Hundreds of people have gathered near the former KGB headquarters in central Moscow to honor the memory of thousands of men and women executed by the Soviet authorities during Josef Stalin's "Great Terror."
Speakers at the daylong ceremony at the Solovetsky Stone memorial on Moscow's Lubyanka Square on October 29 read aloud the names, ages, occupations, and dates of executions of some 30,000 Muscovites -- only a small portion of the estimated 1 million or more killed by Soviet authorities in 1937-38.
Memorial, a widely respected human rights group, has held the ceremony every year since 2006 at the site near the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, the KGB's main successor.
The event comes on the eve of the October 30 Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression, which was established in 1991.
Muscovites Remember Victims Of Stalin's 'Great Terror'
An elderly Russian woman, a granddaughter of a Stalin terror victim, touches her head to a name of her grandfather, written on the memorial wall at Butovo shooting range outside Moscow.