A biathlon complex is planned to be built on the site of a former NKVD training ground in Yekaterinburg. Thousands of executed prisoners are buried there.
The biathlon world champion and State Duma deputy put forward the initiative to build a huge complex four years ago. Anton ShipulinThis weekend he saidthat the project has already received a positive expert opinion and has even been approved Vladimir Putin.
«All that's left is to find the money, and we can start building."," Match TV quotes him as saying.
At the same time, journalists from the Sverdlovsk publication “It’s My City” remindedthat construction is planned on the territory of a former NKVD training ground, where repressed residents were buried in the 1930s.
According to estimates by the Ural Memorial, its area reaches 192 hectares, where human remains still lie. The exact number of buried victims of political terror is unknown. According to the historian Alexey Mosin, their maybe several tens of thousands.
Back in the 1960s, part of the training ground was built as a biathlon base for the Dynamo sports club, which was headed by security officers. It was then that excavators uncovered the first bones.
«In 1990, a partial exhumation was conducted in a small area, approximately one meter by one meter. The remains of 31 individuals were found in such a small area, and the density of burials is astonishing.“,” Mosin emphasizes.
After Deputy Shipulin announced the idea of building a new biathlon complex, excavations were conducted on a 5-hectare site. These excavations revealed 49 burial pits containing the remains of two thousand people.
Almost all the skulls had bullet holes in them. Personal belongings of the repressed were also found there.
Photo: It's My City