Sukhanovka

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The Katharinen Hermitage , in which the Sukhanovka prison was located

The Sukhanovo Prison ( Russian Сухановка ; official full name Сухановская особорежимная тюрьма , Suchanowskaja ossoboreschimnaja tjurma , literally Suchanowoer prison stricter regulations ) was in the Stalin era notorious prison on the outskirts of the present city Vidnoye south of the Russian capital Moscow . It was located in the buildings of the Katharinen Hermitage ( Yekaterininskaja pustyn ), which has existed since the 17th century and is now used again as a Russian Orthodox monastery .

history

A prison in the previous buildings was established in 1931. Its main purpose was to detain those convicted of shorter sentences. In the neighborhood was the former Sukhanovo estate, after which the new prison was named.

In 1935 the prison was dissolved again. The buildings served as accommodation for resettlers until 1937, by order of Mikhail Kalinin, all buildings and the surrounding territory were handed over to the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) for the establishment of a prison for political prisoners . The idea of ​​setting up a secret prison for the victims of the Great Terror on the monastery grounds, primarily for disgraced high-ranking employees of Stalin and high-ranking NKVD officials, is attributed to the NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov . Since Jeschow himself was replaced on November 24, 1938, officially at his own request, his successor Lavrenti Beria took over the implementation.

In official documents, the term special object no. 110 (special object no. 110) can often be found for the prison , unofficially it was known as “torture dacha ”. There are reports that the prison crematorium was located in the former main church of the monastery.

Nikolai Jeschow became one of the first inmates of Sukhanovka after his arrest on April 10, 1939, and spent nine months there until his conviction in early 1940. Other prominent prisoners were the writer Isaak Babel and the director and actor Vsevolod Meyerhold .

After the end of World War II , the building continued to be used by the Soviet Interior Ministry (MWD) as the NKVD successor. At the beginning of the 1990s they were returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and reopened as a men's monastery in 1992.

Conditions of detention

The prison rules were extremely strict. All prisoners, employees and even the bodies of those shot were only identified with numbers. The detainees were under constant observation through the peephole in the cell door. Two guards came at the same time to each seven-cell block; a total of 70 guards were employed in the prison, which was designed for 160 inmates.

Prison conditions were marked by torture - and printing methods such as solitary confinement , "Stehkarzer" (ie standing for hours and the prohibition to sit down;.. In the cells themselves sitting was generally prohibited), sleep deprivation , lack of ventilation of the cells, lack of prisoners walk and only one daily visit to the toilet at six in the morning. The hunger rations of food are said to have been prepared extra finely and tasty to remind the inmates of what they had lost through their arrest.

It was said of the prison that hardly anyone should have survived their imprisonment without losing their minds:

"And those who were inside, you won't get anything out of them later. They just babble incoherent stuff and the rest are dead. "

“Only one inmate managed to survive the prison and report on it, Al-der D. ( Alexander Dolschin ). He preserved his mind by doing mental arithmetic, making plans for the future, measuring his cell with the simplest means and learning to sleep standing up so that the guard would not notice. "

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn : The Gulag Archipelago

Movies

  • From torture cellar to church - The Sukhanovka near Moscow. Documentary, ORB , Germany 1996. Director: Hans-Dieter Rutsch, editor: Harald Quist

Web links

literature

Coordinates: 55 ° 32 ′ 11.6 ″  N , 37 ° 39 ′ 58 ″  E