Who captured the white house in 1993. The shooting of the white house and the full list of the dead. Only here
What happened in Moscow 25 years ago.
25 years ago, opponents of President Boris Yeltsin took to the streets to seize the White House. This escalated into a bloody confrontation between soldiers and oppositionists, and the events of October 3-4 resulted in a new government and a new Constitution.
October Putsch 1993. Briefly about what happened
On October 3-4, 1993, the October putsch took place - this is when they shot the White House, captured the Ostankino television center, and tanks drove through the streets of Moscow. All this happened because of Yeltsin's conflict with Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and Chairman of the Supreme Council Ruslan Khasbulatov. Yeltsin won, the vice-president was removed, the Supreme Soviet was dissolved.
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In 1992, Boris Yeltsin nominated Yegor Gaidar, who by that time was actively pursuing economic reforms, for the post of Prime Minister. However, the Supreme Council severely criticized Gaidar's activities due to the high level of poverty of the population and space prices and chose Viktor Chernomyrdin as the new Chairman. In response, Yeltsin made harsh criticism of the deputies.
Boris Yeltsin and Ruslan Khasbulatov in 1991 Yeltsin suspended the Constitution, although it was illegal
On March 20, 1993, Yeltsin announced the suspension of the Constitution and the introduction of a "special procedure for governing the country." Three days later, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation recognized Yeltsin's actions as unconstitutional and grounds for removing the president from office.
On March 28, 617 deputies voted for the impeachment of the president, with the required 689 votes. Yeltsin remained in power.
On April 25, at a national referendum, the majority supported the president and the government and spoke in favor of holding early elections of people's deputies. On May 1, the first clashes between riot police and opponents of the president took place.
What is Decree No. 1400 and how did it aggravate the situation?
On September 21, 1993, Yeltsin signed Decree No. 1400 on the dissolution of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Armed Forces, although he had no right to do so. In response, the Supreme Council declared that this decree was contrary to the Constitution, therefore it would not be executed and Yeltsin was deprived of the powers of the president. Yeltsin was supported by the Ministry of Defense and law enforcement agencies.
In the following weeks, members of the Supreme Council, people's deputies and Deputy Prime Minister Rutsky were effectively locked in the White House, where communications, electricity and water were cut off. The building was cordoned off by police and military personnel. The White House was guarded by opposition volunteers.
X Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies in the White House, where electricity and water are cut offAssault "Ostankino"
On October 3, supporters of the Armed Forces went to a rally on October Square and then broke through the defenses of the White House. After Rutskoi's appeals, the protesters successfully seized the city hall building and moved to take the Ostankino television center.
By the time the capture began, the TV tower was guarded by 900 soldiers with military equipment. At some point, the first explosion was heard among the soldiers. It was immediately followed by indiscriminate shooting into the crowd at everyone indiscriminately. When the opposition tried to hide in the nearby Oak Grove, they were squeezed from both sides and started shooting from armored personnel carriers and from gun nests on the roof of Ostankino.
During the assault on Ostankino, October 3, 1993.
At the time of the assault, television broadcasting was stoppedWhite House shooting
On the night of October 4, Yeltsin decides to take the White House with the help of armored vehicles. At 7 am, tanks began shelling the government building.
While the building was being shelled, snipers on the rooftops fired on the crowded people near the White House.
By five o'clock in the evening the resistance of the defenders was completely crushed. Opposition leaders, including Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, were arrested. Yeltsin remained in power.
White House October 4, 1993How many people died during the October Putsch?
According to official figures, 46 people died during the storming of Ostankino, and approximately 165 people died during the shooting of the White House, but witnesses report that there were many more victims. Over the course of 20 years, various theories have appeared in which the numbers vary from 500 to 2000 dead.
The results of the October Putsch
The Supreme Council and the Congress of People's Deputies ceased to exist. The entire system of Soviet power that had existed since 1917 was liquidated.
Before the elections on December 12, 1993, all power was in the hands of Yeltsin. On that day, the modern Constitution was chosen, as well as the State Duma and the Federation Council.
What happened after the October Putsch?
In February 1994, all those arrested in connection with the October putsch were amnestied.
Yeltsin served as president until the end of 1999. The constitution adopted after the coup in 1993 is still in force today. According to the new state principles, the president has more powers than the government.
The theme of "bloody October 1993" is still under seven seals today. No one knows exactly how many citizens died in those troubled days. However, the figures given by independent sources are appalling.
Scheduled for 7:00
In the autumn of 1993, the confrontation between the two branches of power - the president and the government, on the one hand, and people's deputies and the Supreme Council, on the other - reached a dead end. The constitution, which the opposition so zealously defended, bound Boris Yeltsin hand and foot. There was only one way out: to change the law, if necessary, by force.
The conflict went into a phase of extreme escalation on September 21, after the famous Decree No. 1400, in which Yeltsin temporarily terminated the powers of the Congress and the Supreme Council. Communications, water and electricity were cut off in the parliament building. However, the legislators blocked there were not going to give up. Volunteers came to their aid to defend the White House.
On the night of October 4, the president decides to storm the Supreme Council using armored vehicles, government troops are drawn to the building. The operation is scheduled for 7 am. As soon as the countdown of the eighth hour began, the first victim appeared - a police captain, who was filming what was happening from the balcony of the Ukraine Hotel, died from a bullet.
White House victims
Already at 10 am, information about the death began to arrive a large number defenders of the residence of the Supreme Council as a result of tank shelling. By 11:30 a.m., 158 people were in need of medical attention, 19 of whom later died in hospital. At 13:00, People's Deputy Vyacheslav Kotelnikov reported on the heavy casualties among those who were in the White House. At about 2:50 pm, unknown snipers begin to shoot at people crowded in front of the parliament.
Closer to 16:00, the resistance of the defenders was suppressed. The government commission assembled in hot pursuit quickly counts the victims of the tragedy - 124 killed, 348 wounded. Moreover, the list does not include those killed in the White House building itself.
The head of the investigation team of the Prosecutor General's Office, Leonid Proshkin, who was involved in the seizure of the Moscow mayor's office and the television center, notes that all the victims are the result of attacks by government forces, since it was proved that "not a single person was killed by the weapons of the White House defenders." According to the Prosecutor General's Office, which MP Viktor Ilyukhin referred to, a total of 148 people were killed during the storming of the parliament, with 101 people near the building.
And then in various comments on these events, the numbers only grew. On October 4, CNN, relying on its sources, stated that about 500 people had died. The newspaper "Argumenty i Fakty", referring to the soldiers of the internal troops, wrote that they collected the "charred and torn by tank shells" remains of almost 800 defenders. Among them were those who drowned in the flooded basements of the White House. Former deputy of the Supreme Council from Chelyabinsk region Anatoly Baronenko announced 900 dead.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article by an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who did not want to introduce himself, who said: “In total, about 1,500 corpses were found in the White House, among them women and children. All of them were secretly taken out of there through an underground tunnel leading from the White House to the Krasnopresnenskaya metro station, and further outside the city, where they were burned.”
There is unconfirmed information that a note was seen on the desk of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Chernomyrdin, which indicated that in just three days 1,575 corpses were taken out of the White House. But Literaturnaya Rossiya was the most surprised by its announcement of 5,000 deaths.
Counting Difficulties
The representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Tatyana Astrakhankina, who headed the commission investigating the events of October 1993, found that shortly after the execution of the parliament, all materials on this case were classified, “some medical records of the wounded and the dead” were rewritten, and “dates of admission to morgues and hospitals” were also changed. . This, of course, creates an almost insurmountable obstacle to an accurate count of the number of victims of the storming of the White House.
It is possible to determine the number of dead, at least in the White House itself, only indirectly. According to the estimates of the General Newspaper, about 2,000 besieged people left the White House building without filtering. Given that initially there were about 2.5 thousand people, we can conclude that the number of victims did not exactly exceed 500.
We must not forget that the first victims of the confrontation between the supporters of the President and the Parliament appeared long before the attack on the White House. So, on September 23, two people died on the Leningrad Highway, and since September 27, according to some estimates, the victims have become almost daily.
According to Rutskoy and Khasbulatov, by the middle of the day on October 3, the death toll had reached 20 people. In the afternoon of the same day, as a result of a clash between the opposition and the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the Crimean bridge, 26 civilians and 2 policemen were killed.
Even if we raise the lists of all those who died in hospitals and went missing during those days, it will be extremely difficult to determine which of them fell victim to precisely political clashes.
Ostankino massacre
On the eve of the assault on the White House on the evening of October 3, responding to Rutskoy's call, General Albert Makashov, at the head of an armed detachment of 20 people and several hundred volunteers, tried to seize the television center building. However, by the time the operation began, Ostankino was already guarded by 24 armored personnel carriers and about 900 soldiers loyal to the president.
After the trucks of supporters of the Supreme Council rammed the ASK-3 building, an explosion was heard (its source was never identified), which caused the first victims. This was the signal for heavy fire, which began to be conducted by internal troops and police officers from the building of the television complex.
They fired bursts and single shots, including from sniper rifles, just into the crowd, not making out the journalists, onlookers or trying to pull out the wounded. Later, indiscriminate shooting was explained by the large crowding of people and the onset of twilight.
But the worst began later. Most of the people tried to hide in the Oak Grove located next to AEC-3. One of the oppositionists recalled how the crowd was squeezed in a grove from two sides, and then they began to shoot from an armored personnel carrier and four automatic nests from the roof of a television center.
According to official figures, the battles for Ostankino claimed the lives of 46 people, including two inside the building. However, witnesses claim that there were many more victims.
Don't count the numbers
Writer Alexander Ostrovsky in his book The Shooting of the White House. Black October 1993" tried to sum up the victims of those tragic events, based on verified data: "Until October 2 - 4 people, on the afternoon of October 3 at the White House - 3, in Ostankino - 46, during the storming of the White House - at least 165, 3 and on October 4 in other places of the city - 30, on the night of October 4-5 - 95, plus those who died after October 5, in total - about 350 people.
However, many admit that official statistics are several times underestimated. How much, one can only guess, based on eyewitness accounts of those events.
Sergei Surnin, a teacher at Moscow State University, who observed the events near the White House, recalled how, after the shooting began, he and 40 other people fell to the ground: “Armored personnel carriers passed us and shot people lying down from a distance of 12-15 meters - one third of those lying nearby were killed or injured. And in the immediate vicinity of me - three dead, two wounded: next to me, to the right of me, a dead man, another dead behind me, in front, at least one dead."
Artist Anatoly Nabatov from the window of the White House saw how in the evening after the end of the assault, a group of about 200 people was brought to the Krasnaya Presnya stadium. They were stripped, and then at the wall adjacent to Druzhinnikovskaya Street, they began to shoot in batches until late at night on October 5. Eyewitnesses said that they were beaten beforehand. According to deputy Baronenko, at least 300 people were shot at the stadium and near it.
Georgy Gusev, a well-known public figure who headed the People's Action movement in 1993, testified that in the yards and entrances of the detainees, riot policemen beat the detainees and then killed unknown persons "in a strange form."
One of the drivers who took out the corpses from the parliament building and from the stadium admitted that he had to make two trips to the Moscow region in his truck. In the forest, the corpses were thrown into pits, covered with earth, and the burial place was leveled with a bulldozer.
Human rights activist Yevgeny Yurchenko, one of the founders of the Memorial society, who dealt with the secret destruction of corpses in Moscow crematoria, managed to learn from the workers of the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery about the burning of 300-400 corpses. Yurchenko also drew attention to the fact that if in "normal months", according to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, up to 200 unclaimed corpses were burned in crematoria, then in October 1993 this figure increased several times - up to 1500.
According to Yurchenko, the list of those killed during the events of September-October 1993, where the fact of disappearance was either proven or witnesses of death were found, is 829 people. But obviously this list is incomplete.
The October putsch (execution of the White House) is an internal political conflict in the Russian Federation between representatives of the old and new authorities, which resulted in a coup d'état and an assault on the White House, where the government met.
The October putsch took place from September 21 to October 24, 1993 and went down in history as one of the most brutal coups in modern history. Caused by unrest in the ranks of the government, rallies, armed clashes and riots began throughout Moscow, which claimed many lives, many people were also injured. During the storming of the White House, several dozen deputies were injured. Due to the fact that tanks and armed forces took part in the assault, the events were later called the "Shooting of the White House."
Causes of the October Putsch
The October events were the result of a long crisis in power, which began to develop as early as 1992 after the August 1991 coup and the change of regime. After the collapse of the USSR and the coming to power of Yeltsin, his administration wanted to completely reorganize the management system, getting rid of all the vestiges Soviet Union However, the Supreme Council and the Congress of People's Deputies did not approve of such a policy. In addition, the reforms carried out by Yeltsin raised many questions and not only did not save the country from the crisis, but in many ways aggravated it. The last straw was the clashes over the Constitution, which they could not accept in any way. As a result, the internal conflict grew to the point that a council was convened, at which issues of trust in the incumbent president and the Supreme Council were resolved. Internal conflicts in the government worsened the situation in the country every month.
As a result, at the end of September there was an open clash between the old government and the new one. On the side of the new was President Yeltsin, he was supported by the government headed by Chernomyrdin and a number of deputies. The old government was represented by the Supreme Council headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov and vice-president Alexander Rutskoi.
The course of events of the October putsch
On September 21, 1993, President Boris Yeltsin issued the famous Decree 1400 announcing the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies. This decree violated the Constitution in force at that time, therefore, immediately after the publication, the Supreme Council deprived Yeltsin of the presidency, referring to the current legislative norms, and declared Decree 1400 invalid. The actions carried out by Yeltsin were regarded as a coup d'état. However, despite his legal status, Yeltsin continued to act as president and did not accept the decision of the Supreme Council.
On September 22, the Supreme Soviet continued its work, the place of the president was taken by Rutskoi, who already officially canceled the decision to dissolve the Supreme Soviet and convened an emergency Congress. At this Congress, a number of important decisions were made and many current ministers and members of the Yeltsin administration were dismissed. Amendments were also made to the criminal code of the Russian Federation, according to which a coup d'état was considered a criminal offense. Thus, Yeltsin was declared by the Supreme Soviet not only former president but also a criminal.
On September 23, the Supreme Council continues its meetings. Yeltsin, ignoring the fact that he was removed from office, adopts a number of decrees, one of which is the decree on early presidential elections. On the same day, the first attack was made on the building of the joint command of the CIS Armed Forces. The conflict is becoming more and more serious, the armed forces are entering it, there is a strengthening of control over the activities of the Supreme Council.
On September 24, the Deputy Minister of Defense issues an ultimatum to the members of the Supreme Council - he demands that they immediately close the Congress, surrender all their weapons, resign and immediately leave the building. The Supreme Council refuses to obey this demand.
Since September 24, the number of rallies and armed clashes on the streets of Moscow has increased significantly, riots and strikes by supporters of the new and old authorities are constantly taking place. The deputies of the Supreme Council are forbidden to leave the White House, around which the construction of barricades begins.
On October 1, the situation becomes critical and, to resolve it, negotiations begin between the two parties under the patronage of Patriarch Alexei 2. The negotiations are relatively successful, the barricades begin to be removed, but already on October 2, the Supreme Council renounces all previously made statements and postpones the negotiations to the 3rd. Due to the increased frequency of rallies, negotiations have not resumed.
On October 4, Yeltsin decides on an armed assault on the White House, which ends with the overthrow of the Supreme Soviet.
The meaning and results of the October putsch
These bloody events are unequivocally interpreted as a coup d'état, but historians differ in their assessments. Some say that Yeltsin seized power by force and literally destroyed the Supreme Soviet, following his whim, others point out that due to the deep conflict there was no other option for the development of events. Despite this, the October coup finally destroyed the traces of the old government and the USSR and turned the Russian Federation into a presidential republic with a new government.
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Today is a tragic date in Russian history: the 19th anniversary of the massacre of the defenders of the White House
Tonight, three streets in the center of Moscow, adjacent to the White House, will be blocked for traffic. And for sure there will be drivers who will be, literally speaking, very unhappy with this. Again, they say, they are protesting - it would be better if they were engaged in some kind of business ...
But the reason for the mass "festivities" (by the way, very modest in size: the authorities allowed two public actions with a maximum number of 1,000 and 300 people, respectively) is still special. After all, these rallies are timed to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the events that took place in Moscow in September-October 1993. Events that, without any exaggeration, determined the entire further course Russian history.
Meanwhile, these events remain one of the least studied pages of our history. Television and the central press annually confine themselves to reading official information and brief news stories. Most of the documents that could shed light on what really happened are still classified. Moreover, many of the documents appear to have already been destroyed. And after 19 years, we don’t even know how many lives of our fellow tribesmen that “black October” claimed.
True, relatively recently (on the 16th anniversary of those tragic events), historian Valery Shevchenko prepared, in fact, the first study that systematized disparate media publications of those years and eyewitness accounts. And from the picture that appeared in the end, the hair, as they say, stand on end. The full text of his work "The Forgotten Victims of October 1993" can be found on the Web. We will reproduce only some excerpts.
“September 21 - October 5, 1993,” the historian writes, “tragic events of recent Russian history took place: the dissolution of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of Russia by presidential decree No. defenders of the Supreme Council on October 3-5 near the television center in Ostankino and in the area of the White House. More than 15 years have passed since those memorable days, but the main question still remains unanswered - how many human lives were claimed by the October tragedy.
The official list of the dead, announced by the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia, includes 147 people: in Ostankino - 45 civilians and 1 serviceman, in the "White House area" - 77 civilians and 24 servicemen of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs ...
The list compiled on the basis of materials of parliamentary hearings in the State Duma of Russia on October 31, 1995, includes 160 names. Of the 160 people, 45 were killed in the area of the Ostankino television center, 75 - in the area of the White House, 12 - "citizens who died in other areas of Moscow and the Moscow region", 28 - dead military personnel and employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Moreover, the 12 “citizens who died in other areas of Moscow and the Moscow region” included Pavel Vladimirovich Alferov with the indication “burnt on the 13th floor of the House of Soviets” and Vasily Anatolyevich Tarasov, according to relatives, who participated in the defense of the Supreme Council and went missing.
But in the list published in the collection of documents of the Commission State Duma for additional study and analysis of the events that took place in Moscow on September 21 - October 5, 1993, which worked from May 28, 1998 to December 1999, the names of only 158 dead have already been named. P.V. was deleted from the list. Alferov and V.A. Tarasova. Meanwhile, the conclusion of the commission stated: "According to a rough estimate, in the events of September 21 - October 5, 1993, about 200 people were killed or died from their injuries."
The published lists, even when viewed superficially, raise a number of questions. Of the 122 civilians officially declared dead, only 17 are residents of other regions of Russia and neighboring countries, the rest, not counting a few dead citizens from far abroad, are residents of the Moscow region. It is known that quite a few people from other cities came to defend the parliament, including those from rallies at which lists of volunteers were compiled. But loners prevailed, some of them came to Moscow behind the scenes ...
Many Muscovites and residents of the Moscow region, who remained near the parliament building behind barbed wire during the days of the blockade, after its breakthrough on October 3, went home to spend the night. Outsiders had nowhere to go. Vladimir Glinsky, the defender of parliament, recalls: “In my detachment, which held a barricade on the Kalininsky bridge near the city hall, there were only 30 percent of Muscovites. And by the morning of October 4, there were even fewer of them, because many had gone home to spend the night.” In addition, with a breakthrough, other visitors joined the defenders of the House of Soviets. Deputy of the Supreme Council surgeon N.G. Grigoriev recorded the arrival at the parliament building at 22:15 on October 3 of a civilian column, which consisted mainly of middle-aged men ...
In order to establish the true number of those killed in the House of Soviets, - continues Valery Shevchenko, - it is necessary to know how many people were there during the assault on October 4, 1993. Some researchers claim that at that time there were a maximum of 2,500 people in the parliament building. But if it is still possible to determine the relatively exact number of people who were in the White House and around it before the blockade was broken, then difficulties arise with respect to October 4th.
Svetlana Timofeevna Sinyavskaya was engaged in the distribution of food stamps for people who were in the ring of defense of the House of Soviets. Svetlana Timofeevna testifies that before the blockade was broken, coupons were issued for 4362 people. However, the defender of the parliament from the 11th detachment, which included 25 people, told the author of these lines that their detachment did not receive coupons.
When asked how many people were in and around the White House in the early morning of October 4, only a rough answer can be given. As the defender of the parliament, who came from Tyumen, testifies, on the night of October 3-4, many people, more than a thousand, slept in the basement of the House of Soviets. According to P.Yu. Bobryashov, no more than a thousand people remained on the square, mostly around fires and tents. According to the ecologist M.R. approximately 1,500 people were dispersed in small groups around the square in front of the White House.
Thus, the following picture emerges: there were about 5,000 people inside the White House on the night of October 4, 1993, and another 1,000-1,500 on the street around the building of the Supreme Council. And then the "valiant" government troops (the order was given by the then Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev) began to storm the building and shell it with tank guns. Here is what Valery Shevchenko writes further:
“When the shelling of the square began, many people who were fleeing from the massive fire of armored personnel carriers took refuge in the basement-shelter of a two-story building located not far from the House of Soviets. According to military journalist I.V. Varfolomeev, up to 1,500 people crowded into the bunker. The same number of people gathered in the bunker is also mentioned by Marina Nikolaevna Rostovskaya. Then they went through the underground passage to the parliament building. Many people were taken to the floors. According to Moscow businessman Andrei (not his real name), some of the women and children taken out of the dungeon were taken to the fourth floor of the House of Soviets. “They began to take us up the stairs to the third, fourth, fifth floors into the corridors,” Alexander Strakhov recalled. Another eyewitness testifies that 800 people who came out of the basement were taken prisoner in the hall of the 20th entrance to the paratroopers of the 119th Naro-Fominsk Regiment and around 14:30 were “released to freedom”. A group of 300 people, which the paratroopers sent to the basement during the intensification of the shelling, left the parliament building at 15:00.
Deputies, members of the apparatus, journalists and many unarmed defenders of the parliament gathered in the hall of the Council of Nationalities. From time to time there were proposals to withdraw women, children and journalists from the building. The list of journalists to be removed from the House of Soviets consisted of 103 names. There were about 2,000 deputies, employees of the apparatus, civilians (including those who found themselves in the hall of refugees).
It remains unclear how many people during the assault were on the upper (above the seventh) floors of the White House. It should be noted that in the first hours of the assault, people were primarily afraid of the capture of the lower floors by special forces. In addition, some of them survived the attack of armored personnel carriers. Many, when the intensive shelling began, went up to the upper floors, "because it gave the impression that it was safer there." This is evidenced by Captain 3rd Rank Sergei Mozgovoy and Professor of the Russian State University of Trade and Economics Marat Mazitovich Musin (published under the pseudonym Ivan Ivanov). But it was on the upper floors that tanks were fired, which significantly reduced the chance of survival for the people who were there ...
During the day, despite the ongoing shelling, people broke into the parliament building. “And already, when there was no hope,” recalled deputy V.I. Kotelnikov, - 200 people broke through to us: men, women, girls, teenagers, actually children, schoolchildren of the eighth-tenth grades, several Suvorovites. As they ran, they were shot in the back. The dead fell, leaving bloody footprints on the pavement, the living continued to run.
Thus, Shevchenko concludes, on October 4, 1993, many hundreds of mostly unarmed people ended up in the House of Soviets and in its immediate vicinity. And starting at about 6:40 in the morning, their mass destruction began.
The first victims near the parliament appeared when the defenders' symbolic barricades broke through the armored personnel carriers, opening fire to kill. Galina N. testifies: “At 6:45 am on October 4, we were alarmed. Sleepy, we ran out into the street and immediately came under machine-gun fire... Then we lay on the ground for several hours, and armored personnel carriers were beating ten meters from us... There were about three hundred of us. Few survived. And then we ran to the fourth entrance ... I saw on the street that those who moved on the ground were shot.
“In front of our eyes, armored personnel carriers shot unarmed old women, young people who were in tents and near them,” recalled Lieutenant V.P. Shubochkin. - We saw how a group of orderlies ran to the wounded colonel, but two of them were killed. A few minutes later, the sniper finished off the colonel." Deputy R.S. Mukhamadiev saw women in white coats run out of the parliament building. They were holding white handkerchiefs in their hands. But as soon as they bend down to help the man lying in the blood, they were cut off by bullets from a heavy machine gun.
Journalist Irina Taneeva, not yet fully aware that the assault was beginning, observed the following from the window of the House of Soviets: “People ran into the bus that was abandoned the day before by the riot police, climbed inside, hiding from bullets. Three BMDs hit the bus from three sides at breakneck speed and shot him. The bus burst into flames. People tried to get out of there and immediately fell dead, struck down by dense fire from the BMD. Blood. Nearby Zhiguli, full of people, were also shot and burned. Everyone died."
The execution also came from the direction of Druzhinnikovskaya Street. The People's Deputy of Russia A.M. Leontiev: “There were 6 armored personnel carriers along the lane opposite the White House, and between them and the White House behind barbed wire ... there were Cossacks from the Kuban - 100 people. They were not armed. They were just in the form of Cossacks ... No more than 5-6 people ran to the entrances of hundreds of Cossacks, and the rest all died.
According to the minimum estimate, several dozen people became victims of the attack by armored vehicles. According to Yevgeny O., many of those who came to the barricades or lived in tents near the building of the Supreme Council were killed on the square. Among them were young women. One was lying with her face turned into a continuous bloody wound...
In the parliament building itself, the death toll increased several times with every hour of the assault. Deputy from Chuvashia surgeon N.G. Grigoriev at 7:45 am on October 4 went down to the first floor in the hall of the 20th entrance. “I drew attention,” he recalls, “to the fact that on the floor of the hall (and the hall was the largest in the House of Soviets) lay in rows of more than fifty wounded, possibly killed, because the first two and a half rows of people lying were covered over the head.
A few hours later, the storm of the dead increased noticeably. In the transition from the 20th to the 8th entrance, more than 20 dead were laid down. According to Andrey (not his real name), a Moscow businessman, there were about a hundred dead and seriously wounded in their sector alone.
“I left the reception room on the third floor and began to go down to the first floor,” testifies a person from A.V.’s entourage. Rutsky. - On the first floor - a terrible picture. Entirely on the floor, side by side - the dead ... There they piled mountains. Women, old men, two murdered doctors in white coats. And the blood on the floor is half a glass high: after all, it has nowhere to drain ”...
According to the artist Anatoly Leonidovich Nabatov, in the hall of the 8th entrance, from 100 to 200 corpses were stacked. Anatoly Leonidovich went up to the 16th floor, saw corpses in the corridors, brains on the walls. On the 16th floor, he noticed a journalist who was coordinating fire on the building by radio, reporting on the crowd. Anatoly Leonidovich handed him over to the Cossacks.
After the events, the President of Kalmykia K.N. Ilyumzhinov said in an interview: “I saw that in the White House there were not 50 or 70 killed, but hundreds. At first, they tried to collect them in one place, then they abandoned this idea: it was dangerous to move around once again. Most of them were random people - without weapons. By our arrival, there were more than 500 dead. By the end of the day, I think that number had risen to a thousand.” R.S. In the midst of the assault, Mukhamadiev heard from his colleague, a deputy, a professional doctor elected from the Murmansk region, the following: “Already five offices are full of dead people. And the wounded are countless. More than a hundred people lie in the blood. But we don't have anything. No bandages, not even iodine…”. The President of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, told Stanislav Govorukhin on the evening of October 4 that 127 corpses had been taken out of the White House under him, but many still remained in the building.
The number of dead was significantly increased by the shelling of the House of Soviets with tank shells. From the direct organizers and leaders of the shelling, one can hear that harmless blanks were fired at the building. For example, the former Minister of Defense of Russia P.S. Grachev stated the following: “We fired at the White House with six blanks from one tank at one pre-selected window in order to force the conspirators to leave the building. We knew that there was no one outside the window.”
However, statements of this kind are completely refuted by the testimony of witnesses. As correspondents of the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper reported, at about 11:30 in the morning, shells, apparently of cumulative action, pierce the White House through and through: from the opposite side of the building, 5-10 windows and thousands of sheets of stationery fly out at the same time as the shell hits.
Here are some testimonies of eyewitnesses to the death of people in the parliament building as a result of shells hitting it. Here is what, for example, deputy V.I. Kotelnikov: “At first, when I ran through the building with some task, I was horrified by the amount of blood, corpses, torn bodies. Severed hands, heads. A shell hits, part of a person here, part - there ... And then you get used to it. You have a task to complete." “When we were fired from tanks,” recalled another eyewitness, “I was on the sixth floor. There were many civilians here. We didn't have weapons. I thought that after the shelling, the soldiers would break into the building, and I decided that I needed to find a pistol or machine gun. He opened the door to the room where the shell had recently exploded. I couldn't get in. There was a bloody mess." Former employee militia Ya., who went over to the side of the parliament, saw how shells in the offices of the House of Soviets "literally tore people apart." A lot of victims turned out to be in the second entrance of the White House (one of the tank shells hit the basement) ...
In addition to the shelling of the parliament building from tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, automatic and sniper fire, which lasted all day, both the direct defenders of the parliament and citizens who accidentally found themselves in the combat zone were shot both in the White House and around it. Doctor Nikolai Burns assisted the wounded in the "medical battalion" near the city hall ("book"). In front of his eyes, a riot policeman shot two boys aged 12-13.
According to one of the defending officers, who crossed on the morning of October 4, along with other people from the bunker to the basement of the White House, "young guys and girls were grabbed and taken around the corner into one of the niches," then "short automatic bursts were heard from there." ON THE. Bryuzgina, who helped the wounded in a makeshift "hospital" on the first floor in the 20th entrance, subsequently told O.A. Lebedev that when the bursting in soldiers began to drag the wounded into the corridor, dull sounds began to be heard from there. Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, opening the toilet door, saw that the entire floor was covered with blood. In the same place, the corpses of people who had just been shot were lying in a mountain. On the morning of October 4, engineer N. Misin hid from shooting along with other unarmed people in the basement of the House of Soviets. When the first floor of the 20th entrance was seized by the military, people were taken out of the basement and put in the lobby. The wounded were carried away on stretchers to the room of the guards on duty. After some time, Misin was released into the toilet, where he saw the following picture: “There, neatly, in a pile, were the corpses in the “civilian”. I took a closer look: from above - those whom we carried out of the basement. Blood - ankle-deep ... An hour later, the corpses began to endure "...
Captain 1st rank V.K. Kashintsev: “At about 2:30 pm, a guy from the third floor made his way to us, covered in blood, squeezed out through sobs: “They open the rooms downstairs with grenades and shoot everyone. He survived, because he was unconscious, apparently, they took him for the dead. One can only guess about the fate of most of the wounded left in the White House ...
Many people were shot or beaten to death after they left the White House. People who went out to “surrender” on the afternoon of October 4 from the 20th entrance witnessed how the attack aircraft finished off the wounded. On walking behind the deputy Yu.K. Chapkovsky, a young man in camouflage, was attacked by riot police, began to beat, trample underfoot, then shot him.
They tried to drive those who came out from the side of the embankment through the yard and the entrances of the house along Glubokoy Lane. “In the entrance, where they pushed us,” recalls I.V. Saveliev, - it was full of people. There were screams from the upper floors. Everyone was searched, their jackets and coats were torn off - they were looking for servicemen and policemen (those who were on the side of the defenders of the House of Soviets), they were immediately taken somewhere ... A policeman, the defender of the House of Soviets, was wounded by a shot. Someone shouted over the riot police radio: “Do not shoot at the entrances! Who will clean up the corpses?!” The shooting didn't stop outside." Another eyewitness testifies: “We were searched and transferred to the next entrance. The riot police stood in two rows and tortured us ... In the dim corridor below, I saw half-dressed people with bruises. Swearing, screams of the beaten, fumes. There is a crunch of broken bones." Militia Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Vladimirovich Rutskoi saw how three people stripped to the waist were dragged out of the entrance and immediately shot against the wall. He also heard the screams of the raped woman.
The riot police were especially fierce in one of the entrances of this house. An eyewitness, miraculously surviving, recalls: “They take me to the front door. There is light, and on the floor - corpses, naked to the waist. For some reason naked and for some reason to the waist. As established by Yu.P. Vlasov, everyone who got into the first entrance was killed after being tortured, the women were stripped naked and raped in a crowd, after which they were shot. A group of 60-70 civilians who left the White House after 7 p.m. were led by riot police along the embankment to Nikolaev Street and, having led them into the yards, they were brutally beaten, and then finished off with automatic bursts. Four managed to run into the entrance of one of the houses, where they hid for about a day.
And again, excerpts from the story of V.I. Kotelnikova: “We ran into the yard, a huge old yard, square. There were about 15 people in my group ... When we ran to the last entrance, there were only three of us left ... We ran to the attic - the doors there, fortunately for us, were broken. We fell among the rubbish behind some kind of pipe and froze ... We decided to lie down. A curfew was declared, everything was cordoned off by riot police, and practically we were in their camp. All night there was shooting. When it was already dawn, from half past five to half past seven we put ourselves in order ... We began to slowly descend. When I opened the door, I almost passed out. The whole yard was littered with corpses, not very often, like in a checkerboard pattern. The corpses are all in some unusual positions: some are sitting, some are on their sides, some have a leg, some have their arms raised, and all are blue and yellow. I think what is unusual in this picture? And they are all naked, all naked.”
On the morning of October 5, local residents saw many dead in the yards. A few days after the events, the correspondent of the Italian newspaper L` Unione Sarda, Vladimir Koval, examined these entrances. He found broken teeth and strands of hair, although, as he writes, "it seems to have been cleaned up, even sprinkled with sand in some places."
A tragic fate befell many of those who, on the evening of October 4, left the side of the Asmaral (Krasnaya Presnya) stadium located on the back side of the House of Soviets. On October 6, the media reported that, according to preliminary estimates, during the “voluntary surrender” during the final phase of the assault on the White House, about 1,200 people were detained, of which about 600 are at the Krasnaya Presnya stadium. Curfew violators were also reported to be among the latter.
The executions at the stadium began in the early evening of 4 October. According to the residents of the houses adjacent to it, who saw how the detainees were shot, "this bloody bacchanalia continued all night." The first group was driven to the concrete fence of the stadium by submachine gunners in spotted camouflage. An armored personnel carrier drove up and slashed the prisoners with machine-gun fire. In the same place, at dusk, they shot the second group ...
Alexander Alexandrovich Lapin, who spent three days, from the evening of October 4 to October 7, at the stadium “on death row” testifies: “After the House of Soviets fell, its defenders were taken to the wall of the stadium. They separated those who were in Cossack uniforms, in police uniforms, in camouflage, military, who had any party documents. Who had nothing, like me... leaned against a tall tree... And we saw how our comrades were shot in the back... Then we were herded into the locker room... We were kept for three days. No food, no water, most importantly, no tobacco. Twenty people...
Yu.E. Petukhov, the father of Natasha Petukhova, who was shot on the night of October 3-4 in Ostankino, testifies: “Early in the morning of October 5, it was still dark, I drove up to the burning White House from the side of the park ... I approached the cordon of very young tankers with a photograph of my Natasha, and they told me that there were many corpses in the stadium, there are still in the building and in the basement of the White House ... I returned to the stadium and went there from the side of the monument to the victims of 1905. There were a lot of people shot at the stadium. Some of them were without shoes and belts, some were crushed. I was looking for my daughter and went around all the executed and tormented heroes ... "
When the House of Soviets had not yet burned down, - continues Valery Shevchenko, - the authorities had already begun to falsify the number of those killed in the October tragedy. Late in the evening of October 4, 1993, an informational message went through the media: "Europe hopes that the number of victims will be kept to a minimum." The recommendation of the West was heard in the Kremlin.
Early in the morning of October 5, 1993, the head of the presidential administration, S.A. B.N. called Filatov. Yeltsin. The following conversation took place between them:
Sergei Alexandrovich... for your information, 146 people died during all the days of the rebellion.
It's good that you said, Boris Nikolaevich, otherwise there was a feeling that 700-1500 people died. It would be necessary to print the lists of the dead.
I agree. Organize please...
How many dead were taken to Moscow morgues on October 3-4? In the first days after the October massacre, employees of morgues and hospitals refused to answer the question about the number of dead, referring to an order from the central office. “For two days I called dozens of Moscow hospitals and mortuaries, trying to find out,” Y. Igonin testifies. - Answered openly: "We were forbidden to give out this information."
Moscow doctors claimed that as of October 12, 179 corpses of victims of the October massacre had been passed through Moscow morgues. GMUM Press Secretary I.F. Nadezhdin on October 5, along with the official figures of 108 dead, excluding the corpses that were still in the White House, also named another figure - about 450 dead, which needed to be clarified.
However, a large part of the corpses that entered the Moscow morgues soon disappeared from there. Doctor of the MMA Rescue Center THEM. Sechenova A.V. Dalnov, who worked in the parliament building during the assault, stated some time after the events: “Traces are being swept up on the exact number of victims. All materials on 21.09-04.10.93, which are in the CEMP, are classified. Some medical histories of the wounded and dead are being rewritten, the dates of admission to morgues and hospitals are being changed. Some of the victims, in agreement with the leadership of the State Medical University, are transported to morgues in other cities.” According to Dalnov, the death toll is underestimated by at least an order of magnitude. On October 9, I.F. contacted the coordinator of the medical team of the House of Soviets. Nadezhdin, offering to speak on television together with the doctors of CEMP and GMUM in order to reassure the public about the number of victims. Dalnov refused to participate in falsification ...
Starting from October 5, A.V. Dalnov and his colleagues toured the hospitals and morgues of the ministries of defense, internal affairs and state security. They managed to find out that the corpses of the victims of the October tragedy, who were there, were not included in the official reports.
The same was said in the report of the Commission of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation for additional study and analysis of the events that took place in Moscow on September 21 - October 5, 1993: "The secret removal and burial of the corpses of those killed in the events of September 21 - October 5, 1993, which was repeatedly reported in some printed publications and the media, if they took place, they were produced ... perhaps through the morgues of other cities, some departmental morgues or some other structures associated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation "...
But in the building of the former parliament there were many corpses that did not even get into the morgues. The doctors of Y. Kholkin’s brigade testify: “We went through the entire database up to the 7th (“basement”) floor ... But the military did not let us go above the 7th, referring to the fact that everything was on fire and you could simply be poisoned by gases, although from there There were shots and screams."
According to L.G. Proshkin, investigators from the General Prosecutor's Office were allowed into the building only on 6 October. Prior to that, according to him, internal troops and the Leningrad OMON were in charge there for several days. But in a personal conversation with I.I. Andronov, Proshkin said that the investigators were allowed into the building later than on the evening of October 6, that is, only on the morning of October 7.
AT investigative case No. 18 / 123669-93, which was maintained by the Prosecutor General's Office, indicated that no bodies of the dead were found in the White House itself. Prosecutor General V.G. Stepankov, who visited the building of the former parliament the day after the assault, stated: “The most difficult thing in the investigation of this case is the fact that on October 5 we did not find a single corpse in the White House. No one. Therefore, the investigation is deprived of the opportunity to in full establish the causes of death of each of those people who were taken away from the building before us.” A.I. Kazannik, appointed instead of Stepankov to the post of Prosecutor General, also visited the building of the former parliament, saw the destruction, drew attention to the bloodstains. According to his visual assessment, the picture inside the White House did not correspond to the rumors of "many thousands of victims"...
The Chief Military Prosecutor's Office also conducted its own investigation. Prosecutor of the city of Moscow G.S. Ponomarev, leaving the House of Soviets, said that the number of those killed there was in the hundreds.
How many people died during the storming of the House of Soviets, were shot at the stadium and in the yards, and how were their bodies taken out? On the first day, various sources gave figures from 200 to 600 who died during the assault. According to preliminary estimates by interior ministry experts, there could be up to 300 corpses in the parliament building. “In those corners of the White House where I had to visit,” one soldier claimed, “I counted 300 corpses.” Another soldier overheard "some military personnel saying there were 415 bodies in the White House."
The Nezavisimaya Gazeta correspondent learned from a confidential source that the number of victims inside the House of Soviets numbered in the hundreds. About 400 corpses from the upper floors, which were shelled from tanks, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. According to an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after the end of the assault on the White House, approximately 474 bodies of the dead were found there (without examining all the premises and sorting out the rubble). Many of them had numerous shrapnel damage. There were corpses affected by the fire. They are characterized by the “boxer” pose.
S.N. Baburin was called the number of dead - 762 people. Another source called over 750 dead. The journalists of the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper found out that for several days soldiers and officers of the internal troops were collecting the remains of almost 800 of its defenders, “charred and torn by tank shells,” around the building. Among the dead were found the bodies of those who choked in the flooded dungeons of the White House. According to the information of the former deputy of the Supreme Council from the Chelyabinsk region A.S. Baronenko, about 900 people died in the House of Soviets.
According to some reports, up to 160 people were shot at the stadium. Moreover, until two in the morning on October 5, they were shot in batches, having previously beaten their victims. Local residents saw that about 100 people were shot only not far from the pool. According to Baronenko, about 300 people were shot at the stadium...
How many human lives were claimed by the October tragedy? There is a list of the dead, in which 978 people are named by name (according to other sources - 981). Three different sources (in the Ministry of Defence, the MB, the Council of Ministers) informed NEG correspondents about the certificate prepared only for top Russian officials. The certificate, signed by three power ministers, indicated the number of dead - 948 people (according to other sources, 1052). According to informants, at first there was only a certificate from the MB sent by V.S. Chernomyrdin. This was followed by an instruction to make a consolidated document of all three ministries. The information was also confirmed by the former President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev. “According to my information,” he said in an interview with NEG, “one Western television company purchased for a certain amount a certificate prepared for the government, indicating the number of victims. But until it's made public."
Radio station "Freedom" October 7, 1993, when they had not yet examined all the premises in the House of Soviets, reported the death of 1032 people. Employees of institutions where hidden statistics were kept, called the figure of 1600 dead. Internal statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs recorded 1,700 dead. On the 15th anniversary of the execution of the parliament R.I. Khasbulatov, in an interview with MK journalist K. Novikov, said that a high-ranking police general swore and swore, calling the number of dead 1,500 people. At the same time, in an interview with the press service of the CPRF MGK, Khasbulatov said: "As many military and police officials told me - many said - that the total number of dead was somewhere even more than 2,000 people."
To date, it can be argued that at least 1,000 people died in the tragic events of September-October 1993 in Moscow. How many more victims there were can only be shown by a special investigation at a high state level,” concludes Valeriy Shevchenko. The authorities, however, are not going to conduct such an investigation.
But just the other day, the head of the Kremlin administration, Sergei Ivanov, speaking on behalf of the highest Russian authorities at the World Russian People's Council, called "to restore the continuity and continuity of Russian history, to free it from myths and opportunistic assessments, to build into the fabric of a single political canvas both outstanding victories and bitter defeats that throw the country back decades."
So what prevents us from starting with an investigation into the events of the bloody October 1993? This is what the souls of our dead brothers and sisters cry out for, who came to defend the legitimate, supreme power of Russia at that time - the Supreme Council. Here is the text of the testament of the unsurrendered defenders of the House of Soviets, which has accidentally come down to us:
“Brothers, when you read these lines, we will no longer be alive. Our bodies, shot through, will burn out in these walls. We appeal to you, who were lucky enough to get out of this bloody massacre alive.
We loved Russia. We wanted this earth to restore, finally, the order that God had determined for it. His name is catholicity; within it, every person has equal rights and duties, and no one is allowed to break the law, no matter how high his rank.
Of course, we were naive simpletons, we are punished for our gullibility, we are shot and eventually betrayed. We were just pawns in someone's well thought out game. But our spirit is not broken. Yes, dying is scary. However, something supports, someone invisible says: “You cleanse your soul with blood, and now Satan will not get it. And when you die, you will be much stronger than the living.”
In our last moments, we appeal to you, citizens of Russia. Remember these days. Don't look away when our mutilated bodies are laughingly shown on television. Remember everything and do not fall into the same traps that we fell into.
Forgive us. We also forgive those who are sent to kill us. They are not to blame... But we do not forgive, we curse the demonic gang that has sat on Russia's neck.
Don't let the great Orthodox faith be trampled on, don't let Russia be trampled on.
Based on all open sources of information, we tried to find out to within a few minutes what happened in the center of Moscow 20 years ago.
16:00 Moscow time. A man in camouflage told reporters. That he is a member of the Alpha Special Forces and will enter the White House to begin negotiations for the surrender of its defenders.
15:50 Moscow time. Looks like the fight is over. Leaflets titled "The Testament of the White House Defenders" are scattered around the White House. The message says: “Now that you are reading this letter, we are no longer among the living. Our bullet-riddled bodies are burning within the walls of the White House."
“We truly loved Russia and wished to restore order in the country. So that all people have equal rights and obligations, so that it is forbidden for everyone to break the law, regardless of position. We had no plans to escape abroad.”
“Forgive us. We also forgive everyone, even the boy soldiers who were sent to shoot at us. It's not their fault. But we will never forgive this diabolical gang that has sat on the neck of Russia. We believe that in the end our Motherland will be freed from this burden.”
15:30 Moscow time. Troops loyal to President Yeltsin resumed shelling the White House.
15:00 Moscow time. Special forces "Alpha" and "Vympel" were ordered to storm the White House. However, the command states that they will continue negotiations for some time, trying to convince the defenders of the building to surrender.
14:57 Moscow time. White House defenders say they have no idea what kind of snipers sat on the roof.
According to former first Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR Andrei Dunaev, in front of his eyes a police officer was shot dead by a sniper. “We ran to the roof, from where a shot was heard, but there was no one there. Judging by the way it all happened, neither the KGB nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs were to blame. Someone else did it, maybe even a foreign intelligence agent, ”Dunaev suggested.
14:55 Moscow time. One of the officers of the Alpha group was killed by a sniper.
“One of our fighters, a young lieutenant Gennady Sergeev, died. His group drove up to the White House in an infantry fighting vehicle. A wounded soldier was lying on the pavement, he had to be evacuated. However, at that very moment, a sniper shot Sergeyev in the back. But the shot wasn't from the White House, that's for sure. This shameful murder had only one goal - to provoke Alpha so that the fighters broke into the building and killed everyone there, ”said Gennady Zaitsev, commander of the Alpha group.
14:50 UTC Unidentified snipers fire indiscriminately into the crowd around the White House. Yeltsin's supporters, policemen, and ordinary people become targets for shots. Two journalists and a woman were killed, two soldiers were wounded.
14:00 Brief lull at the White House. Several of the building's defenders came out to surrender.
13:00: According to former people's deputy Vyacheslav Kotelnikov, there have already been many victims on different floors of the White House in Moscow.
“When I walked from one floor of the building to another, I was immediately struck by how much blood, dead and mutilated bodies were everywhere. Some of them were beheaded, others had their limbs cut off. These people died when tanks started firing at the White House. However, pretty soon this picture ceased to shock me, because I had to do my job.
12:00: The Public Opinion Foundation organized a telephone survey of Muscovites. As it turned out, 72% of respondents supported President Yeltsin, 9% were on the side of the parliament. 19% of the respondents refused to answer the questions.
11:40 a.m.: Due to the uncoordinated actions of the police cordons, several teenagers managed to break into the parking lot in front of the White House. Aggressive young people tried to take possession of the weapons thrown by the wounded. This was announced by the commander of the Taman division. Several cars were also stolen.
11:30 am: 192 injured needed medical attention. 158 of them were hospitalized, 19 subsequently died in hospitals.
11:25 a.m.: Heavy gunfire resumed in front of the building. The ceasefire agreement was violated. At the same time, people remained in the White House.
11:06: Crowds of people gathered on Smolenskaya Embankment and Novy Arbat to watch the storming of the Supreme Council. It was not possible to disperse onlookers of militia. According to photographer Dmitry Borko, there were many teenagers and women with children in the crowd. They stood in close proximity to the building and seemed not to care about their safety at all. 11:00 a.m.: A ceasefire is declared to allow women and children to leave the White House.
10:00 a.m.: White House defenders say there are many dead in the building as a result of tank fire.
“When the tanks started firing, I was on the 6th floor,” said one of the eyewitnesses of the events. - There were many civilians. All are unarmed. I thought that after the shelling, the soldiers would break into the building and tried to find some kind of weapon. I opened the door of the room where a shell had recently exploded, but I could not enter: everything was covered in blood and strewn with body fragments.
09:45: Supporters of President Yeltsin use megaphones to urge White House defenders to stop resistance. "Drop your weapons. Give up. Otherwise, you will be destroyed." These calls are repeated over and over again.
09:20: Tanks shell the upper floors of the White House from the Kalininsky Bridge (now the Novoarbatsky Bridge). Six T-80 tanks fired 12 volleys at the building.
“The first volley destroyed the conference room, the second - Khasbulatov's office, the third - my office,” said Alexander Rutskoi, former vice president and one of the leaders of the White House defenders. - I was in the room when a shell flew through the window. It exploded in the right corner of the room. Luckily my desk was in the left corner. I ran out in complete shock. I don't know how I even survived."
9:15 am: The Supreme Soviet is completely cordoned off by troops loyal to President Yeltsin. They also occupied several adjacent buildings. The building is constantly fired from machine guns.
09:05: President Boris Yeltsin broadcasts a televised address in which he called the events taking place in Moscow a "planned coup" organized by communist revanchists, fascist leaders, some former deputies, representatives of the Soviets.
“Those who are waving red flags have again stained Russia with blood. They hoped for surprise, that their arrogance and unparalleled cruelty would sow fear and confusion,” Yeltsin said.
The President assured the Russians that “the armed fascist-communist rebellion in Moscow will be suppressed in the shortest possible time. For this, the Russian state has the necessary forces.”
09:00: White House defenders return fire to shots from presidential supporters. As a result of the shelling, a fire started on the 12th and 13th floors of the building.
08:00: BMPs opened aimed fire on the White House.
07:50: Gunfire breaks out in a park adjacent to the White House.
07:45: Injured White House defenders and dead bodies are moved to one of the building's lobbies.
“I saw about 50 wounded. They lay in rows on the floor in the lobby. Most likely, there were also the bodies of the dead. The faces of those lying in the front rows were covered,” recalled Nikolai Grigoriev, a surgeon and former Minister of Health of Chuvashia, who actually directed the makeshift medical unit of the besieged Supreme Soviet.
07:35: White House security personnel are called to leave the building.
07:25: Five BMPs destroyed the barricades erected by the White House defenders and took up positions on the Free Russia Square - directly in front of the building.
07:00: Gunfire continues outside the White House. Police captain Alexander Ruban was mortally wounded, who was filming everything that was happening from the balcony of the Ukraine Hotel.
06:50: The first shots are heard near the White House in the center of Moscow.
“We were alerted at 06:45. Still sleepy, we ran out of the building and immediately came under fire. We lay down on the ground. Bullets and shells whistled just ten meters away from us, ”said one of the defenders of the White House, Galina N.