Russia's infamous Butyrka prison to close

[Eldorado]

One of Russia’s most notorious prisons, which over the years has housed inmates including Adolf Hitler’s nephew and the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, will soon be closed, according to a top prison official.

Butyrka, an imposing red-brick jail in central Moscow, now functions as a pre-trial detention centre that houses about 2,000 inmates. The whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky spent almost a year in the prison before he died in 2009.

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Some remain sceptical, given previous frequent rumours of closure that have come to nothing, but if Butyrka does close it will be the end of one of the most storied and feared prisons in the world.

A prison was first constructed on the site during the rule of Catherine the Great in the 18th century, and it briefly housed Emelyan Pugachev, the leader of a peasant revolt, before he was decapitated, drawn and quartered at a public execution in central Moscow.

Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/17/notorious-moscow-butyrka-prison-once-home-to-solzhenitsyn-to-close

Wiki entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyrka_prison

Elsewhere:

"Founded in 1771, Butyrka housed Russia’s most dangerous criminal of the time – Yemelyan Pugachev, a Cossack leader of the great peasant rebellion. Butyrka witnessed Pugachev's last night before execution, and preserved his memory for long afterwards.

The vertical cage in which Pugachev was forced to stand upright for days was kept in the inner yard of the prison for a hundred years along with his 22-pound fetters, and the tower where he was incarcerated still bears his name."

Full article from 2014: https://www.rbth.com/society/2014/03/05/butyrka_moscows_oldest_prison_33509