Kurapaty

Kurapaty (Belarusian: Курапаты, IPA: [kuraˈpatɨ]) is a wooded area on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, where a vast number of people were executed between 1937 and 1941 during the Great Purge by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD and in particular, during the Soviet repressions in Belarus. The exact count of victims is uncertain, as NKVD archives are classified in Belarus. According to NKVD archives, up to 35,000 were shot in Byelorussia (Belarus) under Stalin, the vast majority of them during the Great Purge. According to various sources, the number of people who perished in Kurapaty is estimated to be at least 30,000 (according to the Attorney General of BSSR Tarnaŭski), up to 7,000 people (according to attorney general of Belarus Bozhelko), up to 100,000 people (according to "Belarus" reference book), from 102,000 to 250,000 people (according to the article by Zianon Pazniak in the "Litaratura i Mastactva" newspaper), 250,000 people (according to Polish historian and professor of University of Wrocław Zdzisław Julian Winnicki), and more (according to the British historian Norman Davies). In 2004, Kurapaty mass graves were included in the register of the Cultural Properties of Belarus as a first-category cultural heritage.