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© The TelegraphSt Petersburg: archaeologists have found a Bolshevik-era graveyard in the city's Peter and Paul Fortress
Archeologists have uncovered the site of Bolshevik-era executions and mass graves at St Petersburg's Peter and Paul Fortress.

The remains of over 80 bodies were found shot through the head in six mass graves dating to after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

The graves were discovered when archeological digs began this summer in Russia amid restoration work, said Dmitry Masliakov, museum spokesman.

"Six mass graves with the remains of over 80 bodies were found by archeologists during a dig on the grounds of the Peter and Paul Fortress since June," he said.

It was not immediately clear when the victims had lost their lives.

The Peter and Paul Fortress was an infamous political prison in Tsarist times and its Cathedral is the final resting place of the Romanov royal family.

It then became the first prison used by the Bolshevik regime and the site of mass executions by the Cheka secret police during the reign of "Red Terror" after the Russian Civil War.

Historians have long suspected it of being the site of mass graves.

The fortress is today also one of the city's leading tourist attractions.