Time to read: 15 minutes(s)

In Novosibirsk, 243 Wagnerites are buried at the Gusinobrodskoye Cemetery, mostly from Bakhmut.

Among the thousands of graves on the 154 hectares of Gusinobrodskoye Cemetery in Novosibirsk, 243 Wagner mercenaries are laid to rest. 242 are in a special section, and one is on the Alley of Heroes among 33 fresh graves of mobilized and career officers who died in the war in Ukraine.

On a Sunday morning in May, I arrived at one of the cemeteries in Novosibirsk, a city of nearly two million. At the entrance, there was a long line of cars, rows of columbaria, and on the left, the Zakamensky crematorium. I couldn't immediately find the graves of the fallen Wagner PMC soldiers, and asking passersby yielded no clues either. We used a cemetery map, using logic to our advantage, which led us to new neighborhoods somewhere between 111 and 113.

Against the backdrop of a long, grey stamped fence, identical graves stand in rows, 16 horizontally and 15 vertically – wooden crosses, signature yellow-black-red with a gold star Wagner wreaths, and blue-red-white wreaths from the Russian Federation.

Some of the graves have collapsed, and portraits adorn a few; almost all of them are adorned with dried carnations, cookies, candy, and apples. Russian flags are tied in knots on almost all of the crosses, but the Wagner flag adorns only five or six.

The bodies of fallen Wagner mercenaries are airlifted to Tolmachevo Airport, from where trucks from the Novosibirsk Crematorium transport them to their refrigeration facility. Those claimed are collected by relatives and buried at their place of residence. Cremation is also possible, as the crematorium's conditions and the high cost of delivering zinc to the hometown facilitate this. Some of the dead are interred at Gusinobrodskoye Cemetery. It can be assumed that unclaimed bodies, those that relatives refused to claim or were never found, are buried here.

According to the Novosibirsk mayor's office, burial plots for all those killed in combat in Ukraine are provided free of charge at all cemeteries, including Gusinobrodka. Funerals are at the expense of the deceased, after which Wagner will send compensation.

The yellow-brown earth, the bright wreaths, the sunken mound around most of the graves—everything is the same. The only differences are the names and dates of death.

Fursenko Anatoly Viktorovich, 02/12/1988 - 03/23/2023, Bolshakov Alexey Valerievich, 07/31/1988 - 02/24/2023, Brazhnikov Semyon Alexandrovich, 03/01/1985 - 01/24/2023, Fadeev Konstantin Vyacheslavovich, 08/26/2000 – 03/19/2023…

The names vary, as do the ages, and the dates of death, but mostly they're January, February, March, and April 2023. They're from Bakhmut. It's difficult to say whether these are only those who lived in the Novosibirsk region or were released from local prisons. Judging by the last names, there are definitely several residents of Buryatia.

If you search for the names of the deceased on search engines, court decisions pop up for many. Here's a nameplate: "Vladimir Ilyich Mozalev, November 17, 1998 – December 20, 2023." A Kemerovo resident with these details was tried in the Kemerovo Region. His first sentence for robbery was suspended, but after unsuccessfully attempting to snatch a 500-ruble bag from a passerby, which contained only an empty wallet and a 100-ruble phone charger, he was sentenced to a full 1,6 years in prison by the Kemerovo Central District Court. He served his sentence in the Belova penal colony...

People are swarming around the secular graves; they come here, to the Wagnerites, to gawk. They stand, look, and then leave. A couple, a mother and son, brought cookies and candy. A woman in her forties placed the sweets on the graves. She prayed. She asked God for the kingdom of heaven for the 20-30 souls murdered in the Bakhmut meat grinder.

Her son, a young man in his early twenties, said that he himself had not been in the PMC, but that his comrade was buried in the village of Bakinskaya, and they had come here “to honor the memory of the heroes.”

One of the sites, apparently exhumed, may have been the burial place of Berdsk resident Maxim Tareyev, whose grave his mother discovered by accident at Gusinobrodskoye Cemetery. On April 29, the body of the 29-year-old Wagner mercenary was reburied in Berdsk.

While I was walking among the graves, removing nameplates, a man with a short haircut and a hint of gray at his temples, wearing a blue puffer vest, approached. He stood at the entrance to the row where I was wandering. The conversation began somewhat unexpectedly; he asked what I was doing. I said, "Looking for names."

— Do you have someone lying here?
- No. This is all a criminal war...
- Why do you think she is criminal?
He looked at me, assessing whether I could be trusted, then spoke.

"I'm not sure that these are the people lying under these signs."

Yegor is 49 years old, has two children, one of whom is already a teenager, works as a taxi driver, and lives in Novosibirsk. He served in the army from November 1994, serving three months in the Berdsk Special Forces Brigade. He served as a conscript in June 1995, fighting in the First Chechen War. He comes from a military family. In Chechnya, he realized the army wasn't for him. His grandfather is buried in a nearby cemetery.

He agreed to speak without his last name.

— Why is it criminal? Because we attacked a neighboring state, without any justification. All this is covered up with some slogans, or reasons are invented, contrived out of thin air, that they wanted to attack us. But all this is Nazi, Hitlerite, what happened. Hitler also said that they wanted to attack them. And all these slogans, “one people, one leader, one country”—Hitler said that in his time. We are now living under this slogan. What did Volodin say? No Putin, no Russia. There you go.

And the war for their yachts, their palaces, for the ambitions of this ruling, thieving, criminal group—that's what people are dying for, young men of twenty-two, twenty-three, thirty, who could still be living, raising children, developing the country. And now they all lie here under identical wreaths and identical crosses, faceless, unwanted, forgotten.

How many more are there lying around in the fields? Go watch a video on YouTube, see dogs and crows eating them. What's going on? What kind of attitude is this toward your people, your country, your fellow human beings?

And the people are silent because they're intimidated by the repressions, the exorbitant fines, the laws that were quickly concocted to imprison people, to isolate them from society, to prevent them from conveying the necessary information to the people. What are they telling us on TV? Everything is wonderful, we're winning! Everything is fine, Ukrainian Nazis and so on.

But what's really happening? People are dying for nothing, thrown to the front lines barefoot, naked, unarmed, and untrained. And what are they there to do against tanks, against precision artillery? They're throwing people into the furnace to cling to the throne. And they'll keep throwing them until either Putin dies, or his own people overthrow him, stage a coup, or the people take to the streets with pitchforks and start hanging them from lampposts.

— Which option is the most realistic?

"Well, in the current reality, I think a palace coup is a likely event."

— So, what do they have to fear? Does everyone have it? Why would they need to overthrow Putin?

"They're afraid of themselves. They're listening to each other, eavesdropping on each other—the FSB, the Federal Protective Service, all the special services. They'll be involved in this, in the conspiracy. They have practically nothing here, all they do is steal, and they take their money and all their assets there, and now they have no access to those assets. They need to do something about it. But the question is different. Will this benefit ordinary people? Will it be because they'll trade off among themselves? I don't think so. Because we need to fundamentally change the system, not just one person in power, but the entire system."

So I see only one way forward: millions of people taking to the streets, not just tens or hundreds of thousands, but millions of people who simply can't be arrested and thrown into prison—it's simply impossible. Take half of Moscow, for example—you can't put everyone in a pretrial detention center.

— And how do people around you feel about the war?

— It varies. There are people who are against the war, but the majority, unfortunately, are either indifferent or supportive, which really surprises me. And these are fairly educated people, with two university degrees. These aren't old people, these are young people, guys and girls in their 30s and 40s, who have lived in this country under Putin for half their lives and who don't understand what he's led the country to, the abyss he's pushed it into.

We're not on the brink of a precipice; we're already plummeting. And these people support Putin, they support the war, they support the killing of civilians in Ukraine, we're smashing shopping malls and apartment buildings there, children are dying. And people around me support this. I'm ashamed of these people, I don't understand them. I quarrel with some of them, I'm breaking up with others. But I still keep in touch with some of them, given our relationships, our long-standing friendship, and I'm trying to somehow convince them otherwise.

— How long do you think the war will last?

"As long as Putin is in power, the war will continue. As long as he's in power, the war will continue. I'm currently hoping that Ukraine has begun active military action, having received foreign weapons and full foreign support... They're now being provided with weapons systems that our air defenses, aviation, and artillery are simply powerless against. And where there's a military catastrophe, there's a political one. So I'm hoping that when Ukraine takes back its territories, that's when Putin's regime will end."

I see this scenario as possible. I said there's some kind of internal palace coup, and it's highly unlikely that people will take to the streets. It's unlikely because people are intimidated, afraid of fines, afraid of going to jail for practically nothing. You went out to a street protest, and they gave you ten years for discrediting the army—what's that? Of course, people are afraid, and I admit it myself. I don't go to protests simply because I'm afraid of being sent to jail. And who's going to feed my children?

Not many people understand what's going on. But they will now. Now Ukraine will take back its territories, and they will understand they were deceived, that there are no super weapons, it's all just cartoons, just what Putin showed them. The army is worthless, it's plundered, corrupt, and people have been fed noodles for over 20 years…

— What kind of Russia do you want to live in?

— But exactly the kind of world Navalny envisions—without corruption, without thieves in power and criminals who simply steal public money with impunity, kill people, eliminate opponents, without this Kadyrovism that has been elevated to, I don’t even understand to what level.

— What methods do ordinary people have to influence society?

"We need to think about how to stop the war, to prevent it from happening in the first place. We have no methods. The only thing we can do is film, talk, show, and get the word out to people with the resources you have—someone has more, there are Telegram channels with millions of subscribers—what an influence! We need to try to get the word out."

What can we do? We can only talk and talk... but, in reality, only some kind of global event, something grandiose, like, for example, Ukraine's victory in the war, can change the situation. As someone who served in the army, who took part in the fighting in Chechnya, and now, as strange as it may sound, I wish for our country's defeat in this war, you understand? Not because I'm against my country, not because I'm not a patriot, I am a patriot of my country, I want it to live in peace, to develop, for our children to get something, for them to have some prospects. Where have we come to?

What are our prospects? We're isolated from the rest of the world, no one even wants to talk to us. Just look at what's going on at the UN and other international forums. No one respects us. What are we to them? We're like homeless people to them, to be kicked, spat on, and laughed at—that's what we are now! Russia!

While we were talking, a Gazelle hearse pulled up to the edge of the Wagner district. The mother and several relatives were saying their final farewells to 43-year-old Roman Radchenko, who died in Bakhmut on April 26th. The relatives declined to speak to the press. The farewell was quick; the funeral directors wandered among the graves for about fifteen minutes while the deceased's mother sobbed over the closed casket. They lowered the wooden coffin, covered with a red cloth and a black ribbon on gold loops, into the ground. That was it. Ten minutes later, the deceased was covered by a yellow mound. Number 242 on the PMC block. To the right of Radchenko, a spot had already been dug for another Wagner soldier killed in the war—it would be 243.

Mom asked to raise the mound on Nasim's grave

Suddenly, a boy of about three emerged from among the graves, wearing a green cap and grinning from ear to ear. He tugged at the wreaths and tried to grab the wooden crosses.

“Dima, don’t touch the flowers,” Mom asks quietly.

A slender young woman of about 30, with black hair pulled back into a bun. Two children—the one who had emerged and a boy of about ten or eleven—were walking around the entire Wagner block, heading toward the graves along the fence.

"Really to the children's father?" I observe.

Mom returned to the old white foreign car, holding her youngest son in her arms. The eldest son took a shovel, a rake, and some sacks from the trunk. Mom changed into lilac galoshes. The group returned to one of the graves.

The boy began to use a shovel, leveling the grave mound, which had collapsed from the spring floods and thawed winter soil. His mother quickly raked up the remains of frozen and wilted spring flowers and dried leaves. Looking out from the photo is a dark-haired young man, Nasim Aleksandrovich Loskutov, born on the 28th day of the new millennium, January 28, 2000. He lived 22 years, and died on December 4, 2022.

Having waited until the earthen mound was restored, I approached the family and said my farewell.

She's not a widow. They simply asked for help. Yulia declined to be filmed, but she explained why she found herself on a Sunday among 242 graves of men who died in the war.

Nasim's mother, Nigora Sharopova, who lives in Krasnoyarsk, asked me to come here to her son's grave. He was released from prison with less than a year left in his sentence. His mother traveled from Krasnoyarsk to Novosibirsk in February to bury him. She didn't know he had joined Wagner.

"They're not accepting our coffins in Uzbekistan yet," says Yulia, visiting the cemetery for those killed in Ukraine for the first time. "We'll clean up now, and then we'll put up a cross."

Yulia's house is located near the cemetery. Nasim's mother came from Krasnoyarsk for the funeral. She had planned to stay with a friend who had been urgently hospitalized. She found herself facing a locked door. Yulia's family, who lived nearby, took Nigora in for a couple of days.

"She told me he got out of prison with a year left, and he was serving three," Tema, her eldest son, chimed in. "He asked her for the card number he'd use to send money. He left in the fall, and she didn't know; she thought he was in jail."

Nasim died on December 4, 2022. His mother remained unaware of his fate for a long time. The first Wagner mercenaries were buried at Gusinobrodskoye only in February. She learned of his fate a couple of months later.

"She buried him at her own expense; no one gave her any money. They told her to wait and see if she'd get compensation, but she was so distraught that she buried him herself and left," Yulia continues. "We don't really know everything. Mom will come to put up the monument, maybe she'll tell us."

They had already packed the trash into blue bags and were ready to leave. While the children stood next to Nasim, we carried the bags to the dumpster. Returning, Yulia said:

“Well, let’s buy some more flowers and bring them to the grave. Goodbye,” she said.

The body of Wagner mercenary Nasim Loskutov from Krasnoyarsk has not yet found its final resting place; after some time, it will make its final journey to Uzbekistan.

"I don't know, maybe we buried his bones, or maybe not his."

A dark-haired girl in a black jacket and jeans, with a cap pulled down over her eyes, clutching a framed portrait and flowers to her chest, walks to a fresh grave.

She placed the portrait next to the wreaths, squatted down, and sat motionless for a long time. She didn't seem particularly eager to talk, saying I looked like the kind of person who writes articles. But then she spoke.

Her common-law husband, who died in Bakhmut, had his contract ending on May 11th. But he didn't live to see it. He burned alive along with his fellow soldiers.
According to her, the Wagnerites have everything organized much better than the mobilized ones.

"They're well-prepared in terms of dog tags, the size of the army, but war, it's like that, it will hide everything, you won't understand, I don't know, maybe we buried his bones, maybe not. The most important thing is that the dog tag is there, where he was on a mission, it's no longer there, that's all. And whether it happened on the 15th or they were found on the 15th, what can we say. Like here, they buried a boy missing in action, but it turned out he was simply shell-shocked, also a Wagnerite. Although Wagnerites have everything organized, it could happen that mobilized soldiers pulled a wounded man from the field, and Wagnerites list him as missing in action. Until the body is found, he is considered missing. It's all hard. What can we do? Wait. We also believe, at first she didn't want to accept him either. He served for six months, his contract ends on May 11th. On May 1st they called and said the zinc coffin had arrived.

-Can I be alone?

I left. She cried for a long time near the grave.

"First there were five, then twelve, and then it all went on and on."

"Get on all fours, get on all fours," I hear a voice I didn't initially recognize as myself, but it continued. "Why would he do that? He'll post it online!"
Here I understand that the “stand on all fours” part applies to me.

I turn around and on the fence-bench of one of the graves three shabby-looking men are sitting close together.

— What, you can’t use the internet?

"What are you doing here?" asks the boldest one, wearing a black cap and a week's worth of stubble, who was the one who suggested we get into the crab position.

— Is it not allowed to take pictures?

— You can't. The guys are lying here. What else are you going to write?

— Who can stop me from filming? Who are you?

"We're diggers," says the brave one, two others, younger, one lanky, the other short, red-haired—both wearing caps, glaring. They remain silent.

— And you dug for the Wagnerites?

"Yes, we dug the first ones for them. Back in the winter. Over there, by the wall," the "senior" gravedigger waves his hand toward the fence.

— When were the first ones buried?

— In February. First there were five, then twelve, and then it just kept going.

“There’s another cemetery with them,” the red-haired man adds.

— In Novosibirsk?

"No, somehow...there is a city," he wrinkles his forehead. "Not ours, no."

"They'll be installing a stele here soon," the bristly man points to a spot near the lonely grave of a fallen Wagnerite. "They've already done it somewhere."

- Yes, Prigozhin told me here that it was in Baku and near Yekaterinburg.

"Well, that'll be the case with us soon. They'll bury them here, and then they'll tear down the fence and bury them there."

The gravedigger points to the still empty block in front of the dead and to the forest behind the fence.
- Do you think there will be so many more?
"Of course, they'll bury everyone here. They're saying on TV that our boys don't die," the first one suddenly grins.
- So, you say you can’t film...
- No need to show them, they are all here.
— So that they can see that there are victims.
"How could they not be there? Missiles are flying at them. And they're silent on TV about them dying. Where would they be? Not with the crests in Mariupol, surely? The Ministry of Defense has already captured Wagner," blurts out the most talkative one.
- When?
"Yes, just yesterday or the day before. Now they'll have everything, both ammunition and equipment. The way the boys were walking—" and he figuratively tears the air on his chest instead of his shirt. "It won't be like that now..."
— Are your relatives coming?
"Yes, they come, stand quietly for a while, and then leave. But don't put them on the internet, you don't have to..."

To date, seven or eight mass graves of Wagner mercenaries are known to exist in Russian cemeteries. Wagner runners are also known to scour Russia's cities and towns in search of burial plots. Not everywhere does this almost official burial protocol for PMC dead apply, as in Novosibirsk, Berezovsky, and Bakinskaya. As funeral directors told me, Wagner representatives often approach local authorities indirectly, offering funeral homes "a contract and guaranteed payment from the PMC for Wagner mercenary burial services" in exchange for lobbying officials for cemetery plots.

They say not everyone agrees. They're also afraid. There's only one war. There's only one Prigozhin. There's only one Putin. Only the armies are different. The Armed Forces of the Ministry of Defense are legal, but the Wagner PMC is not. And then, further down the line, who knows what the "order" from Wagner might turn out to be? That's how we live. We send people to die with orchestras. We bury them secretly.

Irina Krasnova. Photo by the author