The "1918" Civil War Memorial (Verkhnyaya Pyshma)

The Monument to Those Who Fell in the Civil War is a memorial over the mass grave of Red Army soldiers and Soviet activists in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Oblast. It stands on Krasnykh Partizan Street next to the Church of the Dormition, and locals usually call it simply the "1918" monument, after the date on its black granite slab.

History

In 1919, Red Army soldiers and Soviet activists killed by the Whites in 1918 were buried here. At the time this was the settlement of Medny Rudnik (Copper Mine), and the grave lay to the right of the Dormition Church, which still stands beside it.

The first structure on the burial site was a wooden platform. Over the following decades several monuments and memorial steles replaced one another.

The memorial took its present form after a reconstruction started by Verkhnyaya Pyshma residents and funded partly by private donations and partly by the local budget. A design competition was held, and the winner was the project "Silence" by a team from the Industriya Arkhitektury studio: Anna Ludanenkova, Polina Lapteva and Margarita Chernikova. The renewed monument opened in 2013.

What the "1918" monument means

"Silence" is deliberately minimalist: a vertical slab faced with black granite bearing the figures "1918", the year the people in the mass grave died and the year the Civil War reached the Urals. There are no other inscriptions or figures; the idea is remembrance in silence. The slab stands on a level lawn and is lit at night.

In March 2023 vandals broke the "8" off the date.

Legends and accounts

According to local accounts, the bodies of Red Army soldiers killed in 1918 were thrown into the shafts of the copper mine. No documentary confirmation of this is found in the available sources.

Getting there

The monument is on Krasnykh Partizan Street in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, beside the Church of the Dormition, whose domes make it easy to find. It is in the open and can be visited at any time, free of charge.