What hides behind his walls Lubyanka
The building at Bolshaya Lubyanka, house 2 for many centuries inspired horror in people. Under Peter I in it was a secret office, under Catherine II – a secret expedition of search affairs. And with the advent of the Bolsheviks, Lubyanka tried to at all bypass.
The former Gosstrakh building on Lubyanka in the USSR was called the sovereign. The reason for this was the location in its walls of the Lubyansk prison and the Cheka, and later the OGPU, and the NKVD, and the KGB. So why rumors went around this building one worse than another?
Deep cellars and walking roofs of the Lubyansk prison
In the FSB building on Lubyanka during the time of Peter I, a secret office worked. Later he was occupied by a secret expedition of search secret affairs, created by Catherine II. In 1894, the Russian Insurance company “Russia” was in this building. And in 1918, with the advent of the Bolsheviks, “Rosstrakh” was eliminated. A little later, the house on Lubyanka began to be called “Rosuzhas” or “Sovereign”. And the reason for this was the deeds that are doing in his dungeons.
At the end of the twenties, the building of the Cheka was expanded. Another was added to the house No. 2, and in the thirties they were united with another house and made the courtyard. In one of the buildings, a prison for counter -revolutionaries was organized. There were rumors about the incredibly deep Lubyan cellars of a prison, still called inside. But this secret is quickly revealed.
The point was that the walking courtyard of the inside was located on its roof. Arrested there were taken on special elevators. They moved very slowly, ominously rumbling and creaking. Due to the speed of movement, it seemed that the path from the camera was not six spans, but a lot more. This drove many prisoners crazy, it seemed to them that their cameras were located deep underground. Although in fact it was not so. However, there were also enough puzzles in the chambers of prisoners.
Hollow walls and strange numbering
It was impossible to run from the inside. And it was not even in excellent protection and its location. In an internal prison in Lubyanka, the numbers for prisoners were assigned randomly. The prisoners who found themselves in the corridors simply could not navigate in them to find a way out. Yes, and the prisoners could not exchange accidentally obtained information about the outputs.
One of the secrets of the Lubyanka, revealed in the eighties, was the structure of the walls. In 1983, some cameras were converted into rooms. Of course, for this I had to expand them and break the walls. Then it turned out that inside they were hollow. It turns out that the prisoners sitting in neighboring chambers could not even break off with each other. They could not contact friends and relatives in the wild.
Terrible conditions of detention and interrogation methods in the Lubyansk prison
Unlike other prisons in the inside, the prisoners were categorically prohibited correspondence. They did not give them and no press. All letters from relatives were destroyed. There was decisively doing the prisoners in the cells. The only entertainment was a walk on the roof of the prison. But no one knew where they would lead him when once again the camera door opened: for a walk or for interrogation.
For interrogations, prisoners were taken to the offices of investigators or to the Lubyansk basements. They did not apply any physical injuries, all the impact was purely psychological. The interrogated was forbidden to sleep for several days. After this time, a prisoner who is on the verge laid out everything. Even what he did not do. Ordinary prisoners and people with famous surnames were subjected to such torture.
The most famous prisoners of the VChK-OGPU-NKVD-KGB
Many “enemies of the people” visited the inside of the inside of Lubyanka, as in the dungeons of the Vladimir Central. For a long time their names kept secret, but still were disclosed. The USSR government sent Savvenkov to the inside of Socialist Revolutionaries. There was a British intelligence officer Sydney Reili and a member of the Central Committee Nikolai Bukharin there. The writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and poet Osip Mandelstam, and actress Zoya Fedorova visited the dungeons of Lubyan prison.
In the postwar years, war criminals were serving a sentence in the Lubyansk prison. Among them were foreigners: Raul Wallenberg and Yanosh Estherkhazi. In their affairs, as in the affairs of many other prisoners of Lubyanka, there is a mysterious note: “I drew in Lefortovo”. For a long time there were legends that prisoners were really sent to other prisons with such a note. But it was wrong. “Rent in Lefortovo” meant to go on execution. The sentences were executed in the same Lubyansky cellars of the inside.
See also: Black Dolphin prison: how the most dangerous criminals of Russia live