The Staro-Avtozavodskoye Fraternal Military Burial — a mass grave from the era of the Great Patriotic War, located at Staro-Avtozavodskoye Cemetery (formerly the "Molochnoye" civilian cemetery) Avtozavodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod, on Paryshevskaya Street. The cemetery dates back to 1940 and, in the 2020s, holds the status of a closed memorial complex: burials are permitted only in exceptional cases — in family and relatives' plots, and for urns with ashes with the authorization of the Nizhny Novgorod administration.[1] Registry card at the Military Memorial Center: No. 52-106.[2] The obelisk over the mass grave was erected in 1975, to mark the 30th anniversary of Victory. Within the same cemetery there is a separate mass burial of workers of the Gorky Automobile Plant who died at their workplaces during the aerial bombardments of 1941–1943; the obelisk over this grave was erected in 1969. In addition, the cemetery contains the remains of 8 residents of Nizhny Novgorod who perished in the armed conflicts in the North Caucasus between 1995 and 2004; in the early 2000s, a memorial and a chapel were erected in their honor.[1][1][3]

Those Interred and Their Records

According to the information plaque of the Administration of the City of Nizhny Novgorod, "Military Burial — Mass Grave," 171 people are interred here: 18 officers and 153 sergeants and soldiers.[3][4] A list compiled by staff of the Avtozavodsky Military Commissariat as of May 8, 1992, includes 174 names; the document was signed by Military Commissar Colonel Petrushin and by the head of the administration of Avtozavodsky District, Sokolnikov. A total of 169 names are engraved on three commemorative plaques of the stele: 42 names on the first, 64 on the second, and 63 on the third.[2]

Among those buried are Red Army soldiers and commanders who died of wounds and illness in evacuation hospitals of local Evacuation Point 41 (MEP-41, City of Gorky), as well as servicemen killed during German air raids on the City of Gorky in 1941–1943: in particular, soldiers of the 10th Reserve Rifle Regiment of the 1st Gorky Reserve Rifle Brigade / Division (Gorky-7, P.O. Box 126-a).[2]

Source Base and Research

A research complex containing biographies — "frontline biographies" — of those buried was compiled by researchers V. N. Nefyodov and I. V. Nefyodov. The work drew on: surnames from memorial plaques, registration cards of those who died in MEP-41 hospitals, nominal lists of those killed in air raids, alphabetical registers of deaths in evacuation hospitals EH 2811, 2813, 2790, and others, materials from the Central Archive of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence, data from the "Pamyat Naroda" database, the "Memorial" database, the "Podvig Naroda" electronic archive, the Book of Remembrance of Nizhny Novgorod Region (vols. 14 and 16, Avtozavodsky District), and a number of online resources. Research assistance was provided by Larisa Kalyuzhnaya (Yerokhina); photographs of the burial site and memorial plaques were supplied by Olga Smirnova.[2]

Among the identified biographies are natives of various USSR republics. For instance, Tumasha Abdurazakov (born 1922, Kirghiz SSR), a Guards private-sapper of the 21st Guards Nevelskaya Rifle Division, was wounded on April 4, 1943, admitted to EH 2790, and died on May 26, 1943. Pyotr Ustinovich Averkin (born 1905, Voroshilovgrad Region), a private of the 1174th Rifle Regiment of the 348th Rifle Division, was admitted to hospital on December 27, 1941, with septic phlegmon of the left forearm and bone fracture, and died of his wounds on January 4, 1942; documents record his place of burial as a mass grave in the settlement of "Molochnaya Ferma" (or the settlement of Strigino) in the Avtozavodsky District of the City of Gorky.[2]

Sources

  1. pomnim.online — At the Staro-Avtozavodskoe Cemetery, in addition to the military burial of Red Army soldiers, there is a separate mass grave of workers of the Gorky Automobile (archive)
  2. opentextnn.ru — Nefyodov V.N., Nefyodov I.V. Staro-Avtozavodskoe Mass Military Burial — OPEN TEXT (archive)
  3. lib-avt.ru — Mass Graves in Cemeteries — Centralized Library System of the Avtozavodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  4. Vremya N — The mass grave and graves of Heroes of the Soviet Union were restored to order in Avtozavodsky District (archive)