Lefortovo Prison

Lefortovo Prison is a prison in Moscow, Russia, which has been under the jurisdiction of the Russian Ministry of Justice since 2005.
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. 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.
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
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
Vasily Blyukher
Vladimir Bukovsky
Nicholas Daniloff
Alexander Dolgun
Boris Kolesnikov
Hugo Eberlein
Bernt Ivar Eidsvig, Catholic Bishop of Oslo
Rashid Khan Gaplanov, Education and Finance Minister of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
Yevgenia Ginzburg
Nikolai Glushkov
Chingiz Ildyrym, Azerbaijani Bolshevik and statesman
Ekaterina Kalinina
Vladimir Kirpichnikov
Eston Kohver
Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Soviet Christian dissident
Platon Lebedev
Eduard Limonov
Alexander Litvinenko
Vil Mirzayanov
Levon Mirzoyan
Osip Piatnitsky
Leonid Razvozzhayev
Ian Rokotov
Mathias Rust, 18-year-old West German who landed a Cessna 172 airplane near Red Square.
Valery Sablin
Natan Sharansky
Sergei Skripal
Andrei Sinyavsky
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Igor Sutyagin
, 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
Helmuth Weidling, German Army general
Paul Whelan, American arrested in Moscow for espionage (citizen of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland).
Denys Prokopenko Redis, Ukrainian Army Lieutenant Colonel, Commander of Azov Regiment
Sviatoslav Palamar Kalyna, Ukrainian Army Captain, Deputy Commander of Azov Regiment
Serhii Volynskyi Volyna, Ukrainian Army Major, Commander of 36th Marine Infantry Brigade
Evan Gershkovich, American journalist arrested for espionage
References in Popular Culture
Fictional 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
References
External links
Lefortovo prison – Includes hand-drawn floorplan
"New Times Loom for Fabled Lefortovo Prison", The St. Petersburg Times, June 7, 2005
Buildings and structures in Moscow
Buildings and structures built in the Soviet Union
KGB
NKVD
Prisons in Russia
Prisons in the Soviet Union
Execution sites in Russia