Russians Mark 20th Anniversary of Men Killed Opposing Coup

August 20, 2011

A Russian Orthodox priest prays as Moscovites light candles at a memorial to three men killed in the August 1991 hard line Communist coup attempt during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the failure of the coup in downtown Moscow, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011.

Muscovites gathered Saturday night to recognize three virtually unknown men whose deaths 20 years ago changed the direction of world history

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In life, they stood unarmed, facing Soviet tanks that were clanking through a Moscow underpass to attack the democratically elected government of Boris Yeltsin. In death, they catalyzed a massive popular protest that broke the back of a military coup by communist hardliners.

On Saturday, standing above the underpass and a red smear of modern cars stretching into the Moscow night, Russian Orthodox Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin makes the sign of the cross:

He hails the three Moscow men for their role in helping to end nightmarish decades of communist control.

Rabbi Zinovii Levovich Kogan, recites the Kaddish , the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning for the three men.

The failed coup attempt backfired on the plotters. Within four months, the Soviet Union was formally and peacefully dissolved.

Rabbi Kogan says that the men’s sacrifice spared the Soviet Union from a blood civil war that could have cost millions of lives.