On October 15 (October 2 on the Julian Calendar) we commemorate Saint Alexandra Ioakimovna Bulgakova, martyr under the Communist yoke, who reposed in the Lord in 1938.
Martyr Alexandra Yakimova Bulgakova was born in 1886 in the village of Koblovatka, Kozlovsky district, Tambov province, to a family of farmers. She was a religious person, often visiting holy places and the many priests she knew; she lived in a monastery for three years. Having dedicated herself entirely to God, she tried to maintain peaceful relations with non-believers. After the constitution was adopted in 1936 and everyone was invited to vote, she went with everyone else. Upon returning home, her legs swelled and ulcers opened up on her legs; Alexandra linked the onset of her illness with this act and decided that she had no blessing to elect the government of atheists - whether or not she went to the elections of representatives of a government with which she did not sympathize and could not sympathize, because the government set as its goal the destruction of churches and the extermination of everything holy in the souls of people, and could not change it.
The next elections approached, and in June 1938, one of the canvassers, who was in charge of the house on Bolshoy Cherkassky Lane where Alexandra lived, brought her a postcard inviting her to come to the polling station. But she didn't even read it, and immediately tore it up in the presence of the canvasser and her neighbor, not wanting to have anything to do with the atheists.
On the election day itself, June 26, 1938, the canvasser informed the members of the election commission that Bulgakova had refused to go to the polls and had torn up the invitation. The members of the commission, after consulting, decided to go to her home to invite her to the polling station again, and if she was ill, to take her by car. Entering the apartment, they went to her door and began to knock. Without opening it, Alexandra asked who they were and why they had come. The canvasser replied that they had come to invite her to the elections. Then she opened the door and, coming out to them with an icon in her hands, began to read prayers, in particular the prayer "May God rise again."
When she finished praying, the polling station official began to persuade her to go vote, but she firmly told them: "I will not go, I believe in God, and when I went the first time, after voting, my legs swelled up and ulcers opened up on my legs - this is how God punished me for betraying Him. I am not with you, I am with God, I am against you, and I will not go vote, because all the people there are strangers."
For forty-five minuutes, the government representatives tried to persuade Alexandra to participate in the elections, but she did not agree, and when she got tired of persuasion, she once again declared that she was not with them, but against them, and asked those who came: "Tell me, can the state be changed or not?!" Those who came did not understand why she was saying this, and began to fervently assure her that they would not give up the state, won with the blood of workers and peasants, to anyone. Then they began to ask her if her legs hurt, offered to send a car, to which Alexandra repeated once again: "I am quite healthy, I do not need a car, and I will not vote."
The members of the electoral commission left with nothing, but on the same day the authorized representative of the polling station reported everything that had happened to the representative of the district committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the assistant to the chairman of the district council and the deputy chairman of the district council, and sent a report to the operative of the district department of the NKVD, who on June 28 ordered that witnesses be summoned and interrogated in order to then arrest Alexandra.
On July 1 and 4, members of the election commission were interrogated; they stated that Alexandra Bulgakova was known as a nun, was very religious and performed all church rituals.
On July 10, Alexandra's neighbor was questioned, and she also answered all the investigator's questions that Alexandra is a religious person, leads a secluded life, and does not communicate with anyone she knows or with her neighbors.
After this, on July 13, a certificate for Alexandra's arrest was issued, on the 26th, permission for the arrest was given, and on the 27th, the warrant itself was issued, the validity of which expired on July 30. But, apparently, after everything that happened, Alexandra left, and the NKVD officers arrested her only on September 2.
After the arrest, interrogations began immediately, but Alexandra, having answered the questionnaire, refused to give any further testimony. The investigators forced her to answer the questions that interested them for several days, but were unable to achieve anything, and on September 10 they were forced to draw up a report that "the accused Bulgakova, Alexandra Yakimovna categorically refused to give testimony to the investigation." The investigators continued to interrogate her vigorously after this, but on September 14 they were still forced to draw up a further report on her refusal to give testimony.
The interrogations continued until September 27, when the investigators drew up another report on the arrestee's refusal to testify. Despite the pressure on her by the investigators and the harsh conditions of imprisonment, Alexandra remained firm in her position, and on September 28, the investigator ordered that she be sent to the hospital of the Taganskaya prison and remembered her only on January 5, 1939, when the period allotted by law for the investigation came to an end. Then he asked the head of the NKVD for the Moscow region for permission to extend the investigation until March 20, 1939. This permission was given to him, but the investigation could no longer be continued.
Martyr Alexandra Bulgakov died of starvation in the Taganka Prison hospital at about five o'clock in the evening on October 15, 1938 and was buried in an unmarked grave.
The memory of the Martyr Alexandra is celebrated on October 2 (15) and on the day of the celebration of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
