1/2 "[...] the so-called organs of the NKVD are in the main a degenerate organization of unprincipled, dissolute, well-kept functionaries who, enjoying the former authority of the Cheka, seeking to satisfy the pathological suspiciousness of Stalin (I fear to say more), pursuing

October 21, 1937. #OTD Yadviga Semenovna Ambrushkevich, a pensioner, was executed at Butovo. She was a Belarus-born Pole, from Grodno, and only 40 years old. She was convicted of “Trotskyist agitation.” She was rehabilitated on September 11, 1969. This is all we know about her.

October 20, 1937. #OTD Amos Anfimovich Vikulov, a carpenter at the Tomsk-2 railway station in Tomsk in western Siberia, was executed at age 42. Vikulov was from the small village of Kukushki in Tyumen Oblast. According to his grand-niece, Olga, his patronymic, Anfimovich, comes from the rare Old Believer name Anfim, and is sometimes misspelled as Amfilovich, causing difficulties in her efforts to trace her family history. She is searching for information about her great-grandfather, Anfim Vikulov, in particular, who is believed to have been repressed in the early 1930s. He worked in wool processing in that same village, Kukushki. In the second picture you can see Amos Anfimovich Vikulov with his wife, Alexandra.

October 19, 1938. #OTD Giuseppe Gio Venini, a communist since 1921, was executed at age 48. He had only a primary school education yet headed the Italian section at the House of Political Emigrants in Moscow. He was arrested, predictably, on Article 58-6 charges of espionage, spying for Italy. He spent about 7 months in NKVD custody before he was killed. Giuseppe Gio Venini was rehabilitated on July 16, 1956, by the Military Tribunal of the Moscow Military District. He was executed and remains interred at Butovo.

October 16, 1941. #OTD Nina Evgenieva Tukhachevskaya, the third wife of one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who at one time worked as a translator for the magazine 'Zarubezhnik,' or Foreign Military Review, was executed at Butovo at 42 years old. She'd previously been sentenced to eight years in the GULAG for being "a member of the family of a traitor to the motherland," in 1937. Tukhachevskaya was born in 1900 into the family of a high-ranking officer, Evgeny Klementievich Grinevich, who, himself, was persecuted in 1931 (from what we understand, he was on the side of the Whites in some form or another during the Civil War). Her first husband, who she divorced after meeting Tukhachevsky in 1921, was Lazar Naumovich Aronshtam, an ethnic Jew and Red Army commissar who was also executed, in 1938. He was accused of "participation in a military-fascist conspiracy in the Red Army," presumably Tukhachevsky's, as Aronshtam was under his command during the Civil War. The whole family of Tukhachevsky was ravaged after his fall and subsequent secret trial. The couple's daughter, Svetlana Mikhailovna, who was born the year after they met, fell twice to the Terror, in 1937, with her mother in exile, and in 1944. In the latter case, she was sentenced under article 58-10 of the USSR penal code for "anti-Soviet agitation aimed at discrediting the measures of the party and the Soviet government, as well as spreading slanderous fabrications against the leaders of the Soviet state." Svetlana was rehabilitated in 1957, after early release under amnesty a decade earlier, and lived the rest of her life in Moscow, where she passed away at 61, in 1982. In addition to her daughter, Tukhachevskaya's three sisters-in-law, Sofia Nikolaevna, Olga Nikolaevna, and Maria Nikolaevna, and her mother-in-law, Mavra Petrovna, all faced repression of various degrees of severity during the Terror. Mavra died in exile, along with Sofia. Olga and Maria served their sentences in exile and were rehabilitated in 1956 and 1953, respectively. Both passed away in 1995. Nina Tukhachevskaya was rehabilitated in 1956, fifteen years after her execution.

October 14, 1937. #OTD Pavel Petrovich Baryshnikov (no relation to the legendary ballet dancer) was executed at age 31. Baryshnikov was a Russian national from Penza Oblast who lived and worked in Moscow. He was the foreman of the 2nd Automobile Repair Plant. On September 8, 1937, he was arrested for espionage, and killed a little over a month later at the Butovo “firing range.” Pavel Petrovich Baryshnikov was rehabilitated on August 18, 1956.

October 13, 1937. #OTD Maria Afanasyevna Chervyakova, a religious person who went by her monastic name, Alexandra, was executed at age 65. She chose her name out of respect for Prince Alexander Nevsky, and we’ll use that name to refer to her out of respect for her faith. Alexandra was a Russian national from Kursk, who resided in Moscow. She was blind. She was considered a clairvoyant and a blessed person by those who knew her (when asked about this during her interrogation, she confirmed that she was considered such, but did not identify herself as such). Alexandra’s charges were characterized thusly: “member of a counterrevolutionary church-monarchist group, posed as blessed and clairvoyant, spread provocative rumors, practiced medicine, and expressed terrorist and fascist sentiments.” She was indeed anti-Soviet, informing the NKVD interrogators that she told her followers: “Soviet power was sent to us as our punishment” and “a hero would be someone who dropped a bomb from an airplane on the rulers during their demonstration. Then everyone would breathe a sigh of relief. And he would be a national hero.” She is remembered for her utmost humility and self-sacrifice. While many supported her financially, she gave everything away as soon as she could, and this is attested to in dozens of testimonials from people she helped. Alexandra was executed by firing squad at Butovo and her remains are in one of the mass graves on that site.

October 12, 1938. #OTD Ivan Georgievich Kovaltsig, a legal advisor for Glavkozhobuvprom, the USSR’s directorate for the leather and footwear industry, was executed at age 61. He did not have known political affiliations or party membership. Kovaltsig was a German national from Kuntsevo who resided in Moscow. He was arrested in 1933 for anti-Soviet agitation under Article 58-10 and sentenced to three years of internal exile in Kazakhstan. He settled in Petropavlovsk (Petropavl) in the northern part of the country. In 1938 Kovaltsig was arrested again on five different Article 58 charges (58-1a, 58-2, 58-7, 58-8, 58-11) and condemned to death. For both his 1933 and 1938 charges, Ivan Georgievich Kovaltsig was fully rehabilitated, in 1993 and 1957 respectively. In both cases the rehabilitation was credited to the fact that there was no evidence of a crime having been committed.