoples" was unwell. This is evidenced by documentary sources. The history of Stalin is the fate of a man betrayed by his closest ally at the most crucial moment. On March 5, 1953, the leader died. The whole vast country plunged into deep mourning. People in an endless stream went to say goodbye to the great leader and teacher. Everyone knows where Stalin was buried immediately after his death: on March 9, his body was placed in Lenin's mausoleum. There it rested until 1961.

Anti-Stalinist sentiments

Soon the long-awaited "thaw" began in the country. Anti-Stalinist sentiments began to develop. At the 22nd Congress Communist Party, which took place on October 17-31, 1961, several fateful decisions were made at once. Just a day before the closing of the event, a proposal was made to remove the body of the deceased leader from the Mausoleum and rebury it in an ordinary grave. The speaker expressed the opinion that being in the Kremlin tomb next to Lenin is incompatible with the lawlessness that Stalin did during his reign. Interestingly, this proposal was made by the unremarkable head of the Leningrad regional committee, Ivan Spiridonov. Prominent party leaders like Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Suslov, Frol Kozlov preferred to remain silent. However, the initiative of Comrade Spiridonov was decided to be supported. So where is Stalin buried? Read about it below.

Reburial

So, at the XXII Party Congress, a decision was made to rebury the leader on Red Square, near the walls of the Kremlin, behind the Mausoleum. The country's leadership was afraid of unrest in the country, so the removal of Stalin's body took place in the strictest secrecy. On October 31, late in the evening, under the pretext of another rehearsal of the solemn parade on November 7, Red Square was cordoned off. The dug grave and the entrance to the Mausoleum were covered with plywood shields. The only witnesses to the transfer of the body were numerous guards, the reburial commission and the funeral team. In the tomb, the officers transferred Stalin's body to a wooden coffin draped in red and black crepe. The body of the leader was covered with a black veil, leaving only half of the chest and face open. The head of the carpentry workshop - Shanin - on command closed the coffin with a lid and nailed it. With the help of eight officers, the body of the leader was taken out of the Mausoleum. The coffin was moved to the grave. A kind of sarcophagus of eight slabs was built at its bottom. After a short pause, the coffin was carefully lowered into the grave. According to the ancient Russian custom, those present threw a handful of earth on the lid of the coffin. The soldiers then buried Stalin's body.

Consequences

Contrary to expectations, the citizens of the country took the news that the "father of the peoples" was taken out of the Mausoleum calmly. Soon they found out where Stalin was buried. But no riots followed. In 1970, a monument was erected on the grave of the leader, created by the sculptor Tomsky. It is known that the reburial at the Kremlin wall was not the only solution that was proposed at the congress of party leaders. For example, Nikita Khrushchev wanted to bury Joseph Vissarionovich not far from his daughter and wife, at the Novodevichy cemetery. However, this idea was abandoned. For some reason, the party feared that the leader's body might be stolen from the grave and taken to Georgia. As a result, everyone at the congress voted for the initiative of the leader of Uzbekistan, Nuritdin Mukhitdinov. He proposed to bury the leader near the Kremlin, next to other important Soviet military leaders, politicians, and others statesmen. Many now know where Stalin is buried. You can see photos of his grave in our article.

New versions

History does not stand still, many decades have passed since the death of the leader. Over the years, the question of where Joseph Stalin is buried began to acquire fantastic details. The information that the great leader rests in the center of the capital began to be questioned. For example, the Canadian historian of Ukrainian origin Greg Sinko believes that one of Stalin's doubles rests in the grave on Red Square. And Joseph Vissarionovich himself allegedly secretly moved to the Himalayas. Like, in his youth he was fond of Buddhist literature, so he hoped that local miracle workers would help him gain health and eternal immortality. In the press, under headings like "Secrets of the 20th century," there are periodic assumptions that the "father of nations" died much earlier from a serious illness. And for a long time his role was played by talented doubles, "dolls", who replaced each other more than once. It is difficult to take such fantasies seriously. However, the time of Stalin's rule is fraught with a lot of sinister secrets, many of which most of us will never know.

Conclusion

Now you know where Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich is buried. His death shocked millions of compatriots. And his life is the subject of interest of an unusual number of meticulous researchers. One thing is certain. It was great person who left an indelible mark on world history. And the death and mystery of the burial of such people is always overgrown with fantasies, secrets and riddles.

The fact that Stalin's funeral caused many deaths, the authorities preferred to hush up. The exact number of deaths in the crowd saying goodbye is classified. Witnesses of the events told terrible things. The literary critic Elena Pasternak later recalled that a real pandemonium was happening on Trubnaya Street in Moscow.

Muscovites living in neighboring houses were blocked in their apartments, because a dense, endless column of people was moving along the roadway. The pressure was terrible. The inhabitants of the lower floors heard not only the screams of the crushed, but also some kind of gnashing, crunching of the bones, from which the hair stood on end. When the crowd began to thin out, heaps of clothes, someone's galoshes and, worst of all, pieces of people began to be taken out of the thick in wheelbarrows. The janitors worked all night long.

Another Muscovite, political scientist Yuri Bartko personally participated in the cordon of Trubnaya. Subsequently, he told what happened there and how security was provided these days. On March 6, his relative Anatoly died in a stampede. A strong 30-year-old man was pressed so hard with his chest against the bars cast iron grate that the bones could not stand. The chest was literally crushed.

Relatives learned of his death on March 7. When they came to the morgue for the body, several dozen people were already waiting under the doors of this institution. In order not to advertise the number of deaths, the authorities ordered the morgues to issue false certificates, which indicated the fake causes of death.

Exactly half a century has passed since Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum. And all this time, the event, significant for the whole country, was shrouded in a dark secret. The time has come not just to remember it, but to restore everything in detail. Down to the smallest detail. And finally find out why the embalmed remains of the Secretary General were reburied under the cover of night in an atmosphere of special secrecy? Who and how dared to touch the body of a tyrant, whom they did not cease to fear even after death? And most importantly - to what madness were those who bowed to the leader ready to go? We have at our disposal grandiose projects to perpetuate the memory of the Secretary General. The projects are incredible, sometimes even absurd. Among them is the construction of Stalin's Pantheon in the Kremlin. With its height, the necropolis-memorial would overshadow the bell tower of Ivan the Great and the Spasskaya Tower. What it was supposed to be - today you can see it for the first time.

Why Stalin was not buried next to his wife

Joseph Stalin was buried in the Mausoleum in March 1953. Before that, his body was embalmed using the same technology as Lenin's body. The remains of the General Secretary were also placed next to Vladimir Ilyich. Both leaders lay on the same pedestal in the Mausoleum for almost 8 years. Stalin was reburied on October 31, 1961.

Throwing a bridge half a century ago, to be honest, was not easy. None of the direct participants in the events of that day has survived to this day. But on the other hand, there are archival documents, eyewitness accounts, including those preserved only on tape recordings and still not deciphered on paper. Now is the time to declassify them. But first, a little history.

The idea of ​​Stalin's reburial was born at the party congress, which was held from October 17 to October 31, 1961, - says Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Sergei Devyatov. - But by this moment the soil, as they say, was already prepared. Even at the XX Congress, Khrushchev announced a document entitled "On overcoming the personality cult of Stalin and its consequences." By the way, the reason for the tense relations between the Soviet Union and the communist parties of China and Albania was precisely in the criticism of Stalin's personality cult. And at that very congress, a certain Spiridonov spoke - the first secretary of the Leningrad party organization. So he, in fact, voiced the idea of ​​removing Stalin's body from the Mausoleum. And the decision was made immediately.

A burial commission was created, which included the first secretary of the Georgian Central Committee Vasily Mzhavanadze, the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU (future minister of culture) Petr Demichev, the chairman of the KGB Alexander Shelepin (he was called " iron Shurik"). Nikolai Shvernik (head of the party control) became the chairman of the commission. The Kremlin regiment was assigned to deal with all technical issues. The commandant of the Moscow Kremlin, General Vedenin, received a command "from above" - ​​without delay, begin preparing the burial procedure.

From the memoirs of the commander of a separate regiment, Fyodor Konev:

“Exactly at noon on October 31, I was summoned to the government building and told to prepare a company for the reburial of Stalin at the Novodevichy cemetery. At first, they were going to rebury it there, next to his wife.”

13.00. An hour later, another decision was made - to bury Stalin near the walls of the Kremlin. Members of the Politburo seemed to be afraid that in the Novodevichy Pogost, the Secretary General could ... be dug up and stolen by admirers. After all, there is no proper protection at the cemetery.

14.00–17.00. Directly behind the Mausoleum was dug a grave two meters deep. Its bottom and walls were laid 10 reinforced concrete slabs, each measuring 1 meter by 80 cm. At the same time, a command was given to the commandant of the Mausoleum to prepare the body for removal from the sarcophagus.

The coffin was prepared in advance, says Devyatov. - The most common. High-quality, solid, but not from precious woods and without any inlays with precious metals. He was covered with red cloth.

17.30–21.00. Preparing the body for reburial. They decided not to change Stalin's clothes, so he remained in the same uniform. True, the gold embroidered shoulder straps of the Generalissimo were removed from the jacket and the Star of the Hero of the USSR was taken away. They are still preserved. And the buttons were also replaced in the uniform. But the talk about the fact that they put a smoking pipe in the coffin is tales. According to eyewitnesses, there was nothing there. Stalin was transferred from the sarcophagus to the coffin by four military men. Everything was done quickly, neatly and extremely correctly.

22.00. The coffin was covered with a lid. But then an incident came up - in a hurry, they completely forgot about nails and a hammer. The military ran for the instrument - and twenty minutes later the coffin was finally nailed down.

22.30–23.00. 8 officers carried out the coffin with the body of Stalin. A funeral procession of two dozen people proceeded to the dug grave. There were no relatives or friends of Stalin among those present. On the ropes, the coffin was lowered into the grave. According to Russian custom, some threw a handful of earth. After a short pause, the military dug up the grave - in silence, without volleys and music. Although the body was being prepared for reburial to the sound of drums, a parade rehearsal was taking place on Red Square. By the way, thanks to this, curious spectators were avoided (the entire square was blocked).

23.00–23.50. A memorial table was prepared for members of the burial commission. According to the unpublished memoirs of one of the then members of the Politburo, it was in a small building behind the Mausoleum (there is a kind of passage room). Immediately after the grave was buried, everyone was invited there. Cognac, vodka and jelly stood between different appetizers. Not everyone touched the table. Someone defiantly left. Someone sobbed in the corner.

1.00–2.00. The servicemen covered the grave with a white stone slab, where the name and year of birth were written - 1879. By the way, the year of birth was indicated incorrectly - and this mistake was not corrected. In reality, Joseph Vissarionovich was born in 1878.

We saw its metrics, where exactly the 78th year appears, - experts-historians say. - But there is no question of any error. Stalin deliberately wrote himself a year and a month. Curious fact, isn't it? He alone can say a lot about a person.

Somewhere between 2.00 and 6.00. The inscription above the entrance to the Mausoleum is replaced by another one. She has a whole story to tell. Even on the first day of Stalin's "settlement" in the Mausoleum, it was decided to immediately paint over the letters "LENIN" with black (granite-like) paint. For more similarity with natural stone bluish "sparks" interspersed in the paint. And already on top they placed a new inscription "STALIN LENIN". But the first rains and cold did their job - the paint began to wear off, and the initial letters treacherously appeared above the Mausoleum. Then they decided to completely replace the plate with the inscription. For your information, it weighs 40 tons. And this is not just a slab - it was also a support for the railings of the stands located on top of the Mausoleum. The commandant of the Kremlin instructed the commandant of the Mausoleum Mashkov to bring the old slab to the Golovinsky cemetery and saw it ... into monuments. And he took, and disobeyed. The slab was taken, on his personal instructions, not to the churchyard, but to the factory. There she lay untouched until the moment when Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum. The factory workers said - they say, the hand did not rise to break it. And what little? And they turned out to be right. The old stove was returned to its original place, and the one with the inscription "STALIN LENIN" was taken to the same plant. It is kept there now. Is there a little...

On the morning of November 1, a huge queue lined up at the Mausoleum. Many were surprised not to see Stalin inside. To the servicemen standing at the entrance to the Mausoleum and in the room, every now and then they approached and were interested: where is Joseph Vissarionovich? The servicemen patiently and intelligibly explained, as their superiors told them to. Of course, there were visitors who were indignant when they learned that the body was interred. Say, how is it - why didn’t they ask the people? But the vast majority took the news quite calmly. One might even say - indifferent ...

How Georgia was almost renamed after Stalin

The fact that the removal of the Secretary General's body from the Mausoleum did not cause a stir is, in principle, understandable and understandable. Unlike what happened immediately after his death. When Stalin first died, people seemed to go crazy, making proposals to perpetuate his name. Before me are unique documents. They have never been published anywhere. When you read them, it seems that this is some kind of prank. But scientists, ministers, architects and other intelligent people cannot offer SUCH!

It was supposed to build in Moscow a whole district "In Memory of Comrade STALIN". It was supposed to have a Stalin museum, the Stalin Academy of Social Sciences, a sports center for 400 thousand people (that is, several times more than Luzhniki) and more whole line structures.

“The Central Committee of the Central Committee of the CPSU to Comrade Malenkov. The area "In Memory of Comrade Stalin" should become the focus of the display of the most advanced science and technology in the world, best achievements all kinds of arts, a meeting place for world congresses, meetings, conferences, competitions and festivals the best people our country with the workers of the whole world. Everything being built in the area "In Memory of Comrade Stalin" should be built for centuries, according to the best projects, of the most the best materials, by the most advanced, perfect methods.

And also, judging by the document, this should be a nationwide construction project - and the main contribution (20-25 billion rubles) would have to be collected by the working people of the country. It was planned to hand over the area by December 21, 1959, the day of the eightieth anniversary of the Secretary General. And, by the way, it would be located in the Southwestern District, directly adjacent to Moscow State University. Moscow itself State University would bear not the name of Lomonosov, but of Stalin.

In general, there are about 40 items on the list. What is only the proposal to rename the Leningrad highway in honor of Stalin. They also wanted to call the Soviet Army “after Comrade Stalin.” Paragraph 23 says about the renaming of the Georgian SSR to the Stalinist. If this had been done then, today it would obviously be more difficult for Georgia to seek support abroad. But seriously, the list of absurd projects can be supplemented with the idea of ​​moving March 8 to another day (the Secretary General died on the 5th, and a whole week after this date would be considered mourning, and March 9 - Stalin's memorial day). Of the less ambitious proposals, one can name the establishment of the Order of Stalin or the writing of an oath in honor of the leader, which every worker would say, the creation of the Stalin region in Uzbekistan (at the expense of certain districts of the Tashkent and Samarkand regions) ... But this is already so, “little things”.

This is how Stalin's pantheon in the Kremlin could have looked like:

Necropolis of Stalin

If all these proposals were simply discussed (of course, in all seriousness), then the construction of Stalin's pantheon was practically a settled issue. If the idea had required less significant efforts and Khrushchev had not come to power, I assure you, now the Stalinist necropolis would have flaunted in the center of Moscow. A corresponding resolution of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the USSR was even signed, after which best architects countries got down to business.

Three variants of the pantheon project were developed. According to one of them, the building was supposed to be installed on the site of GUM, just opposite the Mausoleum.

“The size of the area enclosed by walls is 200 x 165 m, the walls are built in two rows and are used for burials. In this case, the building is assumed to be round with two rows of columns and a platform for the leaders of the Party and the Government. Under the stands there are two floors with an area of ​​about 2000 square meters. meters for the museum. It will be necessary to move, relocate or dismantle the building Historical Museum, which crowds the site and does not give a wide passage.

The Pantheon would look like a huge rotunda with a dome. The whole building outside would be surrounded by two rows of slender granite columns.

I quote the architect Ionov: “In terms of its architectural and color expressiveness, the building should be kept in strict forms, the color of the walls and columns is dark, but cheerful, speaking of the victorious march of communism (dark red granites and marbles or dark gray with inlaid stones different colors and metal).

It was also supposed to decorate the pantheon with ceramics and bronze. The dome would be covered with durable scaly materials, and the spire... pure gold. On the spire - well, of course - there would be a red ruby ​​star!

"Approximate calculations of the total cost of building the Pantheon:

a) an area of ​​90,000 sq. m for 200 rubles. sq. meter

90000 x 200 = 18 million rubles

b) wall 400 x 15 = 6000 sq. m for 1500 rubles. sq. meter

1500 x 6000 = 90 million rubles

c) a building of about 150,000 cubic meters. m for 1000 rubles. for 1 cu. m

1000 x 150000 = 150 million rubles

G) Finishing work 22 million rubles

Total 280 million rubles.”

For your information, the body of Stalin would be transferred to the pantheon, and later all famous personalities would be buried there. Moreover, the leaders and leaders of the party, members in sarcophagi, and other honored ranks lower - in urns. By the way, the pantheon would be 250-300 thousand cubic meters.

Another version of the project (they were more inclined towards it in the Central Committee) involved the construction of a pantheon behind the "teeth" - in the Kremlin itself in its southeastern part, on the left side at the entrance through the Spasskaya Tower. In this case, it would be much smaller (should not exceed 100 thousand cubic meters). Well, and, accordingly, only leaders would rest there.

The project of the pantheon (fortunately or unfortunately - as anyone) remained on paper. And Stalin is still resting at the Kremlin wall. There is talk among scientists that the body is still in good condition. However, not once in 50 years has it occurred to any of the leaders of the state to exhume the remains of the Secretary General. Some are even convinced that it is impossible to open Stalin's grave without consequences for the whole country. And they draw an analogy with the grave of Tamerlane - according to legend, it was because it was opened that the Second World War began.

Exactly 63 years ago, on March 9, 1953, all of Moscow buried the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Generalissimo Soviet Union, the great leader and teacher and simply the father of the peoples, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. He died a few days earlier, on the evening of March 5th. On the morning of the 6th, a message about the death of the leader was broadcast on the radio, and the country quietly discussed the mysterious breathing of Cheyne-Stokes, which Levitan told her about.

Then, in 1953, the Soviet people also perceived the news of the death of the leader ambiguously. Most often, when trying to describe the emotions that gripped them, contemporaries mentioned such words as "confusion" and "depression", many did not hide their tears, but in the families of the repressed there was restrained joy and a sense of triumphant justice. A lot of conflicts arose among the students because of the difference in attitude towards the already dead Soviet leader. Some students staged a kind of demarches and ignored Stalin's funeral, preferring to say goodbye to the composer Sergei Prokofiev, who also died on March 5.

Only in the camps did they openly rejoice over the fact that "Mustache / Gutalin died." Zeki not only rejoiced in death personal enemy who sent them to the Gulag: some suspected that Stalin's death meant a speedy amnesty for many prisoners. Time has shown that they were right.

On the afternoon of March 6, Stalin's body was put up for farewell in the Hall of Columns on Okhotny Ryad. Here, by the way, in January 1924, farewell to Lenin took place, and then other Soviet leaders became "guests" of the hall. The leader was placed in open coffin, which stood on a high pedestal, surrounded by bright greenery and flowers.

Patriarch Alexy I: We believe that our prayer for the deceased will be heard by the Lord. And to our beloved and unforgettable Joseph Vissarionovich, we prayerfully, with deep, ardent love, proclaim eternal memory.

Stalin was dressed in his usual uniform, but the shoulder straps of the generalissimo and gold buttons were sewn to him. In the guard of honor at the coffin, Malenkov, Beria, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kaganovich and Mikoyan were on duty.

Farewell to Stalin in the House of Unions

Sergey Agadzhanyan, student: We went to the coffin. I had a wild thought: I have never seen Stalin, but now I will see him. A few steps away. At that moment there were no members of the Politburo, only simple people. But even in the Hall of Columns, I did not notice the crying people. People were frightened - by death, by the crowd - maybe they didn’t cry from fright? Fear mixed with curiosity, lostness, but not melancholy, not mourning.

The farewell in the Hall of Columns lasted three days and three nights. Stalin's funeral itself began on March 9 at 10:15, when Malenkov, Beria, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kaganovich and Mikoyan left the House of the Unions with the coffin of the leader. The coffin was placed on a gun carriage, and the procession moved towards the Mausoleum. Red Army soldiers (4,400 people) and working people (12,000 people) were already waiting on Red Square. By the way, the organizer of Stalin's funeral was none other than Nikita Khrushchev.

Removal of the body. Party members pretend to carry the coffin. In fact, the officers carried the coffin Soviet army, and the leader's comrades-in-arms simply held on to the stretcher.

Manezhnaya Square, photo from Ogonyok magazine. The procession moved towards Red Square to the sounds of Chopin's Funeral March. The way to the Mausoleum took 22 minutes.

Already at 10:45 a mourning meeting began on Red Square.

Lavrenty Beria is speaking from the podium.

On the renovated Mausoleum are not only Soviet party leaders, but also foreign guests - Palmiro Togliatti, Zhou Enlai, Otto Grotewohl, Vylko Chervenkov and others. Eyewitnesses say that on the day of Stalin's funeral it was humid and overcast. Because of such weather, the president of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, who was present at the funeral, caught a bad cold and soon after returning to Prague died of a ruptured aorta. Rumors circulated in Czechoslovakia for some time that he had been poisoned during a visit to Moscow.

The rally lasted just over an hour. Shortly before noon, Soviet party members brought the coffin to the Mausoleum, and at 12:00 an artillery salute burst out in honor of Stalin. At the same moment, the Moscow factories gave farewell beeps. After 5 minutes of silence, the anthem of the Soviet Union began to play, and at 12:10 an air link passed over Red Square.

The day of the funeral was clear, sunny and quite warm. My family and neighbors went outside. At the time of the funeral, I think at 12 o'clock, all the cars, factory horns and everything that could make a sound were honking. My tears flowed. The rest of the people were depressed, but I did not see any crying.

The gun carriage is deployed to the entrance to the Mausoleum. Commanders with orders of Stalin stand in front of the coffin: 1st row - Malinovsky, Konev, Sokolovsky, Budyonny; 2nd row - Timoshenko, Govorov.

Mountains of wreaths on Red Square. According to one version, the photo was taken the day after Stalin's funeral.

Sonya Ivic-Bernstein, student: Restrained jubilation reigned in the family: it seemed indecent to rejoice at someone's death, while it was impossible not to triumph. I rushed to the university with a feeling of a great positive event, and at the entrance to the Auditorium building of our Moscow State University I ran into a senior student, E.I., whom I liked terribly at that time. He returned my smile with an icy look: “How can you smile on a day like this?” and mournfully turned away from me.

Yuri Afanasiev, student: Suddenly I heard mat. Exactly addressed mat - not in general, namely about Stalin. And there was “mustachioed”, and “bastard”, and many other words. This is what freaked me out. People did not speak quietly, not in such a way that no one would hear. They spoke loudly so that everyone could hear. There were no police, no one stopped them.

Sofia Embankment March 9, 1953

Because of the clumsy organization of farewell to the leader, a gigantic crush arose in the center of Moscow. The Red Army soldiers could not competently divide the streams of people or did not expect such an influx of people who wanted to say goodbye to Stalin and ordinary onlookers. The stampede reached its apogee in the area of ​​Trubnaya Square. According to rough estimates, from 100 to several thousand people died in it, many were shell-shocked. People fled from death in yards, gateways, under trucks. Eyewitnesses say that after the crowd dispersed, whole mountains of galoshes and clothes remained on the square.

Larisa Bespalova, student: What I remember most of all was that a lot of people gathered on the boulevard, mostly young people. They were playing a game... I don't know what it's called, in a word, several people sit on each other's knees, then one of the last slaps the first one on the ear with his hand, and you have to guess who slapped you. They had a lot of fun playing this game.

At the same time, a policeman climbed onto a barrel or something like that and began to shout: where are you going, people are being taken out of the crowd without spines! And soon we turned back.

They tried to regulate the flow of the crowd on the day of Stalin's funeral with the help of ZiS-150 and ZiS-151 trucks. Judging by eyewitness accounts, the location of this equipment across the streets was one of the reasons for the stampede on the day of Stalin's funeral.

From memories: Some time after the funeral, my neighbor from the third floor, Uncle Kostya, who went through the whole war, returned from the hospital with his left leg taken away to the knee. It turned out that during the funeral there was a stampede, and his leg got stuck in a failed well. There was an open fracture at the very patella, and his leg was amputated. He had orders and medals for the Second World War, but after a while he told me: he received the highest award for the Victory from the Leader posthumously!

Crowd on Tverskaya

Leonid Simanovsky, seventh grader: We crossed Kirova Street (now Myasnitskaya) and, together with a mass of people, walked along Sretensky Boulevard towards Trubnaya. But people did not walk along the boulevard (the entrance to it was blocked), but along the sidewalk on the left side. Trucks were parked along the sidewalk to prevent anyone from entering the roadway. There were soldiers in the trucks.

Thus, a huge mass of people was squeezed between the walls of houses and trucks. The movement stalled. There was a terrible crush, as more and more people were pushing from behind, and there was almost no progress forward. I lost all my comrades and was squeezed into the mass of people so much that it hurt, it was difficult to breathe, and I could not move. It became very scary, because the threat of being crushed or trampled to death by the crowd was very real. I tried my best not to get near the trucks - there was a very big danger of being crushed by the truck. All around, people screamed in pain and fear, especially women.

The soldiers on trucks, having the appropriate order, stopped the attempts of people to crawl under the trucks onto the free carriageway. At the same time, I saw how the soldiers rescued a woman who was pressed against the truck - they dragged her into the back.

This went on for a long time. How much - I don't know. In the crush, I did not figure out whether I crossed Sretenka and whether I got to Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. But I am sure that he did not reach Trubnaya Square, otherwise he would hardly have survived. At some point, I found myself carried by the crowd to the entrance to the courtyard. I managed to break away from the crowd and find myself in the courtyard of a small house. This was salvation.

It was evening, it was cold. I managed to enter the entrance and find a place on the stairs. There I spent the whole night. Terribly cold.

By morning the crowd had dispersed, and I walked home. My parents were happy that I returned safe and sound, and didn't scold me too much.

Then I found out that it was there, at the end of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard in front of Trubnaya Square, where I did not reach quite a bit, that there was a terrible meat grinder. It is known that Rozhdestvensky Boulevard descends steeply down to Trubnaya Square. But the exit to the square was blocked. The people who found themselves in front of Trubnaya Square were simply crushed from behind by the crowd going down the slope. Masses of people died.

On the same day or the next, I do not remember exactly, there was a rumor that one of our comrades, Misha Arkhipov, did not return home and, possibly, died. Very soon, the rumor was confirmed - Misha was found in the morgue.

On that day, registry offices issued death certificates with false indications of its causes.

Pushkinskaya street (Bolshaya Dmitrovka). View from the window of house number 16. Trucks stand at the intersection with Stoleshnikov Lane.

Pavel Men, seventh grader: But Alik, my brother [future priest Alexander Men] - with the guys still went to see Balabus, how he lies in a coffin. Just out of curiosity. And when they reached Trubnaya Square - there were four of them - they realized that a meat grinder had begun. There was something terrible going on! The flea market was such that they felt that it was already life threatening. They rushed to the fire escapes, climbed onto the roof, and along the roofs they managed to escape from the square. That was the only way to be saved. Moreover, this fire escape started high, and they somehow climbed onto the shoulders of one another in order to get out and still leave this crowd

Tverskaya

Inna Lazareva, fourth-grader: There was mourning at school, as elsewhere. But children were children. So, in the diary of my girlfriend, an entry appeared: “I laughed at the funeral bell.”

My father was not in Moscow in those days, but he called my mother on a long-distance line and asked her to definitely go with the children (I was 10 years old, my brother was 12) to say goodbye to Stalin. In vain mother tried to explain to him how risky and dangerous it was. And it's pointless. She didn't go anywhere with us, but my brother went. I don’t think it was because of love for Stalin, rather, out of a sense of contradiction (mother didn’t allow it, but he already wanted to prove his adulthood). Of course, he got into a terrible crush, did not reach the goal, but survived, escaping under a Studebaker.

At the intersection with the current Degtyarny Lane

Elena Delaunay, fifth grader: In the evening next day my mother came home from work upset and said that the day before, on the day of Stalin's funeral, many people had died in the crowd, all the hospitals were crammed with crippled people. Then I heard that as if early in the morning the next day after the funeral, they cleaned the streets and boulevards along which the crowd was walking. And from there, trucks took out shoes, galoshes and all kinds of lost clothes. They passed on these stories in a whisper and only to close acquaintances.

Tatyana Bolshakova, fifth grader: Parents let us go calmly - the Hall of Columns was very close. But everything went wrong. The streets were blocked off by trucks, there was a military cordon and everyone was directed in one direction. We ended up on Zhdanov Street, then on Sretensky Boulevard and from there to Trubnaya Square, where everything was blocked by trucks. And from the side of Rozhdestvenka (former Zhdanov) and Rozhdestvensky Boulevard people walked and walked. The crowd pressed forward, screams and howls were heard. I accidentally found myself pressed against a bakery window. Someone broke the window, and the crowd rushed into the bakery. Soon the hole was littered with counters. The people inside sat silently, no one cried. There were terrible screams outside. The employees of the bakery began to let us out through the window for receiving bread into the courtyard. At that moment I had neither fear nor other emotions. I knew the area well, as I often walked there with my friends. I walked through the yards, all the gates were open. But it was not possible to go out into the streets - everything was blocked in several rows by trucks. I climbed over and under trucks. It was all around broken glass; where it came from, I don't know. I walked in rubber boots - now there are none. They were completely cut, and there were huge holes on the leggings. When I came home, I was waiting for the tears of my relatives, who were very afraid for me. But the next morning I was sent to school. The head teacher again gathered all the students and began to tell how difficult it would be for us now to live and what misfortunes await us without Stalin. She and some students were crying. I didn't have a tear. The head teacher put me in front of the students and reprimanded me, saying that I was very callous.

Sadovaya-Karetnaya street

Vladimir Sperantov, student: There were no barriers back, and somehow we got out in the Pokrovka area and then went out to the Garden Ring again, there were a lot of people there, but, of course, the most fear, as we understood, was Sretensky Boulevard, Rozhdestvensky Boulevard and a steep descent to Trubnaya . And that's where ... well, the crowd carries, back and forth, horses - some died simply from hooves, by accident. The horse was frightened, twitched, and someone just got hit on the head with a hoof ... a horseshoe ...

It became known later. On that day, some went - and did not return. We had such a professor, Veniamin Lvovich Granovsky, who read physics. His daughter, Olga Granovskaya, went and did not come. She got to Trubnaya and died there. We found out about it a few days later. Obviously, the dead were buried, somehow it was organized ...

Opposite the building of the Museum of the Revolution. Photo from the magazine "Spark"

Velena Rozkina, student: I won’t say that it was a rush of great love, it just became curious - such an event. We left at Trubnaya and from there - along the Petrovsky lines. The crowd was terrible, in the middle of the street there were trucks with soldiers in open bodies, and then suddenly they let in mounted police, they pressed people from both sides. A terrible stampede began, screams, something impossible. The soldiers, whom they could, snatched to their trucks. My friend and I were also dragged onto a truck, our coats were torn, but it doesn’t matter ...

Newspaper "Pravda" dated March 9, 1953

Grigory Rozenberg, preschooler:
My grandfather is a former member former Society former political prisoners, an old Bolshevik, in whose illegal apartment Khalturin himself was hiding, the brother of some former bigwig in the State Bank of the USSR - sighed heavily and said very sadly:

Mom was so shocked by this sacrilege that at first she was simply speechless. And then, without looking back, through her teeth she ordered me to leave the room. Of course, I went out, but I remembered the words of my grandfather very well.

Vladimir Sperantov, student: The conversations of the first days were like this: whoever speaks the funeral word, he will. Then everyone noted: but Beria said something! After the mausoleum, when the actual funeral took place; this was discussed at home. But the official successor, not a party member, was Malenkov, and then, a few days later, they somehow began to say that Malenkov, at the very first meeting of the Central Committee or the Politburo, when everyone applauded, said: no, I’m not a ballerina, please, don’t was no more. And we realized that the style began to change.

Most of the memories are from the site

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879-1953) died on March 5, 1953 at a dacha in Kuntsevo near Moscow. The death of the leader of the Soviet people became news No. 1 all over the world. In Paris, Lisbon, Berlin, New York and thousands of other cities on the planet, the biggest newspapers came out with huge headlines on the front pages. They informed their citizens about the most important political event. In some countries, urban transport conductors addressed passengers with the words: "Get up, gentlemen, Stalin is dead."

As for the USSR, a 4-day mourning was declared in the country. All ministries, departments, main departments and departments, plants and factories, higher schools and the schools are up. Worked only production with a round-the-clock schedule. The world's first state of workers and peasants froze in anticipation of the main thing. It was Stalin's funeral, scheduled for March 9, 1953.

Farewell to the leader

To say goodbye to the people, the body of the leader was exhibited in the Hall of Columns of the House of the Unions. From 16:00 on March 6, access was opened to it. From the streets of Moscow, people flocked to Bolshaya Dmitrovka, and they were already walking along it to the Hall of Columns.

There, on a pedestal, buried in flowers, stood a coffin with the body of the deceased. He was dressed in a gray-green uniform with gold buttons. Orders and medals lay next to the coffin on a satin covering, mourning music sounded. At the coffin, the leaders of the party and government froze in the guard of honor. Past, an endless stream, were people. These were ordinary Muscovites, as well as residents from other cities who came to say goodbye to the head of state. It is assumed that out of 7 million inhabitants of Moscow, 2 million wanted to see the dead leader with their own eyes.

Foreign delegations were admitted through a special entrance. They passed without a queue. At the time, this was common practice. For some reason, the authorities treated foreigners much more reverently than their own citizens. They were given the green light everywhere, and the funeral ceremony was no exception.

The people walked for 3 days and 3 nights. There were trucks on the streets with searchlights mounted on them. They were turned on at dusk. Late at night, the House of the Unions was closed for 2 hours, and then reopened. The radio played classical music around the clock.

It should be noted that people were extremely depressed these days. fixed big number heart attacks, and mortality has increased dramatically. But there are no exact statistics for this period of time. Everyone was overcome by one desire - to get into the Hall of Columns and see the one who, during his lifetime, was elevated to the rank of a monument.

Huge crowds of people went to say goodbye to Stalin

loss of life

All streets in the center of the capital were cordoned off by trucks and soldiers. They held back crowds of thousands of people moving towards the House of Unions. As a result of this, crushes began to form here and there. Order was maintained only on Bolshaya Dmitrovka (at that time Pushkinskaya Street). On the other streets within the Boulevard Ring, there was a mass crowd of citizens, which, in practice, was not regulated by anyone.

As soon as people got to the center, they found themselves squeezed from all sides by trucks and troops. And the people kept coming and coming, which only aggravated the situation.

The bulk of the people gathered in the area of ​​Trubnaya Square. Petrovsky, Rozhdestvensky, Tsvetnoy boulevards, Neglinnaya and Trubnaya streets meet at this place. There was a rumor that it was from Trubnaya Square that the easiest way to get to Bolshaya Dmitrovka. Therefore, huge human flows rushed to her.

In this place there was one huge stampede. In the process, a huge number of people died. How many? The exact figures are unknown, and no one counted the dead. Crushed bodies were thrown into trucks and taken out of the city. There they were buried in common graves. It is noteworthy that among the victims there were those who came to their senses and asked for medical assistance. But this meant that the wounded had to be taken to hospitals. In this case, the whole world would have known about the mass crush, which, of course, would have cast an unsightly shadow on Stalin's funeral. Therefore, the wounded were buried along with the dead.

Here is what eyewitnesses later said: “The crowd of people was so large that terrible crushes arose. These were real human tragedies. People were pressed into the walls of houses, shop windows were broken, fences and gates collapsed. Men tried to escape on lampposts, but fell down and found themselves under the feet of the crowd. Someone got out of the dense mass and crawled over their heads. Others dived under the trucks, but the soldiers did not let them go to the other side. The crowd swayed from side to side, like one huge living organism. "

All lanes from Sretenka to Trubnaya Street were filled with a solid mass of people. Not only adults died, but also children. People never saw Stalin alive and wanted to see at least the dead. But they never saw him. Their journey to the Hall of Columns turned into a struggle for survival. From the crowd they shouted to the military: "Put away the trucks!" But they answered that they could not do this, since there was no order.

The bloodthirsty leader went to the next world and took with him a huge number of subjects. During his life, he never got enough of human blood. According to the most conservative estimates, at least 2 thousand people died. But the true death toll is likely much higher.

funeral day

On March 9, at 7 o'clock in the morning, troops appeared on Red Square. They cordoned off those areas along which the funeral procession was supposed to move. At 9 am, workers gathered on the main square of the country. They saw 2 words on the mausoleum - Lenin and Stalin. The entire Kremlin wall was lined with wreaths of fresh flowers.

At 10:15 a.m., the closest associates of the leader lifted the coffin with his body in their arms. With a heavy sarcophagus, they headed for the exit. The officers helped them carry the honorary burden. At 10:22 a.m., the coffin was placed on a gun carriage. Thereafter funeral procession went from the House of Unions to the Mausoleum. Marshals and generals on satin pillows carried the awards of the Generalissimo. Behind the coffin were the top leaders of the country and the party.

At 10:45 a.m., the coffin was placed on a special red pedestal in front of the mausoleum. The funeral meeting was opened by the chairman of the funeral commission N. S. Khrushchev. Farewell speeches were made by G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria, V. M. Molotov.

At 11:50 Khrushchev announced the closing of the mourning meeting. The closest associates of the leader again took the coffin and brought it into the mausoleum. Exactly at 12 o'clock, after the battle Kremlin chimes, an artillery salute was fired. Then horns blew at factories across the country from Brest to Vladivostok and Chukotka. The funeral ceremony ended with 5 minutes of silence and the Anthem of the Soviet Union. Troops passed by the mausoleum with the bodies of Lenin and Stalin, armadas of aircraft flew in the sky. So finished my life path comrade Stalin .

Stalin's grave near Kremlin wall

Stalin's second funeral

The body of the leader of the peoples was in the mausoleum until October 31, 1961. From October 17 to October 31, 1961, the XXII Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow. It was decided to remove the embalmed body of the leader from the mausoleum. On the night of October 31 to November 1, this decision was carried out. Stalin's coffin was buried near the Kremlin wall, and Lenin's body took its place in the center of the pedestal.

At 6 pm on October 31, Red Square was cordoned off. The soldiers dug the grave. At 9 pm, the sarcophagus was moved to the basement. There, the protective glass was removed from him, and the body was transferred to the coffin. The golden star of the Hero of Socialist Labor was removed from the uniform, and the golden buttons were changed to brass ones.

The coffin was covered with a lid and lowered into the grave. It was quickly covered with earth, and a white marble slab was laid on top. An inscription was engraved on it: "Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich 1879-1953". In 1970, the tombstone was replaced with a bust. So quietly, secretly and imperceptibly passed the second funeral of Stalin.