October 4, 1993 coup d'état. Communist Party of the Russian Federation Crimean Republican branch. There was a clash during which the demonstrators crushed and partially dispersed the cordon
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4.10.2018
4.10.2018
1993 Russian President Boris Yeltsin brought tanks into Moscow and stormed the parliament building
On October 4, 1993, tragic events took place in Moscow that ended with the storming of the building of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation and the abolition of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Council in Russia.
The confrontation between the executive power represented by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the legislative power represented by the parliament, the Supreme Council (SC) of the RSFSR, headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov, which had lasted since the collapse of the USSR, turned into an armed clash around the pace of reforms and methods of building a new state and ended with a tank shelling of the residence of the parliament - House of Soviets (White House).
The reason for the events, according to the conclusion of the State Duma commission for additional study and analysis of the events that took place in the city of Moscow on September 21 - October 5, 1993, was the preparation and publication by the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin of Decree No. 1400 of September 21 "On a phased constitutional reform in the Russian Federation" , voiced in his television address to the citizens of Russia on September 21, 1993 at 20.00.
The decree, in particular, ordered the dissolution of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Council, which, according to the conclusion of the Constitutional Court adopted within a few hours, did not comply with a number of provisions of the current Constitution.
An hour after Yeltsin's televised address, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov spoke at an emergency meeting of deputies in the White House, where he qualified Yeltsin's actions as a coup d'état.
On the same day at 10 p.m., the Presidium of the Supreme Council, referring to Article 121.6 of the Constitution, adopted a resolution “On the immediate termination of the powers of the President of the Russian Federation B.N. Yeltsin” and announced that Decree No. 1400 was not subject to execution.
At the same time, an emergency session of the Constitutional Court (CC) began under the chairmanship of Valery Zorkin, which adopted a resolution entrusting the execution of presidential powers to Vice President Alexander Rutskoy.
Boris Yeltsin, however, de facto continued to exercise the powers of the President of Russia. He was supported by the government and the leadership of law enforcement agencies. (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Security).
Supporters of the dissolved parliament, supporting Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, took the mayor's office on October 3. When the cordon was broken in the area of the Moscow mayor's office, police officers used firearms against the demonstrators to kill.
Around 19.00, the assault on the Ostankino television center began. At 19.40 all TV channels interrupted transmissions. After a short break, the second channel went on the air, working from a backup studio. An attempt by the demonstrators to take over the television center was unsuccessful.
At 10:00 pm, Boris Yeltsin's decree was broadcast on television on the introduction of a state of emergency in Moscow and on the release of Rutskoi from the duties of vice president of the Russian Federation. The entry of troops into Moscow began.
On October 4, at about 4 a.m. in the Kremlin, Yeltsin signed a written order to bring in troops from the Ministry of Defense, prepared by presidential aide Viktor Ilyushin. The order was immediately sent by courier mail to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation P. S. Grachev.
At the direction of Grachev, tanks of the Taman division arrived in Moscow, and an assault on the White House began, in which about 1,700 people, 10 tanks and 20 armored personnel carriers took part: the contingent had to be recruited from five divisions, about half of the entire contingent were officers or junior commanding staff, and tank crews were recruited almost entirely from officers.
On October 4 at 8.00 fire was opened from heavy machine guns on the windows of the building of the Supreme Council.
At 09:20, tanks began shelling the building of the Armed Forces, causing a fire there. (six T-80 tanks, which fired 12 shells, participated in the shelling).
At about 2.30 pm, the defenders of the Armed Forces began to leave, and the wounded began to be carried out of the parliament building.
After 17:00, the defenders of the White House announced the end of resistance. Alexander Rutskoi, Ruslan Khasbulatov and other leaders of the armed resistance of supporters of the Supreme Soviet were arrested.
At 19.30, the Alpha group took under guard and evacuated from the building 1,700 journalists, employees of the Armed Forces apparatus, residents of the city and deputies.
A few months later, the State Duma announced a political amnesty for the participants in the events of September-October 1993.
According to the conclusions of the State Duma Commission, according to a rough estimate, during the events of September 21 - October 5, 1993, 74 people were killed, 26 of them were military and employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 172 were injured. As a result of the fire, the floors of the building from the 12th to the 20th were almost completely destroyed th, about 30% of the total area of the House of Soviets was destroyed.
As a result of the tragic events of October 4, 1993 in Moscow, the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation were liquidated. Prior to the election of the Federal Assembly and the adoption of a new Constitution, direct presidential rule was established in the Russian Federation. By Decree of October 7, 1993 "On Legal Regulation during the Period of Gradual Constitutional Reform in the Russian Federation", the President established that before the start of the work of the Federal Assembly, issues of a budgetary and financial nature, land reform, property, civil service and social employment of the population, previously resolved by the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation are now carried out by the President of the Russian Federation. By another decree of October 7 "On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation," the president actually abolished this body. Boris Yeltsin also issued a number of decrees terminating the activities of the representative authorities of the subjects of the Federation and local Soviets.
The new Constitution, adopted by popular vote on December 12, 1993 and in force with some changes to the present day, provides the President of the Russian Federation with significantly broader powers than the 1978 Constitution in force at the time of the conflict (with changes 1989-1992). The post of vice-president of the Russian Federation was abolished.
How many lives did the 1993 massacre claim? To the 20th anniversary of the tragic events
And the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother?... And he said, What have you done? the voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground (Gen. 4:9, 10)
Twenty years separate us from the tragic autumn of 1993. But the main question of those bloody events still remains unanswered - how many lives did the October massacre claim in total? In 2010, the book Forgotten Victims of October 1993 was published, where, by virtue of his abilities, the author tried to get closer to the solution. The purpose of this article is to acquaint the indifferent reader, first of all, with those facts that, for various reasons, were not reflected in the book, or were discovered recently.
Briefly about the formal essence of the problem. The official list of the dead, presented on July 27, 1994 by the investigation team of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia, includes 147 people: in Ostankino - 45 civilians and 1 military personnel, in the "White House area" - 77 civilians and 24 military personnel of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Former investigator of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia Leonid Georgievich Proshkin, who worked in 1993-95 as part of the investigative-operational group investigating the October events, stated that on October 3-4, 1993, at least 123 civilians were killed and at least 348 people were injured. Somewhat later, he clarified that we could talk about at least 124 dead. Leonid Georgievich explained that he used the term “at least” because he admits “the possibility of a slight increase in the number of victims due to unidentified ... dead and wounded citizens.” “I admit,” he clarified, “that for various reasons several people could not be on our list, maybe three or five.”
Even a superficial examination of the official list raises a number of questions. Of the 122 civilians officially declared dead, only 18 are residents of other regions of Russia and neighboring countries, the rest, not counting a few dead citizens from far abroad, are residents of the Moscow region. It is known that quite a few non-residents came to defend the parliament, including those from rallies at which lists of volunteers were compiled. But loners prevailed, some of them came to Moscow behind the scenes.
They were led to the House of Soviets by pain for Russia: rejection of the betrayal of national interests, the criminalization of the economy, the policy of curtailing industrial and agricultural production, the imposition of alien "values", propaganda of corruption. In the days of the blockade, old women were on duty at the fires - they recalled the war, partisan detachments. On the morning of October 4, they were among the first to be shot by stormtroopers. “How many familiar faces we have not met for the fifth year at our meetings of twin brothers,” journalist N.I. wrote in 1998. Gorbachev. - Who are they all? Out-of-towners who have gone home or missing? A lot of them. And this is only from our acquaintances.
On October 4, 1993, many hundreds of mostly unarmed people found themselves in the House of Soviets and in its immediate vicinity. And starting from about 6 hours 40 minutes in the morning, their mass destruction began.
The first casualties near the parliament building appeared when the defenders' symbolic barricades broke through the armored personnel carriers, opening fire to kill. However, Pavel Yuryevich Bobryashov, even before the start of the attack by armored personnel carriers, noticed a man on the roof of the building of the American embassy. When that man stopped, another bullet struck at the feet of the barricades. Here is the chronology of the execution, compiled by Eduard Anatolyevich Korenev, an eyewitness defender of the Supreme Council: “6 hours 45 minutes. Two armored personnel carriers passed under the windows, an elderly man came out to them with an accordion. At rallies and demonstrations, he sang and played lyrical songs, ditties, dance songs, many knew him as Sasha the harmonist. Before he had time to move away from the entrance, he was shot at point-blank range from an armored personnel carrier. At 6:50 a.m. A guy in a leather jacket with a white rag in his hand came out of the tent near the barricade, went to the armored personnel carriers, said something there for about a minute, turned back, walked 25 meters away and fell down, mowed down by a burst. 6 hours 55 minutes A massive fire begins on the unarmed defenders of the barricade. People are running and crawling across the square and across the square, carrying the wounded. Machine guns of armored personnel carriers shoot at them, and machine guns from behind the towers. One armored personnel carrier cuts them off from the entrance with a burst, they jump into the front garden, and immediately another armored personnel carrier covers them with a burst. A boy of about seventeen, hiding behind a Kamaz, crawled towards the wounded man writhing on the grass; they are both shot with multiple barrels. 7:00 a.m. Without any warning, armored personnel carriers begin shelling the House of Soviets.
“In front of our eyes, armored personnel carriers shot unarmed old women, young people who were in tents and near them,” recalled Lieutenant V.P. Shubochkin. - We saw how a group of orderlies ran to the wounded colonel, but two of them were killed. A few minutes later, the sniper also finished off the colonel. A volunteer doctor says: “Two orderlies were killed on the spot while trying to pick up the wounded from the street, near the twentieth entrance. Those wounded were also shot point-blank. We didn’t even have time to find out the names of the boys in white coats, they looked to be eighteen years old. Deputy RS Mukhamadiev witnessed how women in white coats ran out of the parliament building. They were holding white handkerchiefs in their hands. But as soon as they bend down to help the man lying in the blood, they were cut off by bullets from a heavy machine gun. “The girl who bandaged our wounded,” Sergey Korzhikov testifies, “died. The first wound was in the stomach, but she survived. In this state, she tried to crawl to the door, but the second bullet hit her in the head. So she remained lying in a white medical coat, covered in blood.
Journalist Irina Taneeva, not yet fully aware that the assault was beginning, observed the following from the window of the House of Soviets: Three BMDs ran into the bus from three sides at breakneck speed and shot him. The bus burst into flames. People tried to get out of there and immediately fell dead, slain by the dense fire of the BMD. Blood. Nearby Zhiguli, full of people, were also shot and burned. Everyone died."
Moscow State University teacher Sergei Petrovich Surnin was not far from the eighth entrance of the White House at the time of the beginning of the assault. “Between the overpass and the corner of the building,” he recalled, “there were about 30-40 people hiding from the armored personnel carriers that started shooting in our direction. Suddenly, from the rear of the building in front of the balcony there was a strong shooting. Everyone lay down, everyone was unarmed, they lay quite tightly. Armored personnel carriers passed us and from a distance of 12-15 meters they shot those lying - one third of those lying nearby were killed or wounded. Moreover, in the immediate vicinity of me - three dead, two wounded: next to me, to my right, a dead man, another dead behind me, at least one dead ahead of me.
According to the testimony of the artist Anatoly Leonidovich Nabatov, on the first floor in the eighth entrance to the left of the hall, from one hundred to two hundred corpses were stacked. His boots were soaked with blood. Anatoly Leonidovich went up to the sixteenth floor, saw corpses in the corridors, brains on the walls. On the sixteenth floor, in the first half of the day, he noticed a man who reported on the walkie-talkie about the movement of people. Anatoly Leonidovich handed him over to the Cossacks. The detainee had a foreign journalist's ID. The Cossacks released the "journalist".
R.S. Mukhamadiev, in the midst of the assault, heard from his colleague, a deputy, a professional doctor elected from the Murmansk region, the following: “Already five rooms are full of dead people. And the wounded are countless. More than a hundred people lie in the blood. But we don't have anything. There are no bandages, not even iodine ... ". The President of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, told Stanislav Govorukhin on the evening of October 4 that 127 corpses were taken out of the White House under him, but many were still left in the building.
The number of dead was significantly increased by the shelling of the House of Soviets with tank shells. From the direct organizers and leaders of the shelling, one can hear that harmless blanks were fired at the building. For example, former Russian Defense Minister P.S. Grachev stated the following: “We fired at the White House with six blanks from one tank at one pre-selected window in order to force the conspirators to leave the building. We knew that there was no one outside the window.
However, the testimonies completely refute such statements. As correspondents of the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper recorded, at about 11:30 a.m. in the morning, shells pierce the House of Soviets through and through: from the opposite side of the building, simultaneously with a shell hit, 5-10 windows and thousands of sheets of stationery fly out. “Suddenly a tank gun crashed,” the Trud newspaper journalist was amazed at what he saw, “and it seemed to me that a flock of pigeons flew over the House ... It was glass and debris. They circled in the air for a long time. Then thick and dense black smoke poured out of the windows somewhere at the level of the twelfth floor into the blue sky. I was surprised that there were red curtains in the House of Soviets. Then it became clear that these were not curtains, but flames.
People's Deputy of Russia B.D. Babaev, who was with other deputies in the hall of the Council of Nationalities (in the safest place of the White House), recalled: “At some point we feel a powerful explosion, shaking the building ... I recorded such exceptionally powerful explosions 3 or 4".
“What was going on up there,” recalled the deputy of the Supreme Council S.N. Reshulsky in 2003, “is beyond words. These pictures have been standing before my eyes for ten years. And they will never be forgotten." S.V. Rogozhin testifies: “We went to the central lobby. There, surrounded by our guys and officers Makashov, our fifteen-year-old fighter Danila stood and showed a cloth bag. It turned out that Danila was snooping around the upper floors in search of food and came under fire from tank guns. An explosion threw him down the corridor, a shell fragment pierced the bag and the loaf of Borodino bread lying in it. Danila said that he ran down through the shelled floors, where many of the dead lie - most of the unarmed people went up to the upper floors, which are safer under automatic and machine-gun fire.
Moscow City Council deputy Viktor Kuznetsov (after the October tragedy he took the priesthood) was in the parliament building being shot. Approximately at 13:30. he joined a group of defenders who were about to climb to the upper floors and roof of the building to prevent a helicopter landing. “We only reached the eighth floor,” the priest recalled. - It's impossible to go any further. Acrid smoke obscures the eyes... The smell of burnt meat and the sweetish smell of blood are added to this causticity. Quite often you have to step over people lying in different poses. There are many dead everywhere, blood on the walls, on the floor, in broken rooms ... They tried to shock, to find out if anyone was wounded? None of them showed signs of life. We go along the floor, along the broken corridor. It is not possible to go further, the flames from the windows and the same acrid smoke blown by the wind rushing into the broken windows stop. We decide to stop at one of the windows overlooking the City Hall building... A terrible blow shook the entire basement of the building. The shock wave in an all-destroying whirlwind swept through all the rooms, with a crunch, crackling of the crust, breaking, pressing and crushing everything and everyone that was in the way. Those who climbed here were lucky, a strong bearing wall saved them from a deadly squall. Others were less fortunate. Here and there, lying parts of human bodies, splashes of blood on the walls spoke of many things. Assessing the situation, the leader of the group ordered Kuznetsov and the “thin guy” to go down. The rest "in smoke and dust began to climb up."
There were many victims in the second entrance of the White House (one of the tank shells hit the basement).
In a conversation with the editor-in-chief of the Zavtra newspaper A. Prokhanov, Major General of the Ministry of Defense said that, according to his data, 64 shots were fired from tanks. Part of the ammunition was a volumetric explosion, which caused huge destruction and casualties among the defenders of Parliament.
Not far from the first-aid post in the eighth entrance, where T.I. Kartintseva provided assistance to the wounded, a shell hit one of the rooms. When they broke down the door into that room, they saw that everything there had burned out and turned into black-and-gray "cotton wool". Human rights activist Yevgeny Vladimirovich Yurchenko, while in the White House during the shelling, saw two offices where everything was folded inward, into a heap, after shells hit it.
According to the writer N.F. Ivanov and major-general of militia V.S. Ovchinsky (in 1992-1995 assistant to the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs E.A. film camera and walked through many offices. The captured film is stored in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Vladimir Semyonovich Ovchinsky recalls: “On October 5, 1993, the head of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs showed the heads of various departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs a film that the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had made immediately after the arrest of deputies, leaders of the Supreme Council. She was the first to enter the burning building of the White House. And I myself saw this film from beginning to end. It is about 45 minutes. They walked through the burned-out offices, and the comments were as follows: “There was a safe in this place, now there is a melted spot, metal, in this place there was another safe - here is a melted spot.” And there were about ten such comments. From this, I conclude that in addition to ordinary blanks, they fired shaped charges, which burned everything in some offices along with people. And there were not 150 corpses, but much more. They lay in piles, littered with ice, on the basement floor in black bags. It's also on tape. And this was said by the employees who entered the building of the White House after the assault. I testify to this, even on the constitution, even on the Bible.
In addition to the shelling of the parliament building from tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, automatic and sniper fire, which lasted all day, executions were carried out both in the White House and around it, both the immediate defenders of the parliament and citizens who accidentally found themselves in the combat zone.
According to the written testimony of a former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the eighth and twentieth entrances from the first to the third floors, the riot police massacred the defenders of the parliament: they cut, finished off the wounded, and raped women. The captain of the 1st rank, Viktor Konstantinovich Kashintsev, testifies: “At about 2.30 p.m. a guy from the third floor made his way to us, covered in blood, squeezed out through sobs: “They open the rooms downstairs with grenades and shoot everyone, he survived, because he was unconscious, apparently, they took him for the dead.” One can only guess about the fate of most of the wounded left in the White House. “For some reason, the wounded were dragged from the lower floors to the upper ones,” recalled a man from A.V. Rutskoy’s entourage. Then they could just finish off.
Many were shot or beaten to death after they left the parliament building. They tried to drive those who came out from the side of the embankment through the yard and the entrances of the house along Glubokoy Lane. “In the entrance, where they pushed us,” I.V. Savelyeva testifies, “it was full of people. There were screams from the upper floors. Everyone was searched, their jackets and coats were torn off - they were looking for servicemen and policemen (those who were on the side of the defenders of the House of Soviets), they were immediately taken away somewhere ... When we were shot, a policeman - the defender of the House of Soviets - was wounded. Someone shouted over the riot police radio: “Do not shoot at the entrances! Who will clean up the corpses?!” The shooting did not stop on the street.
A group of 60-70 civilians who left the White House after 7 p.m. were led by riot police along the embankment to Nikolaev Street and, having led them into the yards, they were brutally beaten, and then finished off with automatic bursts. Four managed to run into the entrance of one of the houses, where they hid for about a day. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Nikolaevich Romanov was brought into the yard with a group of prisoners. There he saw a large pile of "rags". I looked closely - the corpses of the executed. The shooting intensified in the yard, and the convoy was distracted. Alexander Nikolaevich managed to run to the arch and leave the yard. Viktor Kuznetsov, with a group of people hiding under an arch, ran across the street, which was being shot through with dense fire. Three remained lying motionless in the open space.
A member of the Union of Officers shared his memories of the exodus from the House of Soviets. Here is what he said: “Arrived from Leningrad on October 27th. A few days later he was transferred to the protection of Makashov ... On October 3, we went to Ostankino ... From Ostankino we arrived at 3 o'clock in the morning to the Supreme Council. At 7 o'clock in the morning, when the assault began, I was with Makashov on the first floor at the main entrance. Directly participated in the battles... The wounded were not allowed to be taken out... I left the building at 18:00. We were directed to the central staircase. About 600-700 people gathered on the stairs ... The Alpha officer said that because the buses can’t come up - they are blocked by Yeltsin’s supporters, then they will take us out of the cordon so that we can go to the metro on our own and go home. At the same time, one of the Alpha officers said: “It’s a pity for the guys what will happen to them now.”
We were taken to the nearest residential building. As soon as we reached the alley, fire was opened on us, automatic, sniper fire, from the roofs and the alley. 15 people were immediately killed and wounded. People all ran to the entrances and to the yard of the well house. I was taken prisoner. I was arrested by a police officer with a threat that if I refused to approach him, they would open fire on the women to kill. He took me to three Beytar soldiers armed with sniper rifles. When they saw the Union of Officers badge and camouflage uniform on my chest, they tore off the badge and pulled all the documents out of my pockets and started beating me. At the same time, on the opposite side, near the tree, there were four shot young guys, two of whom were “Barkashovites”. At that moment, two Vityaz fighters approached, one of them an officer, the other a foreman. One of the Betarites gave them my apartment keys as a keepsake.
When the women at the entrance saw that I was about to be shot, they began to break out of the entrance. These Beitarovites started beating them with rifle butts. At that moment, the foreman picked me up, and the officer gave me the keys and told me to go under the cover of women to other yards. When we got there, we were immediately warned that there was an ambush near the school, another OMON unit was stationed there. They ran into the hallway. We were met there by Chechens, in whose apartment we hid until the morning of October 5... We were 5 people... At night there were constant single shots, beatings of people. It was clearly visible and audible. All entrances were checked at the time of discovery of the defenders of the Supreme Council.
Georgy Georgievich Gusev also ended up in that ill-fated yard. They fired from the opposite wing of the house. People rushed into the loose. Georgy Georgievich hid in one of the entrances until 2 am. At 2 o'clock in the morning, unknown people came and offered to take those who wished out of the zone. Gusev slowed down a little, but when he left the entrance, those unknown people were no longer visible, and the dead were lying near the arch, the first three who responded to the call of strangers. Turning 180 degrees, he hid in the thermal basement, unscrewing the light bulb. I sat in the basement until 5 o'clock in the morning. Finally, when he was released, he saw two people who looked like Beitars. One of them said to the other: "Gusev must be here somewhere." Georgy Georgievich again had to take refuge in one of the entrances of the house. Climbing up to the attic, in the front door and on the floors I saw blood and a lot of scattered clothes.
Judging by the testimony of G.G. Gusev, T.I. Kartintseva, deputy of the Supreme Council I.A. Shashviashvili, in addition to the riot police, in the courtyard and at the entrances of the house along Glubokoe Lane, the detainees were beaten and killed by unknown "in a strange form."
Tamara Ilyinichna Kartintseva, together with some other people who left the House of Soviets, hid in the basement of that house. I had to stand in the water because of a broken heating pipe. According to Tamara Ilyinichna, they ran past, there was a clatter of boots, boots, they were looking for the defenders of the parliament. Suddenly, she heard a dialogue between two punishers:
There's a basement somewhere, they're in the basement.
There is water in the basement. They're still all over there anyway.
Let's throw a grenade!
Yes, well, anyway, we will shoot them - not today, so tomorrow, not tomorrow, so in six months, we will shoot all Russian pigs.
On the morning of October 5, local residents saw many dead in the yards. A few days after the events, the correspondent of the Italian newspaper "L` Unione Sarda" Vladimir Koval examined the entrances of the house on Glubokoe Lane. He found broken teeth and strands of hair, although, as he writes, "it seems to have been cleaned up, even sprinkled with sand in some places."
A tragic fate befell many of those who, on the evening of October 4, left the side of the Asmaral (Krasnaya Presnya) stadium located on the back side of the House of Soviets. The executions at the stadium began in the early evening of October 4, and, according to the residents of the houses adjacent to it, who saw how the detainees were shot, "this bloody bacchanalia continued all night." The first group was driven to the concrete fence of the stadium by submachine gunners in spotted camouflage. An armored personnel carrier drove up and slashed the prisoners with machine-gun fire. In the same place, at dusk, the second group was shot.
Anatoly Leonidovich Nabatov, shortly before leaving the House of Soviets, watched from the window as a large group of people was brought to the stadium, according to Nabatov, 150-200 people, and they were shot at the wall adjacent to Druzhinnikovskaya Street.
Gennady Portnov also almost became a victim of the brutalized riot police. “A prisoner, I walked in the same group with two people's deputies,” he recalled. - They were pulled out of the crowd, and they began to drive us with butts to a concrete fence ... Before my eyes, people were put against the wall and, with some pathological gloating, clip after clip was released into the already dead bodies. The wall itself was slippery with blood. Not at all embarrassed, the riot police tore off the clocks and rings from the dead. There was a hitch and we - the five defenders of the parliament - were left unattended for some time. One young guy rushed to run, but he was instantly laid down with two single shots. Then they brought us three more - "Barkashovites" - and ordered to stand at the fence. One of the “Barkashovites” shouted in the direction of residential buildings: “We are Russians! God is with us!" One of the riot police shot him in the stomach and turned to me.” Gennady was saved by a miracle.
Alexander Alexandrovich Lapin, who spent three days, from the evening of October 4 to October 7, at the stadium “on death row” testifies: “After the House of Soviets fell, its defenders were taken to the wall of the stadium. They separated those who were in Cossack uniforms, in police uniforms, in camouflage, military, who had any party documents. Those who had nothing, like me... were leaned against a tall tree... And we saw how our comrades were shot in the back... Then they drove us into the locker room... We were kept for three days. No food, no water, most importantly, no tobacco. Twenty people."
At night, frantic shooting was repeatedly heard from the stadium and heart-rending cries were heard. Many were shot near the pool. According to a woman who lay all night under one of the private cars that remained on the territory of the stadium, “the dead were dragged to the pool, about twenty meters away, and dumped there.” At 5 am on October 5, Cossacks were still being shot at the stadium.
Yuri Evgenyevich Petukhov, the father of Natasha Petukhova, who was shot on the night of October 3-4 at the television center in Ostankino, testifies: “Early in the morning of October 5, it was still dark, I drove up to the burning White House from the side of the park ... I approached to the cordon of very young tank guys with a photo of my Natasha, and they told me that there were many corpses in the stadium, there are still in the building and in the basement of the White House ... I returned to the stadium and went there from the side of the monument to the victims of 1905. There were a lot of people shot at the stadium. Some of them were without shoes and belts, some were crushed. I was looking for my daughter and went around all the executed and tormented heroes. Yuri Evgenievich specified that the executed were mostly lying along the wall. Among them were many young guys aged about 19, 20, 25 years old. “The look in which they were,” recalled Petukhov, “suggests that before they died, the guys drank dashingly in abundance.” On September 21, 2011, on the Day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, I managed to meet with Yu.E. Petukhov. He noticed that he was able to visit the stadium at about 7 am on October 5, i.e., when the executioners had already left the stadium, but the "orderlies" had not yet arrived. According to him, about 50 corpses were lying along the stadium wall facing Druzhinnikovskaya Street.
Eyewitness accounts make it possible to establish the main firing points in the stadium. The first is the corner of the stadium, facing the beginning of Zamorenov Street and then representing a blank concrete wall. The second is in the right (when viewed from Zamorenov Street) far corner, adjacent to the White House. There is a small swimming pool and not far from it a nook-platform between two light buildings. According to local residents, there the prisoners were stripped to their underwear and shot several people at a time. The third shooting point, judging by the stories of A.L. Nabatov and Yu.E. Petukhov, is along the wall overlooking Druzhinnikovskaya Street.
On the morning of October 5, the entrance to the stadium was closed. On that and subsequent days, as local residents testify, armored personnel carriers drove around there, watering trucks drove in and out to wash off the blood. But on October 12, it started to rain, and "the earth responded with blood" - bloody streams flowed through the stadium. Something was burning at the stadium. There was a sweet smell. They probably burned the clothes of the dead.
When the House of Soviets had not yet burned down, the authorities had already begun to falsify the number of deaths in the October tragedy. Late in the evening of October 4, 1993, an informational message passed in the media: "Europe hopes that the number of victims will be kept to a minimum." The recommendation of the West was heard in the Kremlin.
Early in the morning of October 5, 1993, B.N. Yeltsin called the head of the presidential administration, S.A. Filatov. The following conversation took place between them:
Sergei Alexandrovich, ... for your information, one hundred and forty-six people died during all the days of the rebellion.
It's good that you said, Boris Nikolaevich, otherwise there was a feeling that 700-1500 people died. It would be necessary to print the lists of the dead.
I agree, please fix it.
How many dead were taken to Moscow morgues on October 3-4? In the first days after the October massacre, employees of morgues and hospitals refused to answer the question about the number of dead, referring to an order from the head office. “For two days I called dozens of Moscow hospitals and mortuaries, trying to find out,” Y. Igonin testifies. - They answered openly: “We were forbidden to give out this information.” “I went to hospitals,” recalled another witness. - In the emergency room they answered: “Girl, we were told not to say anything.”
Moscow doctors claimed that as of October 12, 179 corpses of victims of the October massacre had been passed through Moscow morgues. On October 5, GMUM spokesman I.F. Nadezhdin, along with official data on 108 dead, excluding the corpses that still remained in the White House, named another figure - about 450 dead, which needed to be clarified.
However, a large part of the corpses that entered the Moscow morgues soon disappeared from there. According to the chairman of the Union of Victims of Political Terror, V. Movchan, records of the receipt of corpses in pathoanatomical institutions were destroyed. A significant part of the corpses were taken from the morgue of the Botkin hospital in an unknown direction. According to the information of MK journalists, within two weeks after the events, the corpses of “unknown persons” were twice taken out of the morgue on trucks with civilian numbers. They were taken out in plastic bags. Deputy A.N. Greshnevikov, on parole that he would not name names, was told in the same morgue that “there were corpses from the House of Soviets; they were taken out in vans in plastic bags; it was impossible to count them - too many.
In addition to the morgues located in the GMUM system, many of the dead were sent to specialized departmental morgues, where they were difficult to find. Starting from October 5, the doctor of the MMA Rescue Center named after. I.M. Sechenov A.V. Dalnov and his colleagues toured the hospitals and morgues of the ministries of defense, internal affairs and state security. They managed to find out that the corpses of the victims of the October tragedy, who were there, were not included in the official reports.
But in the very building of the former parliament there were many corpses that did not even get into the morgues. How many people died during the storming of the House of Soviets, were shot at the stadium and in the yards, and how were their bodies taken out?
S.N. Baburin was told the number of dead - 762 people. Another source named over 750 dead. Journalists of the newspaper Arguments and Facts » found out that the soldiers and officers of the internal troops for several days collected the remains of almost 800 of its defenders “charred and torn by tank shells” around the building. Among the dead were found the bodies of those who
drowned in the flooded dungeons of the White House. According to the former deputy of the Supreme Council from the Chelyabinsk region A.S. Baronenko, about 900 people died in the House of Soviets.
At the end of October 1993, the editorial office of Nezavisimaya Gazeta received a letter from an officer of the internal troops. He claimed that about 1,500 corpses were found in the White House. Among the dead are women and children. The information was published without a signature. But the editors assured that they had the signature and address of the officer who sent the letter. On the fifteenth anniversary of the execution of the House of Soviets, the former chairman of the Supreme Council of Russia, R.I. Khasbulatov, in an interview with MK journalist K. Novikov, said that a high-ranking police general swore, swore, and called the number of dead 1,500 people.
A note was seen on the desk of Prime Minister V.S. But the bodies of the dead were taken out of the destroyed parliament building for four days. Police Major General Vladimir Semenovich Ovchinsky, an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who visited the parliament building after the assault, said that 1,700 corpses had been found there. Corpses in piles in black bags, littered with dry ice, lay on the basement floor.
According to some reports, up to 160 people were shot at the stadium. Moreover, until 2 am on October 5, they were shot in batches, having previously beaten their victims. Local residents saw that about a hundred people were shot just not far from the pool. According to Baronenko, about 300 people were shot at the stadium.
Lidia Vasilievna Zeitlina, some time after the October events, met with the driver of the motor depot. The trucks of that motor depot were involved in the removal of corpses from the White House. The driver said that on the night of October 4-5, the corpses of those shot at the stadium were transported in his truck. He had to make two flights to the Moscow region, to the forest. There, the corpses were thrown into pits, covered with earth, and the burial place was leveled with a bulldozer. The bodies were taken out on other trucks. As the driver put it, "tired of driving."
Based on all open sources of information, we tried to find out to within a few minutes what happened in the center of Moscow 20 years ago.
16:00 Moscow time. A man in camouflage told reporters. That he is a member of the Alpha Special Forces and will enter the White House to begin negotiations for the surrender of its defenders.
15:50 Moscow time. Looks like the fight is over. Leaflets titled "The Testament of the White House Defenders" are scattered around the White House. The message says: “Now that you are reading this letter, we are no longer among the living. Our bullet-riddled bodies are burning within the walls of the White House."
“We truly loved Russia and wished to restore order in the country. So that all people have equal rights and obligations, so that it is forbidden for everyone to break the law, regardless of position. We had no plans to escape abroad.”
“Forgive us. We also forgive everyone, even the boy soldiers who were sent to shoot at us. It's not their fault. But we will never forgive this diabolical gang that has sat on the neck of Russia. We believe that in the end our Motherland will be freed from this burden.”
15:30 Moscow time. Troops loyal to President Yeltsin resumed shelling the White House.
15:00 Moscow time. Special forces "Alpha" and "Vympel" were ordered to storm the White House. However, the command states that they will continue negotiations for some time, trying to convince the defenders of the building to surrender.
14:57 Moscow time. White House defenders say they have no idea what kind of snipers sat on the roof.
According to the former First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR Andrei Dunaev, a police officer was shot dead by a sniper in front of his eyes. “We ran to the roof, from where a shot was heard, but there was no one there. Judging by the way it all happened, neither the KGB nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs were to blame. Someone else did it, maybe even a foreign intelligence agent, ”Dunaev suggested.
14:55 Moscow time. One of the officers of the Alpha group was killed by a sniper.
“One of our fighters, a young lieutenant Gennady Sergeev, died. His group drove up to the White House in an infantry fighting vehicle. A wounded soldier was lying on the pavement, he had to be evacuated. However, at that very moment, a sniper shot Sergeyev in the back. But the shot wasn't from the White House, that's for sure. This shameful murder had only one goal - to provoke Alpha so that the fighters broke into the building and killed everyone there, ”said Gennady Zaitsev, commander of the Alpha group.
14:50 UTC Unidentified snipers fire indiscriminately into the crowd around the White House. Yeltsin's supporters, policemen, and ordinary people become targets for shots. Two journalists and a woman were killed, two soldiers were wounded.
14:00 Brief lull at the White House. Several of the building's defenders came out to surrender.
13:00: According to former people's deputy Vyacheslav Kotelnikov, there have already been many victims on different floors of the White House in Moscow.
“When I walked from one floor of the building to another, I was immediately struck by how much blood, dead and mutilated bodies were everywhere. Some of them were beheaded, others had their limbs cut off. These people died when tanks started firing at the White House. However, pretty soon this picture ceased to shock me, because I had to do my job.
12:00: The Public Opinion Foundation organized a telephone survey of Muscovites. As it turned out, 72% of respondents supported President Yeltsin, 9% were on the side of the parliament. 19% of the respondents refused to answer the questions.
11:40 a.m.: Due to the uncoordinated actions of the police cordons, several teenagers managed to break into the parking lot in front of the White House. Aggressive young people tried to take possession of the weapons thrown by the wounded. This was announced by the commander of the Taman division. Several cars were also stolen.
11:30 am: 192 injured needed medical attention. 158 of them were hospitalized, 19 subsequently died in hospitals.
11:25 a.m.: Heavy gunfire resumed in front of the building. The ceasefire agreement was violated. At the same time, people remained in the White House.
11:06: Crowds of people gathered on Smolenskaya Embankment and Novy Arbat to watch the storming of the Supreme Council. It was not possible to disperse onlookers of militia. According to photographer Dmitry Borko, there were many teenagers and women with children in the crowd. They stood in close proximity to the building and seemed not to care about their safety at all. 11:00 a.m.: A ceasefire is declared to allow women and children to leave the White House.
10:00 a.m.: White House defenders say there are many dead in the building as a result of tank fire.
“When the tanks started firing, I was on the 6th floor,” said one of the eyewitnesses of the events. - There were many civilians. All are unarmed. I thought that after the shelling, the soldiers would break into the building and tried to find some kind of weapon. I opened the door of the room where a shell had recently exploded, but I could not enter: everything was covered in blood and strewn with body fragments.
09:45: Supporters of President Yeltsin use megaphones to urge White House defenders to stop resistance. "Drop your weapons. Give up. Otherwise, you will be destroyed." These calls are repeated over and over again.
09:20: Tanks shell the upper floors of the White House from the Kalininsky Bridge (now the Novoarbatsky Bridge). Six T-80 tanks fired 12 volleys at the building.
“The first volley destroyed the conference room, the second - Khasbulatov's office, the third - my office,” said Alexander Rutskoi, former vice president and one of the leaders of the White House defenders. - I was in the room when a shell flew through the window. It exploded in the right corner of the room. Luckily my desk was in the left corner. I ran out in complete shock. I don't know how I even survived."
9:15 am: The Supreme Soviet is completely cordoned off by troops loyal to President Yeltsin. They also occupied several neighboring buildings. The building is constantly fired from machine guns.
09:05: President Boris Yeltsin broadcasts a televised address in which he called the events taking place in Moscow a "planned coup" organized by communist revanchists, fascist leaders, some former deputies, representatives of the Soviets.
“Those who are waving red flags have again stained Russia with blood. They hoped for surprise, that their arrogance and unparalleled cruelty would sow fear and confusion,” Yeltsin said.
The President assured the Russians that “the armed fascist-communist rebellion in Moscow will be suppressed in the shortest possible time. For this, the Russian state has the necessary forces.”
09:00: White House defenders return fire to shots from presidential supporters. As a result of the shelling, a fire started on the 12th and 13th floors of the building.
08:00: BMPs opened aimed fire on the White House.
07:50: Gunfire breaks out in a park adjacent to the White House.
07:45: Injured White House defenders and dead bodies are moved to one of the building's lobbies.
“I saw about 50 wounded. They lay in rows on the floor in the lobby. Most likely, there were also the bodies of the dead. The faces of those lying in the front rows were covered,” recalled Nikolai Grigoriev, a surgeon and former Minister of Health of Chuvashia, who actually directed the makeshift medical unit of the besieged Supreme Soviet.
07:35: White House security personnel are called to leave the building.
07:25: Five BMPs destroyed the barricades erected by the White House defenders and took up positions on the Free Russia Square - directly in front of the building.
07:00: Gunfire continues outside the White House. Police captain Alexander Ruban was mortally wounded, who was filming everything that was happening from the balcony of the Ukraine Hotel.
06:50: The first shots are heard near the White House in the center of Moscow.
“We were alerted at 06:45. Still sleepy, we ran out of the building and immediately came under fire. We lay down on the ground. Bullets and shells whistled just ten meters away from us, ”said one of the defenders of the White House, Galina N.
What happened in Moscow 25 years ago.
25 years ago, opponents of President Boris Yeltsin took to the streets to seize the White House. This escalated into a bloody confrontation between soldiers and oppositionists, and the events of October 3-4 resulted in a new government and a new Constitution.
October Putsch 1993. Briefly about what happened
On October 3-4, 1993, the October putsch took place - this is when they shot at the White House, captured the Ostankino television center, and tanks drove through the streets of Moscow. All this happened because of Yeltsin's conflict with Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and Chairman of the Supreme Council Ruslan Khasbulatov. Yeltsin won, the vice-president was removed, the Supreme Soviet was dissolved.
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In 1992, Boris Yeltsin nominated Yegor Gaidar, who by that time was actively pursuing economic reforms, for the post of Prime Minister. However, the Supreme Council severely criticized Gaidar's activities due to the high level of poverty of the population and space prices and chose Viktor Chernomyrdin as the new Chairman. In response, Yeltsin made harsh criticism of the deputies.
Boris Yeltsin and Ruslan Khasbulatov in 1991 Yeltsin suspended the Constitution, although it was illegal
On March 20, 1993, Yeltsin announced the suspension of the Constitution and the introduction of a "special procedure for governing the country." Three days later, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation recognized Yeltsin's actions as unconstitutional and grounds for removing the president from office.
On March 28, 617 deputies voted for the impeachment of the president, with the required 689 votes. Yeltsin remained in power.
On April 25, at a national referendum, the majority supported the president and the government and spoke in favor of holding early elections of people's deputies. On May 1, the first clashes between riot police and opponents of the president took place.
What is Decree No. 1400 and how did it aggravate the situation?
On September 21, 1993, Yeltsin signed Decree No. 1400 on the dissolution of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Armed Forces, although he had no right to do so. In response, the Supreme Council declared that this decree was contrary to the Constitution, therefore it would not be executed and Yeltsin was deprived of the powers of the president. Yeltsin was supported by the Ministry of Defense and law enforcement agencies.
In the following weeks, members of the Supreme Council, people's deputies, and Deputy Prime Minister Rutsky were effectively locked in the White House, where communications, electricity, and water were cut off. The building was cordoned off by police and military personnel. The White House was guarded by opposition volunteers.
X Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies in the White House, where electricity and water are cut offAssault "Ostankino"
On October 3, supporters of the Armed Forces went to a rally on October Square and then broke through the defenses of the White House. After Rutskoi's appeals, the protesters successfully seized the City Hall building and moved to capture the Ostankino television center.
By the time the capture began, the TV tower was guarded by 900 soldiers with military equipment. At some point, the first explosion was heard among the soldiers. It was immediately followed by indiscriminate shooting into the crowd at everyone indiscriminately. When the opposition tried to hide in the nearby Oak Grove, they were squeezed from both sides and started shooting from armored personnel carriers and from gun nests on the roof of Ostankino.
During the assault on Ostankino, October 3, 1993.
At the time of the assault, television broadcasting was stoppedWhite House shooting
On the night of October 4, Yeltsin decides to take the White House with the help of armored vehicles. At 7 am, tanks began shelling the government building.
While the building was being shelled, snipers on the rooftops fired on the crowded people near the White House.
By five o'clock in the evening the resistance of the defenders was completely crushed. Opposition leaders, including Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, were arrested. Yeltsin remained in power.
White House October 4, 1993How many people died during the October Putsch?
According to official figures, 46 people died during the storming of Ostankino, and approximately 165 people died during the shooting of the White House, but witnesses report that there were many more victims. Over the course of 20 years, various theories have appeared in which the numbers vary from 500 to 2000 dead.
The results of the October Putsch
The Supreme Council and the Congress of People's Deputies ceased to exist. The entire system of Soviet power that had existed since 1917 was liquidated.
Before the elections on December 12, 1993, all power was in the hands of Yeltsin. On that day, the modern Constitution was chosen, as well as the State Duma and the Federation Council.
What happened after the October Putsch?
In February 1994, all those arrested in connection with the October putsch were amnestied.
Yeltsin served as president until the end of 1999. The constitution adopted after the coup in 1993 is still in force today. According to the new state principles, the president has more powers than the government.