Communist Party of the Russian Federation Crimean Republican branch. Communist Party of the Russian Federation Crimean Republican Branch What happened on October 3, 1993

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 Rutskoi. 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 Russian government 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 carried 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 hotel "Ukraine" 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. Defenders shoot 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 fire.”

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) as a reward each, riot policemen were given twice 200 thousand rubles (approximately 330 dollars), ordinary 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”!)

Thousands of corpses of ordinary Muscovites killed at the White House and Ostankino were secretly burned in crematoria for several days

The authorities prefer not to mention the massacre of October 3-4, 1993 in Moscow. But they cannot be erased from human memory. Therefore, we have been told for 20 years that in those days, they say, the Democrats, led by President Boris Yeltsin, heroically fought for freedom and the Constitution guaranteeing it. And they won a final victory over the opponents of market reforms: Vice President Alexander RUTSKY and Chairman of the Supreme Council Ruslan Khasbulatov, who allegedly wanted to take power from the president and rule the country. As for the victims, they were fascists, communist fanatics, militants and outcasts, and only 160 people were killed.

October 1993 Overview.

Express Gazeta never sang along to this deceitful cynical chorus and sought to convey the truth about the tragedy.

Two years of Yeltsin's reforms, which began in August 1991, lowered all workers to the bottom of social life and elevated to a pedestal those people who were known as "shadow workers", speculators and swindlers. In that first parliament they did not run. They did not see the point in breaking away from the opportunities that had opened up for legal robbery at the talking shop. Therefore, the parliament of 1991 consisted not of one party nomenklatura, but mainly of people of hired labor, who were put forward in hot battles by labor collectives. In a word, it turned out to be the only one since 1917 and to this day truly democratic - elected by the population without "carousels" and juggling. Most people sincerely believed that a democratically elected president and a parliament that toppled the communist-talker Mikhail Gorbachev would change lives for the better. But it happened differently.
Black days of Russia

In August 1993, Yeltsin and Khasbulatov became sworn enemies because of predatory reforms, and the president warned the people through the media: “We are now preparing artillery. The decisive battle will take place in October. Photo: RIA Novosti

Reasons for the protest

Those born in the early 90s cannot even imagine what an avalanche of troubles fell on the heads of their parents and grandparents.

On January 1, 1992, Yegor Gaidar's "shock therapy" broke out: the introduction of a 28 percent value-added tax and price liberalization. In a matter of days, the population became impoverished: savings turned into dust, salaries, pensions and benefits depreciated. There was no work: factories and collective farms either stopped or could not pay their workers. The time of barter and criminal business has begun. Russia has turned into a country of godfathers and brothers - all cemeteries are littered with the graves of unemployed youth who have joined their ranks. Already in the spring, the very concept of creative labor has sunk into oblivion, along with the constitutional right to its guaranteed payment. The Soviet "leveling" was replaced by "scam" - domestic and state. And then, when half the country, straining, shuttled, dragging back and forth everything that they hoped to resell and carve out at least some pennies for the family, the officers shot because they had nothing to feed their children, and hard workers and pensioners waited for months for a salary , started voucher privatization Chubais. The robbed population was given pieces of paper with the right to a share in the ownership of state-owned enterprises. And almost immediately, rogues like Roman Abramovich and figureheads from the bureaucracy and crime rushed to buy them for nothing. People sold "candy wrappers" because they were afraid to be left with nothing at all.
Black days of Russia

For 20 years the Russians were drummed that on October 3-4, 1993, the authorities did not kill people, but simply fired bullets at the White House, aiming at the windows of empty offices in order to frighten the opposition.

Life got even harder. Kindergartens disappeared, turning into offices. Villages were deserted, cattle went to slaughter, fertile fields were empty. Russia had never seen such a number of homeless, hungry children even during the war. Many spent the night in the sewers and were addicted to drugs. Prostitution flourished, including for children.

On July 26, 1993, the Central Bank of Russia decided to withdraw banknotes of the 1961-1992 model from circulation. It was, in fact, a confiscatory reform: under the auspices of the fight against inflation, but really to force the CIS countries to abandon payments in rubles and get used to the dollar, Russians were again robbed in the midst of holidays. Prices began to rise at an even faster rate. Having increased, according to clearly underestimated official statistics, by 9.8 times a year!

Academician Tatyana Zaslavskaya, a great supporter of reforms, who at that time was part of the administration of President Yeltsin, admitted a decade and a half later that in just three years of shock therapy in Russia, 12 million middle-aged men alone had died! But that autumn, it was rushing from the TV screens: we were finally given freedom, and the Russian people, accustomed to Soviet slavery, are not able to use it. Everyday cynical mockery got the population so tired that a significant part of it could really rebel - just bring a match.

Demonstration execution

All two years the parliament tried to resist the avalanche of predatory liberal reforms aimed at one thing - the legalization of "stuck" during privatization. The Constitution prevented crooks. The nascent oligarchy had to urgently change the basic law of Russia, which declared land and subsoil to be the property of not “effective owners”, but of the whole people and gave considerable rights to their elected authorities. Especially the Supreme Council.

One of the first to publicly oppose, first, pro-Western liberal reforms, and then personally to Yeltsin, was his former ally, the head of the Supreme Soviet, Ruslan Khasbulatov.

A mockery of history, but former supporters of Yeltsin concentrated around Khasbulatov, many of whom supported him during the putsch on August 21, 1991. They realized that under the guise of "democracy and reforms" Boris Nikolayevich was organizing the genocide of his own people, transferring the country under the control of Western creditors and advisers IMF.
Black days of Russia

Since March 1992, people robbed by the state gathered near the Kremlin every day, and the authorities did not disperse them - they waited for the revolutionary situation to mature

Since the end of August, at the House of Soviets - and I myself saw it - the employees of research institutes, workers, former collective farmers, teachers, doctors, retired officers, representatives of small and medium-sized businesses, students and pensioners, deceived in their hopes, were on duty in shifts. Many specially came to Moscow from different parts of humiliated and impoverished Russia. How many of them were killed on October 3-4, 1993 - we will not know for sure.

One thing is clear: the so-called shooting of the "White House" is a demonstrative public execution, a cold-blooded act of intimidation of all those who naively believed that the people had at least some significance for this government.
Chronicle of two terrible days

14.00 Ten-thousand rally on October Square. Supporters of the parliament headed towards the Crimean bridge. In front of the bridge, a certain group of young people, walking with a column, pulled out cobblestones from their bags and began to throw them at the policemen from the cordon. Those in response launched "Bird cherry" and batons.

At 15:00, the Ministry of Internal Affairs received an order to open fire to kill. 26 civilians and two policemen were killed. But the giant column broke through the barrier and crossed the bridge. Rejoicing, people threw "trophy" police shields and batons into the river and rejoiced that frightened police scurried ahead of the column. The demonstrators did not suspect that they were being escorted into a trap. Before the cordon at the House of Soviets, the police suddenly disappeared, and the demonstrators almost without any problems ended up at the "White House".

15.30 The garrison of the House of Soviets received an order from Khasbulatov and Rutskoi: not to shoot under any circumstances.
Black days of Russia

The people - both unbelievers and believers - protested against the Yeltsin junta. But the media to this day assure the Russians that the parliament was defended only by fascists and outcasts, and killing them without trial or investigation is a feat

15.45 Yeltsin's divisions began firing from the City Hall - the former building of the CMEA. They were joined from the rooftops of the Mir and Ukraine hotels by snipers from the Israeli Jericho Special Forces and soldiers in civilian clothes from Beitar, a youth Jewish sports and paramilitary organization. Aimed at passers-by, women and children. Later, the Beitarovites went out into the street and shot the defenders of the parliament under the cover of an armored personnel carrier of the division named after. Dzerzhinsky.

After sniper shots from rooftops in the back by an unarmed soldier of the Sofrino brigade of internal troops, which consisted of 350 people arrived to help the police, almost all of its fighters went over to the side of the parliament on the orders of the commander. There are still disputes: was it Colonel Vasiliev's answer to the loss of two of his subordinates who fell under "friendly fire", or a trick that allowed the Sofrins to join the ranks of the rebels as "their own", and then act according to the situation and complete the task - provoke a massacre and destroy the demonstrators. One way or another, but in the "White House" the Sofrinsky defectors were believed.

16.00 Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev ordered the army units to join the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Yeltsin signed Decree No. 1575 and freed the army from criminal liability. 16.05 Rutskoi called on the people to storm the mayor's office and Ostankino. Five floors of City Hall were taken in a matter of minutes without a single shot being fired. Surrendered seven servicemen of the Dzerzhinsky division, a major of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and several guards. Everyone was released. Supporters of the Armed Forces became convinced that the army and police, following the example of the Sofrins, would not shoot at the people.

According to the instructions of Mikhail Poltoranin, to whom all the media were subordinate, Yeltsin's opponents were not given a word on radio and television. His order read: “... besides freedom of speech, there are more important things. I ask you to accept very calmly the events that will take place on October 4, 1993.”
Black days of Russia

After the search of the surrendered defenders of the database, people will be sent to the Krasnaya Presnya stadium: some will be sprayed, some will go to jail or be released on a non-disclosure agreement. Photo: RIA Novosti

16.30 Rutskoi, not listening to the protests of the deputies, forms columns at Ostankino. It is still unknown how empty trucks with keys in the ignition got in the way of the supporters of the parliament.

17.00 At the television center, a rally began for the provision of air. Moreover, the police guarding the television center opened the gates to trucks with people. There were already submachine gunners in its halls. For two hours they held the rebels at gunpoint, none of the leaders of the channels came out to the strikers.

19.00 The protesters went to another TV building. And then they started shooting at people who were in the gap between the two buildings from machine guns. All these years we were told that the fire was opened after the murder of the video engineer by the protesters, but it has been proven that they did not have the weapon from which the bullet was fired.

19.45 TV broadcasting stopped. The road to the television center "Ostankino" was blocked by parts of the division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on trucks and armored personnel carriers. Even ambulances and paramedics with stretchers were shelled.

According to official figures, 46 people died here. According to information received in the course of independent investigations, over 500. In the pauses between the fire, the living were seized and taken away somewhere - journalists to Matrosskaya Tishina. The wounded were killed. An unarmed boy in Cossack clothes was previously shot through the arms and legs.

On the anniversary of the bloody October, the families of thousands of victims took to the streets, demanding an investigation into the crime. In vain!

00.10 In support of several thousand supporters of Yeltsin, at the call of Yegor Gaidar, who gathered at the Moscow City Council, actress Lilya Akhedzhakova literally screamed on Central Television: “…the damned Constitution… Where does this army come from? Why doesn't it protect us from this accursed Constitution?... My friends! Wake up! Do not sleep! Our unfortunate Motherland is in danger! We are threatened with terrible things. (Now she no longer remembers this) The communists will come again! And Grigory Yavlinsky on the RTR channel demanded: “I call on all the forces that have not lost their conscience and whose minds have not been clouded to join the security forces, the forces of order, the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and defend the future.”

04.30 The movement of troops, equipment and police forces to the House of Soviets began. In an hour, the troops of the Taman division, the 119th parachute regiment, the Kantemirovskaya division, the division of Dzerzhinsky, the Smolensk OMON, the Tula division of the Airborne Forces were pulled together.

At 0650 hours, the first shots were fired near the House of Soviets, as supporters of the parliament started throwing Molotov cocktails at the approaching APCs. One car caught fire, volunteers dismounted from it - Afghan veterans who spoke on the side of Yeltsin. They tried to take cover behind the trees. But then the Tamans saw armed men in civilian clothes, mistook them for the defenders of the "White House" and opened fire. The commanders of the crews of four armored personnel carriers of the internal troops, marching towards the square from the other side, considered that they were shooting at the opposition armored personnel carriers. And they started firing indiscriminately. The Tamans decided that they were going to help the rebels and opened fire on them. As a result of this exchange of fire, the driver of the "Afghan" truck, the commander and private of two armored personnel carriers were killed, many were wounded. Following the confusion, the Dzerzhinsk and paratroopers of the 119th regiment entered into battle with each other. Two people died, several were injured. After another three hours, the Tamanians met with fire two armored personnel carriers of the internal troops division. The total result - nine corpses, dozens of wounded, six burnt armored personnel carriers.

Black days of Russia

Unequal battle: tens of thousands of Muscovites tried to break through to help the besieged parliament

At 0800, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles began to shoot barricades, then moved on unarmed people who had been on duty on the square all night, and opened aimed fire at the windows of the House of Soviets.

10.00 Tanks of the Taman division began shelling the "White House". According to the official data of the Ministry of Defense, 12 tank shells were used during its assault: 10 high-explosive fragmentation and 2 sub-caliber shells. Rutskoi ordered that no return fire be fired, hoping to bring the elderly, women and children out of the burning building. But his numerous requests were ignored. Snipers fired from the roofs of residential buildings, hotels "Mir" and "Ukraine" - both at the defenders of the House of Soviets, in which the troops were "cleansing", and at the military in order to arouse rage in them. Snipers fired at the windows of nearby residential buildings - so that the residents would not stare and there would be fewer witnesses.

At the time of the attack, there were about 10,000 people in the White House, including women and children. According to the Memorial organization, some of the corpses killed in the database were destroyed in crematoria without paperwork, some were secretly buried at one of the military training grounds in the Moscow region. People who made their way through the yards to the House of Soviets or from it were killed by riot police and raped in the entrances. 60 people fell into one of these traps in Glubokoye lane. As the legendary weightlifter Yuri Vlasov established, everyone was killed after being tortured, women were stripped naked and raped before being shot.

14.30 The first surrendered people left the House of Soviets.

15.30 Government troops resumed artillery and machine gun fire.

16.45 Mass exit of hundreds of people began from the House of Soviets. They walked between the two rows of soldiers, holding their hands behind their heads. They were herded into buses and taken away to be sorted at the Krasnaya Presnya stadium. A temporary concentration camp was set up here for 600 people selected from the surrendered defenders of the House of Soviets. From the evening of October 4, people were shot all night long. From time to time someone was released. At about five in the morning the Cossacks were shot. According to Anatoly Baronenko, a deputy from the Chelyabinsk region, about 300 people were killed at the stadium, including schoolchildren and female doctors, who became hysterical from what they saw.

5:30 p.m. Rutskoi, Khasbulatov and Makashov asked the Western European ambassadors accredited in Russia to give them security guarantees. Half an hour later, all three were arrested.

19.10 Fire trucks drove up to the burning House of Soviets. The smell of burning and charred bodies the wind drove around Moscow all night. The cleaning of the floors of the "White House" continued. Looting and mockery of corpses began in it and on the streets. Shots in the center of the capital sounded all night.

Detective Ending

The next morning, the center of Moscow was rumored: a 75-year-old pensioner, a war veteran who lived not far from the Krasnopresnensky stadium, saved eight guys: risking her life, she carried the wounded on herself and dragged her to her apartment.

Okudzhava admitted:“For me, this (the shooting of the House of Soviets. - E.K.) was the final of the detective story. I enjoyed it. I could not stand these people, and even in this situation, I had absolutely no pity for them. Under the songs of such jubilant Judas, Yeltsin cleaned up the traces of the crime.

Starting from October 5, in the crematoria of the Nikolo-Arkhangelsky and Khovansky cemeteries, “corpses in bags” were burned for three nights in a row. In the first, the remains of 200 unidentified people were cremated, in the second - 300. On October 9, 201 unidentified corpses were taken from the mortuary of the Sklifosovsky Institute in an unknown direction.

So what did the Yeltsin rebellion cost? According to official figures, 146 people died in two days. But there is a document that refutes them. The official certificate for 1993, signed by the Deputy Prosecutor of Moscow and the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, mentions more than 2,200 unidentified corpses cremated in 1993 in the city of Moscow. For comparison, in the whole of 1992, only about 180 unidentified corpses were found in the capital, and in 1994 - 110.

It turns out that over two thousand Muscovites were shot in the city center in a couple of days. But not a single person from the Yeltsin gang has yet appeared before the court.

Quotes

We disagreed with Yeltsin not on the Constitution, but on economic policy. Half-witted Harvard specialists arrived and imposed on Yeltsin the so-called criterion of the Washington Consensus - those same liberal reforms. I was against it. Because I am a professional economist and I have known for a long time that this consensus has already failed once. Are you crazy, I say? I then spoke with Camdessus, the president of the IMF. So, you know what he told me? "You'll regret it!" So he said. It's been 20 years! The United Nations set up a commission led by Nobel laureate Stiglis. He wrote a report whose main conclusion was: "The Washington Consensus doomed the world ... to a crisis." World sensation! And not a single one, sorry, we don’t talk about this and don’t remember that I criticized this concept as soon as it was offered to us! We wanted to gouge and did it.

Ruslan Khasbulatov, Chairman of the RF Armed Forces

In October 1993, the Rostov OMON arrived in Moscow. I ask: "Why are you following a criminal order?" They answer: “Two mu...a are fighting for power. One is Russian, the other is Chechen. So we better support the Russian.” They supported not the law, but the Russian Boris. If instead of Khasbulatov there was a Russian, perhaps everything would have turned out differently.

Andrey DUNAEV, Minister of Internal Affairs

After interrogating a thousand military personnel, we received the following evidence: no peace negotiations were conducted between the events of October 3 and 4 - an order was given to storm immediately ... In the pause between what happened on October 3 and what happened on October 4, no one warned people who remained in the "White House", about the beginning of the shelling and assault. Consequently, the events of October 4 must be qualified as a crime committed on the basis of revenge in a way that is dangerous to the lives of many, from base motives.

Alexey KAZANNIK, Prosecutor General

I gave the command to the 119th regiment to storm. They opened the doors, they shot there. Well, they put a lot of these ... No one considered them simply. Many.

Pavel GRACHEV, Minister of Defense

They hit the meeting room with direct fire, and they hit with high-explosive shells, and not with blanks, as they say today. From blanks the building will not burn. There were rivers of blood, guts on the walls, severed heads. I saw it all.

Alexander RUTSKOI, Vice President

When I ran through the building with some task, I was horrified by the amount of blood, corpses, torn bodies. Severed hands, heads. A shell hits: part of the person here, part there ... When it was already dawn, they began to slowly descend into the street. When I opened the door, I almost passed out. The whole yard was littered with corpses, not very often, like in a checkerboard pattern. The corpses are all in some unusual positions: some are sitting, some are on their sides, some have their arms raised, some have legs, and all are blue and yellow. I think what is unusual in this picture? And they are all naked, all naked.

Vyacheslav KOTELNIKOV, MP

The massacre was controlled from the US embassy

Leonid PROSHKIN was the head of the investigation team on the criminal cases initiated by the Prosecutor General's Office - the seizure of the Moscow mayor's office and the attempted seizure of the Ostankino television center. He remained silent for 20 years and did not give a single interview about the results of the investigation, many of which are still classified as secret. Express Gazeta turned out to be the first and so far the only publication that managed to get sensational details from Proshkin.

It must be borne in mind that 126 dead and 384 wounded from the official list are entirely on the conscience of supporters of the then President Boris Yeltsin, Proshkin sighs heavily. - The investigation proved that not a single person was killed from the weapons of the defenders of the "White House".

White House defenders say the massacre was controlled from the US embassy.

Well, I'm talking about the same. But I have no proof. As well as the fact that among the snipers there were fighters from the Israeli Beitar. They also talked about "white tights" - snipers who appeared in Chechnya. But we were not allowed to do so.

The operation to protect Ostankino from the "rebels" was led by police general Pavel Golubets. But he was just a deputy in personnel and in hostilities - a complete stump! .. When one of Makashov's guards was hooked by a shot from the television center, a powerful explosion was heard immediately at the breach where the ASK-3 doors had been. Shrapnel wounded those standing nearby. At the same time, an explosion also occurred on the first floor of the building. He was mistaken for a shot from an RPG-7V1 grenade launcher, which the attackers had. Yeltsin wrote in his book that it was after this fatal shot from a grenade launcher that the defenders of Ostankino were forced to open fire on the attackers.
Black days of Russia

Leonid PROSHKIN

And there was no shot from a grenade launcher! We proved this by conducting an experiment at the training ground of the division. Dzerzhinsky with the participation of specialists from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The RPG-7V1 grenade launcher has a huge burning power and breaks through a half-meter concrete wall, and there were no such destructions in the ASK-3 building. What happened next - just does not fit in my head. People were hit with heavy fire. Makashovtsy immediately retreated, there were random people left - from those who joined the crowd: people from public transport who were dropped off by provocateurs, journalists. There are shots: an armored personnel carrier drives in a circle and shoots.

Who robbed the House of Soviets after the fire?

The investigation team was provided with an estimate of damage in the amount of more than 367 million rubles! They robbed the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. They turned everything upside down, took out everything clean - dishes, paintings, office equipment, televisions.

The same picture was in the building of the mayor's office, the former CMEA, where many commercial structures were located. The building was controlled by the Leningrad OMON. When his fighters left, the investigators entered the building and saw that all the offices had been opened. There are traces of riot police boots on the wooden doors, the safes have been broken into. But most importantly, they stole almost a thousand barrels of weapons. For all these facts, we initiated criminal cases. Yeltsin did not like the results. The whole case was closed. Nobody took responsibility.

Provocations in the White House arranged by KGB officers

Vice President of the Association of Political Experts and Consultants, Executive Secretary of the Izborsk Club Alexander NAGORNY was one of the last to leave the White House. Later, he repeatedly tried to analyze the events of those days and always came to the conclusion that there was nothing accidental then. Each step of both the attackers and the defenders of the parliament was directed from the same offices.

The militants of the "Russian National Unity", led by Barkashov, appeared in the "White House" on the fifth day of the siege. And almost everyone left at one in the morning on Monday, October 4, ”recalls Alexander Nagorny. - At first they did not want to let them inside the building. And they wouldn’t let them in if it weren’t for General Philip Bobkov, who had a huge influence on the leaders of the “putsch”, the former first deputy chairman of the KGB of the USSR, and at that time the head of the analytical department of the MOST Group holding JSC, a subordinate of Vladimir Gusinsky. On July 20, he settled in a special room on the fifth floor in the database. And he disappeared from there on October 4, when the events unfolded according to the desired scenario and they no longer needed to be corrected.
Black days of Russia

Barkashov and his "swastika knights" were needed in the "White House" to persuade Bill Clinton. He twice in a conversation with Moscow demanded that they not start an assault, otherwise there would be no support. And then they put a photo of people with a swastika on the table: oh, you don’t allow shooting at the house on Presnya ?! Then these people will come to power and pogroms will begin!

By the way, today no one can show a written order to open fire on the database.

At half past six on Monday morning, Valery Krasnov, the head of Rutskoi's secretariat, a career KGB officer, escaped from the database, throughout the siege slipped the boss completely different texts of speeches that the advisers wrote to him. It is his actions that explain many of the absurdities of the general's behavior when Rutskoi spoke three times from the "peak" of the "White House" and three times read calls to storm Ostankino according to the text written by Krasnov!

On October 6, the summary of incidents lying on the tables of Interior Ministry Chief Viktor Yerin and Internal Troops Commander Anatoly Kulikov reported: “... At one in the morning on October 5, an armed attack was made on the building of the ITAR-TASS news agency by a group of people in military uniform. The OMON company of air transport, called to help by the guards, struck at a group of attackers. The lieutenant colonel who commanded the attack was killed. A wounded senior lieutenant who was taken prisoner said that he belonged to a special unit based in the General Staff. And that at 10 pm they received an order to shell a number of objects in Moscow in order to destabilize the political situation ... "

The bodies of the dead were hauled away by truck

This frame from the TV series "Brigada" is the only feature film where, albeit briefly, they showed the results of the Yeltsin rebellion. We supplemented this frame from the series with real memories of a participant in the events, a truck driver of one of the collective farms near Moscow ":" ... At about 9 o'clock in the evening, 12 people of some kind of rabble with shovels and crowbars were put into my car. We drove into the Krasnaya Presnya stadium, and near the wall they began to select the dead. There were many of them, and all young. In the back, under the lanterns, the dead were searched and undressed.
Black days of Russia

To the question of the captain, my cabin neighbor: “Did you see how much?” - the answer “61” was heard. After the car took the corpses out of the city, a second flight took place. As soon as we arrived at the “White House” at 1:30, or rather, to the house next to it with a large arch, the car was driven into the yard and they began to collect dead people in the square of the yard. Most of them were stripped to the waist, especially in the entrances ... When they said in the back that 42 corpses had been picked up, including 6 children, 13 women and 23 men, the car started off along the ring road.

After this flight, the driver, according to him, abandoned the truck and fled.

How many lives did the 1993 massacre claim? To the 20th anniversary of the tragic events

And the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother?... And he said, What have you done? the voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground (Gen. 4:9, 10)

Twenty years separate us from the tragic autumn of 1993. But the main question of those bloody events still remains unanswered - how many lives did the October massacre claim in total? In 2010, the book Forgotten Victims of October 1993 was published, where, by virtue of his abilities, the author tried to get closer to the solution. The purpose of this article is to acquaint the indifferent reader, first of all, with those facts that, for various reasons, were not reflected in the book, or were discovered recently.

Briefly about the formal essence of the problem. The official list of the dead, presented on July 27, 1994 by the investigation team of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia, includes 147 people: in Ostankino - 45 civilians and 1 military personnel, in the "White House area" - 77 civilians and 24 military personnel of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Former investigator of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia Leonid Georgievich Proshkin, who worked in 1993-95 as part of the investigative-operational group investigating the October events, stated that on October 3-4, 1993, at least 123 civilians were killed and at least 348 people were injured. Somewhat later, he clarified that we could talk about at least 124 dead. Leonid Georgievich explained that he used the term “at least” because he admits “the possibility of a slight increase in the number of victims due to unidentified ... dead and wounded citizens.” “I admit,” he clarified, “that for various reasons several people could not be on our list, maybe three or five.”

Even a superficial examination of the official list raises a number of questions. Of the 122 civilians officially declared dead, only 18 are residents of other regions of Russia and neighboring countries, the rest, not counting a few dead citizens from far abroad, are residents of the Moscow region. It is known that quite a few non-residents came to defend the parliament, including those from rallies at which lists of volunteers were compiled. But loners prevailed, some of them came to Moscow behind the scenes.

They were led to the House of Soviets by pain for Russia: rejection of the betrayal of national interests, the criminalization of the economy, the policy of curtailing industrial and agricultural production, the imposition of alien "values", propaganda of corruption. In the days of the blockade, old women were on duty at the fires - they recalled the war, partisan detachments. On the morning of October 4, they were among the first to be shot by stormtroopers. “How many familiar faces we have not met for the fifth year at our meetings of twin brothers,” journalist N.I. wrote in 1998. Gorbachev. - Who are they all? Out-of-towners who have gone home or missing? A lot of them. And this is only from our acquaintances.

On October 4, 1993, many hundreds of mostly unarmed people found themselves in the House of Soviets and in its immediate vicinity. And starting from about 6 hours 40 minutes in the morning, their mass destruction began.

The first casualties near the parliament building appeared when the defenders' symbolic barricades broke through the armored personnel carriers, opening fire to kill. However, Pavel Yuryevich Bobryashov, even before the start of the attack by armored personnel carriers, noticed a man on the roof of the building of the American embassy. When that man stopped, another bullet struck at the feet of the barricades. Here is the chronology of the execution, compiled by Eduard Anatolyevich Korenev, an eyewitness defender of the Supreme Council: “6 hours 45 minutes. Two armored personnel carriers passed under the windows, an elderly man came out to them with an accordion. At rallies and demonstrations, he sang and played lyrical songs, ditties, dance songs, many knew him as Sasha the harmonist. Before he had time to move away from the entrance, he was shot at point-blank range from an armored personnel carrier. At 6:50 a.m. A guy in a leather jacket with a white rag in his hand came out of the tent near the barricade, went to the armored personnel carriers, said something there for about a minute, turned back, walked 25 meters away and fell down, mowed down by a burst. 6 hours 55 minutes A massive fire begins on the unarmed defenders of the barricade. People are running and crawling across the square and across the square, carrying the wounded. Machine guns of armored personnel carriers shoot at them, and machine guns from behind the towers. One armored personnel carrier cuts them off from the entrance with a burst, they jump into the front garden, and immediately another armored personnel carrier covers them with a burst. A boy of about seventeen, hiding behind a Kamaz, crawled towards the wounded man writhing on the grass; they are both shot with multiple barrels. 7:00 a.m. Without any warning, armored personnel carriers begin shelling the House of Soviets.

“In front of our eyes, armored personnel carriers shot unarmed old women, young people who were in tents and near them,” recalled Lieutenant V.P. Shubochkin. - We saw how a group of orderlies ran to the wounded colonel, but two of them were killed. A few minutes later, the sniper also finished off the colonel. A volunteer doctor says: “Two orderlies were killed on the spot while trying to pick up the wounded from the street, near the twentieth entrance. Those wounded were also shot point-blank. We didn’t even have time to find out the names of the boys in white coats, they looked to be eighteen years old. Deputy RS Mukhamadiev witnessed how women in white coats ran out of the parliament building. They were holding white handkerchiefs in their hands. But as soon as they bend down to help the man lying in the blood, they were cut off by bullets from a heavy machine gun. “The girl who bandaged our wounded,” Sergey Korzhikov testifies, “died. The first wound was in the stomach, but she survived. In this state, she tried to crawl to the door, but the second bullet hit her in the head. So she remained lying in a white medical coat, covered in blood.

Journalist Irina Taneeva, not yet fully aware that the assault was beginning, observed the following from the window of the House of Soviets: Three BMDs ran into the bus from three sides at breakneck speed and shot him. The bus burst into flames. People tried to get out of there and immediately fell dead, slain by the dense fire of the BMD. Blood. Nearby Zhiguli, full of people, were also shot and burned. Everyone died."

Moscow State University teacher Sergei Petrovich Surnin was not far from the eighth entrance of the White House at the time of the beginning of the assault. “Between the overpass and the corner of the building,” he recalled, “there were about 30-40 people hiding from the armored personnel carriers that started shooting in our direction. Suddenly, from the rear of the building in front of the balcony there was a strong shooting. Everyone lay down, everyone was unarmed, they lay quite tightly. Armored personnel carriers passed us and from a distance of 12-15 meters they shot those lying - one third of those lying nearby were killed or wounded. Moreover, in the immediate vicinity of me - three dead, two wounded: next to me, to my right, a dead man, another dead behind me, 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 everyone that was in the way. Those who climbed here were lucky, a strong bearing wall saved them from a deadly squall. Others were less fortunate. Here and there, lying parts of human bodies, splashes of blood on the walls spoke of many things. Assessing the situation, the leader of the group ordered Kuznetsov and the “thin guy” to go down. The rest "in smoke and dust began to climb up."

There were many victims in the second entrance of the White House (one of the tank shells hit the basement).

In a conversation with the editor-in-chief of the Zavtra newspaper A. Prokhanov, Major General of the Ministry of Defense said that, according to his data, 64 shots were fired from tanks. Part of the ammunition was a volumetric explosion, which caused huge destruction and casualties among the defenders of Parliament.

Not far from the first-aid post in the eighth entrance, where T.I. Kartintseva provided assistance to the wounded, a shell hit one of the rooms. When they broke down the door into that room, they saw that everything there had burned out and turned into black-and-gray "cotton wool". Human rights activist Yevgeny Vladimirovich Yurchenko, while in the White House during the shelling, saw two offices where everything was folded inward, into a heap, after shells hit it.

According to the writer N.F. Ivanov and major-general of militia V.S. Ovchinsky (in 1992-1995 assistant to the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs E.A. film camera and walked through many offices. The captured film is stored in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Vladimir Semyonovich Ovchinsky recalls: “On October 5, 1993, the head of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs showed the heads of various departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs a film that the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had made immediately after the arrest of deputies, leaders of the Supreme Council. She was the first to enter the burning building of the White House. And I myself saw this film from beginning to end. It is about 45 minutes. They walked through the burned-out offices, and the comments were as follows: “There was a safe in this place, now there is a melted spot, metal, in this place there was another safe - here is a melted spot.” And there were about ten such comments. From this, I conclude that in addition to ordinary blanks, they fired shaped charges, which burned everything in some offices along with people. And there were not 150 corpses, but much more. They lay in piles, littered with ice, on the basement floor in black bags. It's also on tape. And this was said by the employees who entered the building of the White House after the assault. I testify to this, even on the constitution, even on the Bible.

In addition to the shelling of the parliament building from tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, automatic and sniper fire, which lasted all day, executions were carried out both in the White House and around it, both the immediate defenders of the parliament and citizens who accidentally found themselves in the combat zone.

According to the written testimony of a former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the eighth and twentieth entrances from the first to the third floors, the riot police massacred the defenders of the parliament: they cut, finished off the wounded, and raped women. The captain of the 1st rank, Viktor Konstantinovich Kashintsev, testifies: “At about 2.30 p.m. a guy from the third floor made his way to us, covered in blood, squeezed out through sobs: “They open the rooms downstairs with grenades and shoot everyone, he survived, because he was unconscious, apparently, they took him for the dead.” One can only guess about the fate of most of the wounded left in the White House. “For some reason, the wounded were dragged from the lower floors to the upper ones,” recalled a man from A.V. Rutskoy’s entourage. Then they could just finish off.

Many were shot or beaten to death after they left the parliament building. They tried to drive those who came out from the side of the embankment through the yard and the entrances of the house along Glubokoy Lane. “In the entrance, where they pushed us,” I.V. Savelyeva testifies, “it was full of people. There were screams from the upper floors. Everyone was searched, their jackets and coats were torn off - they were looking for servicemen and policemen (those who were on the side of the defenders of the House of Soviets), they were immediately taken away somewhere ... When we were shot, a policeman - the defender of the House of Soviets - was wounded. Someone shouted over the riot police radio: “Do not shoot at the entrances! Who will clean up the corpses?!” The shooting did not stop on the street.

A group of 60-70 civilians who left the White House after 7 p.m. were led by riot police along the embankment to Nikolaev Street and, having led them into the yards, they were brutally beaten, and then finished off with automatic bursts. Four managed to run into the entrance of one of the houses, where they hid for about a day. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Nikolaevich Romanov was brought into the yard with a group of prisoners. There he saw a large pile of "rags". I looked closely - the corpses of the executed. The shooting intensified in the yard, and the convoy was distracted. Alexander Nikolaevich managed to run to the arch and leave the yard. Viktor Kuznetsov, with a group of people hiding under 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 Makashov's bodyguards... On October 3 we went to Ostankino... We arrived at Ostankino at 3 o'clock in the morning to the Supreme Soviet. 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, fire would be opened on the women to kill. He took me to three Beytar soldiers armed with sniper rifles. When they saw the badge of the "Union of Officers" and a 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... There were 5 of us... At night there were constant single shots, beatings of people. It was clearly visible and audible. All entrances were checked at the time of discovery of the defenders of the Supreme Council.

Georgy Georgievich Gusev also ended up in that ill-fated yard. They fired from the opposite wing of the house. People rushed into the loose. Georgy Georgievich hid in one of the entrances until 2 am. At 2 o'clock in the morning, unknown people came and offered to take those who wished out of the zone. Gusev slowed down a little, but when he left the entrance, those unknown people were no longer visible, and the dead were lying near the arch, the first three who responded to the call of strangers. Turning 180 degrees, he hid in the thermal basement, unscrewing the light bulb. I sat in the basement until 5 o'clock in the morning. Finally, when he was released, he saw two people who looked like Beitars. One of them said to the other: "Gusev must be here somewhere." Georgy Georgievich again had to take refuge in one of the entrances of the house. Climbing up to the attic, in the front door and on the floors I saw blood and a lot of scattered clothes.

Judging by the testimony of G.G. Gusev, T.I. Kartintseva, deputy of the Supreme Council I.A. Shashviashvili, in addition to the riot police, in the courtyard and at the entrances of the house along Glubokoe Lane, the detainees were beaten and killed by unknown "in a strange form."

Tamara Ilyinichna Kartintseva, together with some other people who left the House of Soviets, hid in the basement of that house. I had to stand in the water because of a broken heating pipe. According to Tamara Ilyinichna, they ran past, there was a clatter of boots, boots, they were looking for the defenders of the parliament. Suddenly, she heard a dialogue between two punishers:

There's a basement somewhere, they're in the basement.

There is water in the basement. They're still all over there anyway.

Let's throw a grenade!

Yes, well, anyway, we will shoot them - not today, so tomorrow, not tomorrow, so in six months, we will shoot all Russian pigs.

On the morning of October 5, local residents saw many dead in the yards. A few days after the events, the correspondent of the Italian newspaper "L` Unione Sarda" Vladimir Koval examined the entrances of the house on Glubokoe Lane. He found broken teeth and strands of hair, although, as he writes, "it seems to have been cleaned up, even sprinkled with sand in some places."

A tragic fate befell many of those who, on the evening of October 4, left the side of the Asmaral (Krasnaya Presnya) stadium located on the back side of the House of Soviets. The executions at the stadium began in the early evening of October 4, and, according to the residents of the houses adjacent to it, who saw how the detainees were shot, "this bloody bacchanalia continued all night." The first group was driven to the concrete fence of the stadium by submachine gunners in spotted camouflage. An armored personnel carrier drove up and slashed the prisoners with machine-gun fire. In the same place, at dusk, the second group was shot.

Anatoly Leonidovich Nabatov, shortly before leaving the House of Soviets, watched from the window as a large group of people was brought to the stadium, according to Nabatov, 150-200 people, and they were shot at the wall adjacent to Druzhinnikovskaya Street.

Gennady Portnov also almost became a victim of the brutalized riot police. “A prisoner, I walked in the same group with two people's deputies,” he recalled. - They were pulled out of the crowd, and they began to drive us with butts to a concrete fence ... Before my eyes, people were put against the wall and, with some pathological gloating, clip after clip was released into the already dead bodies. The wall itself was slippery with blood. Not at all embarrassed, the riot police tore off the clocks and rings from the dead. There was a hitch and we - the five defenders of the parliament - were left unattended for some time. One young guy rushed to run, but he was instantly laid down with two single shots. Then they brought us three more - "Barkashovites" - and ordered to stand at the fence. One of the “Barkashovites” shouted in the direction of residential buildings: “We are Russians! God is with us!" One of the riot police shot him in the stomach and turned to me.” Gennady was saved by a miracle.

Alexander Alexandrovich Lapin, who spent three days, from the evening of October 4 to October 7, at the stadium “on death row” testifies: “After the House of Soviets fell, its defenders were taken to the wall of the stadium. They separated those who were in Cossack uniforms, in police uniforms, in camouflage, military, who had any party documents. Those who had nothing, like me... were leaned against a tall tree... And we saw how our comrades were shot in the back... Then they drove us into the locker room... We were kept for three days. No food, no water, most importantly, no tobacco. Twenty people."

At night, frantic shooting was repeatedly heard from the stadium and heart-rending cries were heard. Many were shot near the pool. According to a woman who lay all night under one of the private cars that remained on the territory of the stadium, “the dead were dragged to the pool, about twenty meters away, and dumped there.” At 5 am on October 5, Cossacks were still being shot at the stadium.

Yuri Evgenyevich Petukhov, the father of Natasha Petukhova, who was shot on the night of October 3-4 at the television center in Ostankino, testifies: “Early in the morning of October 5, it was still dark, I drove up to the burning White House from the side of the park ... I approached to the cordon of very young tank guys with a photo of my Natasha, and they told me that there were many corpses in the stadium, there are still in the building and in the basement of the White House ... I returned to the stadium and went there from the side of the monument to the victims of 1905. There were a lot of people shot at the stadium. Some of them were without shoes and belts, some were crushed. I was looking for my daughter and went around all the executed and tormented heroes. Yuri Evgenievich specified that the executed were mostly lying along the wall. Among them were many young guys aged about 19, 20, 25 years old. “The look in which they were,” recalled Petukhov, “suggests that before they died, the guys drank dashingly in abundance.” On September 21, 2011, on the Day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, I managed to meet with Yu.E. Petukhov. He noticed that he was able to visit the stadium at about 7 am on October 5, i.e., when the executioners had already left the stadium, but the "orderlies" had not yet arrived. According to him, about 50 corpses were lying along the stadium wall facing Druzhinnikovskaya Street.

Eyewitness accounts make it possible to establish the main firing points in the stadium. The first is the corner of the stadium, facing the beginning of Zamorenov Street and then representing a blank concrete wall. The second is in the right (when viewed from Zamorenov Street) far corner, adjacent to the White House. There is a small swimming pool and not far from it a nook-platform between two light buildings. According to local residents, there the prisoners were stripped to their underwear and shot several people at a time. The third shooting point, judging by the stories of A.L. Nabatov and Yu.E. Petukhov, is along the wall overlooking Druzhinnikovskaya Street.

On the morning of October 5, the entrance to the stadium was closed. On that and subsequent days, as local residents testify, armored personnel carriers drove around there, watering trucks drove in and out to wash off the blood. But on October 12, it started to rain, and "the earth responded with blood" - bloody streams flowed through the stadium. Something was burning at the stadium. There was a sweet smell. They probably burned the clothes of the dead.

When the House of Soviets had not yet burned down, the authorities had already begun to falsify the number of deaths in the October tragedy. Late in the evening of October 4, 1993, an informational message passed in the media: "Europe hopes that the number of victims will be kept to a minimum." The recommendation of the West was heard in the Kremlin.

Early in the morning of October 5, 1993, B.N. Yeltsin called the head of the presidential administration, S.A. Filatov. The following conversation took place between them:

Sergei Alexandrovich, ... for your information, one hundred and forty-six people died during all the days of the rebellion.

It's good that you said, Boris Nikolaevich, otherwise there was a feeling that 700-1500 people died. It would be necessary to print the lists of the dead.

I agree, please fix it.

How many dead were taken to Moscow morgues on October 3-4? In the first days after the October massacre, employees of morgues and hospitals refused to answer the question about the number of dead, referring to an order from the head office. “For two days I called dozens of Moscow hospitals and mortuaries, trying to find out,” Y. Igonin testifies. - They answered openly: “We were forbidden to give out this information.” “I went to hospitals,” recalled another witness. - In the emergency room they answered: “Girl, we were told not to say anything.”

Moscow doctors claimed that as of October 12, 179 corpses of victims of the October massacre had been passed through Moscow morgues. On October 5, GMUM spokesman I.F. Nadezhdin, along with official data on 108 dead, excluding the corpses that still remained in the White House, named another figure - about 450 dead, which needed to be clarified.

However, a large part of the corpses that entered the Moscow morgues soon disappeared from there. According to the chairman of the Union of Victims of Political Terror, V. Movchan, records of the receipt of corpses in pathoanatomical institutions were destroyed. A significant part of the corpses were taken from the morgue of the Botkin hospital in an unknown direction. According to the information of MK journalists, within two weeks after the events, the corpses of “unknown persons” were twice taken out of the morgue on trucks with civilian numbers. They were taken out in plastic bags. Deputy A.N. Greshnevikov, on parole that he would not name names, was told in the same morgue that “there were corpses from the House of Soviets; they were taken out in vans in plastic bags; it was impossible to count them - too many.

In addition to the morgues located in the GMUM system, many of the dead were sent to specialized departmental morgues, where they were difficult to find. Starting from October 5, the doctor of the MMA Rescue Center named after. I.M. Sechenov A.V. Dalnov and his colleagues toured the hospitals and morgues of the ministries of defense, internal affairs and state security. They managed to find out that the corpses of the victims of the October tragedy, who were there, were not included in the official reports.

But in the very building of the former parliament there were many corpses that did not even get into the morgues. How many people died during the storming of the House of Soviets, were shot at the stadium and in the yards, and how were their bodies taken out?

S.N. Baburin was told the number of dead - 762 people. Another source named over 750 dead. Journalists of the newspaper Arguments and Facts » found out that the soldiers and officers of the internal troops for several days collected the remains of almost 800 of its defenders “charred and torn by tank shells” around the building. Among the dead were found the bodies of those who

drowned in the flooded dungeons of the White House. According to the former deputy of the Supreme Council from the Chelyabinsk region A.S. Baronenko, about 900 people died in the House of Soviets.

At the end of October 1993, the editorial office of Nezavisimaya Gazeta received a letter from an officer of the internal troops. He claimed that about 1,500 corpses were found in the White House. Among the dead are women and children. The information was published without a signature. But the editors assured that they had the signature and address of the officer who sent the letter. On the fifteenth anniversary of the execution of the House of Soviets, the former chairman of the Supreme Council of Russia, R.I. Khasbulatov, in an interview with MK journalist K. Novikov, said that a high-ranking police general swore, swore, and called the number of dead 1,500 people.

A note was seen on the desk of Prime Minister V.S. But the bodies of the dead were taken out of the destroyed parliament building for four days. Police Major General Vladimir Semenovich Ovchinsky, an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who visited the parliament building after the assault, said that 1,700 corpses had been found there. Corpses in piles in black bags, littered with dry ice, lay on the basement floor.

According to some reports, up to 160 people were shot at the stadium. Moreover, until 2 am on October 5, they were shot in batches, having previously beaten their victims. Local residents saw that about a hundred people were shot just not far from the pool. According to Baronenko, about 300 people were shot at the stadium.

Lidia Vasilievna Zeitlina, some time after the October events, met with the driver of the motor depot. The trucks of that motor depot were involved in the removal of corpses from the White House. The driver said that on the night of October 4-5, the corpses of those shot at the stadium were transported in his truck. He had to make two flights to the Moscow region, to the forest. There, the corpses were thrown into pits, covered with earth, and the burial place was leveled with a bulldozer. The bodies were taken out on other trucks. As the driver put it, "tired of driving."

What happened in Moscow 25 years ago.

25 years ago, opponents of President Boris Yeltsin took to the streets to seize the White House. This escalated into a bloody confrontation between soldiers and oppositionists, and the events of October 3-4 resulted in a new government and a new Constitution.

1. October Putsch 1993. Briefly about what happened

   On October 3-4, 1993, the October putsch took place - this is when they shot the White House, captured the Ostankino television center, and tanks drove through the streets of Moscow. All this happened because of Yeltsin's conflict with Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and Chairman of the Supreme Council Ruslan Khasbulatov. Yeltsin won, the vice-president was removed, the Supreme Soviet was dissolved.

2. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin nominated Yegor Gaidar, who by that time was actively pursuing economic reforms, for the post of Prime Minister. However, the Supreme Council severely criticized Gaidar's activities due to the high level of poverty of the population and space prices and chose Viktor Chernomyrdin as the new Chairman. In response, Yeltsin made harsh criticism of the deputies.

   Boris Yeltsin and Ruslan Khasbulatov in 1991

3. Yeltsin suspended the Constitution, although it was illegal

   On March 20, 1993, Yeltsin announced the suspension of the Constitution and the introduction of a "special procedure for governing the country." Three days later, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation recognized Yeltsin's actions as unconstitutional and grounds for removing the president from office.

   On March 28, 617 deputies voted for the impeachment of the president, with the required 689 votes. Yeltsin remained in power.

   On April 25, at a national referendum, the majority supported the president and the government and spoke in favor of holding early elections of people's deputies. On May 1, the first clashes between riot police and opponents of the president took place.

4. What is Decree No. 1400 and how did it aggravate the situation?

   On September 21, 1993, Yeltsin signed Decree No. 1400 on the dissolution of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Armed Forces, although he had no right to do so. In response, the Supreme Council declared that this decree was contrary to the Constitution, therefore it would not be executed and Yeltsin was deprived of the powers of the president. Yeltsin was supported by the Ministry of Defense and law enforcement agencies.

   In the following weeks, members of the Supreme Council, people's deputies and Deputy Prime Minister Rutsky were effectively locked in the White House, where communications, electricity and water were cut off. The building was cordoned off by police and military personnel. The White House was guarded by opposition volunteers.

   X Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies in the White House, where electricity and water are cut off

5. Assault "Ostankino"

   On October 3, supporters of the Armed Forces went to a rally on October Square and then broke through the defenses of the White House. After Rutskoi's appeals, the protesters successfully seized the city hall building and moved to take the Ostankino television center.

   By the time the capture began, the TV tower was guarded by 900 soldiers with military equipment. At some point, the first explosion was heard among the soldiers. It was immediately followed by indiscriminate shooting into the crowd at everyone indiscriminately. When the opposition tried to hide in the nearby Oak Grove, they were squeezed from both sides and started shooting from armored personnel carriers and from gun nests on the roof of Ostankino.

   During the assault on Ostankino, October 3, 1993.

   At the time of the assault, television broadcasting was stopped

6. White House shooting

   On the night of October 4, Yeltsin decides to take the White House with the help of armored vehicles. At 7 am, tanks began shelling the government building.

   While the building was being shelled, snipers on the rooftops fired on the crowded people near the White House.

   By five o'clock in the evening the resistance of the defenders was completely crushed. Opposition leaders, including Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, were arrested. Yeltsin remained in power.

   White House October 4, 1993

7. How many people died during the October Putsch?

   According to official figures, 46 people died during the storming of Ostankino, and approximately 165 people died during the shooting of the White House, but witnesses report that there were many more victims. Over the course of 20 years, various theories have appeared in which the numbers vary from 500 to 2000 dead.

8. The results of the October Putsch

   The Supreme Council and the Congress of People's Deputies ceased to exist. The entire system of Soviet power that had existed since 1917 was liquidated.

   Before the elections on December 12, 1993, all power was in the hands of Yeltsin. On that day, the modern Constitution was chosen, as well as the State Duma and the Federation Council.

9. What happened after the October Putsch?

   In February 1994, all those arrested in connection with the October putsch were amnestied.

   Yeltsin served as president until the end of 1999. The constitution adopted after the coup in 1993 is still in force today. According to the new state principles, the president has more powers than the government.

By decree of B. Yeltsin, signed on the night of October 3, the Russian railway troops were reassigned directly to the President of the Russian Federation.

In the morning, demonstrators began to gather in various places of the Garden Ring and at the Kiev railway station, speaking in support of the Supreme Council.

In accordance with the approved plan of organizational measures, police officers, using special equipment, dispersed these groups, preventing people from gathering in large masses. As a result, clashes broke out in some places.

So, at 12:50 on Smolenskaya Square, about 100 demonstrators, in response to an attempt by police officers to disperse them, following the example of the previous day, blocked traffic along the Garden Ring and began to erect a barricade, throwing stones and bottles at police officers.

The superior forces of the militia, actively using special equipment, managed, however, to “clean up” the square.

At 14:00, a rally authorized by the Moscow Council took place in support of the Supreme Council on October Square.

When several thousand people gathered, information was received that at the last moment the holding of a rally on Oktyabrskaya Square was prohibited by the Moscow City Hall. OMON attempted to block the area. There were calls to move the rally to another location.

At about 3:20 p.m., the vanguard of the column of supporters of the Supreme Council along Novy Arbat Street from the Garden Ring approached the building of the Moscow City Hall, located opposite the House of Soviets.

The cordon of police officers and servicemen of the internal troops, who stood at the mayor's office and blocked the approach to the House of Soviets along Konyushkovskaya Street, used special equipment, in particular, PR-73 rubber truncheons.

There was a clash, during which the demonstrators crushed and partially dispersed the cordon.

On orders from their superiors, the police opened fire at the demonstrators indiscriminately with pistols and machine guns. They also fired from carbines for firing tear gas grenades.

An attempt was made to disperse the demonstrators who had broken through by attacking them from the mayor's office with a chain of police officers who fired bursts from machine guns. Over the heads of the demonstrators, a line was fired from a large-caliber machine gun of an armored personnel carrier, which was standing at the city hall.

According to the Rescue and Search Center of the Moscow Medical Academy. I. M. Sechenov, after breaking through the cordon and shelling the demonstrators, 34 civilians asked for help in the first-aid posts of the House of Soviets, 7 of them with gunshot wounds.

A group of about 15 RNE members, armed with AKS-74U assault rifles, spontaneously, without an order, rushed to the shooting in the area of ​​​​the mayor's office from the building of the Supreme Council.

They were joined by 3 people from the guards of Deputy Defense Minister Albert Makashov, appointed by Rutsky, who also ran to the shots without orders, and the leader of the RNE Alexander Barkashov.

At the same time, some demonstrators began to climb the ramp of the mayor's office. Police officers opened fire from automatic weapons, which caused return shots from the “Barkashovites”, and then members of the guards of Colonel General Makashov who joined them.

After the ceasefire, demonstrators broke into the City Hall building through the main entrance. Unsuccessful attempts were made by supporters of the Supreme Council to seize armored personnel carriers of internal troops stationed at the mayor's office

At 15:45, a rally began at the 14th entrance of the House of Soviets, at which Alexander Rutskoi called on the people to storm the city hall and the Television Center in Ostankino.

Alexander Rutskoy:
"I beg your attention! Youth, combat-ready men! Form here on the left side! Form detachments, and today we need to storm the mayor's office and Ostankino!"

Ruslan Khasbulatov:
"I call on our valiant warriors to bring troops and tanks here in order to storm the Kremlin with the former usurper, the criminal Yeltsin...

Yeltsin must be imprisoned in Matrosskaya Tishina today, his entire corrupt clique must be imprisoned in the dungeon!

Alexander Rutskoi, later remarks about the decision to send people to Ostankino: “Of course it was a mistake. I didn't want blood. But the nerves are in a ball.

At 16:00, negotiations between representatives of the Supreme Council and the Presidential Administration were to continue under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In the opinion of analysts, the negotiators were inclined towards the "zero option" - the simultaneous re-election of the president and people's deputies, but because of the riots that began in Moscow, the negotiations never began.

At 16:00 Yeltsin signed a decree declaring a state of emergency in Moscow.

At 19:20, according to the Kommersant newspaper, General A. Makashov demanded that the military, who were in the Ostankino building, lay down their arms within three minutes.

The building at that time, according to the newspaper, was guarded by about 1,200 military personnel, 6 armored personnel carriers, 105 soldiers of the Vityaz special forces detachment and 110 employees of the security department.

A few minutes after Makashov left the area in front of the entrance to the television center, one of the members of Makashov's guard, Nikolai Krestinin, dressed in civilian clothes, was wounded by a shot from the inner balcony of the 1st floor through a broken window.

Then, when the wounded Krestinin was carried to the ambulance, there were two or three almost simultaneous explosions at the breach where the doors had been.

After the explosion, special forces and armored personnel carriers began to fire automatic weapons at the crowd gathered at the television center, which led to the death of at least 46 people.

At 8 p.m., the Appeal of the Council of Ministers - the Government of the Russian Federation to Muscovites and citizens of Russia was distributed, in which, the responsibility for the bloody events was assigned to "criminal elements incited from the White House", it was stated that the Government was forced to resort to force, and also about the prohibition until further notice of holding rallies and demonstrations in connection with the introduction of a state of emergency in the city of Moscow from 4 p.m. in accordance with Yeltsin's decree No. 1575.

At the same time, Gaidar contacted by telephone with and. about. Chairman of the State Committee for Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu and instructed him to urgently prepare for the issuance of 1000 machine guns with ammunition belonging to the civil defense system subordinate to him.

Shoigu gave a guarantee that, if necessary, weapons would be distributed to the demonstrators - Yeltsin's supporters. According to Yegor Gaidar, only after that - at about 2 am on October 4, the military began to carry out Yeltsin's orders and the troops moved to Moscow.

At 20:30, Yegor Gaidar on television turned to Yeltsin's supporters with a request to gather near the building of the Moscow City Council, which was taken under the control of the Ministry of Security. People with combat experience are selected from those gathered, and detachments are formed to capture and protect objects, such as Moscow district councils.

Detachments are also used from civilians, including women. Barricades were erected on Tverskaya Street and in adjacent streets and lanes. A rally is taking place near the Moscow City Council.

Around 10 p.m. Yeltsin gave verbal orders to Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and Kremlin commandant Barsukov to prepare forces for a possible assault on the House of Soviets.

The Tamanskaya, Tula and Kantemirovskaya divisions entered the city.

Between 21:00 and 23:00, a large number of unarmed civilians, including bystanders and observers of the events, suffered from the fire of armored personnel carriers driving along Akademika Korolev Street.

By 11 p.m., the bulk of the people who were at the television center had been dispersed. At the same time, in the absence of objective information, attracted by the shots heard in the vicinity of the television center, people continued to arrive alone and in small groups.

There were many young people among them, as well as children. They opened fire to kill from automatic weapons and armored personnel carriers. Journalists who continued to work and bystanders also became victims of the continued shooting at people.

At the same time, the vast majority of the victims did not commit any aggressive actions. Some of them stayed at the TV center for only 2-3 minutes, after which they were injured or killed

At about 2 o'clock on October 4, Chairman of the Supreme Council Committee on International Affairs Iona Andronov, through an employee of the US Embassy L. Sela, contacted Chernomyrdin's representative, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Vitaly Churkin.

On behalf of Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, Andronov transmitted through Churkin a proposal for a meeting without any preconditions to prevent further bloodshed.

Churkin conveyed this proposal to Chernomyrdin, who replied through Churkin about the impossibility of any meetings and negotiations, and also in an ultimatum demanded to lay down their arms and leave the parliament building.

At the same time, Gaidar telephoned Yeltsin and insisted that he personally meet with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff and ensure that the Russian army would act on the side of the Kremlin.

Between 3 and 4 am on October 4, Boris Yeltsin decided to storm the House of Soviets.

At about 6 o'clock the House of Soviets was cordoned off by police officers and servicemen. At the same time, the police officers refused to inform the citizens who found themselves in the blockaded area for what purpose the cordon was being made.

After the start of the military operation, people who were near the building of the Supreme Council could not always leave the cordon zone.

At 07:30, the operation began to systematically capture the White House.

Around 7.40 a dozen submachine gunners with shields broke into the White House. A large column of T-80 tanks has appeared on Kutuzovsky Prospect, ready to cross the Novoarbatsky Bridge.

At 08:00, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers conduct aimed fire at the windows of the parliament building.

At 09:00 Boris Yeltsin made a statement on TV, in which, in particular, he said: “The events taking place in Moscow are a planned coup. The armed rebellion is doomed. Troops are entering Moscow, I ask Muscovites to give them moral support. The Prosecutor General's Office was instructed to initiate criminal proceedings against the criminals. The armed rebellion will be put down as soon as possible."

Airborne units are being pulled up to the White House. Shooting from large-caliber weapons around the House of Soviets intensifies. The deputies gathered for an emergency meeting in the meeting room of the Council of Nationalities.

In the White House, after the assault began, blockages of furniture and other items began to be built in different parts of the building, and window openings were barricaded.

At 09:30, the tanks located on the Kalininsky (Novoarbatsky) bridge began shelling the upper floors of the building of the Supreme Council. In total, six T-80 tanks participated in the shelling, firing 12 shells.

At 10:00 a.m., the roof of the White House was shelled from a helicopter. As a result, there were several fires.

At 11:00 at a press conference, the head of the Yeltsin administration, Sergei Filatov, said that the severity of the suppression of the "mutiny" was due to the fact that the war could not be allowed to spread to the entire territory of Russia.

Filatov denied rumors that Vladimir Shumeiko had signed an order to introduce censorship. (Subsequently, however, it turned out that some newspapers were nevertheless subjected to censorship).

12.30. The exit of the defenders of the White House began. The troops attacking the House of Soviets offer the besieged to cease fire and leave with their hands up. At Sovintsentr the hunt for snipers continues.

One riot policeman was killed, two were wounded. One civilian was also killed. Two snipers have already been removed. Near the hotel "Ukraine" snipers from houses in the area of ​​the White House killed 2 people in civilian clothes. After 5 minutes, a special-purpose platoon of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of Moscow went on a mission to destroy snipers.

At 14:00, a mass exit of people with their hands up from the White House began.

Around 15:00, 16 covered trucks with soldiers of the interior troops drove up to the parliament building.

Special Forces Alpha and Vympel were ordered to storm the White House. The commanders of both special groups, before fulfilling the order, tried to negotiate with the leaders of the Supreme Council on a peaceful surrender.

Alfa, having promised security to the defenders of the House of Soviets, managed to persuade them to surrender by 17:00. The Vympel special unit, whose leadership refused to carry out the order to storm, was subsequently transferred from the MB to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which led to the mass resignation of its fighters.

At 19:00, Rutskoi and Khasbulatov were arrested, after which they were taken by bus, accompanied by paratroopers and officers of the security service of the President of Russia, to the pre-trial detention center in Lefortovo.

According to Korzhakov, who led the arrest, he "there was a task to cock" Rutskoi and Khasbulatov, "but it was impossible to do so because they hid in the crowd of deputies."

The leaders of the White House defense, some participants, as well as many people who did not participate in the confrontation, were arrested and, according to human rights activists, were beaten and humiliated.

At the same time, the human rights center "Memorial" “a case was recorded when there are serious grounds to suspect that the death of a person ... occurred as a result of beatings in the police.”

During the day, according to official figures, 74 people were killed, 26 of them - the military and employees of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 172 were injured.

As a result of the fire, the floors of the building from the 12th to the 20th were almost completely destroyed, about 30% of the total area of ​​the House of Soviets was destroyed.

After the suppression of armed resistance, the Constitutional Court issued a statement resigning itself from the function of verifying the constitutionality of normative acts and international treaties of the Russian Federation.

After the completion of the events, by decree of Boris Yeltsin, October 7 was declared a Day of Mourning.

The investigation into the events was not completed, the investigation team was disbanded after the State Duma decided in February 1994 on an amnesty for persons who participated in the events of September 21 - October 4, 1993, related to the issuance of Decree No. 1400, and who opposed its implementation, regardless of the qualification of actions under the articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

In accordance with the new Constitution, adopted by popular vote on December 12, 1993, the President of the Russian Federation received significantly broader powers than under the 1978 Constitution in force at that time. The post of vice-president of the Russian Federation was eliminated.