Kurapaty

With the start of the mass terror in 1937, the Soviet state security in the BSSR began searching for a new site where thousands of people could be executed without notice.

The execution sites scattered around Minsk — the Chalyuskintsy Park and Loshitsa — no longer met the scale required for the forthcoming punitive operation. In June–July 1937 a forested area near the former village of Brod (Bradok), located outside the city, was chosen. Over the following weeks an area of about 30 hectares was fenced with three-meter-high plank barriers. Prisoners from NKVD jails were initially shot at night. As the bloody Stalinist machine gained momentum, new victims were brought during the day and immediately killed in mass graves. Witness reports indicate the number of shootings increased significantly from winter 1937 through spring 1938. How many people were killed in Kurapaty during those months remains unknown.

After the incorporation of formerly Polish territories of Western Belarus into the USSR under the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact in the autumn of 1939, mass shootings resumed. Instead of Soviet citizens, members of the Polish social and political elite, military personnel, and civilians were targeted. Over 3,000 people were transferred to the central prison of the BSSR in Minsk, where their traces were lost. Researchers believe they may also have been killed in this forest. The shootings only ceased after Germany attacked the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 and Soviet forces retreated. Due to fuel shortages, local villagers dismantled the plank fence and discovered mass graves. The German occupation authorities showed no interest in Kurapaty. During the war years the forest was gradually cut down.

After the liberation of Minsk in the summer of 1944, officers of Soviet state security began erasing traces of the crimes of their predecessors. Soil-filled depressions over graves were partially leveled in the 1950s, and the area was replanted with forest. In the 1960s a road was built and a gas pipeline passed through the site of the graves. Human remains uncovered during these works were removed. In the 1970s new buildings reached up to the Kurapaty area, and the forested tract gradually became a recreational spot for residents.

In the 1970s archaeologist Zianon Pazniak began researching the history of the burial site. He collected interviews from witnesses in neighboring villages and only in the late 1980s was able to present his findings to Belarusian society.

In May 1988 a small group of archaeologists from the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR — including Pazniak, Yauhen Shmyhalov, Mikola Kryvaltsyevich, and Ales Iou — with permission from the military prosecutor’s office conducted the first excavations. An article by Pazniak and Shmyhalov titled 'Kurapaty — the Road of Death', published in early June 1988 in the newspaper Litaratura i Mastactva, shocked the public. They named the forest tract where the killings took place 'Kurapaty'. The article prompted the BSSR Prosecutor’s Office to open a criminal case on 14 June 1988. Six weeks later, under public pressure, a government commission to investigate the matter was formed, which included Pazniak, writer Vasil Bykau, and artist Mikhail Savitsky alongside officials and prosecutors.

During excavations across about 30 hectares, 510 suspected burial sites were discovered. Selective exhumations uncovered the remains of at least 356 people, personal items (combs, toothbrushes, soap dishes, wallets, shoes, clothing fragments), and spent cartridges and bullets from a Nagan revolver, a TT pistol, and several fired casings from Browning and Walther pistols. Archaeologists were convinced that the earliest burials did not predate 1937. Items found in the graves suggested that some of the buried came from Western Belarus, which had been incorporated into the BSSR in 1939.

Fifty-five witnesses from neighboring villages — Tsna-Yodkava, Padbalotse, and Drazdova — were interviewed. Witnesses stated that in 1937–1941 NKVD officers brought people here in covered vehicles and shot them, and that the territory had been fenced.

Since the discovery of the mass graves in the summer of 1988, numerous associations and parties have worked to transform the area into a national memorial.

The name 'Kurapaty' has become in broad Belarusian public consciousness synonymous with the crimes of Stalinism. Because of deep mistrust in state authorities, months before the events many artists, writers, and scholars formed the 'Martyrology of Belarus' association, which advocated for independent study of the Stalinist past. Conflicts with state power culminated on the Day of Remembrance in 1988, when police violently dispersed a memorial action attended by thousands.

Progressive decay of central authority forced the state and party leadership in spring 1989 to officially acknowledge the crimes and promise to grant the burial site national memorial status. On 18 January 1989, the Council of Ministers of the BSSR, based on the government commission’s report on the mass executions near Minsk, adopted Resolution No. 42 'On Honoring the Memory of the Victims of Mass Repressions of 1937–1941 in the Kurapaty Forest Tract.' The document called for an open competition for a monument and its installation. The Academy of Sciences of the BSSR was tasked with organizing a comprehensive study of the causes and consequences of mass repressions in Belarus in the 1930s–1940s and early 1950s, and the Belarusian Soviet Encyclopedia publishing house was to prepare a special edition.

In October of the same year, during Dziady (Day of the Ancestors), another procession took place. Around 50,000 people carried a seven-meter cross for several kilometers to Kurapaty to raise it over the tract. Clergy from four Christian confessions consecrated the cross. Thus began the people's memorialization of Kurapaty.

In January 1989 the BSSR government installed a foundation stone dedicated to the victims of repression. The plaque states that, in accordance with the Council of Ministers' decision of 18 January 1989, a monument to the victims of Stalinist repressions of 1937–1941 will be built at this site.

In spring 1990 temporary arrangements were made at the burial site. Near the cross of sufferers a plaque measuring four by six meters was erected, and crosses were placed on some graves.

However, disputes about Kurapaty's history continued. Despite the resolution to investigate, the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB remained closed, making the use of documentary evidence impossible during the investigation. As a result, the names of victims could not be established.

Throughout the 1990s the investigation was reopened several times. Dissatisfied parties repeatedly demanded reexamination of earlier inquiries. In the summer of 1991 a state commission reported that, contrary to previous data, the shootings allegedly took place during the German occupation from 1941 to 1944. New investigations under military prosecutors were then carried out to confirm this version. Transformation of the burial area into a memorial was postponed until final clarification of circumstances.

According to the commission, deported Jews from Hamburg were shot in Kurapaty by German military units. Despite many archival searches and consultations with experts from Israel and Germany, supporting evidence was not found.

Despite controversies, on 30 November 1993 the site was included in the list of historical and cultural values of Belarus as a burial place for victims of political repressions in the 1930s–1940s. The investigative commission still insisted on definitive clarification and in October 1997 ordered new excavations involving archaeologists from the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences.

Between October 1997 and May 1998 twenty-three features were opened, nine of which proved to be graves. In one excavation archaeologists found 74 bodies and three wallets with three prison receipts. In two receipts the entries were made in pencil: Grodno prison, date 10 June 1940, with names Moisha Kramer and Mardukh Shulkes. From the clothing it was established that the shooting likely occurred in warm weather. The investigation found no evidence supporting a 'German trail'. New artifacts suggested the shootings could only have been carried out by Soviet state security organs. However, investigation materials were classified and remain inaccessible to historians and researchers.

There is evidence that Kurapaty continued to be used as an execution site even after World War II. The inquiry into the execution of German Jews ended inconclusively. Debates around Kurapaty did not resonate with the public as they had in the late 1980s. Under the influence of domestic political developments, the topic of Stalinist crimes became increasingly marginalized.

In 1998 the Minsk District Executive Committee placed the land containing the tract under protection, ordered the State Automobile Inspectorate to install prohibition signs on the roads, and tasked the Baravlyany Village Council with caring for the burial sites. Nonetheless, over subsequent years the Kurapaty area fell into neglect.

Major changes occurred in autumn 2001. By decree of Alexander Lukashenko, work began to expand the ring road that passed through the burial site. At the end of September various organizations and opposition parties formed the 'Save Kurapaty' initiative and launched a broad media campaign to halt the works.

In the following weeks there were harsh clashes between security forces and protesters who peacefully tried to stop the construction of the ring road. A young man suffered serious injuries during a night-time arson attack on a protestors' guard tent. That incident was not investigated.

Despite efforts, the ring-road expansion could not be stopped. Construction finished a year later. As a concession, authorities built an underground passage to the burial site. The ring road was also diverted a few dozen meters away from Kurapaty compared to initial plans.

In 2000 Zianon Pazniak called for creating a people's memorial in Kurapaty and proposed a cross procession on Dziady. The first such cross procession then took place, and twenty large crosses and many smaller ones appeared at the tract. By 2008 more than five hundred crosses had been erected at Kurapaty, along with various memorial signs.

In 2002–2003 public protests forced the authorities to halt construction of an elite cottage settlement near Kurapaty. In 2004 the Ministry of Culture of Belarus issued a resolution 'On Protection Zones for the Tangible Immovable Historical and Cultural Value – the Burial Place of Victims of Political Repressions of the 1930s–40s at the Kurapaty Tract.' The document defined the protective zone around Kurapaty at 110–250 meters, although earlier discussions suggested 200–500 meters.

In December 2005 unknown vandals desecrated the burial site and damaged numerous memorials and the foundation stone. The site was vandalized again in 2020 with the inscription 'let's return NKVD practice.' Forestry workers tried to wash off the inscription, but a red stain remained on the stone.

In 2012 a scandal erupted over construction of the Bulpash-Hall entertainment complex next to the Kurapaty forest. Historian Ihar Kuzniatou claimed the development might have been built directly on graves within the protected zone. Activists stopped the works, and authorities even promised to demolish existing buildings. However, on 1 December 2014 the Ministry of Culture reduced Kurapaty's protective zone to 50 meters, thereby legalizing the entertainment complex and canceling the promised demolition. Protests and appeals to courts and the prosecutor’s office yielded no results.

In June 2018 a restaurant named 'Poedem Poedim' opened in the Bulpash-Hall complex. The public again responded with protests and daily pickets.

Throughout its existence the people's memorial at Kurapaty has repeatedly suffered vandalism. Vandals dug up graves, destroyed crosses, desecrated memorials with swastikas and satanic inscriptions. A memorial bench installed in 1994 during U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit was destroyed and restored several times.

The largest losses to the memorial occurred on 4 April 2019, when Baravlyany special forestry, without a court decision or agreement with the Ministry of Culture, removed about 70 crosses from Kurapaty. A year earlier, at the initiative of Belarusian politician Zmitser Dashkevich, activists had installed these crosses to replace rotted ones. During the demolition 15 people who tried to stop the removal were detained; on 13 April another 60 metal crosses were torn out and removed. These crosses had been installed in 2017 along the Minsk ring road with voluntary donations. The action, dubbed 'cross-mowing' and labeled vandalism by the authorities, gained wide publicity both inside and outside Belarus. The attack on the memorial followed a speech by Alexander Lukashenko in which he ordered that 'there should be no demonstrations with crosses around there.' At that time the memorial was fenced off.

In May 2023 independent media reported that Kurapaty may have had several crosses damaged by forestry workers during tree cutting. In October the Katolik.life portal reported renewed desecration of crosses, including the cross dedicated to political figure Vaclaw Lastouski and a cross commemorating repressed Poles.

In October 2018 the Belarusian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments attempted to create a scientific passport for the people's memorial at Kurapaty. The society submitted documents to the Ministry of Culture to inventory nearly forty objects, including 37 unnamed and named crosses such as the cross to Lastouski, the 'Clinton bench', and a memorial sign to Belarusian Jews. Photos, descriptions, and inventory numbers were attached for each cross and sign, and it was proposed to grant legal status to memorial elements. Authorities refused.

Since 2017, on 29 October near the 'Cross of Sufferers' a 'Night of the Shot Poets' action has taken place at Kurapaty. During it, names of the repressed are read aloud, poems by affected writers are recited, and candles are lit. On 1 November that year, during Dziady, security forces dispersed the March to Kurapaty for the first time since 1988. The event was part of public resistance against falsification of presidential elections. Demonstrators were shot with rubber bullets, stun grenades were thrown, and people were beaten during arrests. A criminal case was opened against participants for 'organizing actions that grossly violate public order', and over 200 people were declared suspects.

The number of those executed in Kurapaty remains unknown. Estimates range from 7,000 to 250,000 or more. The Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus, Aleh Bazhelka, based on research from 1997–1998, announced a minimum figure of 7,000 executed. The BSSR Prosecutor General, Heorhiy Tarnavskii, at the end of the 1980s estimated at least 30,000 killed based on early studies. A 1995 guide 'Belarus' mentions 100,000. Zianon Pazniak estimated between 102,000 and 250,000 victims. Professor Zdzisław Winnicki of the University of Wrocław also cited 250,000, while British historian Norman Davies suggested there could have been even more.

In July 2025 it became known that the signpost to Kurapaty had been removed from the ring road. In September independent media reported that it is no longer possible to enter Kurapaty unnoticed: 11 surveillance cameras had been installed around the perimeter of the memorial, and another four on the main avenue with crosses. Earthworks conducted to install the crosses and lay cables during these works could have damaged victims' burials.