Half a million people are estimated to have been buried at Vagankovo throughout its history. As of 2010, the existing cemetery contains more than 100,000 graves. The vast necropolis contains the mass graves from the Battle of Borodino, the Battle of Moscow, and the Khodynka Tragedy. It is the burial site for a number of people from the artistic and sports community of Russia and the old Soviet Union. William Taubman claims that during the Great Purge "alcohol-soused guards would execute weeping prisoners" after they had dug their graves in the cemetery.