Mednoe

THE STATE MEMORIAL COMPLEX “MEDNOYE”   The State Memorial Complex “Mednoye” is situated 5 km west of an old Russian village Mednoye. In the early 1930s here, on a picturesque bank of the Tvertsa River, in a pinery, cottages for the employees of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (the PCIA) and their families were built. In the period of mass repressions this place was chosen for the burial of 5,100 dwellers of Kalininskskaya region. They were shot in 1937-1938 according to the sentence of extrajudicial organs. The sentences were executed in the building the PCIA administration in the town of Kalinin (Tver), and then, at nights, the bodies were brought to this territory and buried there in special ditches and pits.

In 1940 leaders of the Soviet State made a decision to liquidate Polish prisoners-of-war (they were taken prisoners or arrested in Poland in 1939 by the services of the PCIA and then kept in a special camp in the town of Ostashkov). 6,300 people – among them employees of the state police, border and prison services, soldiers and officers of frontier troops and other military men, chaplains, representatives of administration and Polish law organizations – were shot and buried in this cottage area.

The State Memorial Complex “Mednoye” was created after the decree of the Russian Federation government of October 19, 1996, when the agreement between Russia and Poland concerning burials of war and repression victims was signed.

In the left part of the Memorial there is a Polish military cemetery. It is a solemn and at the same time very reserved architectural composition – the Wall of Tears with a bell, cast-iron nameplates and metal crosses above 25 common graves. 

The project of the Russian part of the Memorial was completed under the guidance of architect Nikita Shangin. It includes the pinery as a monument and a witness of the events taking place here in the 1930s-1940s. Nowadays the first part of the project is carried out – the Alley of Memory is laid, 4 Russian burials are designed. In the middle of a triangular square there is a memorial sign (a mound with a faced cross of red granite with the inscription: “To Our  Compatriots – War And Repressions Victims”

mednoe@stels.tver.ru