Leonid Salkov

Holy Martyr Leonid Salkov was born in 1886 in the Taurida province. His full name was Leonid Vasilievich Salkov. He received higher technical education at Moscow University. From 1910 to 1917 he served in the tsarist army. In 1917, refusing military service, he began to go about the monasteries of Crimea, the Caucasus, the Stavropol region and Odessa. In March 1919 the elder Alexei of the Teklauk monastery blessed Leonid Salkov for a life of wandering.

In 1927 he was arrested on a charge of espionage for the counter-⁠revolutionary clergy and sentenced to three years in the camps. He was sent to the Solovki special-⁠purpose camp, from which he was released in 1930. In 1935 he was arrested in Vologda on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary activity and sentenced to five years in the camps. The martyr was sent to the NKVD's Karlag in the Karaganda region. In 1937 he was arrested again in the camp. From the case materials: "Serving his sentence in Karlag, L. V. Salkov carried out religious rites, spread among the prisoners prayers written by him, said that Soviet power would soon fall. Together with Krasnopevtsev, on 8 November 1937 he served a memorial service for the shot royal family". He did not admit guilt, declaring that "he is not a scoundrel and a traitor and does not buy his freedom with the blood of other men". The martyr Leonid Salkov was shot in Karlag at the end of 1937 or the beginning of 1938.

He is commemorated on 2 December, on 7 February, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, and on 23 August, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Solovki, in the new style.