Lošycki Ravine

In 1920, the land and palace of the former Lošyca estate of the Lubanski family were nationalized by Soviet authorities. Later, part of the grounds was transferred to an agricultural institute, while the northern section, where the nobility’s residence stood, remained under the control of the security services.

It was in the 1920s that this became a training base for Soviet sabotage teams and intelligence operatives destined for underground anti-Polish activity. Sabotage groups were transferred across the Soviet-Polish border, which ran near Minsk, to the territory of Western Belarus. Later, the base was disbanded. In the early 1930s, the manor building housed the Minsk School of the Communist Party of Western Belarus.

The first documented executions in Lošyca occurred in 1919, recorded by the Polish-American Commission investigating Bolshevik crimes. In the following years, murders continued to occur in the Lošycki (or Čorny) Ravine, near the bend in the Červieński Highway where Majakoŭskaha and Čyžeŭskich streets now meet.

During the German occupation, the manor was taken over by the Minsk district commissioner. At that time, an unknown number of Jews and partisans were executed in Lošyca and buried in a separate mass grave.

In 1988, when excavations of mass graves began at Kurapaty, archaeologist and future politician Zianon Pazniak set out to find other similar sites. He found witnesses to the shootings at Lošyca. Elderly residents recounted that people were brought in trucks at dawn, executed by NKVD operatives, and sometimes by local “volunteers” and Komsomol members.

In one of his articles, Pazniak described the events that took place at Lošyca as follows: “People were brought in NKVD prison vans and sometimes in cargo trucks, bound and under guard. Usually they arrived early in the morning (around 5-6 a.m.) on several vehicles and were shot immediately. Some Lošyca-stationed guards told me in the 1980s that they witnessed both the transport and the executions. The condemned were poorly dressed, ordinary people. Individual cases were also documented in which local Komsomol members, NKVD operatives, and Lošyca-based thugs participated in shooting ‘enemies of the people’ here in the Lošycki Ravine. They volunteered to shoot, and were paid 50 kopecks per shot (apparently that was the rate).”

According to accounts, people were executed almost daily in the Lošycki Ravine in 1937. The number killed there is unknown. Zianon Pazniak estimates it at around 7,000-10,000.

When Pazniak returned after the Kurapaty excavations to begin digging at the Čorny Ravine, he found the terrain completely altered. Local authorities had filled the area with soil to build a garage cooperative there. An attempt to excavate the added soil and reach possible graves failed. Later, city authorities tried to destroy the ravine entirely by laying a road through it, but public pressure prevented this.

In 1995, a memorial wooden cross 5 meters high bearing the inscription “To the Victims of Bolshevik Terror” was erected in the Čorny Ravine area, thanks to the efforts of the Belarusian Popular Front party and the Martyrology of Belarus association. Artist Mykola Kupava designed it. For many years, memorial services were held there on the Ancestor Remembrance Day. However, in November 2024, it became known that the memorial cross disappeared from the ravine.

Another cross bearing the inscription “To Those Martyred for Belarus” stood for a long time on the ruins of a chapel in Lošycki Park itself, near the main alley.

It is noteworthy that in 2018, to mark the centenary of the Belarusian criminal investigation service, a memorial marker and an alley were unveiled in Lošycki Park. These were created in memory of the first Soviet security operatives, as if in mockery of their victims.