Miron Muzhdaba, bottom, holds a fragment of a skull in a pit believed to be a vast burial ground for victims of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's repressions near the village of Toksovo, outside St.Petersburg, Russia, Sednesday, Sept. 18, 2002. Volunteers wo
TOKSOVO, Russia (AP) - Working to uncover the secrets of the collapsed Soviet Union, diggers say they have found 20 sets of bones in what they believe is a vast burial ground for thousands of victims of dictator Josef Stalin's firing squads.
So far, the volunteers from the human rights group Memorial have sent nine sets of remains to a forensic laboratory for tests of identifying features including age, sex, cause and time of death.
Russian officials have said they believe millions of people died from executions and brutal imprisonment under Stalin's rule. His security forces ruthlessly arrested people suspected of political disloyalty, espionage, failure to work hard enough in factories or on farms, or of not fighting hard enough against German invaders. Stalin died in 1953.
Memorial will stop digging and declare the site a monument to the victims if the Federal Security Service, the main...