1963–1991
✕ Shot dead
The architect and poet shot dead rushing a BMP as the troops pulled back, the last of the coup's three martyrs
In a video recording, Ilya stands before a tank and shouts at the soldiers: 'What are you doing? People are dying!'
A Moscow Architectural Institute graduate who worked as an architect and wrote poetry posthumously collected in Yevtushenko's Strophes of the Century. During the August 1991 coup, in the early hours of 21 August, he rushed at a BMP in the Tchaikovsky Tunnel after another armored vehicle had been set ablaze and the troops were pulling back; he was shot in the head and died at the scene. Posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union, Krichevsky was one of the coup's only three fatalities, and his Jewish funeral, with a rabbi and an Orthodox priest officiating together, became a public symbol of the new Russia's multi-ethnic identity.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1980Graduated Moscow Secondary School No. 744
- 1986Graduated Moscow Architectural Institute; architect, State Project Institute No. 6
- 1986–1988Served in the Soviet Army (tank troops, junior sergeant)
- 1988–1991Architect, Kommunar design-construction cooperative
- 1991.08.21Killed in the Tchaikovsky Tunnel defending the White House during the August coup
Related historical events
Funeral and Commemoration
Krichevsky was buried on 24 August 1991 in a joint funeral with the other two dead, Dmitry Komar and Vladimir Usov. A mourning procession of tens of thousands walked from Manezhnaya Square to the Vagankovo Cemetery, led by Russian SFSR Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi while President Boris Yeltsin watched from the White House balcony; the same day Mikhail Gorbachev announced the award of the title Hero of the Soviet Union to the three. Krichevsky was interred in plot 25 of the Vagankovo Cemetery, where a monument was later placed, and a memorial sign to him was installed above the underpass at the junction of the Garden Ring and Novy Arbat. A Soviet postage stamp commemorating him was issued in 1991. The following year, the three became the first recipients of the medal "Defender of a Free Russia", the Russian Federation's first state award, by Yeltsin's decree. In July 2012 President Vladimir Putin established an additional monthly payment for the relatives of Komar, Krichevsky and Usov.