Lefortovo Prison

For other uses, see Lefortovo (disambiguation).

Lefortovo Prison (Russian: Лефортовская тюрьма, Russian: [lʲɪˈfortəvə] ^ⓘ) is a prison in Moscow, Russia, which has been under the jurisdiction of the Russian Ministry of Justice since 2005.

Lefortovo Prison

Location	Moscow, Russia
Coordinates	55.7611407°N 37.7062039°E / 55.7611407; 37.7062039
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]
• Vasily Blyukher
• Vladimir Bukovsky^[4]
• Nicholas Daniloff
• Alexander Dolgun
• Boris Kolesnikov
• Hugo Eberlein^[5]
• Bernt Ivar Eidsvig, Catholic Bishop of Oslo
• Rashid Khan Gaplanov, Education and Finance Minister of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic^[6]
• Evan Gershkovich American journalist arrested for espionage ^[7]
• Yevgenia Ginzburg
• Nikolai Glushkov
• Grigori Grabovoi, sect leader
• Chingiz Ildyrym, Azerbaijani Bolshevik and statesman
• Ekaterina Kalinina
• Vladimir Kirpichnikov
• Eston Kohver
• Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Soviet Christian dissident^[8]
• Vladimir Kumarin, businessman and gangster
• Platon Lebedev
• Eduard Limonov
• Alexander Litvinenko
• Vil Mirzayanov^[9]
• Levon Mirzoyan
• Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, terrorist
• Sviatoslav Palamar Kalyna, Ukrainian Army Captain, Deputy Commander of Azov Brigade
• Unto Parvilahti, SS-Officer
• Osip Piatnitsky
• Denys Prokopenko Redis, Ukrainian Army Lieutenant Colonel, Commander of Azov Brigade
• Leonid Razvozzhayev
• Ian Rokotov
• Mathias Rust, 18-year-old West German who landed a Cessna 172 airplane near Red Square.
• Sergei Ryakhovsky, serial killer
• Valery Sablin^[10]
• Yaqub Salimov, mobster and former Minister of the Interior of Tajikistan
• Ivan Safronov, journalist
• Natan Sharansky
• Sergei Skripal^[11]
• Andrei Sinyavsky^[12]
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Igor Sutyagin
• Jean-Christian Tirat [fr], French journalist and supporter of compliance with the Helsinki Agreement
• Nadezhda Ulanovskaya, wife of Alexander Ulanovsky
• Raoul Wallenberg
• Khalil Rza Uluturk, Azerbaijani poet.
• Lina Prokofiev, wife of Sergei Prokofiev
• Serhii Volynskyi Volyna, Ukrainian Army Major, Commander of 36th Marine Infantry Brigade
• Helmuth Weidling, German Army general
• Paul Whelan, American arrested in Moscow for espionage (citizen of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland).

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

See also

• Qincheng Prison
• Lubyanka Prison
• Sukhanovka Prison