Communist Party of the Russian Federation Crimean Republican branch. Communist Party of the Russian Federation Crimean Republican Branch Who ruled in 1993

In the fall of 1993, the conflict between the branches of power led to fighting on the streets of Moscow, the shooting of the White House and hundreds of victims. According to many, then the fate of not only the political structure of Russia, but also the integrity of the country was being decided.

This event has many names - "The shooting of the White House", "October uprising of 1993", "Decree 1400", "October coup", "Yeltsin's coup of 1993", "Black October". However, it is the latter that is neutral in nature, reflecting the tragedy of the situation that arose due to the unwillingness of the warring parties to compromise. [S-BLOCK]

The internal political crisis in the Russian Federation, which has been developing since the end of 1992, resulted in a clash between supporters of President Boris Yeltsin on the one hand and the Supreme Council on the other. Political scientists see this as the apogee of the conflict between the two models of power: the new liberal-democratic and the obsolete Soviet.

The result of the confrontation was the forcible termination of the operation of the Supreme Soviet in Russia, which had existed since 1938, as the highest body of state power. In the clashes between the opposing sides in Moscow, which peaked on October 3-4, 1993, according to official figures, at least 158 ​​people were killed, another 423 were injured or otherwise injured.

Russian society still does not have clear answers to a number of key questions about those tragic days. There are only versions of participants and eyewitnesses of events, journalists, political scientists. The investigation into the actions of the conflicting parties, initiated by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, remained incomplete. The investigative group was dissolved by the State Duma after a decision was made on the amnesty of all persons involved in the events of September 21 - October 4, 1993.

Relinquish power

It all started in December 1992, when, at the 7th Congress of People's Deputies, parliamentarians and the leadership of the Supreme Soviet sharply criticized Yegor Gaidar's government. As a result, the reformer's candidacy, nominated by the president for the post of chairman of the government, was not approved by the Congress.

Yeltsin, in response, lashed out at the deputies and proposed for discussion the idea of ​​an all-Russian referendum on the issue of confidence. “What force has drawn us into this black streak? Yeltsin thought. - First of all - the constitutional ambiguity. Oath on the Constitution, the constitutional duty of the president. And at the same time, his full limitation of rights.

On March 20, 1993, Yeltsin, in a televised address to the people, 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 reacted, recognizing Yeltsin's actions as unconstitutional and seeing them as grounds for removing the president from office.

On March 28, the Congress of People's Deputies was already involved, which rejected the draft on calling early presidential and parliamentary elections and held a vote on the removal of Yeltsin from office. But the impeachment attempt failed. 617 deputies voted for the removal of the president from office, with the required 689 votes.

On April 25, a nationwide referendum initiated by Yeltsin was held, in which the majority supported the president and the government and spoke in favor of holding early elections of people's deputies of the Russian Federation. Boris Yeltsin's opponents, dissatisfied with the results of the referendum, went to a demonstration on May 1, which was dispersed by riot police. On this day, the first blood was shed.

fatal decree

But Yeltsin's confrontation with the Supreme Soviet, headed by Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov and Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, was just beginning. On September 1, 1993, Yeltsin, by his decree, temporarily suspended Rutskoy from his duties "in connection with the ongoing investigation, and also due to the lack of instructions to the vice president."

However, Rutskoi's accusations of corruption were not confirmed - compromising documents were found to be fake. Parliamentarians then sharply condemned the presidential decree, believing that it intruded into the sphere of authority of the judiciary of state power.

But Yeltsin does not stop and on September 21 signed the fatal decree No. 1400 "On a phased constitutional reform in the Russian Federation", which ultimately provoked riots in the capital. The decree ordered the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet to cease their activities “in order to preserve the unity and integrity of the Russian Federation; leading the country out of the economic and political crisis. [S-BLOCK]

A coup d'état was brewing in the country. According to political scientists, Yeltsin's opponents had motives for removing the incumbent president. Khasbulatov, by the time the Congress of People's Deputies was dissolved, had lost his constituency, since Chechnya had de facto separated from Russia. Rutskoi had no chance of winning the presidential election, but as acting president he could count on rising popularity.

As a result of Decree No. 1400, in accordance with Article 121.6 of the current Constitution, Yeltsin was automatically removed from the post of president, since his powers could not be used to dissolve or suspend the activities of any legally elected bodies of state power. The post of head of state de jure passed to Vice President Rutskoi.

President acts

Back in August 1993, Yeltsin predicted a "hot autumn." He frequented the bases of key army units in the Moscow region, at the same time he received a two-three-fold increase in the salaries of the officers.

In early September, by order of Yeltsin, the head of the Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, was deprived of a car with a special connection, and the building of the Constitutional Court itself was released from protection. At the same time, the Grand Kremlin Palace was closed for repairs, and the deputies who lost their premises for work were forced to move to the White House.

On September 23, Yeltsin reached the White House. After the deputies and members of the Supreme Council refused to leave the building, the government turned off the heating, water, electricity and telephone in it. The White House was surrounded by three cordons of barbed wire and several thousand soldiers. However, the defenders of the Supreme Council also had weapons.

A few days before the events, Yeltsin met with Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev and Director of the Federal Security Service Mikhail Barsukov at the government dacha in Zavidovo. The former head of the presidential guard Alexander Korzhakov told how Barsukov proposed to conduct command and staff exercises to work out the interaction between those units that may have to fight in the capital.

In response, Grachev started up: “Are you panicking, Misha? Yes, I will tear everyone there with my paratroopers. And B.N. supported him: “Sergeich knows better. He passed Afghanistan. And you, they say, are “parquet”, shut up, ”Korzhakov recalled the conversation.

The Patriarch of All Rus' Alexy II tried to prevent the imminent drama. With his mediation, on October 1, the conflicting parties signed a Protocol that provided for the beginning of the withdrawal of troops from the House of Soviets and the disarmament of its defenders. However, the White House Defense Staff, together with the deputies, denounced the Protocol and was ready to continue the confrontation.

On October 3, riots began in Moscow: the cordon around the White House building was broken by supporters of the Supreme Soviet, and a group of armed men led by General Albert Makashov seized the building of the Moscow City Hall. At the same time, demonstrations in support of the Supreme Soviet were held in many places in the capital, in which the participants in the actions actively clashed with the police.

After Rutskoi's call, a crowd of demonstrators moved towards the television center, intending to seize it in order to give the leaders of the parliament an opportunity to address the people. However, the armed units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were ready to meet. When a young man with a grenade launcher fired a shot to knock down the door, the troops opened fire on the demonstrators and their sympathizers. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, at least 46 people were killed and subsequently died from their wounds in the area of ​​the television center. [S-BLOCK]

After the bloodshed near Ostankino, Yeltsin convinced Defense Minister Pavel Grachev to order army units to storm the White House. The attack began on the morning of 4 October. The inconsistency in the actions of the military led to the fact that heavy machine guns and tanks fired not only at the building, but also at unarmed people who were in the cordon zone near the House of Soviets, which led to numerous casualties. By evening, the resistance of the White House defenders was crushed.

Politician and blogger Alexander Verbin called the action on October 4 "paid military", noting that the OMON special forces and specially trained snipers, on Yeltsin's orders, shot the defenders of the Constitution. Not the last role in the behavior of the president, according to the blogger, was played by the support of the West.

The figure of Yeltsin as the head of the state built on the fragments of the USSR completely tripled the West, primarily the United States, so Western politicians actually turned a blind eye to the execution of parliament. Doctor of Law Alexander Domrin says that there are even facts that indicate the intention of the Americans to send troops to Moscow to support Yeltsin.

There is no unanimity Politics, journalists, intellectuals were divided in their opinions about the events that took place in October 1993. For example, academician Dmitry Likhachev then expressed full support for Yeltsin's actions: “The president is the only person who is elected by the people. This means that what he did is not only correct, but also logical. References to the fact that the Decree does not comply with the Constitution are nonsense.”

Russian publicist Igor Pykhalov sees Yeltsin's victory as an attempt to establish a pro-Western regime in Russia. The trouble with those events is that we did not have an organizing force capable of resisting Western influence, Pykhalov believes. The Supreme Council, according to the publicist, had a significant drawback - the people who stood on its side did not have a single leadership or a single ideology. Therefore, they could not agree and develop a position understandable to the broad masses.

Yeltsin provoked a confrontation because he was losing, according to American writer and journalist David Sutter. "The President has made no effort to work with Parliament," Sutter continues. "He didn't try to influence legislators, he didn't explain what his policy was, he ignored parliamentary debates." [S-BLOCK]

Subsequently, Yeltsin interpreted the events between September 21 and October 4 as a confrontation between democracy and communist reaction. But experts tend to see this as a struggle for power between former allies, for whom resentment over corruption in the executive branch was a powerful irritant.

Political scientist Yevgeny Gilbo believes that the confrontation between Yeltsin and Khasbulatov was beneficial to both sides, since their policy did not have a constructive reform program, and the only form of existence for them was only confrontation.

"Stupid struggle for power" - this is how the publicist Leonid Radzikhovsky expresses himself categorically. According to the Constitution then in force, the two branches of power squeezed each other. According to the stupid Soviet law, the Congress of People's Deputies had "full power", writes Radzikhovsky. But since neither deputies nor members of the Supreme Council could lead the country, the real power was in the hands of the president.

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 task force 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 officially declared dead civilians, 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, 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, in front of at least one dead.

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 everything that was in its path. 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, in 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 Semenovich 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 direct 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, 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 Nikolaeva 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 the 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 rifle 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... They kept us 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."

The theme of "bloody October 1993" is still under seven seals today. No one knows exactly how many citizens died in those troubled days. However, the figures given by independent sources are appalling.

Scheduled for 7:00
In the autumn of 1993, the confrontation between the two branches of power - the president and the government, on the one hand, and people's deputies and the Supreme Council, on the other - reached a dead end. The constitution, which the opposition so zealously defended, bound Boris Yeltsin hand and foot. There was only one way out: to change the law, if necessary, by force.

The conflict went into a phase of extreme escalation on September 21, after the famous Decree No. 1400, in which Yeltsin temporarily terminated the powers of the Congress and the Supreme Council. Communications, water and electricity were cut off in the parliament building. However, the legislators blocked there were not going to give up. Volunteers came to their aid to defend the White House.

On the night of October 4, the president decides to storm the Supreme Council using armored vehicles, government troops are drawn to the building. The operation is scheduled for 7 am. As soon as the countdown of the eighth hour began, the first victim appeared - a police captain, filming what was happening from the balcony of the Ukraine Hotel, died from a bullet.

White House victims
Already at 10 am, information began to come in about the death of a large number of defenders of the residence of the Supreme Council as a result of tank shelling. By 11:30 a.m., 158 people needed medical attention, 19 of whom later died in hospital. At 13:00, People's Deputy Vyacheslav Kotelnikov reported on the heavy casualties among those who were in the White House. At about 2:50 pm, unknown snipers begin to shoot at people crowded in front of the parliament.

Closer to 16:00, the resistance of the defenders was suppressed. The government commission assembled in hot pursuit quickly counts the victims of the tragedy - 124 killed, 348 wounded. Moreover, the list does not include those killed in the White House building itself.

The head of the investigation team of the Prosecutor General's Office, Leonid Proshkin, who dealt with the cases of the seizure of the Moscow mayor's office and the television center, notes that all the victims are the result of attacks by government forces, since it was proved that "not a single person was killed from the weapons of the White House defenders." According to the Prosecutor General's Office, which MP Viktor Ilyukhin referred to, a total of 148 people were killed during the storming of the parliament, with 101 people near the building.

And then in various comments on these events, the numbers only grew. On October 4, CNN, relying on its sources, stated that about 500 people had died. The newspaper "Argumenty i Fakty", referring to the soldiers of the internal troops, wrote that they collected the "charred and torn by tank shells" remains of almost 800 defenders. Among them were those who drowned in the flooded basements of the White House. Former deputy of the Supreme Council from the Chelyabinsk region Anatoly Baronenko announced 900 dead.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article by an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who did not want to introduce himself, who said: “In total, about 1,500 corpses were found in the White House, among them women and children. All of them were secretly taken out of there through an underground tunnel leading from the White House to the Krasnopresnenskaya metro station, and further outside the city, where they were burned.”

There is unconfirmed information that a note was seen on the desk of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Chernomyrdin, which indicated that in just three days 1,575 corpses were taken out of the White House. But Literaturnaya Rossiya was the most surprised by its announcement of 5,000 deaths.

Counting Difficulties
The representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Tatyana Astrakhankina, who headed the commission investigating the events of October 1993, found that shortly after the execution of the parliament, all materials on this case were classified, “some medical records of the wounded and the dead” were rewritten, and “dates of admission to morgues and hospitals” were also changed. . This, of course, creates an almost insurmountable obstacle to an accurate count of the number of victims of the storming of the White House.

It is possible to determine the number of dead, at least in the White House itself, only indirectly. According to the estimates of the General Newspaper, about 2,000 besieged people left the White House building without filtering. Given that initially there were about 2.5 thousand people, we can conclude that the number of victims did not exactly exceed 500.

We must not forget that the first victims of the confrontation between the supporters of the President and the Parliament appeared long before the attack of the White House. So, on September 23, two people died on the Leningrad Highway, and since September 27, according to some estimates, the victims have become almost daily.

According to Rutskoy and Khasbulatov, by the middle of the day on October 3, the death toll had reached 20 people. In the afternoon of the same day, as a result of a clash between the opposition and the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the Crimean bridge, 26 civilians and 2 policemen were killed.

Even if we raise the lists of all those who died in hospitals and went missing during those days, it will be extremely difficult to determine which of them fell victim to precisely political clashes.

Ostankino massacre
On the eve of the assault on the White House on the evening of October 3, responding to Rutskoy's call, General Albert Makashov, at the head of an armed detachment of 20 people and several hundred volunteers, tried to seize the television center building. However, by the time the operation began, Ostankino was already guarded by 24 armored personnel carriers and about 900 soldiers loyal to the president.

After the trucks of supporters of the Supreme Council rammed the ASK-3 building, an explosion was heard (its source was never identified), which caused the first victims. This was the signal for heavy fire, which began to be conducted by internal troops and police officers from the building of the television complex.

They fired in bursts and single shots, including from sniper rifles, just into the crowd, without understanding the journalists, onlookers or trying to pull out the wounded. Later, indiscriminate shooting was explained by the large crowding of people and the onset of twilight.

But the worst began later. Most of the people tried to hide in the Oak Grove located next to AEC-3. One of the oppositionists recalled how the crowd was squeezed in a grove from two sides, and then they began to shoot from an armored personnel carrier and four automatic nests from the roof of a television center.

According to official figures, the battles for Ostankino claimed the lives of 46 people, including two inside the building. However, witnesses claim that there were many more victims.

Don't count the numbers
Writer Alexander Ostrovsky in his book The Shooting of the White House. Black October 1993" tried to sum up the victims of those tragic events, based on verified data: "Before October 2 - 4 people, on the afternoon of October 3 at the White House - 3, in Ostankino - 46, during the storming of the White House - at least 165, 3 and on October 4 in other places of the city - 30, on the night of October 4-5 - 95, plus those who died after October 5, in total - about 350 people.

However, many admit that official statistics are several times underestimated. How much, one can only guess, based on eyewitness accounts of those events.

Moscow State University teacher Sergei Surnin, who observed the events near the White House, recalled how, after the shooting began, he and 40 other people fell to the ground: “Armored personnel carriers passed us and shot people lying from a distance of 12-15 meters - one third of those lying nearby were killed or injured. And 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 in front.

Artist Anatoly Nabatov from the window of the White House saw how in the evening after the end of the assault, a group of about 200 people was brought to the Krasnaya Presnya stadium. They were stripped, and then at the wall adjacent to Druzhinnikovskaya Street, they began to shoot in batches until late at night on October 5. Eyewitnesses said that they were beaten beforehand. According to deputy Baronenko, at least 300 people were shot at the stadium and near it.

Georgy Gusev, a well-known public figure who headed the People's Action movement in 1993, testified that in the yards and entrances of the detainees, riot policemen beat the detainees and then killed unknown persons "in a strange form."

One of the drivers who took out the corpses from the parliament building and from the stadium admitted that he had to make two trips to the Moscow region in his truck. In the forest, the corpses were thrown into pits, covered with earth, and the burial place was leveled with a bulldozer.

Human rights activist Yevgeny Yurchenko, one of the founders of the Memorial society, who dealt with the secret destruction of corpses in Moscow crematoria, managed to learn from the workers of the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery about the burning of 300-400 corpses. Yurchenko also drew attention to the fact that if in "normal months", according to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, up to 200 unclaimed corpses were burned in crematoria, then in October 1993 this figure increased several times - up to 1500.

According to Yurchenko, the list of those killed during the events of September-October 1993, where the fact of disappearance was either proven or witnesses of death were found, is 829 people. But obviously this list is incomplete.

25 years have passed since the days when people's deputies of Russia and ordinary citizens shoulder to shoulder defended the rights of their people and the Constitution of Russia.

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Background

The economic and political crisis that began in the 1980s in the USSR intensified significantly in the 1990s and led to a number of global and radical changes in its territorial and political system. It was a period of intense political struggle and confusion. Supporters of maintaining a strong central government entered into a confrontation with supporters of decentralization and sovereignty of the republics.

On December 25, 1991, the last President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, spoke on central television. He announced his resignation. At 19:38 Moscow time, the flag of the USSR was lowered from the Kremlin, and, after almost 70 years of existence, the Soviet Union disappeared forever from the political map of the world.

Dual Power Crisis

Simultaneously with the preservation of broad powers, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and the Congress of People's Deputies established the post of President.

On one side of the confrontation was Boris Yeltsin. He was supported by the Cabinet of Ministers, headed by Viktor Chernomyrdin, the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, a small number of deputies, as well as law enforcement agencies.

On the other side was the bulk of the deputies and members of the Supreme Council, headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov and Alexander Rutskoi, who served as vice president.

The President and his associates advocated the rapid adoption of a new fundamental law and the strengthening of the influence of the President, the majority were supporters of "shock therapy". They wanted the speedy implementation of economic reforms and a complete change in all power structures.

Their opponents were in favor of keeping all power in the Congress of People's Deputies, as well as against hasty reforms. An additional reason was the unwillingness of the Congress to ratify the treaties signed in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

After lengthy and fruitless negotiations, the conflict reached a stalemate. Neither the proposals to impeach the president and Khasbulatov's resignation, nor the proposal to hold early elections passed.

On September 1, President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree on the temporary removal of A. V. Rutskoi from his post. The Vice President constantly spoke with sharp criticism of the decisions made by the President. Rutskoy was accused of corruption, but the allegations were not confirmed.

On September 21, Yeltsin addressed the people and announced that the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet were losing their powers due to their inaction and sabotage of the constitutional reform. Provisional authorities were introduced. Scheduled elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

In response to the actions of the President, the Supreme Council issued a decree on the immediate removal of Yeltsin and the transfer of his functions to Vice President A. V. Rutskoi. This was followed by an appeal to the citizens of the Russian Federation, the peoples of the commonwealth, deputies of all levels, military personnel and employees of law enforcement agencies, which called for stopping the attempted "coup d'état". The organization of the headquarters for the protection of the House of Soviets was also begun.

Siege

On the same day, at about 8:45 pm, a spontaneous rally gathered under the walls of the White House, and the erection of barricades began.

In the morning there were about 1,500 people near the White House, by the end of the day there were several thousand. Volunteer groups began to form.

The heads of administrations and the siloviki mostly supported Boris Yeltsin. Bodies of representative power - Khasbulatov and Rutskoy. Rutskoi issued decrees, and Yeltsin, by his decrees, recognized all of them as invalid.

On September 23, the government decided to disconnect the building of the House of Soviets from heating, electricity and telecommunications. The guards of the Supreme Council were given machine guns, pistols and ammunition for them. Late in the evening of the same day, a group of armed supporters of the Armed Forces attacked the headquarters of the unified armed forces of the CIS. Two people died.

Supporters of the president used the attack as an excuse to increase pressure on those holding the blockade near the building of the Supreme Council.

In the evening of the same day, an extraordinary extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies opened.

On September 24, the Congress recognized President B. Yeltsin as illegitimate and approved all personnel appointments made by Alexander Rutskoi.

September 28th. At night, employees of the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate blocked the entire territory that was adjacent to the House of Soviets. All approaches were blocked with barbed wire and watering machines. The passage of people and vehicles is completely stopped. Throughout the day, numerous rallies and riots of supporters of the Armed Forces arose near the cordon ring.

September 29th. The cordon was extended to the Garden Ring itself. Residential buildings and social facilities were cordoned off. By order of the head of the Armed Forces, journalists were no longer allowed into the building. Colonel General Makashov warned from the balcony of the House of Soviets that if the perimeter of the fence was violated, fire would be opened without warning. In the evening, the demand of the government of the Russian Federation was announced, in which Alexander Rutskoi and Ruslan Khasbulatov were offered to remove all their supporters from the building and disarm them by October 4 under the guarantee of personal safety and amnesty.

September 30th. At night, a message was circulated that the Supreme Soviet allegedly plans to carry out armed attacks on strategic objects. Armored vehicles were sent to the House of Soviets. In response, Rutskoi ordered the commander of the 39th motorized rifle division, Major General Frolov, to move two regiments to Moscow. In the morning, demonstrators began to arrive in small groups. Despite their completely peaceful behavior, the police and riot police continued to brutally disperse the protesters, which further aggravated the situation.

October 1st. At night, in the St. Danilov Monastery, with the assistance of Patriarch Alexy, negotiations of the parties took place. Yuri Luzhkov, Oleg Filatov and Oleg Soskovets spoke for the president. Ramazan Abdulatipov and Veniamin Sokolov arrived from the Council. As a result of the negotiations, Protocol No. 1 was signed, according to which the defenders handed over some of the weapons in the building in exchange for electricity, heating and working telephones. Immediately after the signing of the Protocol, heating was connected in the White House, an electrician appeared, and hot food was prepared in the dining room. About 200 journalists were allowed into the building. It was relatively easy to enter and leave the besieged building.

2 October. The military council headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov denounced Protocol No. 1. The negotiations were called "nonsense" and "screen". He insisted that he should personally negotiate directly with President Yeltsin. After the denunciation, the power supply was again cut off in the building, and the access control was strengthened.

Assault on Ostankino

October 3rd. At 14:00, a rally of thousands took place on October Square. Despite attempts, the riot police fail to oust the Protestants. Having broken through the cordon, the crowd advanced in the direction of the Crimean bridge and beyond. The Moscow police department sent 350 soldiers of the internal troops to Zubovskaya Square, who tried to cordon off the protesters. But after a few minutes they were crushed and pushed back, while capturing 10 military trucks. An hour later, from the balcony of the White House, Rutskoi calls on the crowd to storm the Moscow City Hall and the Ostankino television center. A crowd of thousands, having broken through the cordon, begins to move towards the White House. The riot police moved to the mayor's office and opened fire. 7 protesters were killed, dozens were injured. 2 police officers were also killed. At 16:00 Boris Yeltsin signs a decree declaring a state of emergency in the city. But the Protestants, led by the appointed Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Albert Makashov, are taking over the Moscow mayor's office. OMON and internal troops were forced to retreat and in a hurry leave 10-15 buses and tent trucks, 4 armored personnel carriers and even a grenade launcher. At 5:00 pm, a convoy of several hundred volunteers in seized trucks and armored personnel carriers, armed with automatic weapons and even a grenade launcher, arrives at the television center. In an ultimatum form, they demand to provide a live broadcast. At the same time, armored personnel carriers of the Dzerzhinsky division, as well as detachments of the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs "Vityaz", arrive at Ostankino. Long negotiations begin with the security of the television center. While they are dragging on, other detachments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and internal troops arrive at the building. At 19:00. "Ostankino" is guarded by approximately 480 armed fighters from different units. Continuing the spontaneous rally, demanding to be given airtime, the protesters are trying to knock out the glass doors of the ASK-3 building with a truck. They succeed only partially. Makashov warns that if fire is opened, the protesters will respond with their existing grenade launcher. During the negotiations, one of the general's guards is wounded by a firearm. While the wounded man was being taken out to the ambulance, explosions were simultaneously heard at the demolished doors and inside the building, presumably from an unknown explosive device. A special forces soldier dies. After that, indiscriminate fire was opened on the crowd. In the ensuing twilight, no one made out who to shoot at. Protestants were killed, journalists who simply sympathized, trying to pull out the wounded.

But the worst began later. In a panic, the crowd tried to hide in the Oak Grove, but there the security forces surrounded them in a dense ring and began to shoot at point-blank range from armored vehicles. Officially, 46 people died. Hundreds of wounded. But there may have been many more victims. At 8:45 pm, Yegor Gaidar on television addresses the supporters of President Yeltsin with an appeal to gather near the building of the Moscow City Council. From the arrivals, people with combat experience are selected and volunteer detachments are formed. Shoigu guarantees that if necessary, people will receive weapons. At 23-00 Makashov orders his people to retreat to the House of Soviets.

White House shooting

On October 4, 1993, Gennady Zakharov's plan to seize the House of Soviets was heard and approved at night. It included the use of armored vehicles and even tanks. The assault was scheduled for 7-00 in the morning. Due to the confusion and inconsistency of all actions, conflicts occur between the Taman division that arrived in Moscow, armed people from the Union of Afghan Veterans, and Dzerzhinsky's division. In total, 10 tanks, 20 armored vehicles and approximately 1,700 personnel were involved in the shooting of the White House in Moscow. The detachments recruited only officers and sergeants.

On the pre-shooting October night at the Moscow City Council, Yegor Gaidar, using television, which was completely controlled by the Yeltsin group, gathered crowds of “liberal democrats” and from the balcony called for the killing of “red-brown” deputies and defenders - “these pigs who call themselves Russian and Orthodox” .

The assault was scheduled for 7-00 in the morning. The first to die from a bullet wound was a police captain, who was on the balcony of the Ukraine Hotel and filmed the events on a video camera.

5 infantry fighting vehicles, crushing the barricades, enter the square in front of the White House. Armored vehicles open aimed fire at the windows of the building. Under cover of fire, soldiers of the Tula Airborne Division are approaching the House of Soviets. The defenders are shooting at the military. A fire broke out on the 12th and 13th floors. Tanks began shelling the upper floors. A total of 12 rounds were fired. Later it was claimed that the shooting was carried out with blanks, but judging by the destruction, the shells were live.

At 11:25 artillery fire resumed again. Despite the danger, crowds of curious people begin to gather around. Among the onlookers were even women and children. Hospitals have already received 192 injured participants in the shooting of the White House, 18 of whom died.

Alexander Korzhakov’s book “Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn Till Dusk” reports that when Yeltsin scheduled the capture of the White House for 7 am on October 4 with the arrival of tanks, the Alpha group refused to storm, considering everything that was happening unconstitutional, and demanded the conclusion of the Constitutional Court Russia.

Then "unknown" snipers started shooting at the back of the opposing sides. According to operational information received at that time by various organizations, there was a message that “these were snipers of international special services, who, under the guise of athletes, were placed in the Ukraine Hotel, from where they fired aimed.”

At 15:00 from the high-rise buildings adjacent to the House of Soviets, these snipers open fire. They are shooting at civilians. Two journalists and a woman passing by are killed.

Special Forces detachments "Vympel" and "Alpha" are ordered to storm the building. But contrary to the order, the group commanders decide to make an attempt to negotiate a peaceful surrender. Later, the special forces will be punished for this arbitrariness.

An hour later, a man in camouflage enters the premises and leads out about 100 people through the emergency exit, promising that they are not in danger. The spetsnaz commanders manage to persuade the defenders to surrender. About 700 people left the building along the living corridor of the security forces with their hands raised. All of them were put into buses and taken to filtration points.

Still in the Khasbulat House, Rutskoi and Makashov asked for protection from the ambassadors of Western European countries. But they were detained and sent to a pre-trial detention center in Lefortovo.

Historical assessment of the storming of the White House

Today there are different assessments of the events of "bloody October". There are also differences in the number of deaths. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, during the execution of the White House in October 1993, 148 people died. Other sources give figures from 500 to 1500 people.

Even more people could become victims of executions in the first hours after the end of the assault. Witnesses claim to have seen beatings and executions of detained Protestants.

According to deputy Baronenko, about 300 people were shot without trial at the Krasnaya Presnya stadium. The driver who took out the corpses after the shooting of the White House claimed that he was forced to make two walkers. The bodies were taken to the forest near Moscow, where they were buried in mass graves without identification.

It has already become known today that the officers, participants in the assault on the Supreme Soviet of Russia, were paid 5 million rubles (approximately 4,200 US dollars at the exchange rate of that time) each as a reward; received 100 thousand rubles each and so on.

In total, more than 11 billion rubles (9 million US dollars) were spent to encourage the “particularly distinguished” ones - this is exactly the amount that was taken out of the factory of the State Sign of Moscow (most of this money “disappeared”!)