MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – The remains of 11 people discovered near the Russian capital last week were buried about 80 years ago, a law enforcement source told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
The remains were found on Friday on the bank of the Pakhra River just south of Moscow, the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement on its website.
A forensic examination has been started.
Based on the results of the examination a decision will be made on how to proceed further, the committee said.
The 1930s saw the height of Stalin’s purges, in which thousands of people were shot after arbitrary arrest and buried in mass graves around Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).
In 2002, human rights group Memorial claimed it had found a site at Taksovo near St. Petersburg where the bodies of 30,000 victims of Stalin’s repression were buried.
Other mass graves near Russian cities were the result of famines in the 1920s and from World War II.