Yuzhnoye Butovo District (Southern Butovo, russian: Ю́жное Бу́тово) is the biggest residential district in

South-Western Administrative Okrug South-Western Administrative Okrug (russian: Ю́го-За́падный администрати́вный о́круг, ), or Yugo-Zapadny Administrative Okrug, is one of the twelve high-level territorial divisions (administrative okrugs) of the ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. The district's history dates back to 1612, and it is named after a Don Cossack Butov. The area of the district is . The population (July 2016) was 207,903.

Butovo memorial

Situated approximately 27 km south-east of Moscow, Butovo is the site of the

Butovo firing range The Butovo Firing Range or Butovo Shooting Range (russian: Бутовский полигон) was an execution site of the Soviet secret police located near Drozhzhino in Leninsky District, Moscow Oblast from 1938 to 1953. Its use for mass ex ...

, a

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

dating from the "

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

" of the 1930s. In excess of 20,000 people were shot and buried there from August 1937 to October 193

It has become a shrine to

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

's victims and has an Orthodox church on the grounds.

References

External links

* Districts of Moscow 1612 establishments in Russia {{Moscow-geo-stub