I will cite here excerpts from the diary of A. N. Benois about how this idea of ​​burying the victims of the February Revolution on the Field of Mars came about. Once these passages were posted on my Fragments, but it’s not a sin to re-lay out, especially about this.

Monday, March 6/19

<...>And again, anxiety, because, according to rumors, they are going to bury the "victims of the revolution" on the area of ​​the Winter Palace, where in time it is planned to build a grandiose monument. In view of this monument, gentlemen architects have been busy. Here, too, there is a danger that the crowd of one hundred thousand, attracted by the funeral procession, under the influence of some naughty demagogues, would rush to the palace itself and at the same time to the Hermitage! Gorky, summoned urgently by me, agreed to go himself to the Soviet of Workers' Deputies to reason with the "comrades." He will offer them the square of the Kazan Cathedral, which has been marked by so many<раз>revolutionary uprisings and among which once there was a monument in the form of an obelisk. Something similar could be done now...<...>

<...>And this time, having appeared among us, he was broadcasting, but he was definitely saying things that were not relevant to the case. So, for example, indignant at the fact that the "victims" were going to be buried "in the middle of the city", he found that this was "unclean"! We asked him to go to S.R.D. (on the promised car Grzhebin) and again try to persuade the "grave diggers" (as Yaremich calls them) to look for another place than the foot of the Alexander Column. However, an hour later he returned from there with nothing and very embarrassed: he did not even manage to "get his word" at all! In general, it is believed that it will be difficult to achieve a re-decision on a question on which there was a unanimous vote (oh nightmare of collective decisions!) one thousand four hundred votes!<...>

<...>Evening meeting - secondary entrée<выступление (фр.)>"architectural clowns": Zhenya Schreter, Rudnitsky and their associates - all because of the ill-fated idea with the burial of "victims". They clung to these dead people like hungry in bags of flour, and are ready to gnaw the throat of those who would take their prey from them. On our part, Kolya Lansere was especially excited. Schroeter finally lost all self-control and flew out of the meeting, threatening that he would completely refuse to work (on the monument) and thereby set all the workers already contracted to dig graves against us! After they left, Fomin came up with another "brilliant" plan on how to avert trouble, but for now he keeps it a secret.<...>

<...>I found our commission in high spirits, caused by the victory that Fomina managed to win in the meeting of R. and S. Deputies (held at the Mikhailovsky Theater). In cooperation with Rudnev, who has come over to our side, our architectural fa presto<скорый на руку человек; букв.: делай быстро (ит.)>made huge paintings - projects of fantastic monuments to the "victims", however, not on the Winter Palace Square, but on the Field of Mars, and this made such an impression that at last the "comrades" gave up and decided that the burial would take place there. Thus, the stratage, which Fomin secretly prepared, was a complete success! And just then Chagall appeared, alarmed by the assignment entrusted to him to paint the banners that should appear in the funeral procession. I urged him (and others) not to get involved in this matter, because there is not enough time (the funeral is scheduled for the 16th), and in general such a task is beyond the power of "room" artists. However, Dobuzh<инский>and Narbut immediately dreamed of some kind of "sea of ​​red flags"<...>

March 23 nationwide funeral of the victims of the old regime - fighters for the revolution. The official name of the festival was: "The Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Revolution and the national holiday of the Great Russian Revolution for all time."

The Registration Information Bureau of the All-Russian Union of Cities reported 1,443 victims of the revolution (including policemen who were on the side of tsarism - 11 killed and 50 wounded). Among them: 869 military ranks (of which 70 were killed), 237 workers (22 were killed); students of higher educational institutions 25 (killed 5); 251 other citizens (including 20 children; 60 killed, including 5 children).

It was decided to bury the dead in St. Field of Mars. Under the tsar, parades were held there, in addition, there were barracks of the Pavlovsky Guards Regiment, whose soldiers were the first to go over to the side of the revolution.

According to the plan, everyone (and this was almost half of the city of two million) had to pass by the mass graves on the Field of Mars. Before the funeral, there were many fears that it would be impossible, that it would be difficult to maintain order, that there would be provocations, that another Khodynka would turn out, etc.

A member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, Nikolai Sukhanov, described the problems of preparing for the funeral in the following way:

“Of course, they were afraid of provocations and Khodynka. The Black Hundred still existed after all. To take advantage of the confluence of the entire revolutionary Petersburg, to arrange a provocative panic, a mass crush, shooting and play on this during the confusion of still unstable minds - this could be very tempting for the victims of the dark forces, who had disappeared somewhere from the open horizon ...

On the other hand, the "best military authorities" categorically stated that it was absolutely impossible to pass a millionth mass through the same point during the day. It was said that this was finally and irrevocably proven by both theory and practice of mass troop movements. Meanwhile, the entire St. Petersburg proletariat, the entire garrison, was to take part in the funeral, and the entire philistine and intelligentsia masses, burning with their first enthusiasm, also gathered for the funeral ...

It was up to the people themselves to ensure order in the full sense, and they had to rely on their conscience and self-discipline. The young militia and the bulky, swollen, completely inexperienced garrison in these matters could not do anything by themselves. On the other hand, if everything had gone well, it would have been a brilliant examination and a huge new victory for Petersburg democracy.”

But all fears were in vain. The Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of March 25 described the funeral as follows:

“From early morning, the working population of St. Petersburg took to the streets and lined up according to a plan worked out in advance. The procession moved in slender columns from all the outskirts of the city to the Field of Mars, where 4 large graves were dug. Column after column marched past the graves of the districts, bowing their banners. Banner slogans: "Eternal memory to the fallen fighters!", "Long live the democratic republic!", "Proletarians of all countries, unite!", "Long live the European revolution!" etc.

At 2 pm, the grandiose Vyborgsky district appeared with the largest number of victims. The procession of this region stretched for 5 versts. The Narva region could only be allowed to visit the graves at 4 o'clock. In this procession there were in full force the workers of the Putilov factory in the amount of 30 thousand people; half-companies of the Izmailovsky and St. Petersburg guards regiments, the guards of the 3rd rifle regiment, the 176th infantry reserve regiment, the St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo garrisons followed here. Political speeches were made on the graves. After the funeral, rallies took place in various places in the city.”

At 9:30 in the morning, that is, half an hour before the appointed time, the Vasileostrovskaya procession appeared at the Field of Mars from Sadovaya Street. It was led by the orchestra of the Finnish and Kexholm regiments. A huge banner waved behind them, and the soldiers carried 4 red coffins decorated with flowers on their hands.<…>

Vasileostrovsky district took two and a half hours.<…>

Petrogradsky district.

The removal of bodies from the Peter and Paul Hospital begins. Eyes are riveted to the hospital gates. The first coffin appears - everyone bares their heads. On the red wall of the coffin, a large black inscription is clearly visible: "To the fallen fighters."<…>Second, third... 8 coffins red as blood.

The procession moves on. Orchestras are playing, "La Marseillaise", banners are swaying. At one o'clock in the afternoon the procession approached the mass grave...

Vyborgsky district.

The district was supposed to move from the building of the Military Medical Academy at 10 o'clock. morning. Hundreds of banners flocked to Nizhegorodskaya Street by this hour. At the head of the procession, following the fifty-one red coffins carried out of the academy church to the harmonious sounds of a funeral march, was the combat company of the Moscow regiment, followed by the orchestra of R.S.-D. R.P., made up of sailors from Kronstadt, members of our party ... Orderly columns are lining up ... Many old, familiar comrades; some of them have just returned from exile, from a settlement, from hard labor ...<…>

At 4 p.m., a procession of the Narva region with the orchestra of the Izmailovsky and Petrograd regiments approached the Field of Mars. This procession brought 29 coffins to the mass grave.

The Putilov plant presented a particularly impressive picture... the workers of this plant, numbering up to 30,000 people, marched harmoniously in front of the mass grave.

Nevsky district.

At 5:15, new shots rang out from the Peter and Paul Fortress - this was the Nevsky district. There were 40 coffins in this procession.

Quite by chance, the Nevsky district turned out to be the largest, due to the fact that the arrived workers of the Kolpino plant, in the amount of up to 40 thousand people, joined it.

The demonstration of the Moscow region was the last to arrive on the Field of Mars.

The day was already drawing to a close, and the sun cast its last reflections on the 45 red coffins brought from the Obukhov hospital.

The tail of this region passed by the mass grave at eleven o'clock in the evening. Since it was already completely dark, five spotlights were specially placed, which illuminated the entire field. In addition, the procession went with torches and lit the way.

Deep after midnight, the processions past the mass grave ended.

According to a rough estimate, at least 800,000 people passed by the mass graves on the Field of Mars.

In Moscow, in some institutions and railway stations, memorial services were performed for the victims of the revolution, whose funeral took place in St. Petersburg. Rallies were held in factories and factories all day long. Similar events were held throughout Russia, especially in large cities - Odessa, Kyiv, Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk) and others. Everywhere on the day of the funeral, grandiose demonstrations of soldiers, railway employees, workers and citizens of all classes took place.

Revolutionary Vladimir Voitinsky recalled:

“On March 23, the workers and soldiers of Petrograd buried their comrades who fell during the days of the February Revolution. It was not just a solemn funeral - it was a manifestation, the equal of which has not yet happened in Russia, it was a review of the forces of the victorious revolution. In my memoirs of 1917, where there are so few bright pages, I must note this unclouded day of the unity of democracy.

From morning to evening, from all the outskirts, countless crowds with red banners moved towards the center of the city and onto the Field of Mars. They walked in orderly rows, like waves running one after another in the sea. I remember that on Znamenskaya Square I climbed the steps of the monument to Alexander III - from here the columns of demonstrators seemed endless. Factory banners with portraits of Marx, Engels, Lassalle, with images of a worker and soldier fraternally embracing, with embroidered gold on scarlet velvet appeals of the proletarians of all countries to unite. Other banners were decorated with gilded tassels, and in this extravagance there was something infinitely touching, naive, festive.

Behind the factories were regiments, behind the soldiers - again workers, men and women, old, young, teenagers. Sometimes singing was heard over the crowd - a working choir passed, hundreds of voices with consonant, friendly sounds of the working anthem escorted the victims of the revolution, floating over the heads of the demonstrators, covered with flowers and greenery, to the mass grave. The order was amazing - the most implacable enemies of the Soviets had to admit this.

The bourgeois-intelligentsia public almost did not participate in the manifestation. But on that day “all” Petrograd was on the streets, columns of soldiers and workers passed by the tapestries of the public crowding on the sidewalks - and on the side of the demonstrators that day there was universal sympathy, and it gave special solemnity, impressiveness to this review of the forces of the Petrograd Soviet ... "

“I wandered the streets, looked at the only spectacle in the world and in history, at cheerful and kind people, swarming on the uncleaned streets without supervision. An extraordinary consciousness that everything is possible, formidable, breathtaking and terribly funny. A lot can happen, a minute for the country, for the state, for all sorts of “properties” is dangerous, but everything is overcome by the consciousness that a miracle has happened and, consequently, there will be more miracles. Never could any of us think that we would witness such simple miracles happening daily.

Nothing is scary, only the cooks are afraid here. It would seem that one can be afraid of everything, but there is nothing terrible, the liberty is unusually majestic, military vehicles with red flags, soldiers' overcoats with red bows, the Winter Palace with a red flag on the roof. The Lithuanian Castle and the District Court were burned to the ground, all the beauty of their facades, licked with fire, is striking, all the abomination that disfigured them inside has burned out. You walk around the city like in a dream. The whole Duma is covered with snow, in front of it are cabbies, soldiers, a car with a military driver drove some old woman with crutches (I think Vyrubova - to the fortress). Yesterday I wandered into the Merezhkovskys, who received me very well and kindly, so that I felt like a man (and not a pariah, as I used to feel at the front). I dined with them, they told me a lot, so the picture of the revolution is more or less clear to me: something supernatural, delightful.<…>

The entire Foundry and the entire Nevsky are crowded with people, the sailors are playing Chopin's march. The coffins are red, at the moment when they are lowered into the grave on the Field of Mars, a salute is fired from the fortress (by pressing an electric button).

Now I’ll go outside - watch how they disperse. ”

Maksim Gorky He described his impressions of that day as follows:

“The force that all my life firmly held and keeps me on the ground was and is my faith in the human mind. To this day, the Russian revolution in my eyes is a chain of bright and joyful manifestations of rationality. A particularly powerful manifestation of calm rationality was the day of March 23, the day of the funeral on the Champ de Mars.

In this parade procession of hundreds of thousands of people, for the first time and almost tangibly felt - yes, the Russian people have made a revolution, they have risen from the dead and are now joining the great cause of the world - the construction of new and ever freer forms of life!

What a blessing to live to see such a day!

And with all my heart I would wish the Russian people to go further and further, forward and higher, just as calmly and powerfully, until the great holiday of world freedom, universal equality, brotherhood!

Do not cry over the corpses of fallen fighters,

Those who died with weapons in their hands,

Do not sing funeral verses over them,

Do not defile their ashes with a tear!

Need no hymns, no tears for the dead,

Give them the best respect:

Walk without fear over dead bodies,

Carry their banner forward!

With their enemy, under the banner of the same ideas,

Lead their fight to the end!

There is no better honor, no feast of saints

For the shadow of a worthy fighter!

An article was posted immediately after the poem. Lev Kamenev with the meaningful title "Not the last":

“Breaking their heads before the coffins of the fallen freedom fighters, remembering with bitter anguish those who died without waiting for the days of victory, we owe one thing to the bright shadows of those who laid down their lives for their friends: the truth.

Bitter and harsh is the truth.

With the deaf silence of the majority, frightened and exhausted by tsarism, for a century the best people of Russia went to torment and death. A powerful explosion of popular indignation did not stop the hands of those who hanged the Decembrists, who put the Petrashevists under execution, who raised Zhelyabov, Perovskaya, Ulyanov to the scaffold, who shot dozens and hundreds of workers, soldiers, sailors and peasants in 1906-7. And when the great Russian democrat and revolutionary Chernyshevsky stood at the pillory in St. Petersburg Square, only one woman's hand threw a bouquet of red flowers to the foot of his scaffold.

Today is not the same. Millions of people came to the lead coffins of the dead fighters to honor their sacrifice for freedom. Millions of people in Russia will proclaim glory to those who won freedom by their struggle. But the dead do not need honor, and any gratitude is below their feat. Another would be said, another would be demanded by the fighters who died in a century of struggle.

“The fight is not over,” they would say. “We are not the last sacrifices that humanity will make in its movement towards true freedom and true equality. We are not the last victims in Russia, where the consolidation of the fruits of the revolution and their expansion will require more and more new victims. Don't let history repeat itself! Surround those who follow our path with a dense ring, and when the hour of new battles comes, be with them! Not honor after a bloody battle, but support during it, we demand from those who have now come to our grave. May the shameful for a free people picture of the death of its foremost fighters amid the indifferent silence of citizens never again be repeated! May the joy of the victories achieved not obscure before you your duty to defend the revolutionary gains of the people!”

There is no power in Russia today higher than the power of the insurgent people. May his revolutionary passion never run dry! May his revolutionary enthusiasm not weaken! May the mass of millions gathered around the coffins of the fallen be the army of the revolution, and dispersing after the funeral, may it not turn into a philistine mass for which the advanced fighters die!

Today we bury not the last victims on the way to national happiness. But the fewer of them will be ahead, the stronger we rally around the red banners of the revolution raised by them.

Stand steadfastly around these banners, defend them with your whole mass, be the same mass of millions when you have to defend them from hostile forces in difficult days of struggle, which you have now appeared on the bright holiday of freedom - this is the testament of the fallen.

On March 23, many front-line military units sent their delegations to St. Petersburg. Some of them spoke at factories and factories in support of the Bolshevik slogans, especially regarding the attitude towards the war.

Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet published on March 23 "The main program of the Council of Soldiers' Deputies", compiled by the 109th division and several units of the army in the field. It put forward demands for the immediate conclusion of peace and control over the operational part by the soldiers' executive committees. The compilers of the program declared that they were ready to support the Council in every possible way.

Passed in Kronstadt On March 23, the meeting adopted a resolution demanding the final destruction of the capitalist system and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Soldiers serving in the military departments and offices of the St. Petersburg garrison announced the creation of a United Committee, hostile to the Petrograd Soviet.

Among the soldiers' groups, the "Motherland and the People's Army" also stands out, appealing to the entire army with an appeal to support such demands:

“1) to bring the war to the full guarantee of the freedom won by the people and the army;

2) liberate the destroyed and oppressed Poland, Ukraine, Serbia, Armenia, Romania, Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine;

3) grant the peoples liberated from the German yoke the right to full self-determination.”

At a conference of the Party of Popular Socialists held in Moscow on March 23, a resolution was adopted stating that the war must be waged until the danger threatening Russian freedom from Germany was eliminated. It is impossible to insist on peace at all costs - it is necessary that the Germans renounce annexations, political hegemony and enrichment at the expense of other states. The Provisional Government must only declare that our military actions do not bear any conquest goals.

"The Conference expresses its readiness to vigorously support the Provisional Government in the implementation of the program promulgated by them, and at the same time considers it detrimental to the success of the revolution and to the defense of the straps of attempts by any organizations whatsoever to appropriate the functions of government power."

On March 23, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government expressed his view on the goals of the war to newspaper reporters Milyukov:

“The liberation of the Slavic peoples who inhabited Austria-Hungary, the unification of the Italian, Romanian lands, the formation of the Czech-Slavic and Serbo-Croatian state, the merger of the Ukrainian lands of Austria-Hungary with Russia - these are the tasks of the future peace congress.

If we Russians lay claim to the possession of Constantinople and the straits, then by this we in no way encroach on the national rights of Turkey, and no one has the right to reproach us with grasping tendencies. The possession of Tsargrad has always been considered the original national task of Russia. The neutralization of the straits would certainly be detrimental to our national interests."

Even during the reign of Peter I, on the left bank of the Neva near St. Petersburg, there was a vast wasteland, which was called the Amusing Field. It hosted military reviews and fun festivities with chic fireworks, which all of Europe envied.

After the death of the emperor in 1725, the field was named Tsaritsyn meadow, since the palace of the widowed ruler of the state of Russia Catherine I was built on its southern part.

With the coming to power of Alexander I, at the beginning of the 19th century, Tsaritsyn Meadow turned into a traditional place for parades and parades. At the same time, the name stuck to it - Field of Mars. By the 20th century, it was an abandoned wasteland, only occasionally put in order.

Meanwhile, events in Russia were developing with dizzying speed: the "small victorious" war with Japan, which ended in complete failure, the barely pacified first Russian revolution, the bloody First World War - all this, a heavy burden of numerous problems, fell on the shoulders of the people. People were in poverty and grumbled, a revolutionary situation was brewing.

And now the line separating law-abiding citizens from the rebels was crossed, and in February 1917 a revolution took place in Petrograd. Many people died in numerous street brawls. It was decided to bury the victims on Palace Square.

“It will be like a symbol of the collapse of the place where the Romanov hydra sat,” wrote Izvestiya of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. However, the famous writer Maxim Gorky and a group of cultural figures opposed such a burial, proposing the Field of Mars as an alternative. The offer was accepted.

On March 23, the funeral of the victims of the February Revolution took place. In total, 180 coffins were lowered into the graves on the Champ de Mars to the fiery speeches and sounds of the Marseillaise. According to the project of the architect Lev Rudnev, the construction of a grandiose granite tombstone in the form of a stepped quadrangle with four wide passages to the graves began. It took over three years to build.

The idea of ​​burying people who died for the cause of the revolution took root on the Champ de Mars. The Bolsheviks who came to power actively set about new burial places. So, in 1918, the graves of Moses Volodarsky, Moses Uritsky, Semyon Nakhimson, Rudolf Sievers and four Latvian riflemen from the Tukums socialist regiment, who were killed by counter-revolutionaries, appeared.

By a special decree in December 1918, a commission was created to select worthy candidates for burial in the famous cemetery. In 1919-1920, under the leadership of the commission, nineteen famous Bolsheviks who died on the fronts of the civil war were buried.

Burials on the Champ de Mars continued until 1933. The last "managed" was Ivan Gaza, secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, who "burned out at work." After that, the cemetery was declared a historical monument. In 1957, on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution, the Eternal Flame was lit on it. Already in the 70s, there was a tradition to hold a solemn ceremony on the graves - the laying of flowers by the newlyweds.

However, not everything is so smooth in the history of the famous field. Even in the time of Catherine I, it was known that this place was not good. According to eyewitnesses, before going to bed, the empress liked to listen to the stories of old women about ancient times.

One day a chukhonka was brought to the palace, who knew many legends. The empress listened with interest to her stories, but then she began to talk about the horrors that, in her opinion, were associated with the Tsaritsyno Meadow, which was located directly opposite Catherine's chambers.

“Here, mother, in this meadow, for a long time all the evil spirits of the water are found. As the full moon, so they climb ashore. The drowned are blue, the mermaids are slippery, and sometimes the merman himself will crawl out in the moonlight to warm himself, ”the old woman said.

“Here’s an old fool, she scared me to death,” the empress said irritably and immediately ordered the narrator to be expelled. That same evening, Catherine left the palace on the Tsaritsyn meadow and never returned to it.

180 years later, in the autumn of 1905, a mysterious incident happened in St. Petersburg, which confirmed the unkind fame of the Field of Mars. One night, a mounted gendarme outfit followed Millionnaya Street. Hooves pounded on the pavement and the low voice of law enforcement officers was heard.

“Anti leftists, well, there are Jews and all sorts of students, the most inveterate bastard. They set up against the tsar and throw bombs, ”a gendarme non-commissioned officer read a lecture to two recruits.

Slowly they drove up to the gloomy bulk of the Champ de Mars. Several lanterns shone dimly on its outskirts, beyond was impenetrable darkness.

“Hush,” the officer suddenly became alert. Do you hear? From the depths of the field came some strange sounds, as if something large and wet was being whipped on the ground.

The rustling wind brought from the darkness the grave cold, the smell of mud and insinuating girlish laughter. The horses of the gendarmes began to snore in fright. "But, spoil me!" the non-commissioned officer shouted and, ordering his subordinates to remain where they were, boldly directed the horse into the darkness. In less than a minute, a desperate cry was heard in the night and the receding stomp of horses.

The next morning, on Nevsky Prospekt, a horse with a lost saddle was caught, and a crumpled gendarme cap with traces of an incomprehensible substance resembling fish mucus was found on the Field of Mars. Its unfortunate owner disappeared without a trace. The search for the missing did not last long, as riots broke out in the city, and the incident was forgotten.

After the erection of a tombstone for the victims of the revolution, the already neglected and gloomy Field of Mars became even more sinister. The townspeople carefully avoided it and tried not to appear there at a late hour.

By the beginning of the 1930s, the city authorities brought the territory of the Field of Mars to a more or less proper form: they laid out lawns and flower beds, planted bushes and trees, installed lanterns and benches. But, despite such measures, the "strangeness" associated with this place did not stop. So, in May 1936, in the psychiatric department of the hospital. Trout was delivered to worker Patrushev. The ambulance took him away from the Champ de Mars, where he suddenly lost his mind.

After a hard day, Patrushev bought a quarter of vodka in the store and on the way home he decided to turn into a quiet place where no one would interfere with crediting the check. It was already getting dark when he settled down on a bench not far from the monument to the fallen fighters of the revolution. Around it was deserted, only on the far alley marched pre-conscripts.

The worker took a sip from the bottle, tasted a simple snack, grunted with pleasure and suddenly found a little boy standing next to him. When the man asked who he was and where he came from, the boy did not answer. Looking closer, Patrushev noticed with fear that the child had sunken and dull eyes, a swollen, blue face, and felt a nauseating smell emanating from him.

"Get down, you bastard!" - the proletarian shouted and tried to push the youth away, but he deftly grabbed him by the arm with rotten teeth and crumbled to the ground in a pile of fetid dust.

To the heartbreaking cries of the worker, pre-conscripts ran up, who called the doctors. The psychiatrist Andrievich frankly admitted that he had not yet encountered such a case of insanity in his practice in such a short period of time.

“A very interesting case. It looks like alcoholic psychosis, but why without a long drinking bout? And those weird bite marks. Well, we will observe, ”the doctor said in surprise. However, the psychiatrist's observations were not destined to last long, since just three days later Patrushev died from a general blood poisoning.

In the era of developed socialism, in the mid-1970s, the famous Leningrad sociologist S. I. Balmashev began to study the problems of modern marriage. In the course of his work, it turned out that the “yellow jersey of the leader” for divorce belonged to the Dzerzhinsky district of the city. Here, for a thousand registered marriages, there were up to six hundred broken families a year. Such an anomalous situation interested the researcher, and he dug so deeply and thoroughly that later he bitterly regretted it.

An analysis of the civil status records of the Dzerzhinsky district and numerous sociological surveys showed that most divorces occurred immediately after marriage. Moreover, the main reason was not the banal - the characters did not agree or treason, but drunkenness, drug addiction or the commission of a crime and the condemnation of one of the spouses. In the course of the study, it turned out that the percentage of premature deaths among these unhappy families is incomparably higher than in the city as a whole.

Puzzling over this phenomenon, Balmashev found only one explanation for it. The fact is that in 1970, the employees of the Wedding Palace of the Dzerzhinsky District of Leningrad initiated an innovation - laying flowers on the places of military and labor glory by the newlyweds. The city authorities supported the useful undertaking and assigned each of the sixteen registry offices a place for the new Soviet rite.

For example, in the Moskovsky district, flowers should have been laid at the memorial of the defenders of Leningrad, in Narva - at the main entrance of the Kirov factory, and in Dzerzhinsky - at the monument to the fallen fighters of the revolution on the Field of Mars. According to the observations of the sociologist, the newlyweds from the Dzerzhinsky registry office, who laid flowers on the graves of the revolutionaries, soon got divorced. And vice versa, the newlyweds, who ignored this event, continued to live in love and harmony.

Balmashev even managed to find two women who witnessed how some shabby and unnaturally pale type was attached to the wedding processions on the Field of Mars. He appeared out of nowhere and just as suddenly disappeared, as if dissolving into thin air. Later, women saw him in their dreams, after which misfortunes happened in their families: someone close to him died, was crippled or fell ill ...

The sociologist perfectly understood the danger that emanated from the Champ de Mars, but failed to explain it correctly. At an expanded meeting of the city party and economic activists, he made a report in which he pointed out the adverse impact of the monument on both newly created families and Leningraders in general.

As a result, Balmashev was expelled from the party, expelled from the institute, where he worked for twenty years, and an article of a corresponding nature appeared in one newspaper.

And today the Field of Mars attracts the attention of researchers. Their comments on the events on it boil down mainly to the following. In the old days, among the primitive tribes that inhabited the Neva basin, there was a belief that on the treeless, swampy wastelands that occur along the banks of the rivers, covens of water evil spirits take place at night.

The Karelian-Finnish epic “Kalevala” describes one hero who, having got on “a flat coast, a terrible coast at night”, saved his life only by a wonderful playing on a stringed musical instrument, charming drowned people and mermaids with it.

If we use the data of the Holsmund cartographic atlas, then in pre-Petrine times, a wasteland stretched on the site of the present Field of Mars. Therefore, it is possible that it was here that the hero of the epic delighted the ears of evil spirits with his game.

In addition to the witches' covens, the researchers give another reason for the oddities on the Champ de Mars. The fact is that the burials of the Bolsheviks of 1917-1933 were made in a cemetery founded without church consecration and, figuratively speaking, on the blood of people who died during fratricidal clashes. Already only this initially did not allow turning the graves into a place of eternal rest for the dead.

In addition, the tombstone of the architect Rudnev itself contributes to the accumulation of harmful energy in the cemetery, which poses a certain danger to people. Plus, at the beginning of the century, the sculptor was one of the adherents of the Mictlantecutli Society (a sect of admirers of witchcraft cults of the Indians of Central America).

His commitment to the secret teachings of the Aztecs and Maya was embodied in the project of the tombstone on the Campus Martius, a stylized copy of the funeral temples of Yucatan, which had the ability to concentrate the terrible energy of the dead within their walls.

Therefore, at present, the ill-fated Field of Mars in St. Petersburg is a danger to the townspeople who decide to visit it.

On April 5, 1917 (March 23, old style), the victims of the February Revolution were buried on the Field of Mars in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).

The organizer of the funeral was the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which decided to appoint the funeral of the victims of the February Revolution on March 23 (March 10, old style). This day was declared "a day of remembrance of the victims of the Revolution and a national holiday of the Great Russian Revolution for all time."

The funeral on April 5 was not only a Petrograd, but also an all-Russian event. In Kronstadt on this day, a memorial service was held for the victims of the revolution. Up to 50 thousand people participated in the funeral procession here. In other cities of Russia, a new wave of "Freedom Holidays" took place. In Moscow, some enterprises did not work, rallies were held in factories and offices; memorial services were performed in some institutions. Demonstrations dedicated to the memory of "freedom fighters" were held in Kyiv, Odessa, Samara, Riga, Simbirsk. Often, the burial places of the victims of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 became the centers of these demonstrations.

Later, the burials of participants in the October Revolution and the Civil War were added to the victims of the February Revolution, which began with the solemn funeral of V. Volodarsky in June 1918.

In 1918-1940 the Field of Mars was called the Square of the Victims of the Revolution.

In 1919, a monument to the fighters of the revolution was opened on the Field of Mars, designed by the architect Lev Rudnev. The author of the inscriptions on the monument was the first Soviet People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources