Lefortovo Prison
Prison in Moscow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lefortovo Prison (Russian: Лефортовская тюрьма, romanized: Lefortovskaya tyurma, Russian: [lʲɪˈfortəvə] ⓘ) is a prison in Moscow, Russia, which has been under the jurisdiction of the Russian Ministry of Justice since 2005.
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 Interactive map of Lefortovo Prison | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Detention center |
| Opened | 1881 |
| Managed by | Ministry of Justice |
History
The prison was built in 1881 in the Lefortovo District of Moscow, named after François Le Fort, a close associate of Tsar Peter I the Great.
In the Soviet Union, during Joseph Stalin's 1936–38 Great Purge, Lefortovo Prison was used by the NKVD secret police for mass executions and interrogational torture.[1] Later Lefortovo was an infamous KGB prison and interrogation site (called an "investigative isolator", or СИЗО: следственный изолятор) for political prisoners.
In 1994, the prison was transferred to the MVD; from 1996 to 2005, it was under the jurisdiction of the FSB, a KGB successor agency. The prison is said to have strict detention conditions. Only visits by lawyers are allowed. Letters can be received but are read by prison officials.[2]
Notable prisoners
- Several members of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
- Several members of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis rebellion, including Ruslan Khasbulatov and Alexander Rutskoi
- Igor Artimovich
- Nikita Belykh, politician and former leader of the Union of Rightist Forces party
- Sergey Beseda, former head of the Fifth Service under President Putin until the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; reportedly imprisoned over intelligence failures and embezzlement.
- Frode Berg, Norwegian spy[3]
- Boris Kolesnikov
- Evan Gershkovich American journalist arrested for espionage [4]
- Nikolai Glushkov
- Grigori Grabovoi, sect leader
- Eston Kohver
- Vladimir Kumarin, businessman and gangster
- Platon Lebedev
- Eduard Limonov
- Alexander Litvinenko
- Vil Mirzayanov[5]
- Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, terrorist
- Sviatoslav Palamar Kalyna, Ukrainian Army Captain, Deputy Commander of Azov Brigade
- Denys Prokopenko Redis, Ukrainian Army Lieutenant Colonel, Commander of Azov Brigade
- Leonid Razvozzhayev
- Sergei Ryakhovsky, serial killer
- Yaqub Salimov, mobster and former Minister of the Interior of Tajikistan
- Ivan Safronov, journalist
- Sergei Skripal[6]
- Igor Sutyagin
- Serhii Volynskyi Volyna, Ukrainian Army Major, Commander of 36th Marine Infantry Brigade
- Paul Whelan, American arrested in Moscow for espionage (citizen of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland).
Soviet era
- Vasily Blyukher, marshall of the Soviet Union
- Vladimir Bukovsky[7]
- Nicholas Daniloff
- Alexander Dolgun
- Hugo Eberlein[8]
- Bernt Ivar Eidsvig, courier of the anti-communist National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, later Catholic Bishop of Oslo
- Rashid Khan Gaplanov, Education and Finance Minister of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic[9]
- Yevgenia Ginzburg
- Chingiz Ildyrym, Azerbaijani Bolshevik and statesman
- Ekaterina Kalinina, wife of Mikhail Kalinin
- Vladimir Kirpichnikov
- Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Soviet Christian dissident[10]
- Levon Mirzoyan
- Unto Parvilahti, SS-Officer
- Osip Piatnitsky
- Lina Prokofiev, wife of Sergei Prokofiev
- Ian Rokotov (Rokotov-Faibishenko case)
- Mathias Rust, 18-year-old West German who landed a Cessna 172 airplane near Red Square.
- Valery Sablin, soviet navy captain who attemped an armed rebellion in 1975[11]
- Natan Sharansky, jewish dissident
- Andrei Sinyavsky[12]
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Jean-Christian Tirat, French journalist and supporter of compliance with the Helsinki Agreement
- Nadezhda Ulanovskaya, wife of Alexander Ulanovsky
- Khalil Rza Uluturk, Azerbaijani poet and nationalist.
- Raoul Wallenberg
- Helmuth Weidling, Wehrmacht general
References in popular culture
- Apple TV+ show For All Mankind Season 3 Episode 5 - Character Sergei Nikulov claims he was a prisoner where he was tortured by the KGB for sharing too much information about the Roscosmos programs
- Peacock show PONIES Season 1 Episode 5 - Character Manya, while posing as Vera, is detained by the KGB and threatened with imprisonment in Lefortovo Prison
- 2025 Novel "Midnight Black" by Mark Greaney, character Zoya Zakharova was briefly imprisoned after in Lefortovo
- The Bureau Season 4 Episode 3 - The protagonist, Malotru, was imprisoned in Lefortovo Prison
