Around the Island

Communards' Wall Monument

Communards' Wall Monument (May 2013)

  Also on Rozhdestvenskaya Ploschad is a very simple monument in the form of a wall engraved with the names of the Red Army soldiers who were killed in August 1918 on the orders of Lev Trotsky. Trotsky personally visited Sviyazhsk in August 1918 where Red Army troops were stationed after the White Army's capture of Kazan. Whilst there, it has been alleged that Trotsky had one in every ten soldiers in Sviyazhsk executed as punishment for desertion, reviving the old Roman form of military discipline known as decimation.

Location Rozhdestvenskaya Ploschad