Butyrka prison
Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.
For families
How to send mail, money, and visit Butyrka prison
Step-by-step guidance using the Russia system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

Gallery
From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

Photo by Butyrka_prison.jpg: Stanislav Kozlovskiy derivative work: V2k (talk) via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo by Stanislav Kozlovskiy via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo by A.Savin via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo by A.Savin via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo by A.Savin via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo by OlegVD via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo by Unknown authorUnknown author via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Photo by Unknown authorUnknown author via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Background
Butyrskaya prison (Russian: Бутырская тюрьма, romanized: Butýrskaya tyurmá), colloquially known simply as Butyrka (Russian: Бутырка, IPA: [bʊˈtɨrkə]), is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow, Russia. In Imperial Russia it served as the central transit prison. Now it is a pretrial detention facility (remand prison). During the Soviet Union era (1917–1991) it held many political prisoners. As of 2022 Butyrka remains the largest of Moscow's remand prisons.
Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.
Capacity
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Current population
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Occupancy
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Year opened
1771
Operational
Facility profile
Operator
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Population held
Mixed/unknown
Opened
1771
Region
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Security level
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Death-row facility
No
Conditions
No conditions summary available yet.
Visiting
No visiting information available.
Mailing
No mailing information available.
Practical info
Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.
Known issues
No major issues documented in our database.
Contact & address
Conditions Risk Score
Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated
Data completeness
24%How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.
Sources
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation
- OpenStreetMap — OpenStreetMap Contributors
- Wikipedia — Wikimedia Foundation
- See /data-sources for our overall methodology.